Quintilian pretty much rocks. I like that he is not interested in making little Romans memorize things (Bk II, Chpt 7), I like that he recommends positive commentary rather then negative (Bk II, Chpt 6), and I like that he suggests composition can be fun (Bk II, Chpt 4)! While Q. is in love with Cicero, I found him much more clear, more succinct, more caring. What does all this add up to for the ancient rhetorics today?
For me, this was the first text that felt like it really paid attention to what and who students are, rather then to the ideal version of what a student could/should be. You mean students respond to praise? You mean that little boys didn't want to sit around all day memorizing things? You mean that we should hire people that are NICE to teach? What what? By the time we get back to the modern period we are putting students into boxes and telling them to not have ANY fun at all learning. Q. seems to be saying the opposite that most other educators of western civilization for most of time. Cool. Really cool.
Q. does talk about morality, and needing students and teachers to recognize morality: is this wrong? Sometimes we are so cough up in the relative moral stances of this time, and the media that is yelling all of those stances all the time, that I think we disregard the possible value of having a moral code, or wanting some kind of guiding structure of "good" and "not good" that most people agree on. I can't say that I know what that could possibly be, but I don't think his morality requirement is that bad- we don't want people who drown puppies as our kids nanny.
Anywho, two thumbs up for Quintilian. Hurray!
As someone who poo pooed Quintilian's morality requirement in my post, I'm curious if you could elaborate on how this would work and why it would be a good thing. No, we don't want puppy drowners I reckon, but that's probably an extreme example