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acquired.
There yet remains one difficulty which has been raised by you about the
sons of good men. What is the reason why good men teach their sons the
knowledge which is gained from teachers, and make them wise in that, but do
nothing towards improving them in the virtues which distinguish themselves?
And here, Socrates, I will leave the apologue and resume the argument. Please
to consider: Is there or is there not some one quality of which all the citizens
must be partakers, if there is to be a city at all? In the answer to this question
is contained the only solution of your difficulty; there is no other. For if there
be any such quality, and this quality or unity is not the art of the carpenter, or
the smith, or the potter, but justice and temperance and holiness and, in a
word, manly virtue—if this is the quality of which all men must be partakers,
and which is the very condition of their learning or doing anything else, and if
he who is wanting in this, whether he be a child only or a grown-up man or
woman, must be taught and punished, until by punishment he becomes better,
and he who rebels against instruction and punishment is either exiled or
condemned to death under the idea that he is incurable—if what I am saying
be true, good men have their sons taught other things and not this, do consider
how extraordinary their conduct would appear to be. For we have shown that
they think virtue capable of being taught and cultivated both in private and
public; and, notwithstanding, they have their sons taught lesser matters,
ignorance of which does not involve the punishment of death: but greater
things, of which the ignorance may cause death and exile to those who have
no training or knowledge of them—aye, and confiscation as well as death,
and, in a word, may be the ruin of families—those things, I say, they are
supposed not to teach them,—not to take the utmost care that they should
learn. How improbable is this, Socrates!
Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and
last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor are vying
with one another about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able
to understand what is being said to him: he cannot say or do anything without
their setting forth to him that this is just and that is unjust; this is honourable,
that is dishonourable; this is holy, that is unholy; do this and abstain from that.
And if he obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and
blows, like a piece of bent or warped wood. At a later stage they send him to
teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his reading
and music; and the teachers do as they are desired. And when the boy has
learned his letters and is beginning to understand what is written, as before he
understood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great
poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at school; in these are contained
many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient
260
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book The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Title
- The Complete Plato
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- ~347 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 1612
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International