§ 1. They have called grammar the foundation of all the arts. But it has been the foundation ever since, when an attempt was made to raise a tower to heaven, God confounded the languages of men at Babylon. They were undertaking that immense structure for no use but out of proud vanity, in order to cause wonder in posterity. We pay the penalty of that ambition even today, so that we spend our tender years upon letters and syllables; for many years we learn the signs of things and almost grow old before we know how to speak.
Happy was that offspring of men which did not twist the tongue into foreign words, which without labor drank its mother tongue with its milk. Now the intricacies and variations of conjugations and declensions, and three or four languages, detain us in a care that is most disagreeable but necessary. Yet because this yoke has been imposed upon us all, we must strive to bear it gently and render it lighter by prudence.
§ 2. First one must begin with little things, because, since all things cannot be grasped at once, everything must be instilled piecemeal into tender minds. A weak hand cannot break that bundle when it is bound together; the individual twigs must therefore be broken up. Accordingly, few and varied things are to be proposed to the earliest age. Let there be a class in which the rudiments and certain beginnings—or certain general precepts of syntax and of composing discourse—are transmitted.
The order of our Society provides that in the lowest class the master transmit a perfect knowledge of the rudiments and a begun knowledge of syntax. These things are taught for five hours each day. For I intend to show this because it will apply to many other things, especially since I observe that in this manner young boys and almost children complete an encyclopedic course in the more humane letters.
Two hours before noon and the same number after dinner are spent in exercises. The books are the Rudiments, Cicero, a Greek reading, the catechism, and the introduction to syntax. This variety is arranged into its own periods as follows.
In the first hour the assigned portions of the readings, which ought to have been committed to memory at home, are demanded and recited. For the master’s labor brings no benefit unless the memory of the young men is cultivated by perpetual exercise. The more improvident youth flees this labor of learning, the more must a faithful master strive not to permit the vigorous little memories of the boys to be covered with mold and squalor.
Cicero’s easier letters are learned by heart so that they may draw the Latin language from the source itself and become accustomed amid their beginnings to Ciceronian rhythms.
In the same hour, the theme that was given in the vernacular on the preceding day is offered to the master and corrected—if not that of everyone, at least of most—both publicly and privately, so that in another’s writing they may recognize their own errors or κατορθώματα (successful usages).
The usefulness of this exercise is so great that it can almost by itself make learned men. For, made acute in the errors of others by mutual rivalry, they more easily avoid their own, especially when they see that everything is conducted publicly and in the light.
The second hour contains the exposition of Cicero, after the preceding day’s reading has been repeated. No more than four lines are expounded, lest they be confused by a multitude of material. First, either the master reads them or causes them to be read, so that by this practice they may learn the perfect pronunciation of words and the quantity of syllables. Next, the subject is explained in the vernacular. Second, the text is translated period by period and word for word. Third, returning to the beginning, the master is to indicate the structure; unweaving the period, he is to show what words govern what cases, weigh most things for explaining the laws of grammar, bring forward one or another observation concerning the Latin language—but one as easy as possible—demonstrate metaphors by examples of the best-known things, and dictate nothing except perhaps the subject.
The subject for a composition is to be dictated in the common speech, word for word, clear, and generally no longer than four lines, and it is chiefly to be related to the grammatical precept. The pupils are sometimes to be ordered to append to it a brief rendering or expression from Cicero, in accordance with the prescription of syntax, or those very things that must be learned from the Greek rudiments, or another thing of this kind.
In the final half-hour, some part of the declensions or other exercises is explained, or they contend in disputation, for which all ought to be prepared.
§ 3. The first fruit, therefore, is the exercise of memory and the polishing of the language; the other is the correction of the theme, which weighs everything according to the precepts of grammar. If anything has been committed against any rule, if there is an error of spelling or punctuation, the file removes it all.
Cicero, when already celebrated at Rome and numbered among the foremost orators, judged this to be of such importance that he journeyed to Greece and Asia and attached himself especially to Molon, concerning whom he glories in the Brutus: “Dionysius of Magnesia was with me most assiduously; there was also Aeschylus of Cnidus and Xenocles of Adramyttium. These were then numbered among the chief rhetoricians of Asia. Not content with them, I came to Rhodes and attached myself to the same Molon whom I had heard at Rome, both a distinguished pleader in real causes and a writer, and the most prudent in noting and observing faults and in instituting and teaching. He took pains—if only he was able to attain it—to restrain us, excessively redundant and overflowing through a certain youthful impunity and license of speaking, and, as it were, to confine us when flowing beyond the banks. Thus I returned two years later not only more practiced but almost changed. For both the excessive exertion of my voice had subsided and my speech had, as it were, cooled; strength had come to my sides and a moderate habit to my body.”
I warn of this because the labor of correcting the work of others is most tedious and often saddens the man upon whom this benefit is bestowed. It is therefore neglected with immense loss by masters who are under their own authority and teach under their own auspices and judgment. Nothing is more pitiable than noble young men who, through want of an admonisher, retain for their whole life certain troublesome habits and ineptitudes of words, gestures, and manners which a teacher could have removed with one word.
Great advantage is also brought by hearing a Latin reading in the vernacular, by its repetition and the writing of the theme, and by the exercise of the rules of grammar.
§ 4. This diversity is not burdensome to abilities. The gifted learn through play, the middling easily, and the slow with moderate labor the four lines
which they heard explained in school on the preceding day. The theme too is brief, and aids for composing it are provided from the readings.
In this ordering, teachers of boys long ago erred in two ways. Some, making no mention of Cicero, syntax, or any book, inculcate the rudiments, declensions, and genders; by constantly repeating disagreeable matters and showing no use for so great a labor, they oppress and torment abilities and—what is most serious—do so without benefit. They sometimes wear down the wretched pupils for three or four years and do not lead them to the point of learning to speak three words correctly. Hence, formerly, before the industry of the Society laid out the schools, Pallas was indignant that grown, bearded young men sweated in composing a little letter.
The other error was still more serious: they mixed with the childish rudiments weightier readings which the children could not grasp. Therefore, they could neither be examined nor instructed. There are those who teach the same pupils rudiments, syntax, poetics, rhetoric, and dialectic. I remember that in the second grammar class I had a pupil of good ability and advanced age who, although in composition he stumbled on every other line, recited most readily the definitions and precepts not only of poetics and rhetoric but even of logic. In wonder, I began to test whether he understood any of them; but he answered in such a way as to show that, when he defined genus or species, he did not even suspect what things he was speaking about.
§ 5. I have spoken of the hours before noon. After midday, the first exercise of the memory consists in reciting grammar, both Latin and Greek. The written exercises are then corrected; next, grammar is expounded and illustrated with examples.
In the second hour the introduction to syntax—that is, the general rules—is explained. A fourth part of the hour, however, is allotted to Greek. In the final half-hour a little army is set in motion and fights with its voice; by the privilege of its seating, the distinction of titles, the enticements of little prizes, and the fear of disgrace, it is inflamed with the desire for victory.
To many, the mention of the Greek language at the beginnings customarily appears untimely. But experience has taught that, if very few things are proposed, they are gradually instilled with little trouble; but after pupils have already made proper progress in the Latin language, they can be brought back to the Greek elements only with the greatest difficulty. I shall speak of the Greek language elsewhere.
A boy who is gifted, diligent, and already endowed with some judgment can easily complete this course in half a year. Yet because most are of a weak little age and incapable of great labor, and indulgence is also granted them at home so that they do not render their assigned work, almost a full year is spent.
§ 6. From here, therefore, the step is made to the middle grammar class, in which a knowledge of the whole of grammar but only an imperfect knowledge of syntax is required. For only the easier appendices are joined to the general rules which they learned in the preceding class. From Greek they learn nouns, contracted verbs, verbs in -μι, and the easier formations; also the Greek catechism or the Tablet of Cebes. The authors proposed are Cicero’s familiar letters and Ovid’s easiest poems from the Tristia and Letters from Pontus.
The manner of exposition and exercise of memory are the same as shown above, but nevertheless different in part. First, more things, and more difficult things, are expounded in Cicero, for they have already understood the easier matters before. Next, they are explained more learnedly; the construction of the discourse and the exercises of syntax are especially inculcated. Third, verbal elegances and more exquisite phrases are transmitted. Fourth, an easy poet is expounded, not so that they should already begin to compose verses but so that they may gradually become accustomed to understanding more difficult things and imbibe the rhythms, whose system they nevertheless do not yet grasp. From this arises another advantage also: namely, that they are not only captivated by the sweetness of rhythmical speech but also observe the transpositions of words which the necessity of verse makes very great.
Those masters therefore erred who formerly expounded a poet late, and not until the precepts of rhetoric. But others erred far more destructively who, through premature haste in teaching, explained the system of verse at these beginnings. For they wonderfully disturbed little abilities not only by the multitude of things but also by confusion. They have not yet learned to speak, and you order them to sing? Their greatest labor is to weave words and nouns suitably into discourse without barbarisms and solecisms. Therefore, they ought not yet to be taught to learn those things upon which the system of verse depends.
I judge those who make poets prematurely to do the same thing as foolish nurses who teach infants to dance when, still among hoops and supports, they scarcely walk with a tottering step. Let them first speak readily, abundantly, and without fear of erring; then let them knock at the doors of the Muses. A slow or lame dancer is a ridiculous thing, for without agility and urbanity that harmonious motion of bodies is a ridiculous ineptitude.
§ 7. There is a highest grammar class, in which the remaining things that belong to this art are explained perfectly: namely, all the more difficult precepts of syntax, figurative constructions, all the precepts of metrical art, and all the Greek rudiments.
That order is most correct: they learn the easiest laws of constructing discourse in the lowest class, the easy laws in the middle, and the difficult laws in the highest. What happens to architects who build steps thus also happens to them, for whenever they build the upper steps upon the structure, they rest upon the lower ones.
As regards readings, from the orators there can be expounded in the first semester all the weightiest letters of Cicero to his Friends, to Atticus, and to his brother Quintus; but in the second, the books On Friendship, On Old Age, the Paradoxes, and others of this kind. From the poets, in the first semester some selected and expurgated elegies and letters of Ovid; in the second, certain passages likewise selected and expurgated from Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Virgil’s Eclogues, or even Virgil’s easier books, such as the fourth of the Georgics and the fifth and seventh of the Aeneid. From the Greeks, Saint John Chrysostom, Aesop, Agapetus, and authors similar to them.
§ 8. The distribution of time and the other exercises possess an analogy with the things that have been said. Nevertheless, everything is to be expounded more learnedly, and the highest account is to be taken of elegance. Poetry must also be begun: first with verses given in prose order, which the novices are to restore; next, with certain words changed; finally, with a dictated theme which they themselves are to bind in feet by their own effort and clothe in rhythms.
If this order is observed constantly and suitably, it produces immense fruit by rapid labor. I have seen innumerable boys who, after being instructed by this method and entering the lowest class in the ninth year of age, spoke and wrote purely and in Latin when the twelfth year came round; they also composed easy verses and explained Latin authors.
And if an experiment is sought, our gymnasia exhibited hundreds of such pupils. It would be easy for me to prove this method of teaching from various authors. But I appeal to experience, the most certain witness of the things stated. Would that masters everywhere in the towns followed the same method, or that the magistrate labored so that they could. But frequently, because of the smallness of their stipends, they are drawn away elsewhere, since they are compelled to be pleaders of causes and scribes at the same time. Next, so great is the labor not only of teaching but of teaching by the water clock and changing at fixed turns that no one readily deigns to undertake this burden constantly except one who has devoted his life to God.