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Book 2 - Chapter 9
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Pupils should regard their tutors as intellectual parents.
1. HAVING spoken thus fully concerning the duties of teachers, I give pupils, for the present, only this one admonition: that they are to love their tutors not less than their studies and to regard them as parents, not indeed of their bodies, but of their minds. 2. Such affection contributes greatly to improvement, for pupils under its influence will not only listen with pleasure, but will believe what is taught them and will desire to resemble their instructors. They will come together in assembling for school, with pleasure and cheerfulness; they will not be angry when corrected and will be delighted when praised; and they will strive, by their devotion to study, to become as dear as possible to the master. 3. For as it is the duty of preceptors to teach, so it is that of pupils to show themselves teachable; neither of these duties, else, will be of avail without the other. And as the generation of man is effected by both parents, and as you will in vain scatter seed unless the furrowed ground, previously softened, cherish it so, neither can eloquence come to its growth unless by mutual agreement between him who communicates and him who receives.
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