everywhere, I lose my passage money."[207] Why should not you also say,
"If men are not better for learning, the money paid to tutors is also
lost?" For just as nurses mould with their hands the child's body, so
tutors, receiving it immediately it is weaned, mould its soul, teaching
it by habit the first vestiges of virtue. And the Lacedaemonian, who was
asked, what good he did as a tutor, replied, "I make what is good
pleasant to boys." Moreover tutors teach boys to walk in the streets
with their heads down,[208] to touch salt fish with one finger only,
other fish bread and meat with two, to scratch themselves in such a way,
and in such a way to put on their cloak.[209]

Sec. III. What then? He that says that the doctor's skill is wanted in the
case of a slight skin-eruption or whitlow, but is not needed in the case
of pleurisy, fever, or lunacy, in what respect does he differ from the
man that says that schools and teaching and precepts are only for small
and boyish duties, while great and important matters are to be left to
mere routine and accident? For, as the man is ridiculous who says we
ought to learn to row but not to steer, so he who allows all other arts
to be learnt, but not virtue, seems to act altogether contrary to the
Scythians. For they, as Herodotus tells us,[210] blind their slaves that
they may remain with them, but such an one puts the eye of reason into
slavish and servile arts, and takes it away from virtue. And the general
Iphicrates well answered Callias, the son of Chabrias, who asked him,
"What are you? an archer? a targeteer? cavalry, or infantry?" "None of
these," said he, "but the commander of them all." Ridiculous therefore
is he who says that the use of the bow and other arms and the sling and
riding are to be taught, but that strategy and how to command an army
comes by the light of nature. Still more ridiculous is he who asserts
that good sense alone need not be taught, without which all other arts
are useless and profitless, seeing that she is the mistress and orderer
and arranger of all of them, and puts each of them to their proper use.
For example, what grace would there be in a banquet, though the servants
had been well-trained, and had learnt how to dress and cook the meat
and pour out the wine,[211] unless there was good order and method
among the waiters?[212]

[205] Plato, "Clitophon," p. 407, C.

[206] Aristophanes, "Clouds," 983.

[207] Does Juvenal allude to