Herbart once declared that the value of a classical education was to be measured by the extent to which antiquity was realized by the student. He implied that even to possess a full and accurate knowledge of the language and literature of Greece and Rome was of less account than to know the people themselves as living men and women, to understand their ways, and to enter into their thoughts.
Ōlim is a small book of Latin plays and dialogues, written in the hopes that it may help to make Roman “antiquity” real. It may be used as a supplementary reading-book for the second or third year of Latin; but it is really meant to be used for class-room acting, whereby Appius Claudius and the dissatisfied plebeians, Cato with his anti-feminist views, the schoolmaster whose noisy school tried the patience of his neighbour Martial, may be felt to live again. The scenes are laid at Rome or in Italy,
