A CICERONIAN AMBIGUITY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,-For me, as a schoolmaster, the following passage from Cicero has an immediate interest : " Quo quisque est sollertior et ingeniosior, hoc docet iracundius et laboriosius." An interest -and for this reason : two scholars of great eminence have each given it a wholly different interpretation. H. J. Roby, author of the standard Latin Grammar, renders it thus : "The more completely a man is master of his art, and the more able, so much more irritation and pain does teaching cause him." But the most distinguished schoolmaster of his generation, Dr. Kennedy of Shrewsbury, evidently takes a very different view when he translates : " The greater a man's skill or genius, the more fervour and pains does he throw into his teaching." The latter, I must believe, is truer to the facts ; but who will decide what Cicero really meant to imply ? Perhaps one of your . " classical " readers will give us the benefit of his opinion, and help to solve the riddle.-Faithfully
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