Quintilian on the Child as a Learning Subject

Quintilian communicates definite ideas about the educability of children. From the perspectives of the history of education and childhood, his innovation is a theory of the child as a learning subject. The child (consistently represented as the male, free puer) has a native mimetic ability lacking j...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Classical world Vol. 105; no. 1; pp. 109 - 137
Main Author BLOOMER, W. MARTIN
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Classical Association of the Atlantic States 01.10.2011
Johns Hopkins University Press
Subjects
Bloomers
Child growth
Children
Children & youth
Curricula
Education
Games
Grammar
Human relations
Judgment
Learning
Oratory
Reference (Semantic)
Rhetoric
Special Section on Ancient Education
Stoicism
Teachers
Theory
Writing processes
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Summary:Quintilian communicates definite ideas about the educability of children. From the perspectives of the history of education and childhood, his innovation is a theory of the child as a learning subject. The child (consistently represented as the male, free puer) has a native mimetic ability lacking judgment but with a natural, almost bodily need for book learning.The teacher (not parent) shapes the child's developing mind just as if he were writing a book from a clean slate. The maturation of the child is imagined not in biological or social terms but as a correlate to the process of writing.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0009-8418
1558-9234
1558-9234
DOI:10.1353/clw.2011.0103