Nutting Herbert C. A Latin Primer

New York, Chicago: American Book Company, 1911. — 240 p.From some points of view it is a misfortune that in American schools the study of Latin is usually undertaken so late that every detail of the work of the first terms must be planned with a view to reaching Caesar in a year. Encouraging signs, however, are appearing here and there, and in two or three states a movement is already on foot to carry the beginning of Latin back into the upper grades of the grammar school. For the prosecution of this work in the grades there seems to be an almost total lack of satisfactory manuals, and it thus happened that some time ago, wishing to take up the study of Latin with one of my own children, I was led to work out for myself a plan of instruction suited to the years of my pupil. Out of that experience the present volume has grown. In the formulation and development of the plan of the book, I have aimed particularly at four things:
To lay a broad and sure foundation of forms.
To impress through constant use a limited number of the most fundamental constructions.
To make thoroughly familiar, by continued repetition, a working vocabulary of something less than four hundred words.
To infuse a large degree of human interest into the work.
In pursuance of the last mentioned of these aims, I have admitted into the earlier Exercises several Latin words.