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Book 2 - Chapter 7
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Pupils should not always declaim their own compositions, but sometimes passages from eminent writers.
1. ONE change, I think, should certainly be made in what is customary with regard to the age of which we are speaking. Pupils should not be obliged to learn by heart what they have composed and to repeat it, as is usual, on a certain day, a task which it is fathers that principally exact, thinking that their children then only study when they repeat frequent declamations, whereas proficiency depends chiefly on the diligent cultivation of style. 2. For though I would wish boys to compose and to spend much time in that employment, yet, as to learning by heart, I would rather recommend for that purpose select passages from orations or histories, or any other sort of writings deserving of such attention. 3. The memory will thus be more efficiently exercised in mastering what is another's than what is their own; and those who shall have been practiced in this more difficult kind of labor will fix in their minds, without trouble, what they themselves have composed, as being more familiar to them; they will also accustom themselves to the best compositions, and they will always have in their memory something which they may imitate and will, even without being aware, reproduce that fashion of style which they have deeply impressed upon their minds. 4. They will have at command, moreover, an abundance of the best words, phrases, and figures, not sought for the occasion, but offering themselves spontaneously, as it were, from a store treasured within them. To this is added the power of quoting the happy expressions of any author,which is agreeable in common conversation and useful in pleading, for phrases which are not coined for the sake of the cause in hand have the greater weight and often gain us more applause than if they were our own.
5. Yet pupils should sometimes be permitted to recite what they themselves have written that they may reap the full reward of their labor from that kind of applause which is most desired. This permission will most properly be granted when they have produced something more polished than ordinary, that they may thus be presented with some return for their study and rejoice that they have deserved to recite their composition.
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