if he could, climbing up to the highest part of the
city, "Men, what can you be thinking of, who move heaven and earth to
make money, while you bestow next to no attention on the sons you are
going to leave that money to?"[12] I would add to this that such fathers
act very similarly to a person who should be very careful about his shoe
but care nothing about his foot. Many persons also are so niggardly
about their children, and indifferent to their interests, that for the
sake of a paltry saving, they prefer worthless teachers for their
children, practising a vile economy at the expense of their children's
ignorance. _Apropos_ of this, Aristippus on one occasion rebuked an
empty-headed parent neatly and wittily. For being asked how much money a
parent ought to pay for his son's education, he answered, "A thousand
drachmae." And he replying, "Hercules, what a price! I could buy a slave
for as much;" Aristippus answered, "You shall have two slaves then, your
son and the slave you buy."[13] And is it not altogether strange that
you accustom your son to take his food in his right hand, and chide him
if he offers his left, whereas you care very little about his hearing
good and sound discourses? I will tell you what happens to such
admirable fathers, when they have educated and brought up their sons so
badly: when the sons grow to man's estate, they disregard a sober and
well-ordered life, and rush headlong into disorderly and low vices; then
at the last the parents are sorry they have neglected their education,
bemoaning bitterly when it is too late their sons' debasement. For some
of them keep flatterers and parasites in their retinue--an accursed set
of wretches, the defilers and pest of youth; others keep mistresses and
common prostitutes, wanton and costly; others waste their money in
eating; others come to grief through dice and revelling; some even go in
for bolder profligacy, being whoremongers and defilers of the marriage
bed,[14] who would madly pursue their darling vice if it cost them their
lives. Had they associated with some philosopher, they would not have
lowered themselves by such practices, but would have remembered the
precept of Diogenes, whose advice sounds rather low, but is really of
excellent moral intent,[15] "Go into a brothel, my lad, that you may see
the little difference between vice and virtue."

Sec. VIII. I say, then, to speak comprehensively (and I might be justly
considered in so saying to sp