1892, THE BEGINNER'S GREEK BOOK, John William White

Book Description: Ginn & Company, 1892. Hardcover. 5.25" x 7.5" tall, 1" thick 428+ pages, one color map, vocabularies, index, at rear.

Book Condition: Good for a book over 119 years old, with no dust jacket as issued. Spine is gone (see scans), binding is good, first two pages are loosening. Red cloth boards are stained and worn. Pages are clean with a pencil mark here and there. A good reading or reference copy. This book is very rare!

About This Book: The Beginner's Greek Book which is here submitted to the
public is complete in itself, and is intended to furnish work
for the first year's study. In writing it I have assumed that
the main object of elementary instruction in Greek is to teach
the beginner to read; further, that the pupils who use this
book will be fifteen years of age, on the average, when they
take it in hand, that they will already have studied Latin for
at least one year, and that they are to be fitted at the end of
two years to read simple Attic prose at sight.

This book differs in important particulars, but not essen-
tially in its plan, from my First Lessons in Greek, first pub-
lished in 1876. The two books make about equal demands
upon the pupil during the first six months of his study. The
increased size of this book is due mainly to the fact that it is
complete it itself and contains the text of the first eight chap-
ters of Xenophon's Anabasis, with summaries of contents and
notes, arranged as reading lessons. I am well aware that
there is a demand in some quarters for small introductory
books in teaching the elements of Greek and Latin. But the
remarkable favour with which my First Lessons in Greek has
been received encourages me to think that most teachers agree
with me in believing that in the study of Greek at least,
which is so highly inflected, it is well to lay broad and secure
foundations.

In order to be able to read even simple Attic prose at sight
one must know the usual forms of the Greek language, its ordinary constructions, and its general vocabulary. These three things are absolutely necessary and are of equal impor-
tance.

In presenting forms I have employed strictly the deductive
method, if so large a phrase may be applied to such elemen-
tary matters. The pupil is given a set of facts, commonly a
paradigm or the like, with the necessary explanations, and is
then required to observe the illustration of the general law or
fact in particular instances of its use. In each of the lessons
on inflexion a double set of exercises, consisting of Greek sen-
tences to be translated into English and English sentences to
be rendered into Greek, follows the facts of Grammar which
form the subject of the lesson. I have small faith in the
method which requires a pupil to construct the Greek para-
digms from bits of text by a process called induction. Such
a method of acquiring the forms of the language is unneces-
sarily difl&cult and confusing, and cannot establish its claim to
afford superior mental training.