Page:The Genius of America (1923).pdf/267

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moment he begins to transmit not merely facts of life but a judgment upon the facts of life. In that moment he betrays his invincible intention of governing his readers by offering his eyes for theirs and making their judgment coincide with his. For the primary object of all the arts of expression, is to subject facts to a design; is by logic, grammar, and rhetoric, to arrange thoughts, words, sentences, cadences, accents, and emotional colorings into a comprehensive design of which the final object is persuasion.

When one studies for the first time Greek and Roman treatments of education one is surprised to find what great stress these people placed upon the arts of expression, upon logic, rhetoric, and oratory. Cicero, Tactitus, and Quintilian seem to include all ancient culture, the entire curriculum of ancient learning, in the training of the orator; and to regard the orator as the typical or standard product of the educational system; as if the whole world for each man were thenceforth to be divided into two parts, himself, the speaker, and the rest of mankind, his audience.

What is the significance of that emphasis upon the arts of expression? Why this, I think, that they could not conceive of any educated