Politics: A Treatise on Government
The preceptors also ought to have an eye upon their manner of life, and
those with whom they converse; and to take care that they are never
in the company of slaves. At this time and till they are seven [1336b]
years old it is necessary that they should be educated at home. It
is also very proper to banish, both from their hearing and sight,
everything which is illiberal and the like. Indeed it is as much the
business of the legislator as anything else, to banish every indecent
expression out of the state: for from a permission to speak whatever is
shameful, very quickly arises the doing it, and this particularly with
young people: for which reason let them never speak nor hear any such
thing: but if it appears that any freeman has done or said anything that
is forbidden before he is of age to be thought fit to partake of the
common meals, let him be punished by disgrace and stripes; but if a
person above that age does so, let him be treated as you would a
slave, on account of his being infamous. Since we forbid his speaking
everything which is forbidden, it is necessary that he neither sees
obscene stories nor pictures; the magistrates therefore are to take care
that there are no statues or pictures of anything of this nature, except
only to those gods to whom the law permits them, and to which the law
allows persons of a certain age to pay their devotions, for themselves,
their wives, and children. It should also be illegal for young persons
to be present either at iambics or comedies before they are arrived at
that age when they are allowed to partake of the pleasures of the table:
indeed a good education will preserve them from all the evils which
attend on these things. We have at present just touched upon this
subject; it will be our business hereafter, when we properly come to
it, to determine whether this care of children is unnecessary, or,
if necessary, in what manner it must be done; at present we have only
mentioned it as necessary. Probably the saying of Theodoras, the tragic
actor, was not a bad one: That he would permit no one, not even the
meanest actor, to go upon the stage before him, that he might first
engage the ear of the audience. The same thing happens both in our
connections with men and things: what we meet with first pleases best;
for which reason children should be kept strangers to everything which
is bad, more particularly whatsoever is loose and offensive to good
manners. When five years are accomplished, the two next may be very
properly employed in being spectators of those exercises they will
afterwards have to learn. There are two periods into which education
ought to be divided, according to the age of the child; the one is from
his being seven years of age to the time of puberty; the other from
thence till he is one-and-twenty: for those who divide ages by the
number seven [1337a] are in general wrong: it is much better to follow
the division of nature; for every art and every instruction is intended
to complete what nature has left defective: we must first consider if
any regulation whatsoever is requisite for children; in the next place,
if it is advantageous to make it a common care, or that every one should
act therein as he pleases, which is the general practice in most cities;
in the third place, what it ought to be.
BOOK VIII
CHAPTER I
No one can doubt that the magistrate ought greatly to interest himself
in the care of youth; for where it is neglected it is hurtful to the
city, for every state ought to be governed according to its particular
nature; for the form and manners of each government are peculiar to
itself; and these, as they originally established it, so they usually
still preserve it. For instance, democratic forms and manners a
democracy; oligarchic, an oligarchy: but, universally, the best manners
produce the best government. Besides, as in every business and art there
are some things which men are to learn first and be made accustomed to,
which are necessary to perform their several works; so it is evident
that the same thing is necessary in the practice of virtue. As there is
one end in view in every city, it is evident that education ought to be
one and the same in each; and that this should be a common care, and
not the individual's, as it now is, when every one takes care of his own
children separately; and their instructions are particular also, each
person teaching them as they please; but what ought to be engaged in
ought to be common to all. Besides, no one ought to think that any
citizen belongs to him in particular, but to the state in general; for
each one is a part of the state, and it is the natural duty of each part
to regard the good of the whole: and for this the Lacedaemonians may be
praised; for they give the greatest attention to education, and make
it public. It is evident, then, that there should be laws concerning
education, and that it should be public.
CHAPTER II
What education is, and how children ought to be instructed, is what
should be well known; for there are doubts concerning the business of
it, as all people do not agree in those things they would have a child
taught, both with respect to their improvement in virtue and a happy
life: nor is it clear whether the object of it should be to improve
the reason or rectify the morals. From the present mode of education
we cannot determine with certainty to which men incline, whether to
instruct a child in what will be useful to him in life; or what tends to
virtue, and what is excellent: for all these things have their separate
defenders. As to virtue, there is no particular [1337b] in which they
all agree: for as all do not equally esteem all virtues, it reasonably
follows that they will not cultivate the same. It is evident that what
is necessary ought to be taught to all: but that which is necessary
for one is not necessary for all; for there ought to be a distinction
between the employment of a freeman and a slave. The first of these
should be taught everything useful which will not make those who know
it mean. Every work is to be esteemed mean, and every art and every
discipline which renders the body, the mind, or the understanding of
freemen unfit for the habit and practice of virtue: for which reason all
those arts which tend to deform the body are called mean, and all those
employments which are exercised for gain; for they take off from the
freedom of the mind and render it sordid. There are also some liberal
arts which are not improper for freemen to apply to in a certain degree;
but to endeavour to acquire a perfect skill in them is exposed to the
faults I have just mentioned; for there is a great deal of difference
in the reason for which any one does or learns anything: for it is not
illiberal to engage in it for one's self, one's friend, or in the cause
of virtue; while, at the same time, to do it for the sake of another
may seem to be acting the part of a servant and a slave. The mode of
instruction which now prevails seems to partake of both parts.
CHAPTER III
There are four things which it is usual to teach children--reading,
gymnastic exercises, and music, to which (in the fourth place) some add
painting. Reading and painting are both of them of singular use in life,
and gymnastic exercises, as productive of courage. As to music, some
persons may doubt, as most persons now use it for the sake of pleasure:
but those who originally made it part of education did it because,
as has been already said, nature requires that we should not only be
properly employed, but to be able to enjoy leisure honourably: for this
(to repeat what I have already said) is of all things the principal.
But, though both labour and rest are necessary, yet the latter is
preferable to the first; and by all means we ought to learn what we
should do when at rest: for we ought not to employ that time at play;
for then play would be the necessary business of our lives. But if this
cannot be, play is more necessary for those who labour than those who
are at rest: for he who labours requires relaxation; which play will
supply: for as labour is attended with pain and continued exertion, it
is necessary that play should be introduced, under proper regulations,
as a medicine: for such an employment of the mind is a relaxation to
it, and eases with pleasure. [1338a] Now rest itself seems to partake of
pleasure, of happiness, and an agreeable life: but this cannot be theirs
who labour, but theirs who are at rest; for he who labours, labours for
the sake of some end which he has not: but happiness is an end which
all persons think is attended with pleasure and not with pain: but all
persons do not agree in making this pleasure consist in the same thing;
for each one has his particular standard, correspondent to his own
habits; but the best man proposes the best pleasure, and that which
arises from the noblest actions. But it is evident, that to live a life
of rest there are some things which a man must learn and be instructed
in; and that the object of this learning and this instruction centres in
their acquisition: but the learning and instruction which is given for
labour has for its object other things; for which reason the ancients
made music a part of education; not as a thing necessary, for it is not
of that nature, nor as a thing useful, as reading, in the common course
of life, or for managing of a family, or for learning anything as useful
in public life. Painting also seems useful to enable a man to judge
more accurately of the productions of the finer arts: nor is it like
the gymnastic exercises, which contribute to health and strength; for
neither of these things do we see produced by music; there remains for
it then to be the employment of our rest, which they had in view who
introduced it; and, thinking it a proper employment for freemen, to them
they allotted it; as Homer sings:
"How right to call Thalia to the feast:"
and of some others he says:
"The bard was call'd, to ravish every ear:"
and, in another place, he makes Ulysses say the happiest part of man's
life is
"When at the festal board, in order plac'd, They hear the song."
It is evident, then, that there is a certain education in which a child
may be instructed, not as useful nor as necessary, but as noble and
liberal: but whether this is one or more than one, and of what sort they
are, and how to be taught, shall be considered hereafter: we are now got
so far on our way as to show that we have the testimony of the ancients
in our favour, by what they have delivered down upon education--for
music makes this plain. Moreover, it is necessary to instruct children
in what is useful, not only on account of its being useful in itself,
as, for instance, to learn to read, but also as the means of acquiring
other different sorts of instruction: thus they should be instructed
in painting, not only to prevent their being mistaken in purchasing
pictures, or in buying or selling of vases, but rather as it makes
[1338b] them judges of the beauties of the human form; for to be always
hunting after the profitable ill agrees with great and freeborn
souls. As it is evident whether a boy should be first taught morals or
reasoning, and whether his body or his understanding should be first
cultivated, it is plain that boys should be first put under the care of
the different masters of the gymnastic arts, both to form their bodies
and teach them their exercises.
CHAPTER IV
Now those states which seem to take the greatest care of their
children's education, bestow their chief attention on wrestling, though
it both prevents the increase of the body and hurts the form of it. This
fault the Lacedaemonians did not fall into, for they made their children