PARTIMOPERE

INTANTOSINERETDOLORICAREHABERES·

FIG. 5. A PAGE OF THE "ENEID" OF VERGIL

Difficulty experienced in learning to read illustrated by a page from Vergil (From a very perfect copy, in the Vatican Library at Rome)

22. The Education given by a Father

(Horace, Satires, book 1, 6, lines 65-80)

The Roman poet Horace, who lived from 65 to 8 B.C., and whose father gave him a good education somewhat after the old type, and afterwards educated him at Rome and at Athens, leaves us this description of the education which he received.

And yet, if the faults and defects of my nature are moderate ones, and with their exception my life is upright (just as if one were to censure blemishes found here and there on a handsome body), if no one can truly lay to my charge avarice, meanness, or frequenting vicious haunts, if (that I may praise myself) my life is pure and innocent, and my friends love me, I owe it all to my father; he, though not rich, for his farm was a poor one, would not send me to the school of Flavius, to which the first youths of the town, the sons of the centurions, the great men there, used to go, with their bags and slates on their left arm, taking the teacher's fee on the Ides of eight months in the year; but he had the spirit to carry me, when a boy, to Rome, there to learn the liberal arts which any knight or senator would have his own sons taught. Had any one seen my dress, and the attendant servants, so far as would be observed in a populous city, he would have thought that such expense was defrayed from an old hereditary estate. He himself was ever present, a guardian incorruptible, at all my studies.

23. The Ludi Magister

Martial, a Spaniard, who lived from 43 to 104 A.D., and who spent many years in Rome, has left us some fifteen hundred Epigrams on Roman life and society. Two of these, which relate to the teacher in the primary school, are reproduced below.

(a) To the Master of a Noisy School

(Epigrams, book IX, no. 68)

What right have you to disturb me, abominable schoolmaster, object abhorred alike by boys and girls? Before the crested cocks have broken silence, you begin to roar out your savage scoldings and blows. Not with louder noise does the metal resound on the struck anvil, when the workman is fitting a lawyer on his horse;1 nor is the noise so great in the large amphitheater, when the conquering gladiator is applauded by his partisans. We, your neighbors, do not ask you to allow us to sleep for the whole night, for it is but a small matter to be occasionally awakened; but to be kept awake all night is a heavy affliction. Dismiss your scholars, brawler, and take as much for keeping quiet as you receive for making a noise.

1 A sneer at the equestrian statues of lawyers.

(b) To a Schoolmaster

(Epigrams, book x, no. 62)

Schoolmaster, be indulgent to your simple scholars; if you would have many a long-haired youth resort to your lectures, and the class seated round your critical table love you. So may no teacher of arithmetic, or of swift writing, be surrounded by a greater ring of pupils. The days are bright, and glow under the flaming constellation of the Lion, and fervid July is ripening the teeming harvest. Let the Scythian scourge with its formidable thongs, such as flogged Marsyas of Celænæ, and the terrible cane, the schoolmaster's sceptre, be laid aside, and sleep until the Ides of October.1 In summer, if boys preserve their health, they do enough.

24. Oratory the Aim of Education

(Cicero, De Oratore, book 1)

Cicero, whose De Oratore was published in 55 B.C., presents a good description of the orator as the then ideal of Roman higher education, and describes the training nec

essary as viewed by the most successful orator of the time. The following selections illustrate this ideal.

IV. . . . For when our empire over all nations was established, and after a period of peace had secured tranquillity, there was scarcely a youth ambitious of praise who did not think that he must strive, with all his endeavors, to attain the art of speaking. For a time, indeed, as being ignorant of all method," and as thinking there was no course of exercise for them, or any precepts of art, they attained what they could by the single force of genius and thought. But afterwards, having heard the Greek orators, and gained an acquaintance with Greek literature, and procured instructors, our countrymen were inflamed with an incredible passion for eloquence. The magnitude, the variety, the multitude of all kinds of causes, excited them to such a degree, that to that learning which each had acquired by his individual study, frequent practice, which was superior to the precepts of all masters, was at once added. There were then, as there are also now, the highest inducements offered for the cultivation of this study, in regard to public

FIG. 6. M. TULLIUS CICERO (106-43 B.C.)

1 The usual time for the opening of the school term.

favor, wealth, and dignity. The abilities of our countrymen (as we may judge from many particulars, far excelled those of the men of every other nation. For which reasons, who would not justly wonder that in the records of all ages, times, and states, so small a number of orators should be found?

But the art of eloquence is something greater, and collected from more sciences and studies, than people imagine. V. For who can sup pose that, amid the greatest multitude of students, the utmost abundance of masters, the most eminent geniuses among men, the infinite variety of causes, the most ample rewards offered to eloquence, there is any other reason to be found for the small number of orators than the incredible magnitude and difficulty of the art? A knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, without which volubility of words is empty and ridiculous; speech itself is to be formed, not merely by choice, but by careful construction of words; and all the emotions of the mind, which nature has given to man, must be intimately known; for all the force and art of speaking must be employed in allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this must be added a certain portion of grace and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man, and quickness and brevity in replying as well as attacking, accompanied with a refined decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in particular, to be neglected.

25. On Oratory

(Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, Preface, and book II, chaps. xvi and xvii) The following extract gives Quintilian's estimate of the importance of oratory in the life of a Roman.

Preface: 9. We are to form, then, the perfect orator, who cannot exist unless as a good man; and we require in him, therefore, not only consummate ability in speaking, but every excellence of mind. 10. For I cannot admit that the principles of moral and honourable conduct are, as some have thought, to be left to the philosophers; since the man who can duly sustain his character as a citizen, who is qualified for the management of public and private affairs, and who can govern communities by his counsels, settle them by means of laws, and improve them by judicial enactments, can certainly be nothing else but an orator. II. Although I acknowledge, therefore, that I shall adopt some precepts which are contained in the writings of the philosophers, yet I shall maintain, with justice and truth, that they belong to my subject, and have a peculiar relation to the art of oratory. 12. If we have constantly occasion to discourse of justice, fortitude, temperance, and other similar topics, so that a cause can scarce be found in

which some such discussion does not occur, and if all such subjects are to be illustrated by invention and elocution, can it be doubted that, wherever power of inteliect and copiousness of language are required, the art of the orator is to be there preeminently exerted? . . .

Book II. Chap. XVI: 17. Even to men, to whom speech has been denied, of how little avail is divine reason! If, therefore, we have received from the gods nothing more valuable than speech, what can we consider more deserving of cultivation and exercise? or in what can we more strongly desire to be superior to other men, than in that by which man himself is superior to other animals, especially as in no kind of exertion does labour more plentifully bring its reward? 18. This will be so much the more evident, if we reflect from what origin, and to what extent, the art of eloquence has advanced, and how far it may still be improved. 19. For, not to mention how beneficial it is, and how becoming in a man of virtue, to defend his friends, to direct a senate or people by his counsels, or to lead an army to whatever enterprise he may desire, is it not extremely honourable to attain, by the common understanding and words which all men use, so high a degree of esteem and glory as to appear not to speak or plead, but, as was the case with Pericles, to hurl forth lightning and thunder?

26. Privileges granted to Physicians and Teachers by Constantine (Code, book 10, 53, 6; trans. by Norton)

The following grant of immunities and privileges to physicians and teachers in the higher schools of the time was made by Constantine, in 333 A.D. The grant is very interesting as forming a precedent and a type for the many grants of immunity and privilege made later on to priests and monks and university scholars. (See especially Readings 38 and 51.)

THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE, Augustus, tO THE PEOPLE:

We direct that physicians, and chiefly imperial physicians, and eximperial physicians, grammarians and other professors of letters, together with their wives and sons, and whatever property they possess in their own cities, be immune from all payment of taxes and from all civil or public duties, and that in the provinces they shall not have strangers quartered on them, or perform any official duties, or be brought into court, or be subject to legal process, or suffer injustice; and if any one harass them he shall be punished at the discretion of the Judge. We also command that their salaries and fees be paid, so that they may more readily instruct many in liberal studies and the above mentioned Arts. Proclaimed on the fifth day before the Kalends of October (September 27) at Constantinople, in the Consulship of Dalmatius and Zenophilas.