Post-Augustan Poetry | Page 8

almost entirely on poetry requires serious
consideration. The quality of the food supplied to the mind, though
pre-eminently palatable, must have tended to be somewhat thin. The
elaborate instruction in mythological erudition was devoid of religious
value; and indeed of any value, save the training of a purely mechanical
memory. Attention was called too much to the form, too little to the
substance. Style has its value, but it is after all only a secondary
consideration in education. The effect upon literature of this poetical
training was twofold. It caused an undue demand for poetical colour in
prose, and produced a horrible precocity and cacoethes scribendi[60] in
verse, together with an abnormal tendency to imitation of the great
writers of previous generations.[61]
But the rhetorical training which succeeded was responsible for far
worse evils. The importance of rhetoric in ancient education is easily
explained. The Greek or Roman gentleman was destined to play a part
in the public life of the city state. For this purpose the art of speaking
was of enormous value alike in politics and in the law courts. Hence the
universal predominance of rhetoric in higher education both in Rome
and Greece.[62] The main instrument of instruction was the writing of
themes for declamation. These exercises were divided into suasoriae--
deliberative speeches in which some course of action was discussed--
and controversiae--where some proposition was maintained or denied.
Pupils began with suasoriae_ and went on to _controversiae. Regarded
as a mental gymnastic, these themes may have possessed some value.
But they were hackneyed and absurdly remote from real life, as can be
judged from the examples collected by the elder Seneca. Typical

subjects of the suasoria are--'Agamemnon deliberates whether to slay
Iphigenia';[63] 'Cicero deliberates whether to burn his writings, Antony
having promised to spare him on that condition';[64] 'Three hundred
Spartans sent against Xerxes after the flight of troops sent from the rest
of Greece deliberate whether to stand or fly.'[65]
The controversia requires further explanation. A general law is stated,
e.g. incesta saxo deiciatur. A special case follows, e.g. incesti damnata
antequam deiceretur invocavit Vestam: deiecta vixit. The special case
had to be brought under the general rule; _repetitur ad poenam_.[66]
Other examples are equally absurd:[67] one and all are ridiculously
remote from real life. It was bad enough that boys' time should be
wasted thus, but the evil was further emphasized by the practice of
recitation. These exercises, duly corrected and elaborated, were often
recited by their youthful authors to an audience of complaisant friends
and relations. Of such training there could be but one possible result.
'Less and less attention was paid to the substance of the speech, more
and more to the language; justness and
appropriateness of thought
came to be less esteemed than brilliance and novelty of expression.'[68]
These formal defects of education were accompanied by a widespread
neglect of the true educational spirit. The development on healthy lines
of the morale, and intellect of the young became in too many instances
a matter of indifference. Throughout the great work of Quintilian we
have continued evidence of the lack of moral and intellectual
enthusiasm that characterized the schools of his day. Even more
passionate are the denunciations levelled against contemporary
education by Messala in the Dialogus of Tacitus.[69] Parents neglect
their children from their earliest years: they place them in the charge of
foreign slaves, often of the most degraded character; or if they do pay
any personal attention to their upbringing, it is to teach them not
honesty, purity, and respect for themselves and their elders, but
pertness, luxurious habits, and neglect alike of themselves and of others.
The schools moreover, apart from their faulty methods and ideals of
instruction, encourage other faults. The boys' interests lie not in their
work, but in the theatres, the gladiatorial games, the races in the
circus--those ancient equivalents of twentieth-century athleticism. Their

minds are utterly absorbed by these pursuits, and there is little room left
for nobler studies. 'How few boys will talk of anything else at home?
What topic of conversation is so frequent in the lecture-room; what
other subject so frequently on the lips of the masters, who collect pupils
not by the thoroughness of their teaching or by giving proof of their
powers of instruction, but by interested visits and all the tricks of
toadyism?'[70] Messala goes on[71] to denounce the unreality of the
exercises in the schools, whose deleterious effect is aggravated by the
low standard exacted. 'Boys and young men are the speakers, boys and
young men the audience, and their efforts are received with
undiscriminating praise.'
The same faults that were generated in the schools were intensified in
after-life. In the law courts the same smart epigrams, the same
meretricious style were required. No true method had been taught, with