[21]
There are two faults of taste against which boys
should be guarded with the utmost care. Firstly
no teacher suffering from an excessive admiration
of antiquity, should be allowed to cramp their
minds by the study of Cato and the Gracchi and
other similar authors. For such reading will give
them a harsh and bloodless style, since they will as
yet be unable to understand the force and vigour of
these authors, and contenting themselves with a
style which doubtless was admirable in its day, but
is quite unsuitable to ours, will come to think (and
[p. 257]
nothing could be more fatal) that they really resemble great men.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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