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178 nents, and perhaps his personal or political foes, were seated; and the best of suffrages is reluctant applause.

Messala then goes on to describe the modern system of oratorical training. "Our young men," he says, with palpable indignation, "are taken to the schools of professors, who call themselves rhetoricians, whereas a more fitting name for them would be 'impostors.' Such gentry as now educate our youth were, in better times than ours, silenced by the censors, and ordered, as Cicero tells us, 'to shut up their schools of impudence.' But no such wholesome discipline exists now, and our students are put in charge of oratorical mountebanks." He cannot decide whether the lecture-room itself, the company frequenting it, or the course of instruction employed, were the more prejudicial to the pupils, at least to such of them as have any true vocation for the art and mystery of eloquence. Boy-novices were set to declaim to boys, young men to young men. Ignorant speakers addressed hearers as ignorant as themselves. The very subjects on which they wrangled were useless. "They are of two kinds—persuasive or controversial. The former, supposed to be the easier, is usually assigned to the younger scholars; the latter is reserved for the more advanced. But for the real business of the bar, and for the objects of the advocate, both sorts are equally idle. No judge, deserving the name, would be persuaded, no opponent confuted, by these windy declamations. The topics chosen for exercise are alike remote from truth or even probability. 'Is it lawful to slay a tyrant? if not, what should be the punishment of the tyrannicide?' 'What rites and ceremonies are proper to be used during a raging pestilence?' 'If married women break their