Institutio Oratoria

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.