Institutio Oratoria

For the use of letters is to preserve the sound of words and to deliver them to readers as a sacred trust: consequently they ought to represent the pronunciation which we are to use.

These are the more important points in connexion with writing and speaking correctly. I do not go so far as to deny to the teacher of literature all part in the two remaining departments of speaking and writing with elegance and significance, but I reserve these for a more important portion of this work, as I have still to deal with the duties of the teacher of rhetoric.

I am however haunted by the thought that some readers will regard what I have said as trivial details which are only likely to prove a hindrance to those who are intent upon a greater task; and I myself do not think that we should go so far as to lose our sleep of nights or quibble like fools over such minutiae; for such studies make mincemeat of the mind. But it is only the superfluities of grammar that do any harm.

I ask you, is Cicero a less great orator for having given this science his diligent attention or for having, as his letters show, demanded rigid correctness of speech from his son? Or was the vigour of Gaius Caesar's eloquence impaired by the publication of a treatise on Analogy?

Or the polish