We came to class, then, with the fourteenth book of Homer, and to our amazement, Prof. Hadley asked no recitation – for we had been already told to prepare some lines of this 14th book – but, after giving a short history of Homer, and of the places which claimed him as their son, he carefully read through the first five lines, reading according to the accent, and then scanning them. Then he gave a literal translation of these five lines, and coming back to the first word he parsed it, gave the different dialectic forms of it and, if it was a geographical word, he explained where it was to be found on the map, and if the name of a person, he gave a short account of his life. This occupied a half hour and then the class was dismissed. The next day a half hour was spent in recitation. One was called up to scan, another to translate, and several to parse the different words, nothing being asked which had not been explained the preceding day. Then the second half hour was taken up by the professor who translated five more lines, parsing and explaining each word. It is an old Yale custom to repeat each day the lesson of the preceding day, so that we really had ten lines to translate and parse, five which some students had already recited in class. This second translation was recommended to be more elegant than the first which was literal, and only the important words were asked for parsing, etc. This manner of teaching was continued all the term – three months – only five lines of new matter being translated and explained each day. Besides we were made to review thoroughly the important parts of the grammar. A small book of a few pages containing the declensions, conjugations and a
