Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (A.D. 35-95) was a teacher of rhetoric in Rome during the first century of imperial Rome. His seminal work, "De Institutio Oratoria"--The Education of the Orator, was written during his retirement. Quintilian's experience as a teacher had an impact on his ideologies and "De Institutio Oratoria" combined his practitioner perspective with established theories. He believed that a strong foundation in early childhood education was the insurance of later success. This examination of the appearance of Quintilian's educational ideologies in the documents of educational reform between 1980 and 1994 begins with "A Nation at Risk" of 1983 and concludes with the "Goals 2000: Educate America Act" of 1994. Two thousand years after Quintilian wrote "De Institutio Oratoria" , similarities with his ideologies were found in the reform documents of the 1980's and 1990's. The parallels brought forth corroborate this author's thesis that perhaps there are no new ideas in education or schooling; rather they are reformatted to emerge within the context of the times to meet society's need.