Ora Maritima/Preface

by Edward Adolf Sonnenschein

PREFACE

My apology for adding another to the formidable array of elementary Latin manuals is that there is no book in existence which satisfies the requirements which I have in mind as of most importance for the fruitful study of the language by beginners. What I desiderate is : —

1. A continuous narrative from beginning to end, capable of appealing in respect of its vocabulary and subject matter to the minds and interests of young pupils, and free from all those syntactical and stylistic difficulties which make even the easiest of Latin authors something of a problem.

2. A work which shall hold the true balance between too much and too little in the matter of systematic grammar. In my opinion, existing manuals are disfigured by a disproportionate amount of lifeless Accidence. The outcome of the traditional system is that the pupil learns a multitude of Latin forms (Cases, Tenses, Moods), but very little Latin. That is to say, he acquires a bowing acquaintance with all the forms of Nouns and Verbs—such as Ablatives in a, e, i, o, u, 3rd Persons in at, et, it, and so forth—before he gets a real hold of the meaning or use of any of these forms. But, as Goethe said in a different connexion, “What one cannot use is a heavy burden”; and my experience leads me to think that a multitude of forms acts as an encumbrance to the pupil at an early stage by distracting his attention from the more vital matters of vocabulary, sentence construction, and order of words. The real meaning of the Ablative, for instance, can be just as well learned from the 1st Declension as from all the declensions taken together. And further, to run over all the declensions without proper understanding of their meanings and uses with and without Prepositions is a real danger, as begetting all sorts of misconception and error—so much so that the muddled pupil too often never learns the syntax of the Cases at all. No doubt all the Declensions and Conjugations must be learned before a Latin author is attacked. But when a few of them have been brought within the pupil’s ken, he finds little difficulty in mastering the others in a rapid and more mechanical fashion. In the present book I have dealt directly with only three declensions of Nouns and Adjectives and the Indicative Active of sum and of the 1st Conjugation (incidentally introducing some of the forms of Pronouns, and those forms of the Passive which are made up with the Verb-adjectives, as in English); but in connexion with this amount of Accidence I have treated very carefully the most prominent uses of the Cases with and without Prepositions, and the question of the order of words, which I have reduced to a few simple rules. It is my hope that teachers who trust themselves to my guidance in this book will agree with me in thinking that the time spent on such fundamental matters as these is not thrown away. The pupil who has mastered this book ought to be able to read and write the easiest kind of Latin with some degree of fluency and without serious mistakes: in a word, Latin ought to have become in some degree a living language to him.

Above all it is my hope that my little story may be read with pleasure by those for whom it is meant. The picture which it gives of the early Britons is intended to be historically correct, so far as it goes; and the talk about “anchors” and “boats” and “holidays” will perhaps be acceptable as a substitute for “iustitia,” “modestia,” “temperantia,” and the other abstract ideas which hover like ghosts around the gate of Latin.^[1] I have kept my Vocabulary strictly classical, in spite of the temptation to introduce topics of purely modern interest, such as bicycles: in the later sections of the book it is Caesarian. The number of words in the vocabulary is relatively large; but words are necessary if anything worth saying is to be said, and a large proportion of my words have a close resemblance to the English words derived from them. Apart from this, the acquisition of a working vocabulary is an essential part of any real mastery of a language, and it is a task eminently within the powers of the youthful mind.

In regard to the quasi-inductive study of grammar I have expressed myself in an article contributed to Mr. Sadler’s Special Reports, extracts from which are given below. But I wish it to be understood that there is nothing in this book to prevent its being used by teachers who prefer the traditional method of teaching the Grammar before the sections of the story and the Exercises in which it is embodied. All the Grammar required is given in the “Preparations” (e.g. pp. 65, 66, 67, 69, etc.) It will be clear from these tables and from my “Drill Exercises” that I by no means undervalue the importance of systematic training of the memory in the early stages of learning.

In the present edition (1908) I have marked the naturally long vowels in the text, as in the “Preparations” and the alphabetical vocabulary. But I have deliberately abstained from burdening the memory of pupils and teachers with subtleties of pronunciation, such as are involved in the marking of “hidden quantities” (except in such obvious cases as rēx, lūx, nōndum): e.g. rēxī from rĕgō, tēxī from tĕgō, cōnstat but cŏndit, īnfert but ĭntulit, īnsanus but ĭncultus. If a warning is needed against encumbering the teaching of Latin with difficult questions of this kind, it will be found emphatically expressed in the recommendations of many of the Lehrplane issued by German educational authorities.

Most of the passages will be found too long for one lesson, unless with older pupils. They must be split up, according to circumstances. It is possible that some teachers may prefer to use this book not as a first book in the strict sense of the term, but rather after say a year’s work at some other book; and I can well imagine that it might be used to good purpose in this way, for instance as a bridge to Caesar, whose invasions of Britain are narrated in outline in my Chapters VIII.–XIV., or for practice in rapid reading side by side with an author.

My best thanks are due to Lord Avebury for permission to reproduce the photographs of Roman and British coins which appear in this volume, especially of the coin of Antoninus Pius with the figure of Britannia upon it—the prototype of our modern penny.

E. A. S.

Birmingham,
November, 1908.

The following passages have struck me since my Preface was written as throwing light on the idea of this book.

“The real question is not whether we shall go on teaching Latin, but what we can do to teach it so as to make learners understand that it is not a dead language at all.”—Sir F. Pollock, in the ‘Pilot,’ Jan. 12th, 1901.

“We must convince our pupils of the reality of the study [Latin] by introducing them at as early a period as possible to a real book.”—P. A. Barnett in “Common Sense in Education and Teaching,” p. 210.

“Assimilate the system of teaching the classical languages to that which I have shadowed forth for modern language teaching.”—Professor Mahaffy, Address to Modern Language Association, Dec., 1901.

1. “The pupil ordinarily approaches Latin and Greek through a cloud of abstractions.”—A. Sidgwick.