[15]
I have thought it worth while to put my views on
this subject quite briefly. For I do not think it
necessary even to warn the teacher that both he and
his school must be free from the grosser vices. And
should there be any father who does not trouble to
choose a teacher for his son who is free from the
obvious taint of immorality, he may rest assured
that all the other precepts, which I am attempting
to lay down for the benefit of our youth, will be
absolutely useless to him, if he neglects this.
III. I do not think that I should pass by in silence
[p. 219]
even the opinion of those who, even when they
regard boys as ripe for the rhetorician, still do not
think that they should at once be placed under the
most eminent teacher available, but prefer to keep
them for a while under inferior masters, on the
ground that in the elementary stages a mediocre
instructor is easier to understand and to imitate, and
less reluctant to undertake the tiresome task of teaching the rudiments as being beneath his notice.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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