(A) on the purpose of education and school education
On the basis of inheriting Cicero's orator education theory, quintilian innovated and deepened it, and closely combined theory with practice to make the orator education more operable. He attaches great importance to the position of morality in eloquence education, which is the primary quality of an orator. Quintilian believes that the purpose of eloquence education is to cultivate kind and eloquent people. Eloquence, as a great tool in social and political life, should be in the hands of people who are kind, just and able to safeguard the dignity of the law, and must not fall into the hands of robbers. Because the function of eloquence lies in promoting justice and virtue and guiding people to be evil and good. It is a noble knowledge in itself, and it should defend the innocent and stop crimes in the world; In lawsuits involving money, we should support truth and oppose falsehood. The virtues of public speakers are so important that we should strengthen their moral cultivation. Quintilian believes that people are born with differences, but education plays a greater role. He advocated that schools should take moral principles as the main course and let students learn the qualities of justice, kindness, temperance and fortitude.
On the question of which is better, school education and family education, quintilian summed up the educational experience in Rome and thought that school education was better than family education. Morally, family and school have a great influence on children. But in contrast, it is easy to spoil at home; And the bad atmosphere at home will also have a negative impact on children. Therefore, family education cannot be idealized. And school education can avoid these bad phenomena and negative effects. Besides, school education has many advantages. School education can stimulate children's minds; Children can gain the friendship of their classmates when they study at school; Schools can give children all kinds of things that people call common sense; Schools can cultivate children's habits of adapting to public life and their ability to participate in social and political activities. An orator is a political activist who lives in public affairs, and is not suitable for children who live at home alone since childhood.
(B) on the role of education and early childhood education
Kun sports has great confidence, high enthusiasm and expectation in the role of education, showing the noble quality of a great educator who loves education. He said: "There are very few people who are born deformed, so they are ignorant and can't be traced." Most people can receive education, but people are different in nature. How to carry out education depends on the understanding and research of children's nature. Kun Sports believes that different people's endowments and educational methods should be different. For example, if some children are lazy, they should be disciplined; And some children get angry when they are constrained; Intimidation can restrain some children, but others lose courage. He has special expectations for those aggressive children, crying when they fail, and taking encouragement and encouragement measures when educating; At the same time, he used blame and honor to stimulate his ambition and make himself look the best. The biggest worry is that children who are indifferent to everything should not expect too much from such children. In short, educators should study children's talents, tendencies and talents and teach students in accordance with their aptitude, that is, teach students in accordance with their aptitude. In eloquence teaching, we should train according to everyone's temperament characteristics. Some people are suitable for speaking with a gentle attitude; Some people are suitable to speak with lively expressions; Others are suitable for speaking in a rough and powerful manner. In addition, teachers should understand students' natural tendencies and help them choose the subjects that are most suitable for their natural abilities, such as writing poems and studying law. Although everyone can receive education, there are intellectual differences and should be treated differently in teaching. For children with poor intelligence, we should try our best to adapt to their abilities so as to train their intelligence according to natural induction; For children with excellent qualifications, they should be allowed to learn all the knowledge and skills that an excellent speaker should master. Quintilian particularly emphasized the need to avoid two situations: first, let students do the impossible; The second is to let students give up what they can do. In education, we must follow the characteristics of age, and assign appropriate learning tasks to students accordingly, so that children cannot be overburdened. While paying attention to the differences in children's talents, we should pay more attention to the role of education. Education adapts to children's nature and characteristics in order to better play the role of education and give full play to students' talents. But only with natural conditions, you can't become a talent without academic qualifications. A good speaker depends more on learning than on being born.
Quintilian attached great importance to early education, and advocated that children should start intellectual and moral education as soon as they spoke. In Rome at that time, people thought it was necessary to cultivate children's morality before the age of seven, but there were different views on when to cultivate children's intelligence. Quintilian believes that although children before the age of seven have limited ability to accept knowledge, learning is better than being idle. Little by little, many a mickle makes a mickle, which is still considerable in the long run. Moreover, although children don't learn much, they remember it firmly and what they have learned will be useful for life. From this, he concluded that children should learn everything early. Although quintilian advocated early education, he denied the existence of supernormal children, and did not expect children to become precocious children. He believes that "precocious people rarely bear good fruit", precocious children just show off what they have just learned under the drive of vanity, and the pieced together articles are meaningless. He commented on precocious children and said, "They have neither real strength nor deep roots. They are like seeds that germinate prematurely on the ground; However, weeds that look like rice turn yellow and produce withered ears before the harvest season. As far as their age is concerned, the results are gratifying; But their progress stopped there. Our surprise will be reduced. "
(C) About the course content and setting form
The course content of eloquence education in quintilian is very extensive. Including Greek, Latin, grammar, rhetoric, reading, music, geometry, astronomy, philosophy and so on. In addition, the Rhetoric Institute of higher education institutions also has mock lectures. Quintilian thinks each of the above courses is very important. Regarding the learning order of Greek and Latin, he followed the social trend and agreed to learn Greek first, then Latin; But if you haven't learned Greek for too long, you should also learn Latin. When talking about the importance of reading, quintilian thinks that grammar is the foundation of eloquence and the central course of grammar schools. It includes the art of speaking correctly and the art of writing correctly, and correct reading is the premise of both. Reading should be divided into three stages: first, reading the poet's works to cultivate students' noble hearts; Secondly, read tragic works to cultivate students' sentiment; Finally, reading comedy works can cultivate students' eloquence. quintilian even thinks that "all works that can cultivate the mind and increase thinking power should become children's teaching materials." He highly praised the works of Cicero and Assinius, believing that their works are rich in vocabulary, containing profound thoughts in tragicomedy and comedy, and something similar to Athenian scholars. If you read carefully, you can also learn pure language and resolute spirit. In addition, quintilian also discussed the significance of music to speakers with great enthusiasm. Music can express lofty thoughts, happy feelings, peaceful atmosphere and so on. It can also show emotional harmony with its artistic integrity. In the debate, the use of tones helps to impress the feelings of the audience; The change of tone can cause the magistrate's anger or sympathy; Music can also help the speaker with graceful body movements and gentle and expressive gestures. In addition, geometry plays an important role in eloquence education. He agreed with Plato that geometry can stimulate people's thinking and make people's intelligence more agile and clear.
Quintilian's
Eloquence principle insert
In Rhetoric, quintilian thinks that the teaching scope and content of rhetoric teachers should be clear. Rhetoric teachers should give speeches on everything they encounter, including legal proceedings, political affairs and even personal affairs. Instead of narrowing the scope of lectures, only giving demonstration speeches, or even limiting the nature and scope of speeches to topics of deliberation and justice. He thinks these practices are wrong. In philosophy, quintilian inherited Cicero's view that philosophy is very important to speakers. As a stoic, he divided philosophy into three parts: dialectics, physics and ethics. The dialectics he understands is mainly used to study words-knowing the exact meaning of words and distinguishing ambiguous things in them. Dialectics contains logic, which plays an indispensable role in defining things, reasoning, seeking differences and solving problems. Quintilian's physics refers to the mysterious natural philosophy of Stoicism, including religious superstitions such as the universe, fate, fate and omens. He highly praised ethics, which is the core of philosophy and the reason why philosophy is closely related to eloquence. Because the importance of eloquence is largely reflected in the court debate, ethics plays a great role in it. Although there are various cases, any case is related to justice and morality, and a large number of cases depend on the evaluation of behavior; In critical debate, there are many examples related to honesty. Therefore, in the process of cultivating speakers, philosophy is essential.
Regarding the curriculum, quintilian opposes a single discipline and advocates that all disciplines go hand in hand. In his view, the disadvantage of single subject is that students listen to a teacher all day, which makes them dizzy and has poor learning effect. But multidisciplinary progress can make up for this shortcoming. Changing different subjects is a kind of adjustment for students, which can reduce fatigue and cheer up the spirit.
(D) About teaching organization and teaching methods
As an educator, quintilian has done a lot of research on teaching problems. In teaching organization, he advocates collective teaching. He believes that "most teaching can be conveyed to all students with the same voice, not to mention the arguments and speeches of rhetoricians." No matter how many listeners there are, everyone can hear clearly. " This kind of teaching is obviously not individual teaching, and we can see the bud of class teaching system from his thought. He once mentioned the organizational form of "class". He said that according to the practice of some teachers, children are divided into classes and assigned to speak in turn according to their different abilities. Even so, this is not the general form of classroom teaching. Because the conditions for implementing the class teaching system were not available at that time, it was not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the real class teaching system was gradually formed.
In teaching methods, quintilian thinks that we should learn the shapes and names of letters at the same time. It is not good to learn the name and order of letters before learning the shape of letters; Ivory portraits with letters can be used as learning tools for students in games and entertainment. There is no shortcut to learning syllables. All syllables must be studied and practiced repeatedly to remember. After learning syllables, you can learn words composed of syllables and sentences composed of words Students should not be greedy when learning to read, otherwise it will easily lead to difficulties such as stuttering. Reading requires accuracy first, and coherence second. Writing is a major event in learning and can never be ignored. Writing helps to lay a solid foundation for learning. After repeated practice, you should write fluently. Writing too slowly will hinder your thinking.
(5) Requirements for teachers
Quintilian talked about the importance of nannies and teachers. He believes that nannies have a great influence on young children, and people with morality and grammar should be chosen as nannies, because young children imitate their language first. Moreover, children's plasticity is very strong, and it is difficult to get rid of the bad habits developed as children. He thinks it is much more difficult to correct people who have learned wrong things than to teach uneducated people. For example, he said that the famous flute teacher TiMosis accepted students on one condition: students who had studied with other music teachers would pay more tuition fees than those who had never studied flute. Quintilian requires teachers to have both ability and political integrity. Teachers should be virtuous first, and any improper behavior will have a far-reaching impact on students. For example, some bad habits of a tutor of King Alexander of Macedonia in his early years influenced Alexander and made him hard to get rid of all his life. Teachers should have extensive knowledge. If they don't have enough knowledge, they should be brave enough to admit it and don't mislead others. Teachers should not only have noble moral character and profound knowledge, but also know the art of teaching. Combining leniency with severity for students, he is good at moral preaching and using praise and criticism; Teaching should be easy to understand and easy to understand. Students should also trust and respect teachers, learn from them with an open mind, and learn a wealth of knowledge and the truth of being a man from them.