Quintilian on education

We spoke a lot last week about how so many of Quintilian's ideas on education were ahead of his time. His emphasis on encouraging students as well as organizing students according to age level and ability anticipate much of 20th century educational theory, even educational theory of the last 20 years. Nevertheless, let's not forget also that in many ways the Socratic method of several centuries before was more innovative than some other of Quintilian's ideas. I wasn't really able to get a real sense of any emphasis in Quintilian on getting students to think and create for themselves. Socrates, on the other hand, for all of his drawbacks, did at least challenge his students to think about definitions and concepts on their own (in those rare instances, anyway, when the method worked the way it should). The Socratic method has actually made a comeback in recent years in educational theory. I'm not trying to detract from Quintilian's contributions, only to point out that the Greeks and the philosophers had some innovative ideas along with the Sophists and Roman orators.