William Gardner Hale, The Art of Reading Latin: How To Teach It

In the next lesson, XVI, the pupil will learn one of the simple uses of the genitive. He should then be asked what the cases tell him in liber pueri (being made, of course, to see that, though pueri might be nom. pl. so far as form goes, it cannot be so here, since liber must be subject), in magister reginae filiam, etc.; and should then be carried through various exercises similar to those suggested in connection with the previous lesson. He will also learn in Lesson XVI about apposition, of which more anon. In Lesson XVII he will learn about the way of expressing the indirect object of a verb, and should now be asked what the cases mean in combinations like agricolae nautis viam, nauta agricolis viam, scriba puero librum, scriba pueris reginae libros, agricola puero scribae viam, etc.; and should then have whole sentences given him, and English combinations and sentences to be put into Latin, as already described.

So constructions are taught one after another, the simplest meaning of each case being alone given when the case is first dealt with. Later, other uses of these same cases are taught, and the certainty which the pupil at first felt in regard to the speaker's meaning when he heard a given case (say the accusative) now passes away. As early as Lesson XVI he learned, as we saw, that "a noun used to describe another noun or pronoun, and meaning the same thing, is put in the same case." At this point, consequently, he recognizes that there is a double possibility for a given accusative. Supposing us to take up a sentence beginning (say) with legatum, the accusative word may turn out to be either of two things, namely, the object of the verb, or in apposition to the object of the verb. These two possibilities, and these alone, should, for a number of weeks, flash through the beginner's mind at sight or hearing of an accusative. Later, however (Lessons LI and LII), he will find that certain verbs are of such a nature as to take two objects, and will have specimens given him. At this point an accusative has for him three possibilities: it may be, to the speaker's thought, object, it may be second object, or it may be an appositive; while if the meaning of the words is such as to exclude all possibility of the last of these, as, e.g., in a sentence beginning with me fraudem, the meaning of the combination is seen at once to be that me is the first object, and fraudem the second object, of some one of the verbs that need two objects to complete their thought, e.g. celo. Not long afterward, he will learn (Lesson LXI) about the accusative of duration of time and extent of space, and he now must recognize still another possibility for any accusatives like annos or pedes, but not for a word like Caesarem or me. Still later, he will add to his repertory an understanding of the cognate accusative, of the accusative as subject of an infinitive, etc.

The teacher will keep clearly before the learner's mind that, while any accusative may be a direct object, or the subject or predicate of an infinitive, only words of a particular meaning can be used in the expression of duration of time, etc., and only words of another and an equally particular meaning can play the part of a cognate accusative, etc. The teacher would do well to make for himself, as the book progressed, a collection of short sentences illustrating all the possible kinds of accusatives (as yet known to the pupil) in which a given word, like Caesarem, annos, vitam, may occur (and, of course, similar collections for the other cases); and to run through one of these collections frequently, perhaps daily, with the class, using no English. Throughout this progress, it will be noted, nothing has been allowed to lapse. The way described of looking at all the possible meanings of (say) an accusative, seen or heard, constitutes a continual review of the sharpest nature, and, furthermore, of that very persuasive and pressing kind which looks toward immediate and constant practical use.

Following these methods, the pupil will surely, if the exercises of translating at hearing and understanding at hearing without translating are kept up, have obtained, by the time he reaches the end of the book, the power to catch the force of the accusative constructions, in short and simple sentences, with correctness and without conscious operations of reasoning. For his very familiarity with all the possibilities of accusative constructions for words of one and another meaning will have brought him into a condition in which, on the one side, he will WAIT, OPEN-MINDED, for the word or words that shall determine which meaning the speaker had in his own thought (if, as mostly, those words are yet to come); and, on the other, will, by a tact now grown unconscious, INSTINCTIVELY APPREHEND, when the determining word or words arrive, what that meaning was; in short, he will have made a good beginning of understanding the Roman language as it was understood by Roman hearers and Roman readers.