Chartres, the most copious source of letters in Gaul
in modern times, followed this method, and in the reading of
authors showed what was simple, and fell under the ordinary
rules; the figures of grammar, the adornments of rhetoric, the
quibbles of sophistries; and where the subject of his own lesson
suggested reading related to other arts, these matters he brought
into full view, yet in such wise that he did not teach everything
about each topic but, in proportion to the capacity of his
audience, dispensed to them in due time the full scope of the
subject. And because the brilliancy of any speech depends either
on _Propriety_ (that is, the correct agreement of adjective or
verb with the substantive) or on _Metathesis_ (that is, the
transfer of the meaning of an expression for a worthy reason to
another signification), these were the things which he took every
opportunity to inculcate in the minds of his hearers.

And since the memory is strengthened by exercise and the wits are
sharpened by imitating what is heard, he urged some by warnings,
and some by floggings and punishments [to the constant practice
of memorizing and imitation]. They were individually required on
the following day to reproduce some part of what they had heard
the day before, some more, some less, for with them the following
day was the pupil of the day preceding.

Evening drill, which was called _declension_, was packed with so
much grammar that if one gave a whole year to it he would have at
his command, if he were not unusually dull, a method of speaking
and writing, and he could not be ignorant of expressions which
are in common use.... For those of the boys for whom preliminary
exercises in imitating prose or poetry were prescribed, he
announced the poets or orators and bade them imitate their
example, pointing out the way they joined their words and the
elegance of their perorations.

But if any one to make his own work brilliant had borrowed the
cloak of another he detected the theft and convicted him, though
he did not very often inflict a punishment; but he directed the
culprit thus convicted, if the poorness of his work had so
merited, to condescend with modest favor to express the exact
meaning of the author; and he made the one who imitated his
predec