Pointless Postscript
Since my recent post about Latin I’ve been wracking my brain trying the remember the textbook we used at school to learn Latin grammar. Now, with the aid of an old school friend, I know the answer:
Part 2 took us up to O-level, but I think we used Part 1 in earlier years alongside the Cambridge Latin Course featuring the famous character Caecilius:
Caecilius was a resident of Pompeii and he snuffed it during the eruption of Vesuvius at the end of the first set of (orange) books, but the course continued with different characters in different coloured books including one set based in Britain.
The books by Wilding are very traditional grammar school texts. They weren’t easy going for us kids, and were quite formal and with some difficult exercises. They’re probably too old-fashioned to be in use now, but I’m tempted to acquire copies to see how much I remember!
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In the Dark 
August 5, 2021 at 5:53 pm
Caecilius est in forum. Canis est in via. Maetella est in vestibule.
August 5, 2021 at 5:56 pm
You need the ablative case. Caecilius est in foro.
I think he first appeared in horto actually.
August 5, 2021 at 6:58 pm
Metella in triclino recumbit.
August 5, 2021 at 6:55 pm
Romanes eunt domus –> ?
Sorry :-).
August 5, 2021 at 7:06 pm
One of the first texts in Latin I read (apart from inscriptions in churches and monuments) was the following:
—
Te saluto, alma Dea, Dea generosa,
O gloria nostra, O Veneta Regina!
In procelloso turbine funesto
Tu regnasti secura; mille membra
Intrepida prostrasti in pugna acerba.
Per te miser non fui, per te non gemo;
Vivo in pace per te. Regna, O beata,
Regna in prospera sorte, in alta pompa,
In augusto splendore, in aurea sede.
Tu serena, tu placida, tu pia,
Tu benigna; tu salva, ama, conserva.
—
It was at the beginning of my grammar book.
August 5, 2021 at 9:44 pm
I think I had something called A Shorter Latin Course for two years, and then I am sure we had something called Civis Romanus for my 3rd and final year of Latin.
August 5, 2021 at 9:46 pm
That was probably Kennedy’s Shorter Latin Primer…
August 10, 2021 at 4:26 pm
… or “SHORTBREAD EATING PRIMER”.
My children used the CLC. I had to attend a play once, at the school. All I can remember is one or other or possibly both of them pointing and shouting “Caecilius ist mendax!”, whatever that means.
August 5, 2021 at 11:48 pm
I learned on a well-worn copy of Gummere and Horn’s “Using Latin”, on one volume of which a previous victim had scribbled above the title “if poison doesn’t work, try”.
August 6, 2021 at 10:10 am
My eldest son ( now 24) used the same text books at school….
August 6, 2021 at 11:39 am
I wasn’t allowed to take latin at school. It was offered only to the brighter sparks in the higher ability cohort expected to go on to greater things. That didn’t include me. It depended a lot on which primary school the child came from. Some primary schools classified most of their children as high ability, other never went higher than medium ability. I moved group in later years but that was too late for latin. A close escape.
August 9, 2021 at 11:01 am
We used R Colebourne’s Mentor, coupled with Cobban & Colebourne’s reader Civis Romanus. Horresco referens.
September 10, 2025 at 7:38 pm
[…] reading some of this, and found the following in Vol. 1 of the Latin textbook we used back then (Wilding’s Latin Course for Schools). On page 68 of that tome we find the following as part of an exercise to translate from Latin to […]