Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/488

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468
JESUIT EDUCATION

mens of a prelection on Cicero, Virgil and Phaedrus as adapted to different classes.[1] We give the substance of two. Be it remarked, however, that the same order need not and cannot be followed strictly in all details in every prelection. They are specimens exhibiting a general rule, which is to be applied with discretion. Professor Willmann has well observed: "As all similar schemata also Jouvancy's canon explanationis is useful if applied properly, whereas if it is carried through pedantically in all subjects and with stereotyped regularity, it makes instructions mechanical."[2]

A. Explanation of a Passage from Cicero in Rhetoric (Sophomore). Take the exordium of Cicero's second Philippic from Quonam meo fato to Cui priusquam. We distinguish five parts in the explanation.

I. Argumentum. (Willmann: "In this part Jouvancy recommends a paraphrase of the contents, whose place is now taken by the translation.") – When Cicero had delivered his first Philippic, Mark Anthony attacked him vehemently. To this attack Cicero replied in this oration, the second Philippic, showing that Anthony's invectives were groundless, and that Anthony himself, because of his crimes, deserved the severest reproaches.

We explain the exordium of the oration in which Cicero declares that he has incurred the enmity of many; but that Anthony's animosity was unfair and less called for, than that of his other adversaries, as he had never offended him as much as by a single word. But Anthony believes he could demonstrate

  1. Rat. Doc., c. II, art. IV.
  2. Didaktik, vol. II, p. 387.