e. the writing of themes or
essays (proposita, communes loci), in which the pupil had "to find and
arrange his own facts,"[300] and then the declamatio, or exercise in
actual speaking on a given subject, which in Cicero's day was called
causa, and was later known as controversia.[301] Such practice must
have brought out much talent and ingenuity, like that of our own
debating societies at school and college. But there were two great
defects in it. First, as Professor Wilkins points out, the subjects
of declamation were too often out of all relation to real life, e.g.
taken from the Greek mythology; or if less barren than usual, were far
more commonplace and flat than those of our debating societies. To
harangue on the question whether the life of a lawyer or a soldier is
the best, is hardly so inspiring as to debate a question of the day
about Ireland or India, which educates in living fact as well as in
the rules of the orator's art. Secondly, the whole aim and object of
this "finishing" portion of a boy's education was a false one.
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