He left Rome in 58 (59) and returned to Spain, where he mainly worked as a lawyer and taught eloquence. In 68 AD, he returned to Rome with the then Spanish Governor Garba, and soon became the Roman emperor. AD 70 was an important turning point in quintilian's life-long educational activities. This year, for the first time in Roman history, Emperor Weiss Paasia Yunus opened a national eloquence school funded by the state treasury, including a Latin eloquence school and a Greek eloquence school. Quintilian was appointed to run the Latin eloquence school, thus becoming the first public teacher in the history of Roman education, until he retired in 90 AD, which lasted for 20 years. While teaching eloquence, he also teaches lawyer business, which enables him to enrich the teaching content with his rich lawyer practical experience and closely combine theory with practice. After 90 A.D., he was mainly engaged in writing. He served as a tutor for two grandchildren of Emperor Domitian and was awarded the honorary title of consul. The principle of eloquence takes cultivating eloquent people (that is, speakers) as the basic goal of education. It is believed that an orator should not only be eloquent, familiar with all kinds of valuable knowledge and have high talents, but also have lofty thoughts and noble sentiments in order to become a kind person. For an orator, talent and virtue are interrelated and indispensable. In a sense, virtue is more important than ability. This is because eloquence is a noble knowledge, and its main task is to promote justice and virtue and guide people to seek good and avoid evil. Eloquence should be a weapon in the hands of soldiers fighting for truth and justice, not a tool in the hands of robbers. If an orator defends evil instead of justice, eloquence itself will become harmful and eloquence education will become redundant. A true speaker should be one who upholds truth and justice. Therefore, an orator should first be a moral and kind person.
The so-called kind person is a person with wisdom and judgment. Such people can correctly distinguish between good and evil, true and false, pursue good and avoid evil according to their own judgment, and carry out activities according to the requirements of law and justice. Good people should also abandon all distractions in their hearts and concentrate on doing good. Only in this way can we truly master eloquence, master the valuable knowledge necessary to become an orator and truly become a perfect orator.
Because of the important role of moral quality in achieving educational goals, Principles of Eloquence advocates taking moral principles as the main course in schools. Through the study of this course, students can acquire the qualities of justice, kindness, temperance, tenacity and wit, and become a moral person.
Obviously, the author of The Principle of Eloquence has a unique understanding of the meaning of "orator". It is not only different from the orator trained by the wise men in ancient Greece, but also different from the ideal orator of Cicero, a Roman thinker. Its meaning is broader than being good at debating or speaking. As the author of this book said, "I want to cultivate people who are gifted and well educated in all free disciplines, who are sent by God to win glory for the world, who are unprecedented, who are outstanding and perfect in all aspects, and who are noble and holy in their thoughts and speeches." The principle of eloquence fully affirmed the great role of education. I believe that most people have basically the same talent, can think quickly and learn sensitively. It is extremely rare for a person to be truly ignorant and untraceable. Therefore, people are born with certain "teachability", which is a necessary prerequisite for education to have an important impact on personal development. On the other hand, natural talent is only a possibility of personal development in many aspects. The development of talent depends on continuous practice and good education. If a gifted and intelligent child does nothing as an adult, it means that what he lacks is not talent, but education. The same is true of the education of speakers. A perfect speaker is not caused by his nature, but mainly by a good education. Quintilian particularly emphasized the important role of education in the formation of personal moral quality. It is believed that although an individual's temperament will also have a certain influence on his moral outlook, this influence cannot directly determine whether a person is kind or not. Only through education can individuals form good conduct and noble sentiments. Therefore, education plays the most important role in personal development.
When explaining the function of education, The Principle of Eloquence profoundly reveals the relationship between education and talents. It is believed that the promotion of education to the development of individual talents is not absolute. This function of education should be based on human nature and should follow the nature of the object of education. First of all, education should be carried out according to the talents, talents and interests of the educational objects. Children have different talents, hobbies and intelligence. Education should adopt different educational methods according to everyone's characteristics, and choose learning content suitable for personal ambition, so that everyone's unique talents and tendencies can be fully developed. Only in this way can education really achieve good results and play its role. Secondly, educators should study children's age differences and acceptance ability to avoid subjectivity and blindness in education. In short, education should be closely integrated with human nature, complement each other and promote each other. At this point, quintilian not only inherited the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, but also further enriched and developed the idea that education should adapt to human nature according to his rich educational experience. In order to realize the educational goal of cultivating perfect speakers, quintilian put forward a complete educational process from preschool education to higher education, which mainly includes four stages: family education, primary school, grammar school and eloquence school.
1. Family education. Quintilian attached great importance to early education, and strongly advocated moral education and knowledge education for children from infancy to cultivate their language ability. People think that early education has a far-reaching impact on people's lifelong education.
The main form of early education is family education, and the main educators are parents, tutors and nannies. Because children are young and ignorant, they are easily influenced by all kinds of people around them. Therefore, not only the parents and teachers of children should have knowledge and dignity, but also the nanny must be a person with good quality, harmonious conversation, educated and clear speech. Therefore, teachers and nannies should be carefully selected.
The main contents of family education are moral education and knowledge education. Moral education for infants and young children is mainly carried out through the positive influence of parents, teachers and nannies, rather than relying on the teaching of moral norms. Quintilian opposes the popular view that children should not learn knowledge before the age of seven, and that the time when children learn to speak is the time when knowledge education begins. Focusing on the central purpose of cultivating speakers, the contents of early knowledge education mainly include Greek, Latin, writing and reading. Quintilian particularly emphasized the cultivation of children's language ability.
Although quintilian attaches great importance to early education, he also emphasizes that children's age characteristics and receptivity should be fully considered, and opposes "overexertion". It is advocated that early education should make children feel happy, cultivate children's love and interest in knowledge, and make early education truly a good foundation for school education.
2. Primary school. In quintilian's time, it was the popular habit of Roman aristocrats to hire tutors to educate their children, instead of sending them to school. In view of this situation, quintilian insists that children must enter public schools when they reach a certain age. He expounded the superiority of school education. I believe that there will be no doting and pampering on students in schools, and students who have received school education can avoid the habit of being aloof and living in isolation. School education helps to stimulate students' learning and thinking, cultivate and develop friendship among children, and help to cultivate children's habits and ability to participate in social life.
Primary education belongs to enlightenment education. Its main teaching content is reading and writing, and moral education is carried out at the same time to cultivate students' selflessness and autonomy.
3. grammar school. After studying in primary school for a period of time and acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills, students enter grammar schools. The main task of grammar school is to make direct preparations for eloquence education. Therefore, most of the courses offered by grammar schools are directly related to eloquence, such as grammar, music, geometry, astronomy, philosophy, Greek, Latin and so on. Grammar is the most important course, which includes two parts, namely, the art of speaking correctly and the art of writing correctly, both of which are based on extensive reading. The content of reading includes literature, morality and philosophy works of ancient Greece and Rome. Quintilian particularly emphasized that students should read heroic epics and inspire students with heroic lofty spirit. He also attaches importance to the importance of music teaching, and thinks that music can not only cultivate sentiment and noble quality, but also enable speakers to express their ideas better and more effectively and influence the audience.
4. eloquence school. The eloquence college is an institution that directly trains speakers. Therefore, eloquence has naturally become the core course of eloquence school. However, in order to master eloquence better, students should also learn a wide range of knowledge related to eloquence, including dialectics (logic), ethics and physics (natural philosophy). Learning dialectics means grasping the exact meaning of words, knowing how to define and how to reason, all of which are indispensable for an orator. Learning ethics is helpful to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, and let the orator truly uphold and help justice. The purpose of studying physics is to understand the objective laws of natural changes and gain insight into the essence and inevitability of everything. In connection with the educational purpose of speakers, eloquence schools should take moral education as an important content, so that students can gradually develop various virtues. The most valuable and influential ideas in the book Principles of Eloquence are about teaching theory, which can be roughly summarized into two interrelated parts.
1. Teaching organization form. In the history of ancient education in the world, the common form of teaching organization is individual teaching. In contrast, quintilian put forward the idea of teaching in different classes. He advocates dividing students into several classes, and teachers should teach the whole class, not individual students. I believe that this teaching organization can not only teach many students at once, save time and energy, but also make students influenced by good examples in their common study and communication with other students, and be vigilant and encouraged by teachers' criticism and praise of others. These advantages are incomparable to individual teaching.
While emphasizing collective teaching, quintilian noticed the problem of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. It is believed that teachers should also understand students' abilities, personality characteristics and tendencies in classroom teaching, and make good use of their strengths and make up for their shortcomings according to their specific conditions.
2. Teaching principles and methods. In terms of teaching principles and methods, one of quintilian's important viewpoints is to oppose corporal punishment. In the education of ancient countries, corporal punishment was a very common method. Quintilian, on the other hand, advocates the abolition of corporal punishment, arguing that corporal punishment is an insult to children, which will make them depressed, depressed and have very negative consequences for their growth. In connection with this, he emphasized the use of rewards, and believed that praise and honor for children (especially those who are fragile or lack self-confidence) can play an incentive role and promote children's development.
Quintilian put forward the principle that teaching should be moderate. It is believed that an excellent teacher should control his own strength and be biased towards students' abilities on the basis of in-depth observation and understanding of students' personalities and abilities. It is necessary to avoid asking students to do things beyond their power and not to let them give up their studies within their power. The amount of knowledge imparted by teachers should be commensurate with the students' ability to accept, so as not to overload the students. This principle can be regarded as the bud of modern teaching ability principle.
In order to prevent students from being tired due to excessive study burden, quintilian advocated that study and rest should be carried out alternately, so that students' energy can be restored and they can study more happily. To this end, students can play games in moderation during the study break. Another way to prevent students from being tired is to change their courses so that different courses can be studied alternately.
Quintilian advocates that teaching should be easy to understand. In his view, in the teaching process, teachers must not be mystifying and arrogant, but should impart knowledge concisely. Only in this way can students easily accept and remember it.
Quintilian emphasized that in the teaching process, teachers should always ask questions to students, so as to encourage students to think positively and improve the teaching effect. On the other hand, he advocates that when necessary, let students use their brains to find ways to solve some problems encountered in their studies, cultivate students' independence and prevent them from relying on others for everything. Only in this way can the creativity of students' thinking be gradually cultivated. Therefore, the task of teaching is not only to impart all kinds of knowledge, but also to cultivate the ability of independent judgment and creativity. Quintilian attaches great importance to the role of teachers, and thinks that teachers are very important for doing a good job in education and teaching and cultivating perfect speakers. Because of this, teachers should have all-round qualities.
First of all, teachers should be people with both ability and political integrity, that is, people who do what they say. Quintilian believes that teachers' moral outlook has a great influence on students, and teachers' noble moral quality can prevent students from becoming debauched. On the contrary, teachers' misconduct will have a bad influence on students. Therefore, an excellent teacher must first be a person with high moral character and dignified behavior.
Secondly, teachers should have extensive knowledge and should be recognized as knowledgeable people. Only such a teacher can truly perform his duties and cultivate a perfect speaker.
Third, teachers should love students and treat them with their parents' feelings. Quintilian believes that teachers should be kind and strict with their students. But kindness does not mean indulgence, and harshness does not mean ruthlessness. Teachers should work patiently, neither losing their temper with students nor conniving at them.
Fourth, teachers should be familiar with the contents of the subjects they teach and skillfully use teaching methods. Only when teachers have a deep understanding of the contents of the subjects they teach can they teach effectively. Only by using good teaching methods can teachers make the teaching content more acceptable to students.
Fifth, teachers should deeply understand students' psychological characteristics, personality, talents and tendencies, and organize teaching more pertinently. Therefore, teachers should always observe students' words, behaviors and activities deeply.