[45]
Give me a reliable memory and
plenty of time, and I should prefer not to permit
a single syllable to escape me: otherwise writing
would be superfluous. It is specially important to
train the young to such precision, and the memory
should be continually practised to this end, that we
may never learn to become indulgent to its failure.
For this reason I regard it as a mistake to permit the
student to be prompted or to consult his manuscript,
since such practices merely encourage carelessness,
and no one will ever realise that he has not got his
theme by heart, if he has no fear of forgetting it.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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