the schools, signifies the manner of speaking or writing, adapted to teach or explain the nature of things. The word is formed from the Greek διδάσκω, doceo, "I teach."

There are many words which are only used in the didactic and dogmatic way; and there are many works, ancient and modern, both in prose and verse, written after this method: such are the Georgics of Virgil, Lucretius's poem De Rerum Natura, and Pope's Essays on Criticism and on Man, &c., &c.