So long as Roman education was in the hands of Greeks, it was conducted in the Greek language, and the authors read and discussed were Greek. But the Romans, though willing enough to borrow Greek culture, were unwilling to remain permanently in intellectual dependence upon a conquered people, which in many respects they despised. Strong efforts, therefore, were made to develop a national literature and a national education. About the year B.C. 100, Lucius Ælius Præconinus Stilo, a worthy and conservative Roman knight, opened a private class in Latin grammar and rhetoric for young men of the upper classes, and from this time on the direct influence of the Greeks, except in philosophy, declined. Greek, indeed, continued to be spoken by all persons making any pretensions to culture; but Latin became the language of Roman literature. Among the pupils of Stilo were Varro and Cicero, who, along with Julius Cæsar, may be called the parents of the classical Latin language, literature, and eloquence. Both Varro and Cæsar wrote works on grammar. A certain Cornificius (generally known as _Auctor ad Herennium_) about this time wrote the first Latin treatise on Rhetoric; but the great authority on the subject, in practice as well as theory, was Cicero, who wrote no fewer than seven works on it. With Cicero's death, and the transformation of the republic into an empire, eloquence lost its noblest use, the defence of liberty. Rhetoric, nevertheless, continued to be cultivated as a fine art and for forensic use, and, indeed, was made to cover the whole of the higher education of youth. Of this art the most celebrated teacher was Quintilian, "the supreme director of giddy youth, the glory of the Roman toga" (_i.e._ civil manhood). Quintilian was born about A.D. 35 in the Spanish city of Calagurris (Calahorra), where, later, St. Dominic first saw the light. He was educated in Rome, but afterwards returned to his native place and established himself as a teacher of rhetoric. About A.D. 68, he was invited by the Emperor Galba to settle in Rome, which he did, giving instruction in rhetoric with unparalleled success for twenty years, and drawing a salary from the government. At the end of that time, he retired, rich and honored, into private life. It was after this that he wrote the work which carried his fame down to posterity, his _Institutio Oratorica_, or Education of the Orator. In the first book of this he draws out a scheme of preparatory education for the family and the school; the succeeding ten are devoted to rhetoric, and the last to the character of the orator, whom he regards as identical with the cultivated gentleman. It is only the first book that concerns the modern student of education, and of this I shall now give a brief summary.