The Dominicans, devoted to preaching, maintaining a long and severe discipline of studies, provided systematically for oral composition. “_Legendo, studendo, disputando_”[26]—the last tallies not only with Dominican fame, but with the focus, and the increasing emphasis, of oral training on logic.[27] Otherwise the manual of the fifth Dominican General, the _De eruditione prædicatorum_ of Humbert de Romans, says little of rhetoric. Rather it is practical psychology, as are the second book of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ and the sixth book of Jacques de Vitry. Practical by another method is the manual of Alain de Lille, _Summa magistri Alani doctoris universalis de arte prædicatoria_.[28] “First we must see,” he says at the end of his preface, “_what_ preaching is, its distinguishing qualities of expression and of thought, and its typical species; secondly, _who_ should preach; thirdly, _to whom_; fourthly, _why_; fifthly, _where_.” His first chapter, after brief consideration of preaching as public speaking, sets forth the special sanction for sermons of the gospels, the Psalms, the Pauline epistles, and the “books of Solomon” as offering instruction in morals. Winning his audience by his own humility and by the practical import of his message,[29] not by appeals to applause, the preacher proceeds to the twofold exposition of the text. “Let his words be sometimes emotional (_commotiva_), to soften the minds of his hearers and bring tears. But let the sermon be concise, lest prolixity bring instead boredom.... Finally he should use _exempla_.” Chapter ii proposes for a theme the scorning of the world (_De mundi contemptu_), and for its text, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Distinguishing the vanity of this world as thus typically threefold, Alain quotes _Romans_ and the Psalms and adds Persius. “Thus the preacher should confirm each division of his text. His next step is to show where is vanity, where vanity of vanities, where all is vanity.... The scorning of the world, thus established by the way of the world itself, should be established also by consideration of man’s end (_a causa finali_).” The peroration apostrophizes human blindness (_O homo, si mundana_, etc.). In a word, Alain furnishes a specimen order and procedure. Succeeding chapters thus present other usual topics: scorning of oneself, gluttony, the other deadly sins, the heavenly hope, spiritual grief and joy, patience and each of the other virtues, love of God and of one’s neighbor, etc. The remaining headings of his prefatory division are taken up at chapter xxxviii; and his consideration of different types in congregations has the humor to include the sleepy. The title _Summa_, then, implies a preacher’s book of reference, with advice and direction subordinated to classified material. The distinction of this _Summa_ is its systematic conciseness. D. SYMBOLISM