for body
and soul. And this higher work ought to be pursued night and day to the
exclusion of every other. The magistrates who keep the city should be
wakeful, and the master of the household should be up early and before
all his servants; and the mistress, too, should awaken her handmaidens,
and not be awakened by them. Much sleep is not required either for our
souls or bodies. When a man is asleep, he is no better than if he were
dead; and he who loves life and wisdom will take no more sleep than
is necessary for health. Magistrates who are wide awake at night are
terrible to the bad; but they are honoured by the good, and are useful
to themselves and the state.

When the morning dawns, let the boy go to school. As the sheep need the
shepherd, so the boy needs a master; for he is at once the most cunning
and the most insubordinate of creatures. Let him be taken away from
mothers and nurses, and tamed with bit and bridle, being treated as a
freeman in that he learns and is taught, but as a slave in that he
may be chastised by all other freemen; and the freeman who neglects to
chastise him shall be disgraced. All these matters will be under the
supervision of the Director of Education.

Him we will address as follows: We have spoken to you, O illustrious
teacher of youth, of the song, the time, and the dance, and of martial
strains; but of the learning of letters and of prose writings, and of
music, and of the use of calculation for military and domestic purposes
we have not spoken, nor yet of the higher use of numbers in reckoning
divine things--such as the revolutions of the stars, or the arrangements
of days, months, and years, of which the true calculation is necessary
in order that seasons and festivals may proceed in regular course, and
arouse and enliven the city, rendering to the Gods their due, and making
men know them better. There are, we say, many things about which we have
not as yet instructed you--and first, as to reading and music: Shall
the pupil be a perfect scholar and musician, or not even enter on these
studies? He should certainly enter on both:--to letters he will apply
himself from the age of ten to thirteen, and at thirteen he will begin
to handle the lyre, and continue to learn music until he is sixteen;
no shorter and no longer time will be allowed, however fond he or his
parents may be of the pursuit. The study of letters he should carry
to the extent of simple reading and writing, but he ne