For it will be necessary, above all things, to take care lest the child should conceive a dislike to the application which he cannot yet love, and continue to dread the bitterness which he has once tasted, even beyond the years of infancy

I prefer that a boy should begin with the Greek language, because he will acquire the Latin in general use, even though we tried to prevent him, and because, at the same time, he ought first to be instructed in Greek learning, from which ours is derived

If, however, it should not be the good fortune of children to have such nurses as I should wish, let them at least have one attentive paedagogus, not unskilled in language, who, if anything is spoken incorrectly by the nurse in the presence of his pupil, may at once correct it and not let it settle in his mind. But let it be understood that what I prescribed at first is the right course, and this only a remedy

33

I AM aware that it is also a question whether nature or learning contributes most to oratory. This inquiry, however, has no concern with the subject of my work, for a perfect orator can be formed only with the aid of bot

would exercise the pupils under his care in the reading of history and even still more in that of speeches,

while the teachers of philosophy impart all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself. Then, when they have made them familiar and thoroughly conversant with these lessons, they set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them