966 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
This is John’s own private opinion in favor of this study. 
In his Metalogicus, under stress of battle, he does not even con¬ 
ceive the possibility of grammar coming into conflict with 
Christianity. It is the Cornificians who are contravening the 
true teaching, for they are opposing eloquence by which alone 
man is able to make use of that power of reason which God has 
given to man in distinction from beasts. By doing away with 
eloquence they are ever widening the gulf between man and 
God, for man is then as low as the beasts. 1 
Firmly entrenched behind this bold assertion of right he 
proceeds to overthrow the other objections. He refutes the 
fatalistic doctrine that eloquence is a gift of nature, not to be 
acquired by cultivation by citing two classic examples, Socrates 
and Bufus Scaurus who overcame the obstacles of nature by 
earnest endeavor. 2 Though nature may endow one person with 
more ability than another, yet without training that gift is 
naught and this training can only be truly obtained in the old- 
style grammar schools. Their practical value lies in the fact 
that they alone can give the student a complete mastery of the 
art of writing and reading both poetry and prose. The ability 
to use figures of speech, to understand the structure of a sentence 
and to master the mechanics of composition are to be acquired 
nowhere else, and yet, these are not the only benefits to be derived 
from a study of the classics. 3 Men must study to become poets 
and it is still a celebrated fact that poetry is the cradle of phil¬ 
osophy. This training, however, does more than make poets: 
“Disciplinas liberales tantae utilitatis esse tradit antiquitas, ut 
quicunque eas plene norint libros omnes, et quaeeunque Scripta 
sunt, possunt intelligere etiam sine doctore”— 4 it places a man 
in a position to understand wdiatever has been written, without 
the need of a teacher. The contention that a “grammaticus” 
confines himself to his books, stories or poems, is far from the 
truth, the real aim of the classics is to seek and transmit “in- 
formationem virtutis quae facit virum bonum” 5 and that this is 
1 Migne, p. 824-7. 
2 Migne, p. 836. 
3 Migne. p. 836-838. 
4 Migne, p. 852. 
5 Ibid. 
