Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

[37] with some reference to proficiency in the appointed studies. Charles and his brother and their kinsman, William H. Simmons, belonged to the third or lowest division. The class had forty-five members the first year; but three years later it had only twenty-nine. While he was in the school, there were in older classes Robert C. Winthrop, George S. Hillard, George T. Bigelow, James Freeman Clarke, and Samuel F. Smith; and in the succeeding one, Wendell Phillips.

The curriculum at the Latin School comprehended more than was then or is now required for admission to Harvard College. It included, in Latin, Adam's ‘Latin Grammar,’ ‘Liber Primus,’ ‘Epitome Historiae Graecae’ (Siretz), ‘Viri Romae,’ ‘Phaedri Fabulae,’ ‘Cornelius Nepos,’ Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ Sallust's ‘Catiline’ and ‘Jugurthine War,’ Caesar, Virgil, Cicero's ‘Select Orations,’ the ‘Agricola’ and ‘Germania’ of Tacitus, and the ‘Odes’ and ‘Epodes’ of Horace. In Greek, it included Valpy's ‘Greek Grammar,’ the ‘Delectus Sententiarum Graecarum,’ Jacob's ‘Greek Reader,’ the ‘Four Gospels,’ and two books of Homer's ‘Iliad.’ Tooke's ‘Pantheon of the Heathen Gods’ introduced the pupil to mythology. In arithmetic, Lacroix was used; and in reading, Lindley Murray's ‘English Reader.’¹

In 1824, Charles won a third prize for a translation from Ovid, and a second prize for a translation from Sallust; and, in 1826, second prizes for a Latin hexameter poem and an English theme. He received, for the two prizes last named, an English edition of Gibbon's History in twelve volumes. A detur, awarded to him, Feb. 1, 1823, probably as a recognition of good conduct and attention to studies, is preserved, running thus:—

Some of his attempts at Latin poetry, at this time, are preserved,—two hexameters, one of June 26, 1825, Ad Inferos