[22]
Boys should begin by learning to decline nouns
and conjugate verbs: otherwise they will never be
able to understand the next subject of study. This
admonition would be superfluous but for the fact
that most teachers, misled by a desire to show rapid
progress, begin with what should really come at the
end: their passion for displaying their pupils' talents
[p. 75]
in connexion with the more imposing aspects of
their work serves but to delay progress and their
short cut to knowledge merely lengthens the
journey.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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