Institutio Oratoria

The art of war will provide a parallel: it is no doubt based on certain general principles, but it will none the less be far more useful to know the methods employed, whether wisely or the reverse, by individual generals under varying circumstances and conditions of time and place. For there are no subjects in which, as a rule, practice is not more valuable than precept.

Is a teacher to declaim to provide a model for his audience, and will not more profit be derived from the reading of Cicero or Demosthenes? Is a pupil to be publicly corrected if he makes a mistake in declaiming, and will it not be more useful, and more agreeable too, to correct some actual speech? For everyone has a preference for hearing the faults of others censured rather than his own. I might say more on the subject.

But every one can see the advantages of this method. Would that the reluctance to put it into practice

This method once adopted, we are faced by the comparatively easy question as to what authors should be selected for our reading. Some have recommended authors of inferior merit on the ground that they were easier to understand. Others on the contrary would select the more florid school of writers on the ground that they are likely to provide the nourishment best suited to the minds of the young.

For my part I would have them read the best authors from the very beginning and never leave them, choosing those, however, who are simplest and most intelligible. For instance, when prescribing for boys, I should give Livy the preference over Sallust; for, although the latter is the greater historian, one requires to be well-advanced in one's studies to appreciate him properly.

Cicero, in my opinion, provides pleasant reading for beginners and is sufficiently easy to understand: it is possible not only to learn much from him, but to come to love him. After Cicero I should, following the advice of Livy, place such authors as most nearly resemble him.