Scaife ATLAS

CTS Library / Institutio Oratoria

Institutio Oratoria (1.3.2-1.3.4)

urn:cts:latinLit:phi1002.phi001.perseus-eng2:1.3.2-1.3.4
Refs {'start': {'reference': '1.3.2', 'human_reference': 'Book 1 Chapter 3 Section 2'}, 'end': {'reference': '1.3.4', 'human_reference': 'Book 1 Chapter 3 Section 4'}}
Ancestors [{'reference': '1'}, {'reference': '1.3'}]
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For I have no hope that a child will turn out well who loves imitation merely for the purpose of raising a laugh. He who is really gifted will also above all else be good. For the rest, I regard slowness of intellect as preferable to actual badness. But a good boy will be quite unlike the dullard and the sloth.

My ideal pupil will absorb instruction with ease and will even ask some questions; but he will follow rather than anticipate his teacher. Precocious intellects rarely produce sound fruit.

By the precocious I mean those who perform small tasks with ease and, thus emboldened, proceed to display all their little accomplishments

v1-3 p.57
without being asked: but their accomplishments are only of the most obvious kind: they string words together and trot them out boldly and undeterred by the slightest sense of modesty. Their actual achievement is small, but what they can do they perform with ease.

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