Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Charles Wordsworth's Graecae Grammaticae Rudimenta
Arthur Francis Leach, A History of Winchester College (London: Duckworth & Co., 1899), p. 464:
Hat tip: Alan Crease.
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I do not remember what books we read, except that we did Euripides' "Medea," and used Wordsworth's "Greek Grammar," which, by way of rendering obscurius per obscurum, was written in Latin. It remains to me to this day the ideal of all that is hideous and hateful in learning.William Fearon, The Passing of Old Winchester (Winchester: Warren and Son, Limited, 1924), pp. 49-50:
Middle and Junior Part were set to learn a most portentous amount of Wordsworth's Greek Grammar, all in Latin! Some 50 pages of this horrible book had to be learnt by heart, all by rote, without any attempt to apply the rules! I still shudder at the sight of page 75: "Multa sunt verba quae Futuro Activo carent,—sic ἄδω cano ἄσομαι" followed by 48 other verbs, which have only a Futurum Medium, none of which we had ever seen, or were likely to see. A more preposterous waste of effort, or one more calculated to disgust us with the Greek language, it is difficult to imagine.The relevant page of Wordsworth's grammar (click once or twice to enlarge):
