Rhetorical stage (10-12)
The Rhetorical Stage overlaps with the Analytical on one end and the movement to subjects as subjects on the other. The student discovers that he needs to know more, and develops a resulting interest in, and capacity for, acquiring information. His imagination is active; and he finds a new enjoyment in the poetical in literature, art and music. This combination of information and poetical interests gives the student an ability, which our curriculum fosters, to express himself in elegant and persuasive language.
Miss Sayers, in her essay, says of students at this stage, "The doors of the storehouse of knowledge should now be thrown open for them to browse about as they will. The things once learned by rote will be seen in new contexts; the things once coldly analyzed can now be brought together to form a new synthesis; here and there a sudden insight will bring about that most exciting of all discoveries: the realization that a truism is true.... Any child who already shows a disposition to specialize should be given his head; for, when the use of tools has been well and truly learned, it is available for any study whatever."
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