Considerations on public and private education; public education to be preferred; alleged corruption of morals in public schools; equal corruption at home, § 1-8. Reply to the objection that a pupil receives less attention from a master in a school than from a domestic tutor, 9-16. Emulation, friendship, incitements to masters and pupils, and other advantages of public education, 17-31. 1. BUT let us suppose that the child now gradually increases in size, leaves the lap, and applies himself to learning in earnest. In this place, accordingly, must be considered the question whether it is more advantageous to confine the learner at home and within the walls of a private house, or to commit him to the large numbers of a school and, as it were, to public teachers. 2. The latter mode, I observe, has had the sanction of those by whom the polity of the most eminent states was settled, as well as that of the most illustrious authors. Yet it is not to be concealed that there are some, who from certain notions of their own, disapprove of this almost public mode of instruction. These persons appear to be swayed chiefly by two reasons: one, that they take better precautions for the morals of the young by avoiding a concourse of human beings of that age which is most prone to vice (from which cause I wish it were falsely asserted that provocations to immoral conduct arise); the other, that whoever may be the teacher, he is likely to bestow his time more liberally on one pupil than if he has to divide it among several. 3. The first reason indeed deserves great consideration, for if it were certain that schools, though advantageous to studies, are pernicious to morals, a virtuous course of life would seem to me preferable to one even of the most distinguished eloquence. But in my opinion, the two are combined and inseparable; I am convinced that no one can be an orator who is not a good man, and even if anyone could, I should be unwilling that he should be. On this point, therefore, I shall speak first. 4. People think that morals are corrupted in schools; indeed they are at times corrupted, but such may be the case even at home. Many proofs of this fact may be adduced; proofs of character having been vitiated, as well as preserved, with the utmost purity under both modes of education. It is the disposition of the individual pupil, and the care taken of him, that make the whole difference. Suppose that his mind be prone to vice, suppose that there be neglect in forming and guarding his morals in early youth. Seclusion would afford no less opportunity for immorality than publicity, for the private tutor may be himself of bad character, nor is intercourse with vicious slaves at all safer than that with immodest free-born youths. 5. But if his disposition is good, and if there is not a blind and indolent negligence on the part of his parents, it will be possible for them to select a tutor of irreproachable character (a matter to which the utmost attention is paid by sensible parents) and to fix on a course of instruction of the very strictest kind. They may at the same time place at the elbow of their son some influential friend or faithful freedman whose constant attendance may improve even those of whom apprehensions may be entertained. 6. The remedy for this object of fear is easy. Would that we ourselves did not corrupt the morals of our children! We enervate their very infancy with luxuries. That delicacy of education which we call fondness weakens all the powers, both of body and mind. What luxury will he not covet in his manhood who crawls about on purple! He cannot yet articulate his first words, but he already distinguishes scarlet and wants his purple. 7. We form the palate of children before we form their pronunciation. They grow up in sedan chairs; if they touch the ground, they hang by the hands of attendants supporting them on each side. We are delighted if they utter anything immodest. We hear from them with a smile and a kiss expressions which would not be tolerated even from the effeminate youths of Alexandria. Nor is this wonderful. We have taught them; they have heard such language from ourselves. 8. They see our mistresses, our male objects of affection; every dining room rings with impure songs; things shameful to be told are objects of sight. From such practices springs habit, and afterwards nature. The unfortunate children learn these vices before they know that they are vices. Hence, rendered effeminate and luxurious, they do not imbibe immorality from schools, but carry it themselves into schools. 9. But, it is said, one tutor will have more time for one pupil. First of all, however, nothing prevents that one pupil, whoever he may be, from being the same with him who is taught in the school. But if the two objects cannot be united, I should still prefer the daylight of an honorable seminary to darkness and solitude, for every eminent teacher delights in a large concourse of pupils and thinks himself worthy of a still more numerous auditory. 10. But inferior teachers, from a consciousness of their inability, do not disdain to fasten on single pupils and to discharge the duty, as it were, of paedagogi. 11. But supposing that either interest, or friendship, or money, should secure to any parent a domestic tutor of the highest learning, and in every respect unrivalled, will he, however, spend the whole day on one pupil? Or can the application of any pupil be so constant as not to be sometimes wearied, like the sight of the eyes, by continued direction to one object, especially as study requires the far greater portion of time to be solitary. 12. For the tutor does not stand by the pupil while he is writing, or learning by heart, or thinking; and when he is engaged in any of those exercises, the company of any person whatsoever is a hindrance to him. Nor does every kind of reading require at all times a praelector or interpreter, for if such were the case, when would the knowledge of so many authors be gained? Therefore, the time during which the work, as it were, may be laid out for the whole day is but short. 13. Thus the instructions which are to be given to each may reach to many. Most of them, indeed, are of such a nature that they may be communicated to all at once with the same exertion of the voice. I say nothing of the topics and declamations of rhetoricians, at which, certainly, whatever be the number of the audience, each will still carry off the whole. 14. For the voice of the teacher is not like a meal, which will not suffice for more than a certain number, but like the sun, which diffuses the same portion of light and heat to all. If a grammarian, too, discourses on the art of speaking, solves questions, explains matters of history, or illustrates poems, as many as shall hear him will profit by his instructions. 15. But, it may be said, number is an obstacle to correction and explanation. Suppose that this is a disadvantage in a number (for what in general satisfies us in every respect?); we will soon compare that disadvantage with other advantages. Yet I would not wish a boy to be sent to a place where he will be neglected. Nor should a good master encumber himself with a greater number of scholars than he can manage. It is to be a chief object with us, also, that the master may be in every way our kind friend and may have regard in his teaching, not so much to duty, as to affection. Thus we shall never be confounded with the multitude. 16. Nor will any master, who is in the slightest degree tinctured with literature, fail particularly to cherish that pupil in whom he shall observe application and genius, even for his own honor. But even if great schools ought to be avoided (a position to which I cannot assent, if numbers flock to a master on account of his merit), the rule is not to be carried so far that schools should be avoided altogether. It is one thing to shun schools, and another to choose from them. 17. If I have now refuted the objections which are made to schools, let me next state what opinions I myself entertain. 18. First of all, let him who is to be an orator and who must live amidst the greatest publicity and in the full daylight of public affairs, accustom himself, from his boyhood, not to be abashed at the sight of men, nor pine in a solitary and, as it were, recluse way of life. The mind requires to be constantly excited and roused, while in such retirement it either languishes and contracts rust, as it were, in the shade, or, on the other hand, becomes swollen with empty conceit, since he who compares himself to no one else will necessarily attribute too much to his own powers. 19. Besides, when his acquirements are to be displayed in public, he is blinded at the light of the sun and stumbles at every new object, as having learned in solitude that which is to be done in public. 20. I say nothing of friendships formed at school, which remain in full force even to old age, as if cemented with a certain religious obligation, for to have been initiated in the same studies is a not less sacred bond than to have been initiated in the same sacred rites. That sense, too, which is called common sense, where shall a young man learn when he has separated himself from society, which is natural not to men only, but even to dumb animals? 21. Add to this, that at home, he can learn only what is taught himself; at school, even what is taught others. 22. He will daily hear many things commended, many things corrected. The idleness of a fellow student, when reproved, will be a warning to him; the industry of anyone, when commended, will be a stimulus. Emulation will be excited by praise, and he will think it a disgrace to yield to his equals in age and an honor to surpass his seniors. All these matters excite the mind, and though ambition itself is a vice, it is often the parent of virtues. 23. I remember a practice that was observed by my masters, not without advantage. Having divided the boys into classes, they assigned them their order in speaking in conformity to the abilities of each, and thus each stood in the higher place to declaim according as he appeared to excel in proficiency. 24. Judgments were pronounced on the performances, and great was the strife among us for distinction, but to take the lead of the class was by far the greatest honor. Nor was sentence given on our merits only once; the 30th day brought the vanquished an opportunity of contending again. Thus, he who was most successful did not relax his efforts, while uneasiness incited the unsuccessful to retrieve his honor. 25. I should be inclined to maintain, as far as I can form a judgment from what I conceive in my own mind, that this method furnished stronger incitements to the study of eloquence than the exhortations of preceptors, the watchfulness of paedagogi, or the wishes of parents. 26. But as emulation is of use to those who have made some advancement in learning, so, to those who are but beginning and are still of tender age, to imitate their schoolfellows is more pleasant than to imitate their master, for the very reason that it is easier. They who are learning the first rudiments will scarcely dare to exalt themselves to the hope of attaining that eloquence which they regard as the highest; they will rather fix on what is nearest to them, as vines attached to trees gain the top by taking hold of the lower branches first. 27. This is an observation of such truth that it is the care even of the master himself, when he has to instruct minds that are still unformed, not (if he prefer at least the useful to the showy) to overburden the weakness of his scholars, but to moderate his strength and to let himself down to the capacity of the learner. 28. For as narrow-necked vessels reject a great quantity of the liquid that is poured upon them, but are filled by that which flows or is poured into them by degrees, so it is for us to ascertain how much the minds of boys can receive, since what is too much for their grasp of intellect will not enter their minds, as not being sufficiently expanded to admit it. 29. It is of advantage, therefore, for a boy to have schoolfellows whom he may first imitate and afterwards try to surpass. Thus will he gradually conceive hope of higher excellence. To these observations I shall add that masters themselves, when they have but one pupil at a time with them, cannot feel the same degree of energy and spirit in addressing him as when they are excited by a large number of hearers. 30. Eloquence depends in a great degree on the state of the mind, which must conceive images of objects and transform itself, so to speak, to the nature of the things of which we discourse. Besides, the more noble and lofty a mind is, by the more powerful springs, as it were, is it moved. Accordingly, it is both strengthened by praise and enlarged by effort, and filled with joy at achieving something great. 31. But a certain secret disdain is felt at lowering the power of eloquence, acquired by so much labor, to one auditor, and the teacher is ashamed to raise his style above the level of ordinary conversation. Let anyone imagine, indeed, the air of a man haranguing, or the voice of one entreating, the gesture, the pronunciation, the agitation of mind and body, the exertion, and, to mention nothing else, the fatigue, while he has but one auditor. Would not he seem to be affected with something like madness? There would be no eloquence in the world if we were to speak only with one person at a time.
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