Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles: A First Latin Reader

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BY JOHN COPELAND KIRTLAND, Jr. Professor of Latin in The Phillips Exeter Academy
Some time ago a fellow-teacher brought the Fabulae Faciles to my notice, and I have since used two of them each year with my class of beginners in Latin with increasing appreciation. Indeed, I know nothing better to introduce the student into the reading of connected narrative, and to bridge the great gulf between the beginner's book of the prevailing type and the Latinity of Caesar or Nepos. They are adapted to this use not merely by reason of their simplicity and interest, but more particularly by the graduating of difficulties and the large use of Caesarian words and phrases to which Mr. Ritchie calls attention in his preface.
Doubtless many American teachers have become familiar with portions of the Fabulae , for they have been freely drawn upon in several Latin readers recently published in this country. I venture to hope that those who have made the acquaintance of the work in this way will welcome a complete edition.
In England the little book has had a large use. Its pedagogical excellencies are well summed up in a letter addressed to Mr. Ritchie by the Very Rev. E.C. Wickham, formerly Head-Master of Wellington College, the well-known editor of Horace:—
It launches the student at once in ancient life. The old classical stories, simply told, seem to me much the best material for early Latin reading. They are abundantly interesting; they are taken for granted in the real literature of the language; and they can be told without starting the beginner on a wrong track by a barbarous mixture of ancient and modern ideas.
It combines, if I may say so, very skilfully, the interest of a continuous story, with the gradual and progressive introduction of constructions and idioms. These seem to me to be introduced at the right moment, and to be played upon long enough to make them thoroughly familiar.