Lindsay: An Etymological Study 
7 
sense perceptions, the place of Latin would seem to be amply 
justified. For, since even in this limited and most used vocab- 
ulary nearly half of the words (45.98 per cent) and more 
than one-third of the word occurrences (36.11 per cent) are 
of Latin origin, surely a knowledge of the parent language 
of these derivatives is highly desirable. 
Second, it is hoped that the two lists of source words that 
have been formed will prove of interest in showing (a) which 
Latin and Greek words furnish derivatives among commonly 
used English words, and (5) which of these Latin or Greek 
words deserve most emphasis in teaching on account of the 
number and frequency of use of their derivatives. 
Third, it has been found that the mastery of the 2,000 
Latin words emphasized in Professor Lodge’s Vocabulary of 
High School Latin will give the pupil who attains it the 
knowledge of the source words of 74.08 per cent of the Latin 
derivatives among the 10,000 words of Professor Thorndike’s 
Teacher’s Word Book. 
As may be recalled. Professor Lodge recommends that the 
list of 2,000 Latin v/ords printed in distinctive type in his 
Vocabulary of High School Latin be learned by the pupils 
at the rate of about 500 per year, during the four years of 
the high school course.^ His reason for this recommendation 
is that, by actual count, these 2,000 words have been found 
to occur five times or more in the traditional Latin read in 
high school and have also been found to have a similar fre- 
quency of occurrence in Latin literature generally. Since 
about half the words of this list occur with especial frequency 
in Caesar, Professor Lodge recommends that these 1,000 
words be mastered during the first two years of high school. 
Most of these Caesarian words are used by Cicero and Vergil 
also. 
By the time a pupil has completed two years of secondary 
school Latin, provided he has been required to learn Professor 
Lodge’s list of Caesarian words, he has learned the source 
words of 43.98 per cent of the Latin derivatives in Professor 
Thorndike’s Teacher’s Word Book, and these derivatives are 
in use 46.54 per cent of the time that any Latin derivatives 
among these 10,000 most frequently used English words are 
in use. Or, supposing these 10,000 words to be the pupil’s 
2 See page iv. The Vocabulary of High School Latin by Professor Gonzalez Lodge, 
Teachers College, Columbia University, 1915. 
