Latin by the Natural Method

From the Preface:

Most Americans who have studied Latin, with our priests and seminarians included, have employed this method, which they thought was 'traditional'. But as something fully developed, this tradition scarcely goes farther back than 1880; and even in its beginnings it hardly antedates the seventeenth century.

In contrast to this method of grammatical analysis, Father Most's textbooks reproduce much of the "natural method" by which children learn their native language. Hence, the significance of Father Most's books is manifestly great for the Latin classes in any Catholic high schools or colleges. So much of our Catholic doctrine and culture have been deposited in Latin that we want many of our educated Catholics to be able to use Latin with ease. But the special significance of Father Most's texts is for the Latin classes in our seminaries. Here the students still have much the same cogent motives to master the art of using Latin with ease as the pupils of the thirteenth or sixteenth century. They need it as an indispensable means of communicating thought in their higher studies, and afterwards throughout life. The objectives (knowledge about Latin and training of mind) and corresponding methods (grammatical analysis and translation) "traditional" since 1880 have taken over in our seminaries; and there too the students have been experiencing an ever growing inability to use Latin. Father Most's textbooks can contribute much towards revolutionizing the teaching of Latin by bringing back, as the chief objective, the art of reading, writing, and (when desired) speaking Latin with ease."

Fr. Most's textbooks can be classed in categories of similar texts, such as Hans rberg's Lingua Latina, as well as Ecce Romani which is a simplification of rberg or others which aim to teach Latin not even so much as a modern language, as to teach it by a method more natural to the philosophy of learning Languages. Fr. Most's text follows the view that Latin of the later period is actually more advanced in communicating ideas and is easier to learn than Latin of the classical period, and thus this Second Volume begins the transition with readings and vocabulary from the Vulgate, continuing with the more ancient collects of the 1962 Missale Romanum, St. Cyprian and culminating with a reading from the Roman Historian Sallust.

This is an excellent text applying the "natural method" with English language instruction to help the student read and understand Latin natively, with numerous vehicles for simplifying the necessary memorization as well as aiding in truly understanding Latin without constant need to look in a dictionary for rudimentary sentences.

This is reprinted from the 1960 edition, and follows the presentation of the text found in that edition.