4
Nevertheless, although these men so clearly have shown that it is easy to contrive false statements on any subject that may be proposed, they still waste time on this commonplace. They ought to give up the use of this claptrap, which pretends to prove things by verbal quibbles, which in fact have long since been refuted, and to pursue the truth,
5
to instruct their pupils in the practical affairs of our government and train to expertness therein, bearing in mind that likely conjecture about useful things is far preferable to exact knowledge of the useless, and that to be a little superior in important things is of greater worth than to be pre-eminent in petty things that are without value for living.
6
But the truth is that these men care for naught save enriching themselves at the expense of the youth. It is their “philosophy” applied to eristic disputationseristics, “wordy wrangling” “mere disputation for its own sake”; cf. General Introd., Vol. I, p. xxi and Isoc. 13.1. that effectively produces this result; for these rhetoricians, who care nothing at all for either private or public affairs, take most pleasure in those discourses which are of no practical service in any particular.
7
These young men, to be sure, may well be pardoned for holding such views; for in all matters they are and always have been inclined toward what is extraordinary and astounding. But those who profess to give them training are deserving of censure because, while they condemn those who deceive in cases involving private contracts in business and those who are dishonest in what they say, yet they themselves are guilty of more reprehensible conduct; for the former wrong sundry other persons, but the latter inflict most injury upon their own pupils.
