when he says, "We must teach good habits while the
pupil is still a boy."

Sec.VI. Attention also must be given to this point, that the lads that are
to wait upon and be with young people must be first and foremost of good
morals, and able to speak Greek distinctly and idiomatically, that they
may not by contact with foreigners of loose morals contract any of their
viciousness. For as those who are fond of quoting proverbs say not
amiss, "If you live with a lame man, you will learn to halt."[10]

Sec.VII. Next, when our boys are old enough to be put into the hands of
tutors,[11] great care must be taken that we do not hand them over to
slaves, or foreigners, or flighty persons. For what happens nowadays in
many cases is highly ridiculous: good slaves are made farmers, or
sailors, or merchants, or stewards, or money-lenders; but if they find a
winebibbing, greedy, and utterly useless slave, to him parents commit
the charge of their sons, whereas the good tutor ought to be such a one
as was Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles. The point also which I am now
going to speak about is of the utmost importance. The schoolmasters we
ought to select for our boys should be of blameless life, of pure
character, and of great experience. For a good training is the source
and root of gentlemanly behaviour. And just as farmers prop up their
trees, so good schoolmasters prop up the young by good advice and
suggestions, that they may become upright. How one must despise,
therefore, some fathers, who, whether from ignorance or inexperience,
before putting the intended teachers to the test, commit their sons to
the charge of untried and untested men. If they act so through
inexperience it is not so ridiculous; but it is to the remotest degree
absurd when, though perfectly aware of both the inexperience and
worthlessness of some schoolmasters, they yet entrust their sons to
them; some overcome by flattery, others to gratify friends who solicit
their favours; acting just as if anybody ill in body, passing over the
experienced physician, should, to gratify his friend, call him in, and
so throw away his life; or as if to gratify one's friend one should
reject the best pilot and choose him instead. Zeus and all the gods! can
anyone bearing the sacred name of father put obliging a petitioner
before obtaining the best education for his sons? Were they not then
wise words that the time-honoured Socrates used to utter, and say that
he would proclaim,