Some time ago, I attended a conference on “Isocrates’ Rhetorical Education” occasioned by a fine book on the same topic.1 It was a stimulating event that served to reassert the significance of Isocrates’ political and social theory The conference also sought to explore Isocrates’ pedagogy and, in this effort, it was less successful That is, when the topic of pedagogy was raised at all, it was typically cast in the context of other, presumably larger issues, such as the relation of the paedeia to the Athenian polls. Indeed, the conference discussion always remained at a distance from what we might call the “practicalities of instruction.”