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Book 2 - Chapter 6
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In composition, the pupil should have but moderate assistance, not too much or too little.
1. THERE has been also a diversity of practice among teachers in the following respect. Some of them, not confining themselves to giving directions as to the division of any subject which they assigned their pupils for declamation, developed it more fully by speaking on it themselves and amplified it not only with proofs but with appeals to the feelings. 2. Others, giving merely the first outlines, expatiated, after the declamations were composed, on whatever points each pupil had omitted and polished some passages with no less care than they would have used if they themselves had been rising to speak in public.
Both methods are beneficial, and, therefore, for my own part, I give no distinction to either of them above the other, but, if it should be necessary to follow only one of the two, it will be of greater service to point out the right way at first than to recall those who have gone astray from their errors; 3. first, because to the subsequent emendation they merely listen, but the preliminary division they carry to their meditation and their composition; and, secondly, because they more willingly attend to one who gives directions than to one who finds faults. Whatever pupils, too, are of a high spirit are apt, especially in the present state of manners, to be angry at admonition and offer silent resistance to it. 4. Not that faults are therefore to be less openly corrected, for regard is to be had to the other pupils, who will think that whatever the master has not amended is right. But both methods should be united and used as occasion may require. 5. To beginners should be given matter designed, as it were, beforehand in proportion to the abilities of each. But when they shall appear to have formed themselves sufficiently on their model, a few brief directions may be given them, following which, they may advance by their own strength without any support. 6. It is proper that they should sometimes be left to themselves, lest, from the bad habit of being always led by the efforts of others, they should lose all capacity of attempting and producing anything for themselves. But when they seem to judge pretty accurately of what ought to be said, the labor of the teacher is almost at an end, though should they still commit errors, they must be again put under a guide. 7. Something of this kind we see birds practice, which divide food collected in their beaks among their tender and helpless young ones, but when they seem sufficiently grown, teach them, by degrees, to venture out of the nest and flutter round their place of abode, themselves leading the way, and at last leave their strength, when properly tried, to the open sky and their own self-confidence.
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