Response to Whately

"...all a Rhetoricians rules
But teach him how to use his tools" (1011)

Whately himself calls this quote a little exaggerated.  But it makes sense to me; rhetoric is a science which outlines a practice, whether the practice is public speaking, composition, or even something else.  On page 1010, Whately says that while studying rhetoric ought to aid style and expression (as opposed to inhibiting it), studying rhetoric is still a discipline (1010).

I react to such statements by wondering how, at this time, students practiced and eventually learned the art of rhetoric.  Did they engage in frequent public debates, or debates among each other?  Perhaps Whately's Elements of Rhetoric is a preserved textbook, and arguments among students were exercises.  When reading selections from texts such as this, I often feel as though I'm reading a rhetorical rulebook, while being barred from observing the learning process which must have occurred alongside it.  

On the same page, Whately draws a comparison to following rules of painting in order to develop skill as an artist: "No one would expect that the study of Sir Joshua Reynold's lectures would cramp the genius of the painter" (1010).   Yet he seems to prescribes guidelines, not restrictions.  Concerning composition, he argues that an outline used by a student when creating a text "should serve merely as a track to mark out a path for him, not as a groove to confine him" (1014). 

As Whateley continues to describe rules of rhetoric is various situations...be them pertinent to composition, a legal setting, or a religious debate...and as he elaborates on specific facets of argument, such as indirect argument and irony...it seems to me as though he really is naming a rhetor's tools.  Studying texts like Whately's Elements of Rhetoric isn't bound to make someone a good rhetor per se, but merely studying a textbook isn't going a student learn the material if he or she doesn't practice via exercises.

On that note, I'll close with a second quote, and only because I found it humorous:

A particular problem related to presumption: "Rather than let their knowledge and skill lie idle, they will be tempted to misapply them; like a schoolboy, who, when possessed of a knife, is for trying its edge on everything that comes in his way" (1023).  I'd heard of this occurrence before, by name of The Law of the Instrument...