Cicero, De oratore III 24 (Cicero is not the speaker here)
“The logic—or rather, the practice itself without logic—of which words to choose, how to order them and how to end sentences is easy—there is a great forest of subjects which, when they were no longer hoarded by the Greeks for this reason, our own youth nearly forgot them by learning them, and, if you can believe it, there are have emerged in the last two years Latin professors of speech. I applied my power as censor to abolish these teachers—not for the reason that some people are always claiming, that I did not want the youth to have a sharp intelligence—but because I did not wish for their wits to be stunted and for their arrogance to be supported.
For among the Greeks, whatever quality they are, I still uses to see a certain practice of language, a theory and knowledge worthy of humanity; these new teachers, well, I could not see that they could teach anything other than how to be daring—a quality which, even when joined with other virtues ought to be especially avoided itself. And since this is the single thing they offer and their school is one of arrogance, I believed that it was a censor’s duty to ensure it did not expand any farther.”
Verborum eligendorum et collocandorum et concludendorum facilis est vel ratio vel sine ratione ipsa exercitatio; rerum est silva magna, quam cum Graeci iam non tenerent ob eamque causam iuventus nostra dedisceret paene discendo, etiam Latini, si dis placet, hoc biennio magistri dicendi exstiterunt; quos ego censor edicto meo sustuleram, non quo, ut nescio quos dicere aiebant, acui ingenia adolescentium nollem, sed contra ingenia obtundi nolui, corroborari impudentiam. Nam apud Graecos, cuicuimodi essent, videbam tamen esse praeter hanc exercitationem linguae doctrinam aliquam et humanitate dignam scientiam, hos vero novos magistros nihil intellegebam posse docere nisi ut auderent; quod etiam cum bonis rebus coniunctum per se ipsum est magnopere fugiendum: hoc cum unum traderetur et cum impudentiae ludus esset, putavi esse censoris ne longius id serperet providere.
