The pupils practised themselves, as we have seen, by delivering their harangues before Isokrates and their fellow-pupils. The school formed a select clique of trained critics of Rhetoric; the encouragement of criticism by this means must have been valuable. To this council Isokrates submitted his own orations before publication; former pupils were also invited to attend on these occasions. There is an interesting account of such an assembly at the end of the _Panathenaikos_. “I was revising the speech as it stands down to this point,” Isokrates says, “with three or four of the lads who are accustomed to study with me. On reading it through, we were satisfied with it and thought it only needed a peroration. I determined, however, to send for one of those among my pupils who had been brought up in an oligarchy and had set themselves to praise Lakedaimon, so that he might notice any false charge which we had unwittingly brought against the Spartans.” The pupil comes, and, while praising the speech enthusiastically, makes an unguarded criticism of its matter which led to a long discussion, in the course of which he and Isokrates deliver lengthy harangues. Finally, the pupil is crushed. The boys who had been present throughout the discussion were completely convinced by Isokrates and applauded him warmly. But the master himself was not satisfied. So three or four days later he called together all his old pupils who were in Athens, and the speech was submitted to their judgment, and received with enthusiastic applause. The former critic then delivered a brilliant harangue, trying to elucidate a hidden meaning in the speech. “The crowd of pupils, which is usually ready to applaud, shouted, flocked round him, and congratulated him, thoroughly agreeing with his eulogy of me,” says Isokrates. “I praised him too, but did not reveal whether he had hit off my secret meaning or not.”
The whole tone of the passage suggests that such an appeal to the pupils for criticism and advice was common, the only extraordinary feature being the presence of the “old boys.” This view is supported by other passages. In the _Areiopagitikos_[550] Isokrates tells his imaginary audience that “Some who heard me on a former occasion describe this constitution which Athens once enjoyed, while praising it enthusiastically and calling our ancestors happy,… told me that I was not likely to persuade you to adopt it.” On another occasion his speech made such an impression upon this preliminary audience that “No one praised the beauty of the style, as they usually do, but all admired the truth of the argument.” When he first told his pupils that he meant to send an advisory speech to Philip, “they all thought he was mad, and had the impudence to rebuke him, a thing which they had never done before.… But when they had heard the speech, they changed their minds completely and thought that Philip, Athens, and all Hellas would alike be grateful to him.”[551]