The final _Ratio_ of 1599 embodies these suggestions, without being absolute in excluding all dictation, for which it suggests the form most useful and in accord with the spirit of true lecturing. It deprecates the dictation of what may be found in authors within reach of the students. "Let the Professor refer his hearers to those authors who have been copious and accurate in their treatment of any matter." As to what the critics of 1586 recommend, that, if dictation be given, the lecture should extend to five quarters of an hour, the _Ratio_ says nothing about it.[270]
Possevino, in his _Bibliotheca Selecta_, has a chapter on this question, "Whether mental culture suffers by the dictation of lectures?" He answers in the affirmative, and he speaks on the subject with his usual erudition. He refers to the Pythagorean "acoustic" disciples, who were never copyists, and not even talkers, until, by a prolonged silence for years, they had thought enough to be able to talk well, to put questions, and make comments. He quotes the cynicism of Diogenes, about writing at the expense of true exercise. He notes the plan of Xeniades the Corinthian, who gave a written compendium to the young people, but one so short that they had to have the best part of their learning in their heads. The Socratic method was eminently one of living speech. And, as to Aristotle's "peripatetic" school, which was conducted while _walking about_ the Lyceum, that was certainly neither in practice nor in principle favorable to writing. Coming to speak expressly of dictation and citing a pleasant old rhyme:--
Quod si charta cadat, secum sapientia vadat,[271]
Possevino goes on to plead for the chests of the students, and says that the ink is the price of their blood, and the end of their studies becomes the end of their lives. Hence one singular result of it all is, that scholars even employ amanuenses to go to school instead of themselves, and bring back in writing what was said. But all that money, says Possevino, could have been reserved for the buying of books, to supplement real study.
Then he enforces what he has said with a piece of university history, wherein perhaps no one of his time was better versed. The University of Paris, two and a half centuries before, had legislated against dictating, and against the Doctors who used it, and who were dubbed _Nominatores ad pennam_. One century before, the Cardinal Legate had again formulated a law on the subject. And finally the Jesuits, "of whom a great number are chiefly engaged in this profession, taught by experience the evils of that system, have long understood the necessity, not merely of moderating it, but simply doing away with it. Wherefore the Fathers in the universities of Portugal have already published a part of Natural Philosophy, whereby writing is dispensed with, room is left for quickening genius, and much material stored up to bring into the arena of discussion."[272]