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forefathers formed ties of hospitality with you; thus ancient is the friendship
which I and my parents have had for you.
Athenian. You seem to be quite ready to listen; and I am also ready to
perform as much as I can of an almost impossible task, which I will
nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the discussion, let me define the nature
and power of education; for this is the way by which our argument must
travel onwards to the God Dionysus.
Cleinias. Let us proceed, if you please.
Athenian. Well, then, if I tell you what are my notions of education, will
you consider whether they satisfy you?
Cleinias. Let us hear.
Athenian. According to my view, any one who would be good at anything
must practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest, in
its several branches: for example, he who is to be a good builder, should play
at building children’s houses; he who is to be a good husbandman, at tilling
the ground; and those who have the care of their education should provide
them when young with mimic tools. They should learn beforehand the
knowledge which they will afterwards require for their art. For example, the
future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play; and the
future warrior should learn riding, or some other exercise, for amusement, and
the teacher should endeavour to direct the children’s inclinations and
pleasures, by the help of amusements, to their final aim in life. The most
important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the
child in his play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in
which when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected. Do you
agree with me thus far?
Cleinias. Certainly.
Athenian. Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or ill–
defined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about the
bringing–up of each person, we call one man educated and another
uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well
educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship, and the
like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower sense, but of that
other education in virtue from youth upwards, which makes a man eagerly
pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and teaches him how rightly to rule
and how to obey. This is the only education which, upon our view, deserves
the name; that other sort of training, which aims at the acquisition of wealth
or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from intelligence and justice, is
mean and illiberal, and is not worthy to be called education at all. But let us
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International