The boys among the boys, the lads among the lads, utter and listen to just what words they please.

Their very exercises are, for the most part, useless.

Two kinds are in vogue with these 'rhetores,' called 'suasoriae' and 'controversiae,'" tending, we may perhaps say, to persuade or to refute.

"Of these, the 'suasoriae,' as being the lighter and requiring less of experience, are given to the little boys, the 'controversiae' to the bigger lads.

But--oh heavens, what they are--what miserable compositions!" Then he tells us the subjects selected.