ut I will
return from my digression. We must keep our boys, as I said, from
association with all bad men, but especially from flatterers. For, as I
have often said to parents, and still say, and will constantly affirm,
there is no race more pestilential, nor more sure to ruin youths
swiftly, than the race of flatterers, who destroy both parents and sons
root and branch, making the old age of the one and the youth of the
others miserable, holding out pleasure as a sure bait. The sons of the
rich are by their fathers urged to be sober, but by them to be drunk; by
their fathers to be chaste, by them to wax wanton; by their fathers to
save, by them to spend; by their fathers to be industrious, by them to
be lazy. For they say, "'Our life's but a span;'[37] we can only live
once; why should you heed your father's threats? he's an old twaddler,
he has one foot in the grave; we shall soon hoist him up and carry him
off to burial." Some even pimp for them and supply them with prostitutes
or even married women, and cut huge slices off the father's savings for
old age, if they don't run off with them altogether. An accursed tribe,
feigning friendship, knowing nothing of real freedom, flatterers of the
rich, despisers of the poor, drawn to young men by a sort of natural
logic,[38] showing their teeth and grinning all over when their patrons
laugh,[39] misbegotten brats of fortune and bastard elements in life,
living according to the nod of the rich, free in their circumstances,
but slaves by inclination, when they are not insulted thinking
themselves insulted, because they are parasites to no purpose. So, if
any father cares for the good bringing-up of his sons, he must banish
from his house this abominable race. He must also be on his guard
against the viciousness of his sons' schoolfellows, for they are quite
sufficient to corrupt the best morals.

Sec. XVIII. What I have said hitherto is _apropos_ to my subject: I will
now speak a word to the men. Parents must not be over harsh and rough in
their natures, but must often forgive their sons' offences, remembering
that they themselves were once young. And just as doctors by infusing a
sweet flavour into their bitter potions find delight a passage to
benefit, so fathers must temper the severity of their censure by
mildness; and sometimes relax and slacken the reins of their sons'
desires, and again tighten them; and must be especially easy in respect
to their faults, or if they are