the other hand, if a man be hungry, he is eager to take food, digests it readily, and easily converts it into flesh and blood. Thus Isocrates says: “He who is anxious to learn will also be learned.” And Quintilian says: “The acquisition of knowledge depends on the will to learn, and this cannot be forced.”
13. Rectification.—Therefore
(i) The desire to know and to learn should be excited in boys in every possible manner.
(ii) The method of instruction should lighten the drudgery of learning, that there may be nothing to hinder the scholars or deter them from making progress with their studies.
14. The desire to learn is kindled in boys by parents, by masters, by the school, by the subjects of instruction, by the method of teaching, and by the authority of the state.
15. By parents, if they praise learning and the learned in the presence of their children, or if they encourage them to be industrious by promising them nice books and clothes, or some other pretty thing; if they commend the teachers (especially him to whom they entrust their sons) as much for their friendly feeling towards the pupils, as for their skill in teaching (for love and admiration are the feelings most calculated to stimulate a desire for imitation); finally, if, from time to time, they send the child to him with a small present. In this way they will easily bring it about that the children like their lessons and their teachers, and have confidence in them.
16. By the teachers, if they are gentle and persuasive, and do not alienate their pupils from them by roughness, but attract them by fatherly sentiments and words; if they commend the studies that they take in hand on account of their excellence, pleasantness, and ease; if they praise the industrious ones from time to time (to the little ones they may give apples, nuts, sugar, etc.); if they call the children to them, privately or in the class, and show them pictures of the things that they must learn, or explain to them
