the platanista was famous, a kind of fight in squadrons, but somewhat
too fierce. When they came to be of military age they were listed of
the mora, and so continued in readiness for public service under the
discipline of the polemarchs. But the Roman education and discipline by
the centuries and classes is that to which the Commonwealth of Oceana
has had a more particular regard in her three essays, being certain
degrees by which the youth commence as it were in arms for magistracy,
as appears by--

The twenty-sixth order, instituting, "That if a parent has but one son,
the education of that one son shall be wholly at the disposition of that
parent. But whereas there be free schools erected and endowed, or to
be erected and endowed in every tribe of this nation, to a sufficient
proportion for the education of the children of the same (which schools,
to the end there be no detriment or hindrance to the scholars upon case
of removing from one to another, are every of them to be governed by
the strict inspection of the censors of the tribes, both upon the
schoolmaster's manner of life and teaching, and the proficiency of the
children, after the rules and method of that in Hiera) if a parent has
more sons than one, the censors of the tribes shall animadvert upon and
punish him that sends not his sons within the ninth year of their age to
some one of the schools of a tribe, there to be kept and taught, if he
be able, at his own charges; and if he be not able, gratis, till they
arrive at the age of fifteen years. And a parent may expect of his sons
at the fifteenth year of their age, according to his choice or ability,
whether it be to service in the way of apprentices to some trade or
otherwise, or to further study, as by sending them to the inns of court,
of chancery, or to one of the universities of this nation. But he
that takes not upon him one of the professions proper to some of those
places, shall not continue longer in any of them than till he has
attained to the age of eighteen years; and every man having not at
the age of eighteen years taken upon him, or addicted himself to the
profession of the law, theology, or physic, and being no servant, shall
be capable of the essays of the youth, and no other person whatsoever,
except a man, having taken upon him such a profession, happens to lay
it by ere he arrives at three or four and twenty years of age, and be
admitted to this capacity by the respective. Phylarchs be