(855 B) “For those whose assignments were elementary exercises in imitating prose or poetry he set poets or orators and prescribed close imitation after showing the art of connection and of sentence close.[29] If a boy had brightened his work by sewing on a piece from some one else, he would show that the theft was detected, but very often would inflict no punishment. But if the borrowing was misplaced, with modest kindliness he bade the boy come down to express his author’s likeness; and his own practise was such that in imitating his predecessors he became a model for his successors. He also taught among the elements and fixed in mind the force of composition,[30] the achievement of thought and of phrase, the character of the style, whether thinness or plausible abundance, extravagance or just measure. (855 C) “Stories and poems, he used to say, were to be read carefully, not on the run; and of each pupil he required as a daily task something memorized with careful attention. But superfluous reading, he would add, should be shunned, famous authors are enough. To follow what every one, however unimportant, has ever said is to regard oneself either too meanly or too boastfully. It holds back and obstructs minds which would otherwise make better use of their leisure; and what displaces something better is so far unavailing that it cannot even be called good. To explore all papers and ponder all writings, even those not worth reading, is no more to the purpose than to attend to old wives’ tales. For, as Augustine says in his _De ordine_: ‘Who shall call that man uncultured who has not heard of the flight of Dædalus, or a liar for asserting it, or impudent for questioning it? I always feel deep pity for those of our friends who are accused of ignorance if they have not answered what was the name of the mother of Euryalus, and who dare not call the people who ask such questions shallow, impertinent, and curious.’ So says Augustine both neatly and truly. Therefore it was rightly reckoned by the ancients among the virtues of a _grammaticus_ that there should be some things which he did not know. (856 A) “Since in all the preliminary exercises nothing is more useful than to accustom oneself to what ought to be done expertly, Bernard’s students would daily write prose and verse and practise themselves by exchange of criticism. Nothing is more useful than this exercise for expression, nothing more promotive of learning; and its greatest contribution is to the conduct of life, provided this insistence be controlled by charity, and progress in literature contribute to humility.” The last chapter (xxv) quotes at length the _laus grammaticæ_ of Quintilian I. iv. 5-6.[31] BOOK II. _DEMONSTRATIVA_ AND _DIALECTICA_