Institutio Oratoria

It is generally and not unreasonably regarded as the sign of a good teacher that he should be able to differentiate between the abilities of his respective pupils and to know their natural bent. The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.

This is clear from a consideration of the orators themselves, who differ in style to such an extent that no one is like another, in spite of the fact that numbers have modelled their style on that of their favorite authors.

Many again think it useful to direct their instruction to the fostering of natural advantages and to guide the talents of their pupils along the lines which they instinctively tend to follow. Just as an expert gymnast, when he enters a gymnasium full of boys, after testing body and mind in every way, is able to decide for what class of athletic contest they should be trained, even so, they say,

a teacher of oratory after careful observation of a boy's stylistic preferences, be they for terseness and polish, energy, dignity, charm, roughness, brilliance or wit, will so adapt his instructions to individual needs that each pupil will be pushed forward in the sphere for which his talents seem specially to design him;

for nature, when cultivated, goes from strength to strength, while he who runs counter to her bent is ineffective in those branches of the art for which he is less suited and weakens the talents which he seemed born to employ.

Now, since the critic who is guided by his reason is free to dissent even from

and no one would ever convince me that it is not desirable to differentiate courses of study with this in view. One boy will be better adapted for the study of history, another for poetry, another for law, while some perhaps had better be packed off to the country. The teacher of rhetoric will distinguish such special aptitudes, just as our gymnast will turn one pupil into a runner, another into a boxer or wrestler or an expert at some other of the athletic accomplishments for which prizes are awarded at the sacred games.

But on the other hand, he who is destined for the bar must study not one department merely, but must perfect himself in all the accomplishments which his profession demands, even though some of them may seem too hard for him when he approaches them as a learner. For if natural talent alone were sufficient, education might be dispensed with.

Suppose we are given a pupil who, like so many, is of depraved tastes and swollen with his own conceit; shall we suffer him to go his own sweet way? If a boy's disposition is naturally dry and jejune, ought we not to feed it up or at any rate clothe it in fairer apparel? For, if in some cases it is necessary to remove certain qualities, surely there are others where we may be permitted to add what is lacking.

Not that I would set myself against the will of nature. No innate good quality should be neglected, but defects must be made good and weaknesses made strong.

When Isocrates, the prince of instructors, whose works proclaim his eloquence no less than his pupils testify to his excellence as a

In the case of weaker understandings however some concession must be made and they should be directed merely to follow the call of their nature, since thus they will be more effective in doing the only thing that lies in their power. But if we are fortunate enough to meet with richer material, such as justifies us in the hope of producing a real orator, we must leave no oratorical virtue uncared for.

For though he will necessarily have a natural bent for some special department of oratory, he will not feel repelled by the others, and by sheer application will develop his other qualities until they equal those in which he naturally excels. The skilled gymnast will once again provide us with a parallel: if he undertakes to train a pancratiast, [*]( The pancration was a mixture of wrestling and boxing. ) he will not merely teach him how to use his fists or his heels, nor will he restrict his instructions to the holds in wrestling, giving special attention to certain tricks of this kind, but will train him in every department of the science. Some will no doubt be incapable of attaining proficiency in certain exercises; these must specialise on those which lie within their powers.

For there are two things which he must be most careful to avoid: first, he must not attempt the impossible, secondly he must not switch off his pupil from what he can do well to exercises for which he is less well suited. But if his pupil is like the famous

And how much more important is the employment of such methods where our future orator is concerned! It is not enough to be able to speak with terseness, subtlety or vehemence, any more than it would be for a singing master to excel in the upper, middle or lower register only, or in particular sections of these registers alone. Eloquence is like a harp and will never reach perfection, unless all its strings be taut and in tune.

Though I have spoken in some detail of the duties of the teacher, I shall for the moment confine my advice to the learners to one solitary admonition, that they should love their masters not less than their studies, and should regard them as the parents not indeed of their bodies but of their minds.

Such attachments are of invaluable assistance to study. For under their influence they find it a pleasure to listen to their teachers, believe what they say and long to be like them, come cheerfully and gladly to school, are not angry when corrected, rejoice when praised, and seek to win their master's affection by the devotion with which they pursue their studies.

For as it is the duty of the master to teach, so it is the duty of the pupil to show himself teachable. The two obligations are mutually indispensable. And just as it takes two parents to produce a human being, and as the seed is scattered in vain, if the ground is hard and there is no furrow to receive it and bring it to growth, even so eloquence can never come to

These elementary stages are in themselves no small undertaking, but they are merely members and portions of the greater whole; when therefore the pupil has been thoroughly instructed and exercised in these departments, the time will as a rule have come for him to attempt deliberative and forensic themes. But before I begin to discuss these, I must say a few words on the theory of declamation, which is at once the most recent and most useful of rhetorical exercises.

For it includes practically all the exercises of which we have been speaking and is in close touch with reality. As a result it has acquired such a vogue that many think that it is the sole training necessary to the formation of an orator, since there is no excellence in a formal speech which is not also to be found in this type of rhetorical exercise.