BENNETT

bennett, charles edwin (1858- ), american classical scholar, was born on the 6th of april 1858, in providence, rhode island. he graduated from brown university in 1878 and also studied at harvard (1881-1882) and in germany (1882-1884). he taught in secondary schools in florida (1878-1879), new york (1879-1881), and nebraska (1885-1889), and became professor of latin in the university of wisconsin in 1889, of classical philology at brown university in 1891, and of latin at cornell university in 1892. his syntactical studies, notably various papers on the subjunctive, are based on a statistical examination of latin texts and are marked by a fresh system of nomenclature; he ranks as one of the leaders of the "new american school" of syntacticians, who insist on a preliminary re-examination of all available data. of great importance are his advocacy of "quantitative" reading of latin verse and his _critique of some recent subjunctive theories_ in vol. ix. (1898) of _cornell studies in classical philology_, of which he was an editor. bennett's _latin grammar_ (1895) is the first successful attempt in america to adopt the method of the brief, scholarly _schulgrammatik_. besides the latin classics commonly read in secondary courses and other text-books in "bennett's latin series," he edited tacitus's _dialogus de oratoribus_ (1894), and cicero's _de senectute_ (1897) and _de amicitia_ (1897). he wrote, with george p. bristol, _the teaching of greek and latin in secondary schools_ (1900), and _the latin language_, (1907), and with william alexander hammond translated _the characters of theophrastus_ (1902).