As I prepare for next semester, in which I will teach four classes in lecture halls filled with about fifty students, I am encouraged by the advice of the first century rhetorician and educator, Quintilian. He offers an apology for public education to those who would prefer to hire private tutors for their children, claiming that in some subjects there is no limit to the number of students who can each receive the full value of their teacher's instruction. He explains with the somewhat self-aggrandizing metaphor:The voice of the lecturer is not like a dinner which will only suffice for a limited number; it is like the sun which distributes the same quantity of light and heat to all of us. So too with the teacher of literature. Whether he speak of style of expound difficult passages, explain stories or paraphrase poems, everyone who hears him will profit by his teaching. (Inst. 1.2.14)
Is he right? Modern theories of pedagogy would tend to dispute his contention; but I will cling to it for now, drawing encouragement when I wonder if my expositions of difficult passages and explanations of beautiful narratives benefit my students and do justice to the writings of the New Testament.
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