e to improve
the reason or rectify the morals. From the present mode of education
we cannot determine with certainty to which men incline, whether to
instruct a child in what will be useful to him in life; or what tends to
virtue, and what is excellent: for all these things have their separate
defenders. As to virtue, there is no particular [1337b] in which they
all agree: for as all do not equally esteem all virtues, it reasonably
follows that they will not cultivate the same. It is evident that what
is necessary ought to be taught to all: but that which is necessary
for one is not necessary for all; for there ought to be a distinction
between the employment of a freeman and a slave. The first of these
should be taught everything useful which will not make those who know
it mean. Every work is to be esteemed mean, and every art and every
discipline which renders the body, the mind, or the understanding of
freemen unfit for the habit and practice of virtue: for which reason all
those arts which tend to deform the body are called mean, and all those
employments which are exercised for gain; for they take off from the
freedom of the mind and render it sordid. There are also some liberal
arts which are not improper for freemen to apply to in a certain degree;
but to endeavour to acquire a perfect skill in them is exposed to the
faults I have just mentioned; for there is a great deal of difference
in the reason for which any one does or learns anything: for it is not
illiberal to engage in it for one's self, one's friend, or in the cause
of virtue; while, at the same time, to do it for the sake of another
may seem to be acting the part of a servant and a slave. The mode of
instruction which now prevails seems to partake of both parts.

CHAPTER III

There are four things which it is usual to teach children--reading,
gymnastic exercises, and music, to which (in the fourth place) some add
painting. Reading and painting are both of them of singular use in life,
and gymnastic exercises, as productive of courage. As to music, some
persons may doubt, as most persons now use it for the sake of pleasure:
but those who originally made it part of education did it because,
as has been already said, nature requires that we should not only be
properly employed, but to be able to enjoy leisure honourably: for this
(to repeat what I have already said) is of all things the principal.
But, though both labour and rest are necessary,