APPENDIX.

CLASS MATCHES.

With young classes I have tried the Jesuits' plan of matches [see page 23], and have found it answer exceedingly well. The top boy and the second pick up sides (in schoolboy phrase), the second boy having first choice. The same sides may be kept till the superiority of one of them is clearly established, when it becomes necessary to pick up again. The matches, if not too frequent, prove an excellent break to the monotony of schoolwork. A subject well suited for them (as Franklin pointed out) is spelling. The boys are told that on a certain day there will be a match in the spelling of some certain class of words-say words of one syllable, or the preterites of verbs. For the match the sides are arranged in lines opposite one another; the dux of one side questions the dux of the other, the second boy the second, and so forth. The match may be conducted viva voce, or, better still, by papers previously written. Each boy has to bring on paper a list of the right sort of words. Suppose six is the number required, he will write a column with a few to spare, as some of his words may be disallowed by the umpire, i. e., the master. The master takes the first boy's list, and asks the top boy on the opposite side to spell the words. When he

ALEXANDER DE VILLA DEI.

289

fails, the owner of the list has to correct him, and gets a Should the owner of the list him

mark for doing so. self make a mistake, his opponent scores even if he is wrong also. When the master has gone through all the lists in this way, he adds up the marks, and announces which side has won. The method has the great merit of stimulating the lower end of the form as well as the top; for it usually happens that the match is really decided by the lower boys, who make the most mistakes. Of course the details and the subjects of such matches admit of almost endless variation.

DOCTRINALE ALEXANDRI DE VILLA DEI.

This celebrated grammar [see page 35] was written by a Franciscan of Brittany, about the middle of the thirteenth century. It is in leonine verses. To the verses is attached a commentary, which is by no means superfluous. The book begins thus:

Scribere clericulis paro Doctrinale novellis,
Pluraque doctorum sociabo scripta meorum.
Jamque legent pueri pro nugis Maximiani
Quæ veteres sociis nolebant pandere caris.

(Maximianus, says the commentary, was a scriptor fabularum.)

R

Presens huic operi sit gratia Pneumatis almi:
Me juvat: et faciat complere quod utile fiat.
Si pueri primo nequeunt attendere plene,

Hic tamen attendat, qui doctoris est vice fungens,
Atque legens pueris laica lingua reserabit,
Et pueris etiam pars maxima plana patebit.
Voces in primis, quas par casus variabis,
Ut levius protero, te declinare docebo.

If Alexander kept his promise, he certainly had no faculty for making things easy. Take, e. g., his notion of teaching the singular of the first declension:

Rectus as, es, a, dat declinatio prima,

Atque per am propria quædam ponuntur hebræa;
Dans æ dipthongon genitivis atqua dativis.

Am servat quartus, tamen an aut en reperimus,
Cum rectus fit in as vel in es, vel cum dat a Græcus,
Rectus in a Græci facit an quarto breviari.
Quintus in a dabitur, post es tamen e reperitur.
A sextus, tamen es quandoque per e dare debes
Am recti repetes, quinto sextum sociando.

I read this wonderful grammar (not much of it, however) with great satisfaction. Our researches sometimes bring a feeling of despondency, and we think that knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. But here is some evidence to the contrary. Part of the knowledge given by Alexander about the first declension has, happily, never come even to most teachers of the present day; and, however unsatisfactory may be our condition with regard to wisdom, we certainly are in advance of those masters who used the "Doctrinale."

LILY'S GRAMMAR.

In some respects further simplification has since been effected, as, e. g., in the matter of genders. The "Short Introduction of Grammar," commonly called the "King's Book," and afterward "Lily's Grammar," [see page 35], made this startling assertion:-"Genders of nounes be seven: the masculine, the feminine, the neuter, the commune of two, the commune of three, the doubtful, and

the epicene." The ingenious authors seem not to have discovered any Latin substantive which they were able tergeminis tollere honoribus; so they take rather unfair advantage of the fact that adjectives in x do not vary in the nominative, and give this example of the common of three-"The commune of three is declined with hic, hæc, and hoc: as hic, hæc, and hoc, Felix, Happy." In justice to the old book, I must say, however, that some of the later simplifications were so managed as to be doubtful improvements. Lily's Grammar put the preposition a before all ablatives, This was simplified into the blunder of putting it before none, and teaching boys, e. g., that Domino alone was Latin for "by a lord." The old grammar had an optative mood with utinam (Utinam sim, "I pray God I be;" Utinam essem, "Would God I were,” etc.) and a subjunctive with cum (cum sim, "when I am," etc.) These gave place to the mysterious announcement of the Eton Grammar, "The subjunctive mood is declined like the potential." The old book has besides Lily's Carmen de Moribus, the Apostles' Creed, etc., in Latin verse. The following classical version of the Lord's Prayer is curious, and reminds one of Rennaissance architecture:

O Pater omnipotens, clarique habitator Olympi,
Laudetur merito nomen honore tuum.

Adveniat regnum. Tua sit rata ubique voluntas,
Fiat et in terris, sicut in arce poli.

Da nobis hodie panem, et nos exime noxæ,

Ut veniam nostris hostibus usque damus.

Nec sine tentando Stygius nos opprimat Error;
Fac animas nostras ut mala nulla ligent.

Amen.

Our Lord's command, "Go teach all nations," is thus

Ite per extremas o vos mea viscera gentes:
Cunctos doctrinam rite docete meam.

Inque Patris, Natique et Flatus nomine Sancti
Mortales undis sponte lavate sacris.

COLET.

From "Joannis Coleti theologi, olim Decani Divi Pauli, editio, una cum quibusdam G. Lilli Grammatices Rudimentis, etc. Antuerpiæ 1530." [See page 35.] After the accidence of the eight parts of speech, he says:

"Of these eight parts of speech, in order well construed, be made reasons and sentences and long orations. But how and in what manner, and with what constructions of words, and all the varieties, and diversities, and changes in Latin speech (which be innumerable), if any man will know, and by that knowledge attain to understand Latin books, and to speak and to write clean Latin, let him, above all, busily learn and read good Latin authors of chosen poets and orators, and note wisely how they wrote and spake; and study always to follow them, desiring none other rules but their examples. For in the beginning men spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, contrarywise, because men spake such Latin, upon that followed the rules, and were made. That is to say, Latin speech was before the rules, and not the rules before the Latin speech. Wherefore, well beloved masters and teachers of grammar, after the parts of speech sufficiently known in our schools, read and expound plainly unto your scholars, good authors, and show to them [in] every word, and in every sen