d reducing them to
practice, is properly the virtue of scholars, as that of masters is to
teach well. The one can do nothing without the other; and as it is not
sufficient for a labourer to sow the seed, unless the earth, after
having opened its bosom to receive it, in a manner hatches, warms, and
moistens it; so likewise the whole fruit of instruction depends upon a
good correspondence between the masters and the scholars.

Gratitude for those who have laboured in our education, is the character
of an honest man, and the mark of a good heart. Who is there among us,
says Cicero, that has been instructed with any care, that is not highly
delighted with the sight, or even the bare remembrance of his
preceptors, masters, and the place where he was taught and brought up?
Seneca exhorts young men to preserve always a great respect for their
masters, to whose care they are indebted for the amendment of their
faults, and for having imbibed sentiments of honour and probity. Their
exactness and severity displease sometimes, at an age when we are not in
a condition to judge of the obligations we owe to them; but when years
have ripened our understanding and judgment, we then discern that what
made us dislike them, I mean admonitions, reprimands, and a severe
exactness in restraining the passions of an imprudent and inconsiderate
age, is expressly the very thing which should make us esteem and love
them. Thus we see that Marcus Aurelius, one of the wisest and most
illustrious emperors that Rome ever had, thanked the gods for two things
especially--for his having had excellent tutors himself, and that he had
found the like for his children.

Quintillian, after having noted the different characters of the mind in
children, draws, in a few words, the image of what he judged to be a
perfect scholar; and certainly it is a very amiable one: "For my part,"
says he, "I like a child who is encouraged by commendation, is animated
by a sense of glory, and weeps when he is outdone. A noble emulation
will always keep him in exercise, a reprimand will touch him to the
quick, and honour will serve instead of a spur. We need not fear that
such a scholar will ever give himself up to sullenness." _Mihi ille
detur puer, quem laus excitet, quem gloria juvet, qui virtus fleut. Hic
erit alendus ambitu: hunc mordebit objurgetio; hunc honor excitabit; in
hoc desidium nunquam verebor._

How great a value soever Quintillian sets upon the talents of the m