135. Guarino on Teaching the Classical Authors

(A letter; trans. by Woodward, W. H., in his Vittorino da Feltre, pp. 161-72. Cambridge, 1897)

Battisto Guarino was the son of Guarino da Verona (13741460), and in a lengthy letter, under date of 1459, he describes The Order and the Method to be Observed in Teaching and in Reading the Classical Authors, as then being carried out by his father in his famous school at Ferrara. By way of preface he says:

In offering this short Treatise for your acceptance, I am fully aware that you need no incentive to regard the pursuit of Letters as the most worthy object of your ambition. But you may find what I have written a not unwelcome reminder of our past intercourse, whilst it may prove of use to other readers into whose hands it may fall. For I have had in view not only students anxious for guidance in their private reading, but masters in search of some definite principles of method in teaching the Classics. Hence I have treated both of Greek and of Latin Letters, and I have confidence that the course I have laid down will prove a thoroughly satisfactory training in literature and scholarship.

Guarino begins the letter with a discussion as to the nature of the schoolmaster, and then passes to a consideration of methods of teaching Latin, which study he says "is so important that no one who is ignorant of it can claim to be thought an educated man." Vergil, he says, should be learned by heart. He then proceeds:

§3. I have said that ability to write Latin verse is one of the essential marks of an educated person. I wish now to indicate a second, which is of at least equal importance, namely, familiarity with the language and literature of Greece. The time has come when we must speak with no uncertain voice upon this vital requirement of scholarship. I am well aware that those who are ignorant of the Greek tongue decry its necessity, for reasons which are sufficiently evident. But I can allow no

doubt to remain as to my own conviction that without a knowledge of Greek, Latin Scholarship itself is, in any real sense, impossible. I might point to the vast number of words derived or borrowed from the Greek, and the questions which arise in connection with them; such as the quantity of the vowel sounds, the use of the diphthongs, obscure orthographies and etymologies. . . . The Greek grammar, again, can alone explain the unusual case-endings which are met with in the declension of certain nouns, mostly proper names, which retain their foreign shape; such as "Dido" and "Mantus." Nor are these exceptional forms confined to the poetic use. But I turn to the authority of the great Latins themselves, to Cicero, Quintilian, Cato and Horace: they are unanimous in proclaiming the close dependence of the Roman speech and Roman literature upon the Greek, and in urging by example as well as by precept the constant study of the older language. To quote Horace alone:

"Do you, my friends, from Greece your models draw,
And day and night to con them be your law."

And again,

"To Greece, that cared for naught but fame, the Muse
Gave genius, and a tongue the gods might use."

In such company I do not fear to urge the same contention.

Were we, indeed, to follow Quintilian, we should even begin with Greek in preference to Latin. But this is practically impossible, when we consider that Greek must be for us, almost of necessity, a learned and not a colloquial language; and that Latin itself needs much more elaborate and careful teaching than was requisite to a Roman of the imperial epoch. On the other hand, I have myself known not a few pupils of my father he was, as you know, a scholar of equal distinction in either language who, after gaining a thorough mastery of Latin, could then in a single year make such progress with Greek that they translated accurately entire works of ordinary difficulty from that language into good readable Latin at sight. Now proficiency of this degree can only be attained by careful and systematic teaching of the rudiments of the Grammar, as they are laid down in such a manual as the well-known one of Manuel Chrysoloras, or in the abridgement which my father drew up of the original work of his beloved master. . . .

Our scholar should make his first acquaintance with the Poets through Homer, the sovereign master of them all. For from Homer our own poets, notably Vergil, drew their inspiration; and in reading the Iliad or the Odyssey no small part of our pleasure is derived from the constant parallels we meet with. Indeed we see in them as in a mirror the form and manner of the Æneid figured roughly before us, the incidents, not less than the simile or epithet which describes them, are, one might say, all there. In the same way, in his minor works

Vergil has borrowed from Theocritus or Hesiod. After Homer has been attempted the way lies open to the other Homeric poets and to the Dramatists.

He next discusses the use and importance of the historical writers, and the different Latin texts, and then says:

The course of study which I have thus far sketched out will prove an admirable preparation for that further branch of scholarship which constitutes Rhetoric, including the thorough examination of the great monuments of eloquence, and skill in the oratorical art itself. The first work to claim our attention in this subject is the Rhetoric of Cicero, in which we find all the points of Oratory concisely but comprehensively set forth. The other rhetorical writings of Cicero will follow, and the principles therein laid down must be examined in the light of his own speeches. Indeed the student of eloquence must have his Cicero constantly in his hand; the simplicity, the lofty moral standard, the practical temper of his writings render them a peculiarly noble training for a public speaker. Nor should the admirable Quintilian be neglected in this same connection.

It will be desirable also to include the elements of Logic in our course of studies, and with that the Ethics of Aristotle, and the Dialogues of Plato; for these are necessary aids to the proper understanding of Cicero. The Ciceronian Dialogue, in form and in matter, seems often to be modelled directly upon Plato. None of his works however are so attractive to myself personally as the De Officiis and the Tusculans. The former reviews all the main duties of life; the latter exhibits a wealth of knowledge most valuable — both as to material and expression to every modern writer. I would add that some knowledge of the principles of Roman Law will be helpful to the full understanding of Latin authors.

A master who should carry his scholars through the curriculum which I have now laid down may have confidence that he has given them a training which will enable them, not only to carry forward their own reading without assistance, but also to act efficiently as teachers in their turn. . . .

At Verona. xv Kal. Mar. мCCCCLVIIII.

136. The Collège de Guyenne

(Digest by W. H. Woodward, of Vinet's Disciplina et ratio docendi (c. 1570). In Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance, chap. VIII. Cambridge, 1906)

In 1534 the governing corporation of the city of Bordeaux, in southwestern France, decided to reorganize the boys' school there along the new humanistic lines. Under a series of able principals.

the school was raised to first rank. The school was reorganized as a reformed grammar school of ten classes, with a two-year course in the Faculty of Arts in the university there added. The greatest period of prosperity of the school was during the principalship of Élie Vinet (1556–70), and he has left us a descriptive outline of its course of instruction, disciplina et ratio docendi, as he knew it. It represents the flowering period of the French Renaissance, and is comparable to the school plan of Sturm (R. 137), Melancthon (R. 161), or of Eton (R. 144) at the same period.

By classes the organization was as follows:

Tenth, or Lowest Class. Entered at six or seven. Boys known as 'Alphabetarii" or "Abecedarii."

Textbooks: the Alphabetum; the Pater Noster, the Seven Penitential Psalms, and the Ave Maria; and the Libellus Puerulorum. Tests for promotion: ability to read the above, to decline and to conjugate, and to write legibly.

Ninth Class. This was the largest in the school, indicating that many boys learned the above privately and entered the school at seven or eight.

Textbooks: Reading and writing in both French and Latin, for both fluency and speed.

Latin accidence of both noun and verb.

The disticha de moribus of Cato, with French parallel translation; and

Cordier's Exempla partium orationis, a small handbook of

grammar.

Eighth Class. Age eight or nine.

Textbooks: Selection of Cicero's Letters, selected scenes from
Terence, and the Colloquia of Cordier.

Seventh Class. Age nine or ten.

Textbooks: Selections from Letters of Cicero continued; the Latin
Grammar of Despantère, written in Latin hexameters.
Much emphasis on style and composition. French the language
of instruction for the Latin.

Sixth Class. Age ten or eleven.

Cicero's Letters the standard prose text.

Much memorization for

form, and much explanation of construction.

Fifth Class. Age eleven or twelve.

Cicero's Letters still the standard prose text, with emphasis as above. Also one play of Terence, and one book of the Epistolæ of Ovid. Rules of prosody now learned.

Fourth Class. Age twelve or thirteen.

Pupils now study for first time an oration of Cicero, and study with

it a manual of rhetoric, such as the De Copia of Erasmus. Chief poetical work read in this class the Tristia of Ovid.

Much grammatical questioning; frequent exercises in composition; dictation of simple materials for writing Latin verse.

Greek begun in this class. Grammar begun.

Third Class. Age thirteen or fourteen.

The Epistola Familiares or Ad Atticum of Cicero, and one other oration; the Metamorphoses of Ovid.

Much emphasis on rhetoric, syntax, verse composition, and Latin composition in prose and verse.

Greek continued. Grammar of Theodore Gaza.

Second Class. Age fourteen or fifteen.

Cicero's orations, selected; or readings from Vergil, Ovid, or Lucan.
Roman history now studied.

Much learning by heart; prose and verse composition; and empha

sis on rhetoric.

Latin declamation now first undertaken.

Greek continued. Grammar and reading.

Arithmetic begun.

First Class. Age fifteen or sixteen.

The art of oratory, from Cicero or Quintilian.

Speeches of Cicero, in illustration.

History from Livy, Seneca, Justin, Eubropius, and P. Mela.
Poetry read from Vergil, Lucan, Persius, Juvenal, Horace, and
Ovid.

Composition in prose and verse, and declamation.

Greek continued. Readings in Demosthenes and Homer.

Arithmetic extended to simple proportion, and square and cube
root.

Faculté des Arts. First year. Age sixteen or seventeen.
Aristotelian Logic, from Latin version.

The Isagoge of Porphyry.

Greek continued.

The Mathematicorum Breviarium of Psellus, a dry compendium of arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.

Faculté des Arts. Second year. Age seventeen or eighteen. Aristotle's Physica, the De Calo, and other commonly read scientific works. A study of natural philosophy, though based on ancient learning. No observation or independent thought. Greek and mathematics continued, as above, with Proclus de Sphæra added.

To the above digest of the curriculum, more minutely detailed by Woodward, he adds: