hildhood, and
last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor are
vying with one another about the improvement of the child as soon as
ever he is able to understand what is being said to him: he cannot say
or do anything without their setting forth to him that this is just and
that is unjust; this is honourable, that is dishonourable; this is holy,
that is unholy; do this and abstain from that. And if he obeys, well and
good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of
bent or warped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and
enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his reading and
music; and the teachers do as they are desired. And when the boy has
learned his letters and is beginning to understand what is written, as
before he understood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the
works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at school; in
these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and
encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart,
in order that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to become like
them. Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their
young disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they
have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of
other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these they set
to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the
children's souls, in order that they may learn to be more gentle, and
harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action;
for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm. Then
they send them to the master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies
may better minister to the virtuous mind, and that they may not be
compelled through bodily weakness to play the coward in war or on any
other occasion. This is what is done by those who have the means, and
those who have the means are the rich; their children begin to go to
school soonest and leave off latest. When they have done with masters,
the state again compels them to learn the laws, and live after the
pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as
in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style
for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes
him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which wer