Excerpt from Ritchie's First Steps in Latin The present edition of Mr. Ritchie's "First Steps in Latin" has for its objects - first, the marking of all long vowels; second, the rearrangement of the cases in declension, following the order adopted in nearly all American text-books and grammars; and third, the substitution of i-consonant for j. In cases where pupils have been found prone to give a long-vowel sound to a short vowel, the short mark has been written; but for the most part short vowels are unmarked. Some slight changes have been made in the wording of rules and explanations, and in the Appendix the Summary of Rules has been rewritten to conform with these changes. No alteration has been made in the general plan of the book. The subject of pronunciation, however, is of so much importance that it has been incorporated at some length in the text. Such excellent results have attended the use of the book in its earlier editions that even these slight changes have been made with some hesitation; but many requests have been made for an edition revised along the lines indicated above, and these must serve as my pretext. It is hoped that, thus revised, the Series, which comprises "First Steps in Latin" and its sequel, "Second Steps in Latin," will meet with a wide acceptance in this country, for, supplemented by Mr. Kirtland's edition of Mr. Ritchie's "Fabulae Faciles," they make a thorough and amply sufficient preparation for the reading of Caesar, or other second-year work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.