hers formed ties of hospitality with
you; thus ancient is the friendship which I and my parents have had for
you.

ATHENIAN: You seem to be quite ready to listen; and I am also ready
to perform as much as I can of an almost impossible task, which I will
nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the discussion, let me define the
nature and power of education; for this is the way by which our argument
must travel onwards to the God Dionysus.

CLEINIAS: Let us proceed, if you please.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, if I tell you what are my notions of education,
will you consider whether they satisfy you?

CLEINIAS: Let us hear.

ATHENIAN: According to my view, any one who would be good at anything
must practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and
earnest, in its several branches: for example, he who is to be a good
builder, should play at building children's houses; he who is to be a
good husbandman, at tilling the ground; and those who have the care of
their education should provide them when young with mimic tools. They
should learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require
for their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure
or apply the line in play; and the future warrior should learn riding,
or some other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher should endeavour
to direct the children's inclinations and pleasures, by the help of
amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of
education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his
play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in which
when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected. Do you agree
with me thus far?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or
ill-defined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about
the bringing-up of each person, we call one man educated and another
uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well
educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship,
and the like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower
sense, but of that other education in virtue from youth upwards, which
makes a man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and
teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey. This is the only
education which, upon our view, deserves the name; that other sort of
training, which aims at the acquisition