STUDIORUM CONTENTIO.

CLASSROOM COMPETITION

Ad fructus palmae veniunt puer unus, & alter.
Hic suprà ascendit, pronus at ille iacet.
Is qui ad radices desperans substitit imas
Praestat opem erecto, supediique vicem.
Qui vero ascendit: fructus decerpit: & exiis
Largitur socio: participemque facit.
Certamen studii, & doctrinae gloria, Palma est
Ad quam contendunt ingenui pueri.
Quorum alii puchro [=pulchro] victi in certamine, tollunt
Victores: & iis corpora subiiciunt.
Quêis tamen excerptos prudentiae ab arbore fructus
Dant impertitos, consilioque iuvant.
Non omnes quicunque student: profectibus aequis
Ad frugem veniunt. deficit at bona pars.
Qui nitentur enim ad summum: illis altius ibunt:
Qui circa excordes infima substiterint.

Two boys came for the fruit of a palm-tree. The one clambers high, the other lies flat. The one who, hopeless, took his place below at the lowest roots gives assistance and plays the part of helper to the one who stands. But he who climbs and breaks off the fruit gives part of his prize to his friend, and makes him share in it. The palm is the struggle for learning and the glory of knowledge, for which noble children compete. Of these, some, defeated in the lovely strife, lift up the victors, and throw their bodies beneath them. To these the others divide the fruits plucked from the tree of wisdom, and help them with advice. Not all who study arrive from an equal beginning at the fruit: a good part fail. Those who reach the summit will go higher than those who, held back by fear, stop at the bottom.