With rhetoric regaining ground in twenty-first century education, a reappraisal of the history of rhetorical education can give us insight into the goals and methods of school rhetoric and its potential applications in education today. This presentation outlines the development, dynamics and eventual dissolution of protestant humanist education based on the classical trivium: grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. It describes the three components of the classical rhetorical pedagogical program -- theoretical studies, reading of exemplary texts, and writing and speaking exercises -- and considers their role in a contemporary setting.