ught to lay up for winter, so in youth one ought to
form good habits and live soberly so as to have a reserve stock of
strength for old age. Yet ought we to husband the exertions of the body,
so as not to be wearied out by them and rendered unfit for study. For,
as Plato says,[23] excessive sleep and fatigue are enemies to learning.
But why dwell on this? For I am in a hurry to pass to the most important
point. Our lads must be trained for warlike encounters, making
themselves efficient in hurling the javelin and darts, and in the chase.
For the possessions of those who are defeated in battle belong to the
conquerors as booty of war; and war is not the place for delicately
brought up bodies: it is the spare warrior that makes the best
combatant, who as an athlete cuts his way through the ranks of the
enemies. Supposing anyone objects: "How so? As you undertook to give
advice on the education of freeborn children, do you now neglect the
poor and plebeian ones, and give instructions only suitable to the
rich?" It is easy enough to meet such critics. I should prefer to make
my teaching general and suitable to all; but if any, through their
poverty, shall be unable to follow up my precepts, let them blame
fortune, and not the author of these hints. We must try with all our
might to procure the best education for the poor as well as the rich,
but if that is impossible, then we must put up with the practicable. I
inserted those matters into my discourse here, that I might hereafter
confine myself to all that appertains to the right education of the
young.

Sec. XII. And this I say that we ought to try to draw our boys to good
pursuits by entreaties and exhortation, but certainly not by blows or
abusive language. For that seems to be more fitting for slaves than the
freeborn. For slaves try to shirk and avoid their work, partly because
of the pain of blows, partly on account of being reviled. But praise or
censure are far more useful than abuse to the freeborn, praise pricking
them on to virtue, censure deterring them from vice. But one must
censure and praise alternately: when they are too saucy we must censure
them and make them ashamed of themselves, and again encourage them by
praise, and imitate those nurses who, when their children sob, give them
the breast to comfort them. But we must not puff them up and make them
conceited with excessive praise, for that will make them vain and give
themselves airs.

Sec. XIII. And