There must be no delay, then, in warning a boy that his actions must be unselfish, honest, self-controlled, and we must never forget the words of Virgil, So strong is custom formed in early years.Georg. ii. 272. I disapprove of flogging, although it is the regular custom and meets with the acquiescence of Chrysippus, because in the first place it is a disgraceful form of punishment and fit only for slaves,

and is in any case an insult, as you will realise if you imagine its infliction at a later age. Secondly if a boy is so insensible to instruction that reproof is useless, he will, like the worst type of slave, merely become hardened to blows. Finally there will be absolutely no need of such punishment if the master is a thorough disciplinarian.

As it is, we try to make amends for the negligence of the boy's paedagogus, not by forcing him to do what is right, but by punishing him for not doing what is right. And though you may compel a child with blows, what are you to do with him when he is a young man no longer amenable to such threats and confronted with tasks of far greater difficulty?

Moreover when children are beaten, pain or fear frequently have results of which it is not pleasant to speak and which are likely subsequently to be a source of shame, a shame which unnerves and depresses the mind and leads the child to shun and loathe the light.

Further if inadequate care is taken in the choices of respectable governors and instructors, I blush to mention the shameful abuse which scoundrels sometimes make of their right to administer corporal punishment or the opportunity not infrequently offered to others by the fear thus caused in the victims. I will not linger on this subject; it is more than enough if I have made my meaning clear. I will content myself with saying that children are helpless and easily victimised, and that therefore no one should be given unlimited power over them.

I will now proceed to describe the subjects in which the boy must be trained, if he is to become an orator, and to indicate the age at which each should be commenced.

As soon as the boy has learned to read and write without difficulty, it is the turn for the teacher grammaticus is the teacher of literature and languages; at times it is necessary to restrict its meaning to grammar. of literature. My words apply equally to Greek and Latin masters, though I prefer that a start should be made with a Greek:

in either case the method is the same. This profession may be most briefly considered under two heads, the art of speaking correctly and the interpretation of the poets; but there is more beneath the surface than meets the eye.

For the art of writing is combined with that of speaking, and correct reading precedes interpretation, while in each of these cases criticism has its work to perform. The old school of teachers indeed carried their criticism so far that they were not content with obelising lines or rejecting books whose titles they regarded as spurious, as though they were expelling a supposititious child from the family circle, but also drew up a canon of authors, from which some were omitted altogether.

Nor is it sufficient to have read the poets only; every kind of writer must be carefully studied, not merely for the subject matter, but for the vocabulary; for words often acquire authority from their use by a particular author. Nor can such training be regarded as complete if it stop short of music, for the teacher of literature has to speak of metre and rhythm: nor again if he be ignorant of astronomy, can he understand the poets; for they, to mention no further points, frequently give their indications of time by reference to the rising and setting of the stars. Ignorance of philosophy is an equal drawback, since there are numerous passages in almost every poem based on the most intricate questions of natural philosophy, while among the Greeks we have Empedocles and among our own poets Varro and Lucretius, all of whom have expounded their philosophies in verse.

No small powers of eloquence also are required to enable the teacher to speak appropriately and fluently on the various points which have just been mentioned. For this reason those who criticise the art of teaching literature as trivial and lacking in substance put themselves out of court. Unless the foundations of oratory are well and truly laid by the teaching of literature, the superstructure will collapse. The study of literature is a necessity for boys and the delight of old age, the sweet companion of our privacy and the sole branch of study which has more solid substance than display.

The elementary stages of the teaching of literature must not therefore be despised as trivial. It is of course an easy task to point out the difference between vowels and consonants, and to subdivide the latter into semivowels and mutes. But as the pupil gradually approaches the inner shrine of the sacred place, he will come to realise the intricacy of the subject, an intricacy calculated not merely to sharpen the wits of a boy, but to exercise even the most profound knowledge and erudition.

It is not every ear that can appreciate the correct sound of the different letters. It is fully as hard as to distinguish the different notes in music. But all teachers of literature will condescend to such minutiae: they will discuss for instance whether certain necessary letters are absent from the alphabet, not indeed when we are writing Greek words (for then we borrow two letters Y and Z. from them), but in the case of genuine Latin words:

for example in words such as seruus and uulgus we feel the lack of the Aeolic digamma; there is also a sound intermediate between u and i, for we do not pronounce optimum as we do opimum, while in here the sound is neither exactly e or i.

Again there is the question whether certain letters are not superfluous, not to mention the mark of the aspirate, to which, if it is required at all, there should be a corresponding symbol to indicate the opposite: for instance k, which is also used as an abbreviation for certain nouns, and q, which, though slanted slightly more by us, resembles both in sound and shape the Greek koppa, now used by the Greeks solely as a numerical sign K = Kaeso, Kalendae, 'Karthago, Kaput, Kalumnia, etc. The q -sound can be expressed by c. Koppa (ZZZ) as a numeral = 90. : there is also x, the last letter of our own alphabet, which we could dispense with as easily as with psi.

Again the teacher of literature will have to determine whether certain vowels have not been consonantalised. For instance iam and etiam are both spelt with an i, uos and tuos both with a u. Vowels, however, when joined as vowels, either make one long vowel (compare the obsolete method of indicating a long vowel by doubling it as the equivalent of the circumflex), or a diphthong, though some hold that even three vowels can form a single syllable; this however is only possible if one or more assume the role of consonants.

He will also inquire why it is that there are two vowels which may be repeated, while a consonant can only be followed and modified by a different consonant. The two vowels are i and u. A consonant cannot be duplicated within one syllable. But i can follow i (for coniicit is derived from iacit The derivation is mentioned to show that two i's, not one, are found in the second syllable of coniicit. ): so too does u, witness the modern spelling of seruus and uulgus. He should also know that Cicero preferred to write aiio and Maaiiam with a double i; in that case one of them is consonantalised.

A boy therefore must learn both the peculiarities and the common characteristics of letters and must know how they are related to each other. Nor must he be surprised that scabillum is formed from scamnus or that a double-edged axe should be called bipennis from pinnus, sharp : for I would not have him fall into the same error as those who, supposing this word to be derived from his and pennae, think that it is a metaphor from the wings of birds.

He must not be content with knowing only those changes introduced by conjugation and prefixes, such as secat secuit, cadit excidit, caedit excīdit, calcat exculcat, to which might be added lotus from lauare and again inlotus with a thousand others. He must learn as well the changes that time has brought about even in nominatives. For just as names like Valesius and Fusius have become Valerius and Furius, so arbos, labos, vapos and even clamos and lases i.e. of lares. were the original forms.

And this same letter s, which has disappeared from these words, has itself in some cases taken the place of another letter. For our ancestors used to say mertare and pultare. For mersare and pulsare. They also said fordeum and faedi, using f instead of the aspirate as being a kindred letter. For the Greeks unlike us aspirate f like their own phi, as Cicero bears witness in the pro Fundanio, where he laughs at a witness who is unable to pronounce the first letter of that name.