Indeed. If the author of some text makes clear that this text needs interpretation by a troupe, you are still allowed to discuss it without such interpretation. It just doesn't make sense, and doesn't benefit anybody.
Cheers
To be fair it would be absurd to play it without adjudication. Skilled Parens is a minor hermetic virtue which grants 60 xp in arts and abilities and 30 spell levels, and you want to teach that in one season? It makes my whole conversation about making teaching labs and scriptorium lab/workshops seem like a a child playing with toy tucks in the tank's treadmarks...
And again, this is implicit in any game whether the group or the SG jettisons any rules that they don't feel add to the game or make sense, it's more true for Ars than anything else. Whether or not it gets discussed in a forum as to whether it is part of the Rules As Written, though is not nonsense, nor do I think it was what was suggested by Matt Ryan. Whether a troupe decided to implement it in toto or not, is up to the troupe. But for discussing it in the forum, it's irrelevant on what a troupe should do, although people here can provide guidance on what. If a newbie comes here asking for advice and the only answer is well, that's up to you to decide, then that's not a very helpful piece of advice. You can explain how it works, discuss the likelihood of how many virtues can be effectively taught, and the like. Like I said, after 5 virtue points, you're running into a really hard limit.
Sure, and this could conceivably be the exception that proves the rule, along with Mastered spells, among others, I'm sure. Can the Gentle Gift be taught? Sure, it's RAW. Do you like the idea of the Gentle Gift being taught? If not, then house rule that it and any others that don't make sense can't be taught and must be inherited.
It is the first advice to give in this situation. And Matt Ryan gave it.
That could be advice number two.
And that's no helpful advice at all any more. In context it lets you stumble over your feet and show RAW up, so you land anyway at the following:
Quite so.
Cheers
He gave it implicitly, saying he didn't think it was necessary to give the advice to house rule it away and give the reader the intelligence due him. If anyone is playing any RPG they already do this, they already house rule stuff. Arguing that it isn't RAW or that the author said to disregard it is bordering on the ridiculous, because it is RAW, whether the author said to house rule it away or not. The other stuff he says is important, too. And he certainly doesn't say that anything he wrote is nonsense or that the rules regarding the teaching of apprentices shouldn't be discussed here in this forum. I have to ask, what helpful advice are you providing here? If it's something to the affect that if you don't like the idea of the Gentle Gift or any other Hermetic virtue being taught, then House rule it away, well, it's not necessary advice, the author even said as much.
Rather very explictly, in the first sentence.
(Underscore mine) No. As the author said to house rule it, he makes clear that arguing RAW for this topic makes no sense at all. And thereby he also scuttled every attempt to compare p.40ff Teaching Hermetic Virtues with RAW in other ArM5 books. Whether there is a RAW here is just irrelevant (and depends on its precise definition).
You are building an utterly obvious strawman here.
Cheers
Nonsense.
Feel free to use that post you pasted to the inside of cover of apprentices as a club against your troupe. Using it here is ill-advised. Because what we do here is discuss RAW and the implications of RAW.
It's clear to me that Matt Ryan's post is about discussing the RAW with regards to teaching apprentices at the game table, with the troupe, not here in this forum.
Just re-read this to find why it doesn't deserve further consideration.
This is a very narrow-minded view of this forum. It is - of course - your right to define your own role on it this way.
Cheers
I've read the post several times, it doesn't say what you say it says. Not even close. Even in that thread it was discussed that people read things much differently than you read them.
Of course, we do much more here, but we start from a basis of what is RAW. This entire tangent kicked off when someone else said that it was RAW to teach the Gentle Gift. Guess what? It is. It's in Apprentices and there is even a Criamon path that gives the Gentle Gift as part of the Mystery. There are possibly other methods I'm forgetting. But while it was mentioned that it is possible for a master to teach an Apprentice to have the Gentle Gift, it's going to be an exceedingly rare individual who can actually pull it off, especially if there are any existing Hermetic Virtues and it will likely come with the master's Hermetic Flaws. So the RAW, to me, if not to you, is clear. Teaching the Gentle Gift is certainly RAW, and just like any rule, it's up to the troupe to discuss whether they want the rule based on the implications of the rule. If the idea is that it's "easy" to teach the Gentle Gift, that's debatable.
That it's RAW and canon to teach the Gentle Gift we could see an apprentice who had his Gift so gentled. Then what?
And we start from medieval history. And we start from campaign necessities. No need to throw up your dice in a tantrum if an author tells you that consistency of RAW is not the be-all-end-all when reading his book.
Cheers
Nice. And now I think I'll rage quit the discussion.
You know trying to learn the Gentle Gift is probably what destroyed Mercer's gift. . .
Yep 
Really, the reason was a woman's wrath. Viera was who destroyed his Gift.
Getting away from the 'can the Gentle Gift be taught' diversion I'd like to return to why I think the original idea is... not wrong but something I wouldn't do.
It's because of the way the Gift and the Blatant Gift work in my mind: I envision it being a side effect of the 'bleeding' of magic from the person of the magus. The other person feels something is being done to him by the wizard: he isn't clear about what it is and so his mind seeks a reason to justify what is in fact a totally unreasonable suspicion.
And so the affected person starts to come up with justifications and begins to project onto the Gifted person all sorts of motives and villainies from his own subconscious. In other words he's projecting the things he thinks of as sins (and might dream of doing himself, perhaps) onto the other person.
So just because the wizard is surrounded by other evil swine doesn't mean that he looks good or even average by comparison. The mind of the observer is 'filling in the blanks' with their own terrible imaginations and the evil bastards already at court will be among the most suspicious. "He's nothing like me: I'm just doing what anyone in my position would do! He's not a clever fellow at all... Why I wouldn't be surprised if he were to...." and you may insert here whatever sin it is that the observer is still proud to say they have never stooped to.