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for searching only. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;proved nine necessary.' So seven years are given to the mother and fourteen to the schoolmaster before the boy is ready at twenty-one to assume the manly duties of matrimony and civic responsibility. Sturm's boy is timed to the needs of the state, not to the degrees of priesthood, which is in itself an important departure. There should be each year a solemn promotion from one class to the next, with all dignitaries present, including parents and friends of the children. The two best in each form should receive some reward. The weaker should be encouraged to contend with the stronger as a proof that the distinction has been justly made. This solemn day of contests, awards, and promotions is to be the Calends of October.
So at five or six the boy should be brought to him who teaches the figures of letters, their conjunctions, and sounds, to which cognition we assign the ninth class, the first and a single year.
Thus the boys of the ninth learn the elements of reading, both silent and oral, and of writing. They are to be exercised in the catechism, but this is to be brief, so that they may quickly proceed to the inflection of nouns and verbs, of which certain and many examples must be selected. In one year they should learn to read and should memorize the common inflections. In any remaining time they may learn some of the easier and shorter letters of Cicero, such as those to his wife Terentia and those to his freedman Tiro. Sturm has made a collection of these.
In the eighth class for the first six months two hours daily are spent on the parts of grammar. The remaining two hours are to be given to the Eclogues of Virgil and the Epistles of Cicero. The boys should be taught to parse the Epistles in detail, but the method of construing is deferred to the second six months, where it occupies two hours daily, the other two being a continuation of the Cicero and Virgil alternately. The boy begins to speak the Latin language and to translate set sententiae into Latin. The master ought also to fashion verses, and the boys should imitate them more by custom and exercise than by reason. The boy has thus learned to parse and construe, to begin speaking Latin, and to begin translating into Latin. His subjects for construction have been selected letters from Cicero, and Virgil's Eclogues.
In the seventh class, the boys master most of the kinds and inflections of nouns and verbs; they know also the rules of construe-
Eventually, he had ten classes.
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