heed the ordinary schools pay to this advice. The very beginners in grammar are so overwhelmed by precepts, rules, exceptions to the rules, and exceptions to the exceptions, that for the most part they do not know what they are doing, and are quite stupefied before they begin to understand anything. Mechanics do not begin by drumming rules into their apprentices. They take them into the workshop and bid them look at the work that has been produced, and then, when they wish to imitate this (for man is an imitative animal), they place tools in their hands and show them how they should be held and used. Then, if they make mistakes, they give them advice and correct them, often more by example than by mere words, and, as the facts show, the novices easily succeed in their imitation. For there is great truth in that saying of the Germans, “A good leader finds a good follower.” Very apposite, too, is the remark of Terence, “Do you go before; I will follow.” This is the way, namely, by imitating, and without any laborious rules, that children learn to walk, to run, to talk, and to play. Rules are like thorns to the understanding, and to grasp their meaning needs both attention and ability, while even the dullest students are aided by example. No one has ever mastered any language or art by precept alone; while by practice this is possible, éven without precept.
8. (iv) Practice should commence with the rudiments and not with ambitious works.
A carpenter does not begin by teaching his apprentice to build turrets, but first shows him how to hold the axe, to cut down trees, to shape planks, to bore holes, and to fasten beams together. A painter does not make his pupil commence by painting portraits, but teaches him how to mix colours, to hold the brush, and to make lines; then to attempt rough outlines, and so on. He who teaches a boy how to read explains to him, not the contents of the book, but the names and nature of the letters, and shows him how they can be joined together into syllables; then he proceeds to words, and then to sentences. In the
