American Book Company
Publishers of School and College Text-books100 Washington Square, New York Dec. 14, 1906.
Miss Lucy Baker,
New Salem, Mass.Dear Madam:
The results of college entrance examination papers indicate a lack of proper training in reading Latin at sight. The teacher is not at fault in many cases, crowded courses making it impossible to do more than the actual amount of work required, but no matter whose the blame, the penalty is the student's.
As a teacher, you probably realize the importance of sight training work. It means getting hold of each passage by what one already knows of the language; it means learning to recognize dependent and independent clauses at a glance, translating with due regard to the syntax of sentences, but with a view to the meaning of the whole paragraph, not merely the individual and separate words. So far as actual life and interest is concerned in the study of Latin it is really the key to the whole situation.
If then this sight translation is to yield the best results the passages must be exactly adapted to the knowledge of the student at a special point. The lack of suitable material is perhaps the main reason why more time has not been given to sight translation. In the Caesar year and in Cicero it is not so difficult to find tests of the students power of reading. But in the fourth year the difficulty increases. Here the necessity for sight reading becomes actually imperative and the right kind of material is scarce. The best passages for the work that we know of are given in Franklin and Greene's Selections from Latin Prose Authors for Sight Reading. This book contains only such passages from Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Sallust and others as are not included in the regular high school course, and they have been selected with special regard to their fitness for third and fourth year students. It is not in any way a pretentious book, the very minimum of notes being given, but for the special purpose for which the book is designed, it is excellent. If you are not familiar with the book and feel that you would like to examine it with a view to its introduction into your classes, we should be pleased to afford you the opportunity of doing so. It has proved so very successful in other schools where it has been used, we are hopeful that we may hear from you regarding it. The price is $.40.
Very truly yours,
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
By R. W. Macbeth.