the political arguments of Cicero or the dinner table wisdom of Horace? His method was the conversational. For beginners he prepared an elementary Latin Grammar, containing, besides a few necessary rules, a number of sentences dealing with events and scenes of everyday life. It was divided into seven parts. In the first were nouns and adjectives together; in the second nouns and verbs; in the third adverbs, pronouns, numerals and prepositions; in the fourth remarks about things in the school; in the fifth about things in the house; in the sixth about things in the town; in the seventh some moral maxims. And the scholar went through this book ten times before he passed on to the "Janua" proper. The result can be imagined. At the end of a year the boy's knowledge of Latin would be of a peculiar kind. Of grammar he would know but little; of words and phrases he would have a goodly store; and thus he was learning to talk the language before he had even heard of its perplexing rules. One example must suffice to illustrate the method. The beginner did not even learn the names of the cases. In a modern English Latin Grammar, the charming sight that meets our gaze is as follows:-- Nom. Mensa.--A table. Voc. Mensa.--Oh, table! Acc. Mensam.--A table. Gen. Mensæ.--Of a table. Dat. Mensæ.--To or for a table. Abl. Mensa.--By, with or from a table. The method of Comenius was different. Instead of mentioning the names of the cases, he showed how the cases were actually used, as follows:-- Ecce, tabula nigra.--Look there, a black board. O tu tabula nigra.--Oh, you black board! Video tabulam nigram.--I see a black board. Pars tabulæ nigræ.--Part of a black board. Addo partem tabulæ nigræ.--I add a part to a black board. Vides aliquid in tabula nigra.--I see something on a black board. With us the method is theory first, practice afterwards; with Comenius the method was practice first, theory afterwards; and the method of Comenius, with modifications, is likely to be the method of the future.