Institutio Oratoria

III. I do not think that I should pass by in silence

I do not think that I need waste much time in pointing out how much better it is to absorb the best possible principles, or how hard it is to get rid of faults which have once become engrained; for it places a double burden on the shoulders of the later teacher and the preliminary task of unteaching is harder than that of teaching.

It is for this reason that the famous piper Timotheus is said to have demanded from those who had previously been under another master a fee double the amount which he charged for those who came to him untaught. The mistake to which I am referring is, however, twofold. First they regard these inferior teachers as adequate for the time being and are content with their instruction because they have a stomach that will swallow anything:

this indifference, though blameworthy in itself, would yet be tolerable, if the teaching provided by these persons were merely less in quantity and not inferior in quality as well. Secondly, and this is a still commoner delusion, they think that those who are blest with greater gifts of speaking will not condescend to the more elementary details, and that consequently they sometimes disdain to give attention to such inferior subjects of study and sometimes are incapable of so doing.

For my part I regard the

which is specially developed in learned men, is all-important in teaching, while finally no one is eminent in the greater things of his art if he be lacking in the lesser. Unless indeed we are asked to believe that while Phidias modelled his Jupiter to perfection, the decorative details of the statue would have been better executed by another artist, or that an orator does not know how to speak, or a distinguished physician is incapable of treating minor ailments.

Yes

but surely you do not deny that there is a type of eloquence that is too great to be comprehended by undeveloped boys?

Again it frequently happens that the more learned the teacher, the more lucid and intelligible is his instruction. For clearness is the first virtue of eloquence, and the less talented a man is, the more he will strive to exalt and dilate himself, just as short men tend to walk on tip-toe and weak

As for those whose style is inflated or vicious, and whose language reveals a passion for high-sounding words or labours under any other form of affectation, in my opinion they suffer not from excess of strength but of weakness, like bodies swollen not with the plumpness of health but with disease, or like men who weary of the direct road betake them to bypaths. Consequently the worse a teacher is, the harder he will be to understand.

I have not forgotten that I stated in the preceding book, when I urged that school was preferable to home education, that pupils at the commencement of their studies, when progress is as yet but in the bud, are more disposed to imitate their schoolfellows than their masters, since such imitation comes more easily to them. Some of my readers may think that the view which I am now maintaining is inconsistent with my previous statement.

But I am far from being inconsistent: for my previous assertion affords the strongest reason for selecting the very best teachers for our boys; since pupils of a first rate master, having received a better training, will when they speak say something that may be worthy of imitation, while if they commit some mistake, they will be promptly corrected. But the incompetent teacher on the other hand is quite likely to give his approval to faulty work and by the judgment which he expresses to force approval on the audience.

The teacher should therefore be as distinguished for his eloquence as for his good character, and like Phoenix in the Iliad be able to teach his pupil both how to behave and how to speak.