There seems in the first place to have been too much 'spoon-feeding', and too little genuine brain exercise for the pupil.[59] Secondly, the fact that at this stage boys were nurtured almost entirely on poetry requires serious consideration. The quality of the food supplied to the mind, though pre-eminently palatable, must have tended to be somewhat thin. The elaborate instruction in mythological erudition was devoid of religious value; and indeed of any value, save the training of a purely mechanical memory. Attention was called too much to the form, too little to the substance. Style has its value, but it is after all only a secondary consideration in education. The effect upon literature of this poetical training was twofold. It caused an undue demand for poetical colour in prose, and produced a horrible precocity and _cacoethes scribendi_[60] in verse, together with an abnormal tendency to imitation of the great writers of previous generations.[61] But the rhetorical training which succeeded was responsible for far worse evils. The importance of rhetoric in ancient education is easily explained. The Greek or Roman gentleman was destined to play a part in the public life of the city state. For this purpose the art of speaking was of enormous value alike in politics and in the law courts. Hence the universal predominance of rhetoric in higher education both in Rome and Greece.[62] The main instrument of instruction was the writing of themes for declamation. These exercises were divided into _suasoriae_-- deliberative speeches in which some course of action was discussed-- and _controversiae_--where some proposition was maintained or denied. Pupils began with _suasoriae_ and went on to _controversiae_. Regarded as a mental gymnastic, these themes may have possessed some value. But they were hackneyed and absurdly remote from real life, as can be judged from the examples collected by the elder Seneca. Typical subjects of the _suasoria_ are--'Agamemnon deliberates whether to slay Iphigenia';[63] 'Cicero deliberates whether to burn his writings, Antony having promised to spare him on that condition';[64] 'Three hundred Spartans sent against Xerxes after the flight of troops sent from the rest of Greece deliberate whether to stand or fly.'[65]