Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/274

252 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. begin with children's stories or literature for the common every-day people, we shall be surprised to find how soon we can dispense with the use of a dictionary. We soon guess and learn new words by reading the context. We thus learn to think in the language, and the more we pro- gress the more we enjoy the better, higher, more serious, classical literature. Professor John Williams White, of Harvard College, in a series of articles published in the New England Journal of Education^ in 1878, en- titled "Latin and Greek at Sight," recommends the instruction in the classical languages after the manner of teaching German and French, i.e., to accustom the pupils to read at sight, without any preceding preparation. He mentions that the pupils learn much more quickly and better to read the German than the Latin languages, although twice as much time is spent in the study of the latter. Concerning Greek, he says : " It is to be reckoned that it is more difficult to learn to read Greek than, for instance, German ; but then there is not so much difference between the two languages as to justify the fact that pupils, after studying Greek for years, are not yet able to read without the aid of a dictionary, or through some other means of assistance,