The grades of the gymnasium may include several divisions, according to the number of students; but the grading itself remains fixed, and leaves no element, either of actual culture, or of future developments, unprovided for, or without a location. Nor do these grades mean five years. They mean a work to be done in each grade, before the next is taken up. On this, the mind of Ignatius was most explicit. As an almost universal rule, they never mean less than five years. And, for one of them, the grade of Rhetoric, in which all literary perfection is to be acquired, the system contemplates two and even three years. In this point, too, we may note a characteristic view of Ignatius. It is that the longer term, whenever provided, whenever prescribed, urged, and insisted upon, is always for the talented student, the one who is to become eminent. To use his own words, when laying down the rules in this matter for the Rector of a University, his full idea will be carried out, when "those who are of the proper age, and have the aptitude of genius, endeavor to succeed in every branch and to be _conspicuous therein_."[79] To enumerate now some of the subordinate elements in the Jesuit method, I will quote from the same author, Ribadeneira. He says, speaking of young scholars: "Many means are devised, and exercises employed, to stimulate the minds of the young--assiduous disputation, various trials of genius, prizes offered for excellence in talent and industry. These prerogatives and testimonies of virtue vehemently arouse the minds of students, awake them even when sleeping, and, when they are aroused and are running on with a good will, impel them and spur them on faster. For, as penalty and disgrace bridle the will and check it from pursuing evil, so honor and praise quicken the sense wonderfully, to attain the dignity and glory of virtue." He quotes Cicero and Quintilian to the same effect.[80]