Grammar was studied first, and was intended to develop correctness in the use of speech. With its careful study of words, phonetic changes, drill on inflections, and practice in composing and paragraphing, this made a strong appeal to the practical Roman and became a favorite study. Literature followed, and was intended to develop an appreciation for literary style, elevate thought, expand one's knowledge, and, by memorization and repetition, to train the powers of expression. The method practiced was much as follows: The selection was carefully read first by the teacher, and then by the pupils. [18] After the reading the selection was gone over again and the historical, geographical, and mythological allusions were carefully explained by the teacher. [19] The text was next critically examined, to point out where and how it might be improved and its expressions strengthened, and much paraphrasing of it was engaged in. Finally the study of the selection was rounded out by a judgment—that is, a critical estimate of the work, a characterization of the author's style, and a resume of his chief merits and defects. The foundations were here laid for Grammar and Rhetoric as the great studies of the Middle Ages.
Homer and Menander were the favorite authors in Greek, and Vergil, Horace, Sallust, and Livy in Latin, with much use of Aesop's Fables for work in composition. The pupils made their own books from dictation, though in later years educated slave labor became so cheap that the copying and sale of books was organized into a business at Rome, and it was possible for the children of wealthy parents to own their own books. Grammar, composition, elocution, ethics, history, mythology, and geography were all comprehended in the instruction in grammar and literature in the secondary schools. A little music was added at times, to help the pupil intone his reading and declamation. A little geometry and astronomy were also included, for their practical applications. The athletic exercises of the Greeks were rejected, as contributing to immorality and being a waste of time and strength. In a sense these schools were finishing schools for Roman youths who went to any school at all, much as are our high schools of to-day for the great bulk of American children. The schools were better housed than those of the ludi, and the masters were of a better quality and received larger fees. Like the elementary schools, the State exercised no supervision or control over these schools or the teachers or pupils in them.
THE SCHOOLS OF RHETORIC. Up to this point the schools established had been for practical and useful information (the primary schools) or cultural (the grammar or secondary schools). On top of these a higher and professional type of school was next developed, to train youths in rhetoric and oratory, preparatory to the great professions of law and public life at Rome. [20] These schools were direct descendants of the Greek rhetorical schools, which evolved from the schools of the Sophists. Suetonius [21] tells us that:
Rhetoric, also, as well as grammar, was not introduced amongst us till a late period, and with still more difficulty, inasmuch as we find that, at times, the practice of it was even prohibited. [22] … However, by slow degrees, rhetoric manifested itself to be a useful and honorable study, and many persons devoted themselves to it both as a means of defense and of acquiring a reputation. In consequence, public favor was so much attracted to the study of rhetoric that a vast number of professional and learned men devoted themselves to it; and it flourished to such a degree that some of them raised themselves by it to the rank of senators and to the highest offices.
These schools, the teachers of which were known as rhetors, furnished a type of education representing a sort of collegiate education for the period. They were oratorical in purpose, because the orator had become the Roman ideal of a well-educated man (R. 24). During the life of the Republic the orator found many opportunities for the constructive use of his ability, and all young men ambitious to enter law or politics found the training of these schools a necessary prerequisite. They were attended for two or three years by boys over sixteen, but only the wealthier and more aristocratic families could afford to send their boys to them.
In addition to oratorical and some legal training, these schools included a further linguistic and literary training, some mathematical and scientific knowledge, and even some philosophy. The famous "Seven Liberal Arts" of the Middle Ages—Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic; Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy—all seem to have been included in the instruction of these schools. [23] The great studies, though, were the first three and some Law, Music being studied largely to help with gestures and to train the voice, Geometry to aid in settling lawsuits relating to land, Dialectic (logic) to aid in detecting fallacies, and Astronomy to understand the movements of the heavenly bodies and the references of literary writers. [24] There was much work in debate and in the declamation of ethical and political material the fine distinctions in Roman Law and Ethics were brought out, [25] and there was much drill in preparing and delivering speeches and much attention given to the factors involved in the preparation and delivery of a successful oration (R. 25).
[Illustration: FIG. 24. A ROMAN SCHOOL OF RHETORIC. This picture, which has been drawn from a description, shows a much better type of school than that of the ludi.]
These schools became very popular as institutions of higher learning, and continued so even after the later Emperors, by seizing the power of the State, had taken away the inspiration that comes from a love of freedom and had thus deprived the rhetorical art of practical value. The work of the schools then became highly stilted and artificial in character, and oratory then came to be cultivated largely as a fine art. [26] Men educated in these schools came to boast that they could speak with equal effectiveness on either side of any question, and the art came to depend on the use of many and big words and on the manners of the stage. Such ideals naturally destroyed the value of these schools, and stopped intellectual progress so far as they contributed to it.
Much was done by the later Emperors to encourage these schools, and they too came to exist in almost every provincial city in the Empire. Often they were supported by the cities in which they were located. The Emperor Vespasian, about 75 A.D. began the practice of paying, from the Imperial Treasury, the salaries of grammarians and rhetoricians [27] at Rome. Antoninus Pius, who ruled as Emperor from 138 to 161 A.D., extended payment to the provinces, gave to these teachers the privileges of the senatorial class, and a certain number in each city were exempted from payment of taxes, support of soldiers, and obligations to military service. Other Emperors extended these special privileges (R. 26) which became the basis for the special rights afterwards granted to the Christian clergy (R. 38) and, still later, to teachers in the universities (Rs. 101-04).
UNIVERSITY LEARNING. Roman youths desiring still further training could now journey to the eastward and attend the Greek universities (see Figure 14). A few did so, much as American students in the middle of the nineteenth century went to Germany for higher study. Athens and Rhodes were most favored. Brutus, Horace, and Cicero, among others, studied at Athens; Caesar, Cicero, and Cassius at Rhodes. Later Alexandria was in favor. In a library founded in the Temple of Peace by Vespasian (ruled 69 to 79 A.D.) the University at Rome had its origin, and in time this developed into an institution with professors in law, medicine, architecture, mathematics and mechanics, and grammar and rhetoric in both the Latin and Greek languages. In this many youths from provincial cities came to study. The lines of instruction represented nothing, however, in the way of scientific investigation or creative thought; the instruction was formal and dogmatic, being largely a further elaboration of what had previously been well done by the Greeks.