The Robertsonian Method

The Robertsonian Method - an eighteenth century conversational method for learning Latin.

I stumbled on a new Latin textbook I had never seen before, today, on Google Books.

It is called The Robertsonian Method , published in 1845, based on an original work by a Mr Robertson, resident in Paris.

This is a development of the Jacotot Method, and was originally designed for learning French. It was adapted for Latin, while keeping the modern language teaching methodology, by Alexander H. Monteith ; Monteith also authored versions in French, Spanish, German and Italian, and was furthermore the author of an English version of Ahn's Latin and Greek textbooks.

The textbook begins by offering a short passage, which is then analysed in great detail, followed by a natural language question-answer sequence based on the text, in the form of a dialogue.

The method works as follows: The text is given, along with an interlinear translation. A pronunciation guide is provided, but this is of antiquarian interest only, as it provides a detailed pronunciation scheme for the nearly extinct native English pronunciation of Latin, as used in England for centuries until it was superseded by restored classical pronunciation in the mid 1900s.

Following this, the text is provided in two columns, and the student is asked to engage in double translation.

Page five begins the section which would have been highly controversial in 1845 - Latin conversation. A century prior, and this would have not seemed out of place, as until the mid 1700s Latin was still in regular use by lecturers in universities across Europe. The jingoism that accompanied nationalism, and the rise of the nation state had not yet pushed internationalist Latin into the dustbin of history.

Montheith writes " Latin cannot, in the present day, be deemed a colloquial language." He then continues and says, " but an exercise in conversation may nevertheless serve a variety of useful purposes."

What are these purposes? Monteith enumerates them as follows:

• Impressing words already known upon the memory
• Vocabulary in context is better learned than from a vocabulary list.
• Words can be presented in various aspects and combinations, expanding knowledge of construction.
• It illustrates the use of the language in practice.

Here is an example of the scripted conversation. No translation is provided, as by this stage the student will have encountered all the vocabulary used while studying the short text, upon which these comprehension questions are based.

Question: Quis thesaurum invenit?

Answer: Quidam viatores.

Q. Quot viatores?

A. Tres.

Q. Quid invenerunt?

A. Thesaurum quendam.

and so on, until the full content of the short text that has been learned has been covered in detail.

I think this text makes an excellent adjunt to Adler, and addresses a serious deficiency in Adler, namely the lack on long pieces of continuous prose under analysis.

I have sought to rectify this in my audio course by using Comenius and other authors, however, I think Robertson's methodology is the most closely aligned with Adler's method, and is complementary with it.

I plan to make an audio course from Montheith's textbook, as I think it is a very useful text indeed for a Latin student.

Montieth also gives guidelines for construction - in other words, Latin composition. This is a neglected area in modern Latin courses, which are largely translation only courses. Very few modern Latin courses require the student to write much Latin that is not reverse translation. However, as Montheith points out, if you want to become good at writing Latin, then there is no better teacher than immersing oneself in the classical authors themselves.