INDIRECT DISCOURSE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Indirect discourse

... difficulties of which will be less likely to appal the beginner if some of them have been already conquered. I believe it a mistake to postpone all treatment of the uses of the subjunctive, for instance, or of the constructions of indirect discourse until the study of Nepos or Caesar is begun. Besides, it is easier to neglect notes than to supply them, and the teacher who prefers to do the first reading without much attention to the more difficult constructions will only need to tell his students ...

— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.