But so far as the study of language, of artistic diction, of
elocution, and intelligent reading could help a boy to prepare himself
for life, this education was good; more especially good as laying a
foundation for the acquirement of that art of oratory which, from old
Cato's time onwards, had been the chief end to be aimed at by all
intending to take part in public life. Cato indeed had well said to
his son, "Orator est, Marce fili, vir bonus dicendi peritus,"[290]
thus putting the ethical stamp of the man in the first place; and
his "rem tene, verba sequentur" is a valuable bit of advice for all
learners and teachers of literature. But more and more the end of all
education had come to be the art of oratory, and particularly the art
as exercised in the courts of law, where in Cicero's time neither
truth nor fact was supreme, and where the first thing required was
to be a clever speaker,--a vir bonus by all means if you were so
disposed. But to this we shall return directly.
In such schools, if he were not educated at home, the boy remained
till he was invested with the toga virilis, or pura.
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