Works Author:Virgil Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ADVERTISEMENT. In offering to the public a new version of Virgil, the translators unhesitatingly acknowledge their desire to promote the system of classical i... more »nstruction formerly practised in the principal schools of England. The same causes which, in the opinion of the wisest men of a foimer age, justified a departure from ancient modes of teaching, exist at the present day. It is not necessary to enumerate them; they are known and felt by all concerned in classical instruction, and acknowledged by many. There is, indeed, one very powerful reason in favour of reform, which did not exist in the time of Erasmus and Cardinal Wolsey. Since their time, so many subjects of study have been introduced into our schools and colleges, that the scholastic life of our youth is too brief to allow them time to become acquainted with all the branches which are required to constitute the education of a scholar, or to prepare him for the learned professions—and to leave him a sufficient space of time, required by the old systems, to obtain any competent knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. Thus situated, he must either forego all acquaintance with these new and most important departments of knowledge, or he must lay aside all hope of obtaining what is called a classical education, so far as a competent familiarity with the Greek and Latin languages is concerned. He has not time for both. Two distinguishing features of the system which now, by common consent, is attributed to Locke, are—dictation, and literal interlinear translation. In tracing their history, it is not necessary to go back to the authorities of Cicero, the younger Pliny, and other distinguished ancients quoted or referred to by the advocates of these improvements; our object is to disclaim, in the first place, all prete...« less