Part 21

What the consequence is to these admirable fathers, when they bring up their sons badly and educate them badly, is soon told. On coming of age and taking rank as men, the sons show an utter disregard of a wholesome and orderly life, and throw themselves headlong into low and irregular pleasures. Then [Sidenote: B] at last, when it is of no use, and when their wrongdoing has brought him to his wits’ end, the father repents of having sacrificed his children’s education. Some of them take up with toadies and parasites, wretched nondescripts who are the ruin and bane of youth; others with haughty and expensive mistresses and strumpets, whom they ransom from their employers. Some spend recklessly on gormandizing; some are wrecked upon dice and carousals; some go so far as to venture on the more daring vices—they commit adultery, and think death not too much [Sidenote: C] to pay for a single pleasure. Had these last studied philosophy, they would in all probability not have succumbed to temptation of this kind. They would have been told of the advice of Diogenes—who, however coarse in his language, is right in his facts—‘Go to a brothel, my boy, and you will find that the [Sidenote: *] expensive article is not a bit better than the cheap one.’

In brief, then, I assert—and it would be fairer to regard me as repeating an oracle than as giving advice—that in these matters the one and essential thing, the first, middle, and last, is a sound upbringing and right education. It is this, I say, which leads to virtue and happiness.

[Sidenote: D] Other blessings are on the human plane; they are slight and not worth serious pursuit. Good birth is a distinction, but the boon depends on one’s ancestors. Wealth is a prize, but its possession depends on fortune, which often carries it off from those who have it and bestows it on those who never hoped for it. Moreover, great wealth is a target exposed to any rogue of a servant or blackmailer who is minded to ‘aim a purse’ at it. And, worst of all, even the basest of men have their share of it. Fame, again, is imposing, but uncertain. Beauty, though greatly courted, is short-lived; health, though highly prized, is unstable; strength is a thing to be envied, but it falls an easy prey to disease and age. Let us tell any one who prides himself [Sidenote: E] on his bodily strength that he is manifestly under a delusion. How small a fraction is human strength of the might of other animals, such as the elephant, the bull, and the lion!

Meanwhile culture is the only thing in us that is immortal and divine. In the nature of man there are two sovereign elements—understanding and reason. It is the place of the understanding to direct the reason and of the reason to serve the understanding. Fortune cannot overcome them, calumny cannot rob us of them, disease cannot corrupt them, old age cannot impair them. The understanding is the only thing that renews its youth as it grows old, and, while time carries off everything else, it brings old age one gift—that of knowledge. When, again, war comes like a torrent, tearing and sweeping everything away, it is of our mental culture alone that it cannot rob us. Stilpo, the Megarian philosopher, made what seems a memorable answer when Demetrius, after enslaving the city and razing it to the ground, asked him if he had lost anything. ‘O no!’ said he, ‘for virtue is not made spoil of war.’ The reply of Socrates is evidently to the same tune and purpose. [Sidenote: 6] It was Gorgias, I believe, who asked him his opinion of the Great King, and whether he considered him happy. ‘I have no knowledge,’ said Socrates, ‘as to the state of his character and culture.’ He assumed that happiness depended upon these, and not upon the gifts of fortune.

Not only should the education of our children be treated as of the very first importance, but I once more urge that we should insist upon its being of the sound and genuine kind. From pretentious nonsense our sons should be kept as far aloof [Sidenote: B] as possible. To please the many is to displease the wise, an assertion in which I have the support of Euripides:

_I am not deft of words before the crowd, More skilled when with my compeers and the few. ’Tis compensation: they who ‘mid the wise Are naught, surpass in gift of speech to mobs._

My own observation tells me that persons who make a business of speaking in a way to please and curry favour with the rabble, generally prove correspondingly dissolute and pleasure-loving in their lives. Nor, indeed, should we expect anything else; for if they have no regard to propriety when catering for the [Sidenote: C] gratification of other people, it is not likely that they will permit right and sound principles to have the upper hand of their own voluptuous self-indulgence, nor that they will cultivate self-control rather than enjoyment.

[Sidenote: *] And how can children learn from them anything admirable? Among admirable things is the practice of neither saying nor doing anything at random; and, as the proverb goes, ‘admirable things are difficult.’ Meanwhile, speeches made offhand are a mass of reckless slovenliness, without a notion where to begin or where to end.

Apart from other faults, extempore speakers drop into a terrible prolixity and verbiage, whereas premeditation keeps [Sidenote: D] a speech safe within the lines of due proportion. When Pericles, ‘as tradition informs us,’ was called upon by the assembly, he frequently refused the call, on the ground that his thoughts were ‘not arranged’. Demosthenes, who took him for his own political model, acted in the same way. If the Athenians called upon him to address them, he would resist, with the words, ‘I have not arranged my thoughts.’ This, it is true, may be unauthentic and a fabrication; but in the speech against Meidias we have an explicit statement as to the advantage of preparation. His words are: ‘_I admit, gentlemen, that I come prepared; and I have no wish to deny it. I have even conned over my speech to the best of my poor ability. It would have been insane conduct, if, after and amid such harsh treatment, I had paid no regard to what I meant to say to you on the subject._’

That impromptu speaking should be rejected altogether, or, [Sidenote: E] failing this, that it should be practised only on unimportant subjects, I do not say. I am recommending a tonic regimen. Before manhood, I claim that there should be no speaking on the spur of the moment. But when the ability has taken firm root, it is only right for speech to enjoy free play as occasion invites. Though persons who have been in prison for a long time may subsequently be liberated, they are unsteady on their feet, [Sidenote: F] a protracted habit of wearing chains making them unable to step out. Similarly if those who have for a long time kept their speaking under close constraint some day find it necessary to speak offhand, they nevertheless retain the same style of expression. But to let mere children make extempore speeches is to become responsible for the worst of twaddle and futility. There is a story of a wretched painter who showed Apelles a picture, with the remark, ‘I have just painted this at one [Sidenote: 7] sitting.’ ‘I can see,’ said Apelles, ‘without your telling me, that it has been quick work. But my wonder is that you haven’t painted more than one as good.’

While (to return to the original matter in hand) we must be careful to avoid a style which is theatrical and bombastic, we must be equally on our guard against one which is low and trivial. If the turgid style is unbusinesslike, too thin a style is ineffective. Just as the body should be not only healthy but also in good condition, so language must be full of strength [Sidenote: B] and not simply free from disease. Keep on the safe side, and you are merely commended: face some risk, and you are admired. I take the same view of the mental disposition also. One should neither be over-bold, and so become brazen, nor yet timid and bashful, and so become mean-spirited. The rule of art and taste is _The middle course in all things_.

[Sidenote: *] While I am still upon the subject of this part of education there is an opinion which I desire to express. A style consisting of single clauses I regard in the first instance as no slight evidence of poor taste, and, in the next, as too finical a thing ever to [Sidenote: C] be maintained in practice. Here, as in everything else that caters for ear or eye, monotony is as cloying and irksome as variety is delightful.

There is no subject in the ‘regular curriculum’ of which the eye or ear of a freeborn boy should be permitted to remain uninformed. But while he receives a cursory education in those subjects in order to taste their quality, the most important place—complete all-round proficiency being impossible—must belong to philosophy. We may explain by a comparison with [Sidenote: D] travel, in which it is an excellent thing to visit a large number of cities, but good policy to settle in the best. As the philosopher Bion wittily remarked, when the suitors could obtain no access to Penelope they satisfied themselves with her handmaids, and when a man is unable to get hold of philosophy he makes dry bones of himself upon the remaining subjects, which are of no account.

Philosophy, then, should be put at the head of all mental culture. The services which have been invented for the care of the body are two—medicine and gymnastics—the one imparting health, the other good condition. But for the weaknesses and ailments of the soul philosophy is the only thing to be prescribed. It is from and with philosophy that we can tell what is becoming or disgraceful, what is just or unjust, [Sidenote: E] what course, in short, is to be chosen or shunned. It teaches us how to behave towards the Gods, our parents, our elders, the laws, our rulers, friends, wives, children, and servants: that we should worship the Gods, honour our parents, respect our elders, obey the laws, give way to our rulers, love our friends, be continent towards our wives, show affection to our children, and abstain from cruelty to our slaves. Above all, it warns us against excess of joy when prosperous and excess of grief when unfortunate; against dissoluteness in our pleasures, or fury and brutality in our anger. These I judge to be chief among [Sidenote: F] the blessings conferred by philosophy. To bear adversity nobly is to act the brave man,[57] to bear prosperity unassumingly, the [Sidenote: *] modest mortal. To get the better of pleasures by reason needs wisdom; to master anger requires no ordinary character.

Perfect men I take to be those who can blend practical ability [Sidenote: 8] with philosophy, and who can achieve both of two best and greatest ends—the life of public utility as men of affairs, and the calm and tranquil life as students of philosophy. For there are three kinds of life: the life of action, the life of thought, and the life of enjoyment. When life is dissolute and enslaved to pleasure, it is mean and animal; when it is all thought and fails to act, it is futile; when it is all action and destitute of philosophy, it is crude and blundering. We should therefore do our best to engage both in public business and in the pursuit [Sidenote: B] of philosophy, as occasion offers. Of this kind was the public career of Pericles, of Archytas of Tarentum, of Dion of Syracuse, and of Epaminondas of Thebes. Of these Dion actually attached himself to Plato as his pupil.

There is no need, I think, to deal at any greater length with mental cultivation. It is, however, further desirable—or rather it is essential—that we should not neglect to possess the standard treatises, but should collect a stock of them, with the result of keeping our knowledge from starvation.[58] Farmers stock [Sidenote: *] [their fertilizers], and the employment of books is instrumental to culture in the same way.

[Sidenote: C] Meanwhile we must not omit to exercise the body also. Our boys must be sent to the teacher of gymnastics and receive a sufficient amount of physical training, both to secure a good carriage and also to develop strength. Good condition is the foundation laid in childhood for a hale old age, and, just as our preparations for wintry weather should be made while it is fine, so we should store up provision for age in the shape of regular and temperate behaviour in youth. Physical exertion should, however, be so regulated that a boy does not become too exhausted to devote himself sufficiently to mental culture. [Sidenote: D] As Plato observes, sleep and weariness are the enemies of study.

Upon this topic I need not dwell, but will pass on at once to the most important consideration of all—the necessity of training a boy for service as a fighting-man. For this he must go through hard drill in hurling the javelin, in shooting with the bow, and in hunting. ‘The goods of the vanquished,’ it has been said, ‘are prizes offered to the victor.’ There is no place in war for the physical condition of the cloister, and a lean soldier accustomed to warlike exercises will break through [Sidenote: *] a phalanx of fleshy prize-fighters.

[Sidenote: E] ‘Well but,’ some one may urge, ‘while you promised us a set of rules for the upbringing of free men, it turns out that you have nothing to say concerning that of poor and common people, but are satisfied to confine your suggestions to the rich.’ There is a ready reply to the objection. If possible, I should desire the proposed education to be applicable to all alike. But if there are cases in which limited private circumstances make it impossible to carry my rules into practice, the blame should be laid upon fortune, not upon him who offers the advice. Though a man is poor, he should make every possible effort to bring up his children in the ideal way. Failing this, he must come as near to it as he can.

After thus encumbering our discussion with this side-issue, [Sidenote: F] I will now proceed with the connected account of such other [Sidenote: *] matters as contribute to the right upbringing of the young.

And first, children should be led into right practices of persuasion and reasoning: flogging and bodily injury should be out of the question. Such treatment is surely more fit for slaves than for the free, whom the smart, or even the humiliation, of a beating deprives of all life and spirit, making their tasks a horror to them. The freeborn find praise a more effective [Sidenote: 9] stimulus to the right conduct, and blame a more effective deterrent from the wrong, than any kind of bodily assault. In the use of such praise and reprimand there should be a subtle alternation. When a child is too bold, it should first be shamed by reproof and then encouraged by a word of praise. We may take a pattern by nurses, who may have to make an infant cry, but who afterwards comfort it by offering it the breast. We must, however, avoid puffing children up with eulogies, the consequence of excessive praise being vanity and conceit.

I have noticed more than one instance in which the over-fondness [Sidenote: B] of a father has proved to be a lack of fondness. To make my meaning clear, I will use an illustration. Being in too great haste for their children to take first place in everything, they impose extravagant tasks, which prove too great for their strength and end in failure, besides causing them such weariness and distress that they refuse to submit patiently to instruction. Water in moderation will make a plant grow, while a flood of water will choke it. In the same way the mind will thrive under [Sidenote: C] reasonably hard work, but will drown if the work is excessive. We must therefore allow children breathing-time from perpetual tasks, and remember that all our life there is a division of relaxation and effort. Hence the existence of sleep as well as waking, of peace as well as war, of fine weather as well as bad, of holidays as well as business. In a word, it is rest that seasons toil. The fact is obvious, not merely in the case of living things, but in that of the inanimate world. We loosen a bow or a lyre, so that we may be able to tighten it. In fine, the body is kept sound by want and its satisfaction, the mind by relaxation and labour.

[Sidenote: D] There are some fathers who have a culpable way of entrusting their sons to attendants and teachers, and then entirely omitting to keep the instruction of such persons under their own eye or ear. This is a most serious failure in their duty. Every few days they should personally examine their children, instead of confiding in the character of a hireling, whose attention to his pupils will be more conscientious if he is to be brought continually to book. In this connexion there is aptness in the groom’s dictum that _nothing is so fattening to a horse as the eye of the king_.

[Sidenote: E] Above all things one should train and exercise a child’s memory. Memory serves as the storehouse of culture, and hence the fable that Recollection is the mother of the Muses—an indirect way of saying that memory is the best thing in the world to beget and foster wisdom. Whether children are naturally gifted with a good memory, or, on the contrary, are naturally forgetful, the memory should be trained in either case. The natural advantage will be strengthened, or the natural shortcoming made up. The former class will excel others, the latter will excel themselves. As Hesiod well puts it: [Sidenote: F]

_If to the thing that is little you further add but a little, And do the same oft and again, full soon it becometh a great thing._

This, then, is another fact for fathers to recognize—that the mnemonic element in education plays a most important part, not only in culture, but also in the business of life, inasmuch as the recollection of past experience serves as a guide to wise policy for the future.

Our sons must also be kept from the use of foul language. ‘The word,’ says Democritus, ‘is the shadow of the deed.’ More than that, we must render them polite and courteous, [Sidenote: 10] for there is nothing so detestable as a boorish character. One way in which children may avoid becoming disagreeable to their company is by refraining from absolute stubbornness in discussion. Credit is to be gained not merely by victory, but also by knowing how to accept defeat where victory is harmful. There is unquestionably such a thing as a ‘Cadmean victory’. _À propos_ I may quote the testimony of that wise poet Euripides: [Sidenote: B]

_When two men speak, and one is full of anger, Wiser the one who strives not to reply._

This is the time to remember certain other habits quite as necessary—and more so—for the young to cultivate as any yet mentioned. These are modesty of behaviour, restraint of the tongue, mastery of the temper, and control of the hands. Let us see how important each of them is. We may take an illustration to bring home the notion more clearly. And we will begin with the last. There have been those who, by lowering their hands to ill-gotten gains, have thrown away all the reputation won by their previous career. This was the case with the Lacedaemonian, Gylippus, who was driven into exile from Sparta [Sidenote: C] for secretly broaching the money-bags. Absence of anger, again, is a quality of wisdom. Socrates once received a kick from a very impudent and gross young buffoon, but on seeing that his own friends were in such a violent state of indignation that they wanted to prosecute him, he remarked: ‘If a donkey had kicked me, would you have condescended to kick him back?’ The fellow did not, however, get off scot-free, but finding himself universally reproached and nicknamed ‘Kicker’, he hanged himself. When Aristophanes brought out the _Clouds_, and poured all manner of abuse upon Socrates, one of those present asked: ‘Pray, are you not indignant at his ridiculing you in this manner?’ [Sidenote: D] ‘Not I, indeed,’ replied Socrates; ‘this banter in the theatre is only in a big convivial party.’ A close counterpart of this attitude will be found in the behaviour of Plato and of Archytas of Tarentum. When the latter, on his return from the war in which he had held command, found that his land had gone out of cultivation, he summoned his manager and remarked: ‘You would have suffered for this, if I had not been too angry.’ When Plato, again, was once worked into a passion with a greedy and impudent slave, he called his sister’s son Speusippus and said, ‘Go and give this fellow a thrashing: I am myself in a great passion.’

But, it may be argued, it is difficult to reach so high a standard [Sidenote: E] as this. I am well aware of it. We can therefore only do our best to take a pattern by such conduct, and minimize any tendency to ungovernable rage. As in other matters, we are no match for either the moral mastery or the finished character of those great models. Nevertheless we may act towards them as we might towards the Gods, serving as hierophants and torch-bearers of their wisdom and endeavouring to imitate in our nibbling way as much as lies in our power.

As for the control of the tongue—the remaining point to be considered according to our promise—any one who regards it as of trivial moment is very much in the wrong. In a timely [Sidenote: F] silence there is a wisdom superior to any speech. It is apparently for this reason that men in old times invented our mystic rites and ceremonies. The notion was that, through being trained to silence in connexion with these, we should secure the keeping of human secrets by carrying into them the same religious fear. Moreover, though multitudes have repented of talking, no man has repented of silence, and while it is easy to utter what has been kept back, it is impossible to recall what has been uttered.

My own reading affords countless instances of the greatest disasters resulting from an ungoverned tongue. I will content [Sidenote: 11] myself with mentioning one or two typical examples. When, upon the marriage of Philadelphus with his sister, Sotades composed a scurrilous verse, he paid ample atonement for talking out of season by rotting for a long time in prison. He thus purchased a laugh in others by long weeping of his own. The [Sidenote: *] story is closely matched by that of the sophist Theocritus, who endured similar, but much more terrible, consequences for a similar remark. Alexander had ordered the Greeks to provide a stock of purple garments, with a view to the thanksgiving [Sidenote: B] sacrifice on his return from his Persian victories, and the various peoples were contributing at so much per head. Hereupon Theocritus observed: ‘I have now become clear upon a point which used to puzzle me. This is what is meant by Homer’s “purple death”‘—words which earned him the enmity of Alexander. Antigonus, the Macedonian king, had but one eye, and Theocritus made him excessively angry by a taunt at this disfigurement. Eutropion, the chief cook, who had become a person of importance, was sent to him by the king with a request that he would come to court and engage him in argument. On receiving repeated visits from Eutropion with this message, he [Sidenote: C] remarked, ‘I am well aware that you want to dish me up raw to the Cyclops,’ thus twitting the one with being disfigured, the other with being a cook. ‘Then,’ replied Eutropion, ‘it will be without your head, for you shall be punished for such mad and reckless language.’ Thereupon he reported the words to the king, who sent and put Theocritus to death.

The last and most sacred requirement is that children should be trained to speak the truth. Lying is a servile habit; it deserves universal detestation and is unpardonable even in a decent slave.