But if a boy's composition is so careless as not to admit of correction, I have found it useful to give a fresh exposition of the theme and to tell him to write it again, pointing out that he was capable of doing better: for there is nothing like hope for making study a pleasure.

Different ages however demand different methods: the task set and the standard of correction must be proportioned to the pupil's strength. When boys ventured on something that was too daring or exuberant, I used to say to them that I approved of it for the moment, but that the time would come when I should no longer tolerate such a style. The result was that the consciousness of ability filled them with pleasure, without blinding their judgment.

However, to return to the point from which I had digressed. Written narratives should be composed with the utmost care. It is useful at first, when a child has just begun to speak, to make him repeat what he has heard with a view to improving his powers of speech; and for the same purpose, and with good reason, I would make him tell his story from the end back to the beginning or start in the middle and go backwards or forwards, but only so long as he is at his teacher's knee and while he is incapable of greater effort and is beginning to connect words and things, thereby strengthening the memory. Even so when he is beginning to understand the nature of correct and accurate speech, extempore effusions, improvised without waiting for thought to supply the matter or a moment's hesitation before rising to the feet, must not be permitted: they proceed from a passion for display that would do credit to a common mountebank.

Such proceedings fill ignorant parents with senseless pride, while the boys themselves lose all respect for their work, adopt a conceited bearing, and acquire the habit of speaking in the worst style and actually practising their faults, while they develop an arrogant conviction of their own talents which often proves fatal even to the most genuine proficiency.

There will be a special time for acquiring fluency of speech and I shall not pass the subject by unnoticed. For the meantime it will suffice if a boy, by dint of taking pains and working as hard as his age will permit, manages to produce something worthy of approval. Let him get used to this until it becomes a second nature. It is only he who learns to speak correctly before he can speak with rapidity who will reach the heights that are our goal or the levels immediately below them.

To narratives is annexed the task of refuting and confirming them, styled anaskeue and kataskeue, from which no little advantage may be derived. This may be done not merely in connexion with fiction and stories transmitted by the poets, but with the actual records of history as well. For instance we may discuss the credibility of the story that a raven settled on the head of Valerius in the midst of a combat and with its wings and beak struck the eyes of the Gaul who was his adversary, and a quantity of arguments may be produced on either side:

or we may discuss the tradition that Scipio See Aul. Gell. VII. i. was begotten by a serpent, or that Romulus was suckled by the she-wolf, or the story of Numa and Egeria. As regards Greek history, it allows itself something very like poetic licence. Again the time and place of some particular occurrence and sometimes even the persons concerned often provide matter for discussion: Livy for instance is frequently in doubt as to what actually occurred and historians often disagree.

From this our pupil will begin to proceed to more important themes, such as the praise of famous men and the denunciation of the wicked. Such tasks are profitable in more than one respect. The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice. Further wide knowledge of facts is thus acquired, from which examples may be drawn if circumstances so demand, such illustrations being of the utmost value in every kind of case.

It is but a step from this to practice in the comparison of the respective merits of two characters. This is of course a very similar theme to the preceding, but involves a duplication of the subject matter and deals not merely with the nature of virtues and vices, but with their degree as well. But the method to be followed in panegyric and invective will be dealt with in its proper place, as it forms the third department of rhetoric. Book III. chap. vii.

As to commonplaces (I refer to those in which we denounce vices themselves such as adultery, gambling or profligacy without attacking particular persons), they come straight from the courts and, if we add the name of the defendant, amount to actual accusations. As a rule, however, the general character of a commonplace is usually given a special turn: for instance we make our adulterer blind, our gambler poor and our profligate far advanced in years. Sometimes too they entail defence:

for we may speak on behalf of luxury or love, while a pimp or a parasite may be defended in such a way that we appeal as counsel not for the character itself, but to rebut some specific charge that is brought against him.

Theses on the other hand are concerned with the comparison of things and involve questions such as Which is preferable, town or country life? or Which deserves the greatest praise, the lawyer or the soldier? These provide the most attractive and copious practice in the art of speaking, and are most useful whether we have an eye to the duties of deliberative oratory or the arguments of the courts. For instance Cicero in his pro Murena Pro Mur. ix. 21 sqq. deals very fully with the second of the two problems mentioned above.