Great Throughts Treasury

"Virgil and Horace, spying the unperfectness in Ennius and Plautus, by true imitation of Homer and Euripides, brought poetry to perfection."

"Yet some will say that children of nature love pastime and dislike learning: because, in their kind, the one is easy and pleasant, the other hard and wearisome: which is an opinion not so true as some men suppose: For the matter lies not so much in the disposition of them that be young, as in the order and manner of bringing up, by them that be old, nor yet in the difference of learning and pastime. For beat a child if he dance not well, and cherish him though he learn not well, you shall have him unwilling to go to dance, and glad to go to his book. Knock him always when he draws his shaft ill, and favor him again though he fought at his book, you shall have him very loath to be in the field, and very willing to be in the school. Yea, I say more, and not of myself, but by the judgment of those from whom few wise men will gladly dissent, that if ever the nature of man be given at any time more than other to receive goodness, it is in innocence of young years, before that experience of evil have taken root in him. For the pure clean wit of a sweet young babe is like the newest wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing: and like a new bright silver dish never occupied, to receive and keep clean any good thing that is put into it."