OVID Selected Works WITH NOTES AND VOCABULARY EDITED BY FRANK J. MILLER, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO NEW YORK ·:· CINCINNATI .:. CHICAGO Educ. T 1050.570.900 HARVARD COLLEGE LIONARY GIFT OF SINCLAIR KENNEDY COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY F. J. MILLER. OVID. W. P. I PREFACE A STATISTICAL table furnished by the United States Commissioner of Education, covering the years 1889-1898, gives some interesting evidence as to the number and percentage of pupils studying Latin in the public and private secondary schools of the United States. In the year 1889-1890, 100,144 students, or 33.62 per cent of the whole number, studied Latin. During the succeeding period of eight years the number and percentage of Latin students steadily increased, until, in 1897-1898, 274,293 students, or 49.44 per cent of the above number, were studying Latin. This increase, in the face of the fact that the secondary curriculum has been enriched by other subjects which have justly claimed large attention from the schools, is cause for congratulations to classical scholars. The same decade has witnessed the awakening of an unusual interest in the Latin program itself, and a widespread endeavor to enrich and render it more effective. This is especially evident in the work of the first year, the great importance of which to the succeeding work of the student is self-evident. Traditional books and methods have been challenged; and while neither the ideal method nor book has yet been put forth, a very substantial advance has been made toward the solution of the problem as to the best method of introducing the young student to the study of Latin. The latter half of the first year and the second of a four years' course have also claimed serious attention and revision. More reading, which shall be at the same time more interesting and less difficult, is demanded. As a consequence, the Latin program is providing more and more suitable reading supplementary to Caesar. The place of Cicero and Vergil in the third |