secrets of my profession. The teachers, who must gibber with lunatics,
are by no means to blame for these exercises. Unless they spoke in
accordance with the dictates of their young pupils, they would, as Cicero
remarks, be left alone in the schools! And, as designing parasites, when
they seek invitations to the tables of the rich, have in mind nothing
except what will, in their opinion, be most acceptable to their audience
--for in no other way can they secure their ends, save by setting snares
for the ears--so it is with the teachers of rhetoric, they might be
compared with the fisherman, who, unless he baits his hook with what he
knows is most appetizing to the little fish, may wait all day upon some
rock, without the hope of a catch."




CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

What, then, is there to do? The parents who are unwilling to permit
their children to undergo a course of training under strict discipline,
are the ones who deserve the reproof. In the first place, everything
they possess, including the children, is devoted to ambition. Then, that
their wishes may the more quickly be realized, they drive these unripe
scholars into the forum, and the profession of eloquence, than which none
is considered nobler, devolves upon boys who are still in the act of
being born! If, however, they would permit a graded course of study to
be prescribed, in order that studious boys might ripen their minds by
diligent reading; balance their judgment by precepts of wisdom, correct
their compositions with an unsparing pen, hear at length what they ought
to imitate, and be convinced that nothing can be sublime when it is
designed to catch the fancy of boys, then the grand style of oratory