§ 1. Crates once wished to ascend the highest place in the city and to cry out with the utmost exertion of mind and voice:
Ὦ ἄνθρωποι, ποῖ φέρεσθε, οἳ τῆς μὲν χρηματικῆς κτήσεως πέρι πᾶσαν ποιεῖσθε σπουδήν· τῶν δ’ υἱῶν, οἷς ταῦτα καταλείψετε, μικρὰ φροντίζετε;
For Plutarch reports that these were his words in the book Περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς. “Whither are you rushing, O mortals, who apply yourselves with great zeal to acquiring wealth, but take little care for the sons to whom you will leave it?” Plutarch declares that he himself would add: Fathers of this sort do the same thing as those for whom the shoe is an object of care, but the foot of neglect. Now this is so frequently impressed upon foolish parents that they grow deaf to salutary admonitions, like inhabitants beside the Nile to the sound of the Cataracts. So far are they from being moved by words that they do not become wise even through losses. Nor is it worth the effort to gape against a furnace, as they say, and oppose oneself to a powerful error. That caution belongs to kings and magistrates: so great an evil can be corrected only by the highest authority. Parents neglect discipline; many do not even permit their sons to be rightly educated. They favor vices against pedagogues and masters; many also corrupt those ready to learn wickedness by their own example.
From this arise great evils for the state, for from the education of youth comes its one salvation.
Συνελὼν τοίνυν ἐγὼ φαίην μᾶλλον, ἢ παραινῶν δόξαιμι ἂν εἰκότως, ὅτι ἐν πρώτῳ, ἐν μέσῳ, καὶ τελευταῖον ἐν τούτοις κεφάλαιον, ἀγωγὴ σπουδαία καὶ παιδεία νόμιμός ἐστι.
Embracing the whole, therefore, I say—and I might seem to utter oracles rather than to exhort—that the first, middle, and last thing is careful education and lawful instruction. For nature is blind, and unless it is led as if by another’s hand, and at times dragged, it goes astray. And so it is the consensus of all nations that a state cannot be safe without the right and lawful education of the first age. Among the Greeks Lacedaemon, long an emulator of good morals, excelled in prudence in this matter; for it appointed παιδονόμους from among the leading men and frequently summoned the youth to an examination of life and virtue. The Persians also, before ill-fated prosperity overwhelmed their good laws, took great care that youth should be rightly formed. For they appointed twelve leading men to educate the boys. Xenophon, in the Education of Cyrus. The Egyptians and Chaldaeans were taught philosophy and the laws by their own parents, as Diodorus Siculus testifies, book 2, chapter 8. For in this seed lay the hope of the future harvest. Greater still, and belonging almost to barbarian simplicity, was the solicitude of the Indian Brahmans, who appointed a master for a newly born infant, as Alexander ab Alexandro relates, book 2, chapter 25. And indeed daily experience teaches us how great the necessity of this matter is. For just as an untamed horse that has learned neither to endure the bridle nor to bear a rider is of no use, so also the state has no need of a citizen who has not become accustomed to obey his country’s laws. It is an oracle of Plato, book 6 of the Laws:
Ὁ ἄνθρωπος παιδείας μὲν ὀρθῆς τυχὼν, θειότατον, ἡμερώτατόν τε ζῷον γίγνεσθαι φιλεῖ· μὴ ἱκανῶς δ’, ἢ μὴ καλῶς τραφεὶς, ἀγριώτατον μὲν ὁπόσα φύει γῆ.
A human being who has obtained right education is accustomed to become the most divine and gentlest animal; but if he is educated either insufficiently or not well, he becomes the fiercest of all that the earth has produced.
§ 2. Therefore, unless the state has determined to nourish ἑρπετά, creeping things, serpents, and beasts that will rage within their mother’s entrails, let it itself undertake that care. This is the counsel of Aristotle, book 8, chapter 1 of the Politics, whom the shrewdest of kings gave as a master to his son. No one, therefore, will call it into controversy that the lawgiver must labor especially over the discipline of the young. For when this is neglected in cities, it brings great disadvantages to the forms of administering the state: the city must be administered in a manner suited to each kind of administration of the state. For the peculiar disposition—and, so to speak, peculiar genius—of each form of administration both preserves that form and establishes it from the beginning. For example, the disposition suited to democracy establishes and preserves democracy, and that suited to oligarchy, oligarchy. And always, as each disposition is better, so it produces a better form of administering the state. Moreover, in all faculties and arts certain things must be taught beforehand and one must first become accustomed to certain things in order to perform the works and duties of each. Therefore, it is clear that antecedent studies and exercises are also needed to bring forth acts of virtue. Since one end is proposed to every city, it is clear also that one and the same discipline must necessarily belong to all, and that its administration must be public, not private—as now each person has care of his own sons privately and hands down to his sons whatever private discipline he sees fit to teach. But the exercise of common things must also be made common. At the same time, no citizen should think that he belongs to himself, but that all belong to the city; for every citizen is a little part of the city. The care of each part is naturally accustomed to look to the care of the whole. And someone may also praise the Lacedaemonians in this: they bestow very great zeal upon boys, and do so communally and publicly. It is therefore evident that laws must be written concerning the discipline and education of boys, and that this education must be common and public.
These things apply among private persons; but the bad education of princes costs peoples dearly.
§ 3. An administrator is appointed over the household estate, a cultivator is set over the vineyards, and beasts of burden are under a keeper; the age of sons is neglected. Magistrates are placed over walls, roads, bridges, and armories; the morals of youth are counted among abandoned matters. But this is the parents’ duty. It belongs altogether to parents: the law of nature and divine oracles impose upon parents the honorable education of their sons. But many fail in their duty; some are unable; others even break and utterly corrupt the minds of their sons by a wicked example and by precepts. For although every age learns, the tender age especially does so, and it retains for a very long time what it has received. Hence it happens that they are imbued before their time by the examples or vices of their parents. Newly poured plaster easily follows the guidance of a skilled hand and receives the form in which, however, it hardens. Aristotle speaks excellently in book 7 of the Politics, chapter 7: “Perhaps Theodorus the tragic actor did not speak badly when he said something of this kind. For he never permitted any actor, not even a contemptible one, to come forth upon the stage before him, because he thought that the ears of the spectators were seized and occupied by what they first heard. The same thing happens in meetings with human beings and in the handling of affairs. For all things first presented to us are most approved by us. Therefore all bad and vicious things ought to be as unknown to the young as though foreign, but especially those in which there is either baseness or offense to the mind.”
It is plainly so: great is the authority of the things we first learn. And so Eteocles, with great prudence, refused Antipater when he sought young boys as hostages, but permitted adults. He gave as the reason that the tender ought not to be torn from parents and from a well-ordered state, lest among foreigners they should lack a good education.
§ 4. Some object to us the morals of the Scythians, to whom, they say, nature gave what the Greeks could not attain by long exercise and the precepts of philosophy. For the morals of a barbarous nation were more honorable than those of the most cultivated cities in Greece. Thus Trogus, book 2. And thus Quintilian too rightly said, “I think morals are born.”
I indeed judge that nature contributes very much to virtue, and that the disposition of some is more inclined to good than that of others; but it must be strengthened by zeal, teaching, and examples. Nature gave to all the foundations and seed of virtue; we are all born for all those things. When one who arouses it approaches, then those goods of the mind are awakened as though asleep. The impulse is from nature, but must be perfected and ruled by education, habit, and exercise. Plato denied that virtue could be taught, for he held it to be implanted θείᾳ μοίρᾳ ἄνευ νοῦ, by divine allotment without the movement of the mind. You may say this rightly of the beginning—for Plato indeed dreamed of those gifts of the saints—but there is nevertheless need of one who arouses it. Seneca, Epistle 95: “For no one can, unless he has been formed from the beginning and composed by an entire system, fulfill all the measures, so that he knows when one ought to act, to what extent, with whom, in what manner. Therefore he cannot strive after honorable things with his whole mind, not even consistently or willingly; but he will look back, he will hesitate.”
Why, therefore, were the morals of the Scythians without philosophy better than the morals of the Greeks? History teaches us that there were two principal causes. The first is that the Scythians lacked wine, delicacies, and luxuries—the seeds and incitements of great vices—and therefore lived more incorruptly both by necessity and by ignorance of vices. All were educated for warfare, hunting, and labors, at the command of a severe mother. The other cause lay within Greece itself; for examples of living men contrary to philosophy thrust themselves before everyone’s eyes. Indeed, philosophy itself, now a betrayer of an honorable cause, not only yielded to vices but consented to them. And many philosophers were more wicked than the rest, as is clear from Laertius and others. “Ancient wisdom prescribed nothing other than what was to be done and avoided, and then men were far better; after learned men appeared, good men are lacking” (Seneca, Epistle 95). Thus lesser remedies could resist the lesser evils of barbarians. Greek philosophy, which taught men to dispute rather than to live, was dragged captive by the greatest evils.
How great the force of education is Plutarch teaches best, in Περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς. “How concise and powerful diligence and labor are you will know if you consider many things. For drops of water hollow stones, and iron and bronze are worn down by the light handling of hands. Moreover, the wheels of vehicles, bent by force, can by no means be straightened again; and the curved staffs of actors can in no way be corrected, but the form which they received by labor, contrary to nature, became stronger than the natural form. Do these things alone now demonstrate the force of industry? No, but countless others. The soil is naturally productive of good, but it lies foul when neglected; and the more excellent it is by disposition, the more it grows old through inactivity when deprived of cultivation. But if some ground is more savage and rough than is proper, cultivation nevertheless immediately makes it yield excellent fruits. What else make neglected trees crooked and barren? But if they have received a good training, they turn out happy and abundantly fruitful. What bodily strength is not blunted and withered by sloth, luxury, and idleness? What nature, by contrast, is so soft that it has not grown to the greatest strength when subdued by exercises and labor? What horses, rightly broken, have not shown themselves obedient to riders? What horses, by contrast, that have remained unbroken have not turned out unmanageable and fierce? And why should you marvel at the rest, when we see that even the fiercest beasts are for the most part tamed and made gentle by industry? A Thessalian, when asked which of the Thessalians were the gentlest, also rightly answered, ‘Those who have finished with war.’ But what need is there to recall common things? Habit is the work of many years, and he who says that moral virtues are induced by habit does not seem to me to offend. When I have added one further example, I shall not linger longer upon this argument. Lycurgus, lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians, took two puppies of the same parents, which he did not educate in the same manner, but rendered one voracious and gluttonous, the other keen and skilled at hunting. He then summoned an assembly of the Lacedaemonians. ‘Lacedaemonians,’ he said, ‘habit, teaching, education, and the discipline of life are certainly no slight influence upon the production of virtue; I shall make this plain to you by an example.’ He immediately released those puppies after setting a pot and a hare opposite them. One ran toward the hare, the other sought the pot. When the Lacedaemonians were not yet able to conjecture what this signified or with what purpose he had shown them the puppies, he said, ‘These are both of the same parents; but because they were given different discipline, this one turned out a glutton, the other a hunter.’”
Aristotle demonstrates in book 5 of the Politics, chapter 9, that these things pertain to the safety and overthrow of the state: “Of all the things that have been stated, the greatest for the duration and stability of states is what all now neglect: that the education and instruction of boys be accommodated to the form of administering the state. For even the most useful laws, approved by all who live in the state, are of no use unless the citizens have become accustomed to them and have been educated for them in the state’s administration: popularly, if the laws are popular; oligarchically, if they are suited to oligarchy. For if there is incontinence in one person, there is also in the city. But to be educated for the form of administering the state does not mean doing those things in which the few who hold power delight, or those to whom democracy is dear, but learning and being able to do those things by which the former will be able to maintain oligarchy and the latter to live in a democracy. But now, in oligarchies, the sons of those who govern the state overflow with delights and luxury, while the sons of the needy are exercised and accustomed to labors. And so they both have a greater will to make revolutions and are more able to do so. In democracies which retain the power of the people in an exquisite and exact manner, the contrary to what benefits the state has been established. The cause of this is that they define liberty badly. For there are two things by which democracy seems to be defined: one, that the power of the state rests with the greater part of the people; the other, liberty. For what is just seems to be equal; and what is equal, that whatever has seemed good to the multitude be ratified. But what is free and equal is that each person do whatever he wishes. Thus in democracies of this kind each lives as he wishes and ‘where desire leads him,’ as Euripides says. But this is evil and vicious. For one ought not to think that to live in a manner accommodated to the form of administering the state is slavery, but safety.”
§ 5. The chief care for the sons of the nobility, therefore, belongs to the highest princes. In their education public authority sins most grievously, and peoples pay for that fault with their destruction. The sons of princes are fields from which sustenance is supplied to the multitude. And the greater care is necessary because it is more difficult to find a man of such resolute spirit that he dares offend a future prince. Most prefer to be in favor with the prince than to make the prince good. Their reasoning departs as far from duty as that of physicians who, by indulging a sick man lest they displease him, kill him. Few parents do not wish their sons to be good men; most also demand that they be better than themselves. Yet there have been some who preferred them wicked. Heliogabalus wished for a son like himself and strove with supreme authority to corrupt Alexander Caesar into his own morals. Herodian narrates the matter thus in Elagabalus: after Alexander was called Caesar, Antoninus wished immediately to imbue him with those institutions of his, so that he would take part in choral dances and dancing, share in the priesthood, and use the same dress and arts. Yet his mother Mammaea delivered him from all that foulness, secretly sending teachers of every discipline, teaching him modesty, accustoming him to the wrestling school and manly exercises, and instructing him alike in Greek and Latin literature. Antoninus was exceedingly indignant at these things and now regretted the adoption and the sharing of imperial power. Therefore he drove all Alexander’s teachers from the court, afflicting some of the more distinguished partly with death and partly with exile, and alleging the ridiculous reason that they were corrupting his son and did not allow him to take part in dances and Bacchic frenzy, but composed him toward modesty and taught him manly duties.
I think there are scarcely any who wish their own sons to be taught such things. Many nevertheless permit them. They dissolve infancy with delights; they approve with laughter the base sayings of boys who do not yet understand their meaning, certain that they themselves will become the authors of all the evils the boys will commit. Those who allow and accustom them to sin teach them to sin. Quintilian censures this most gravely among his Romans and judges thus, in On the Orator: “In former times, first of all, each son born of a chaste parent was brought up not in the chamber of a purchased nurse, but in the lap and bosom of his mother, whose chief praise was to guard the house and serve her children. Moreover, some elder kinswoman of approved and tested morals was chosen, to whom the offspring of every household was entrusted; in her presence it was unlawful either to say what seemed shameful to be said or to do what seemed dishonorable to be done. And she regulated not only the studies and cares, but also the relaxations and games of boys, with a certain holiness and modesty. Thus, we have learned, Cornelia presided over the education of the Gracchi, Aurelia over that of Caesar, and Attia, the mother of Augustus, over his, and raised princely children. That discipline and severity tended to this end: that the nature of each, pure and entire and distorted by no vices, might immediately seize upon honorable arts with its whole breast, and, whether it inclined toward military affairs, knowledge of law, or the study of eloquence, might do that alone and drink it in completely. But now the newborn infant is handed over to some little Greek serving-woman, to whom is joined one or another from among all the slaves, generally the vilest and fitted for no serious service. By their tales and errors tender and unformed minds are immediately imbued. Nor does anyone in the whole house take thought for what he says or does in the infant’s presence, since the parents themselves accustom the little ones neither to goodness nor modesty, but to wantonness and license, through which shamelessness and contempt for self and others creep in little by little. Indeed, the peculiar and distinctive vices of this city seem to me to be conceived almost in the mother’s womb.”
Now too they sin with even greater disgrace for the most part: among many a stable-boy is held in greater honor than a pedagogue.
Let no one excuse himself because he is a Christian. He incurs the guilt of the one who does a thing if he neglects to correct what he can.
The first praise of education lies in ignorance of vices—Tacitus, Germania; Justin, book 2—then in knowledge of virtues, and finally in daily exercise. Among the Spartans the magistrate supplied the educators.
Cyrus, though best educated, had harmful sons because he permitted them to be educated by women. It makes no difference whether wicked women educate the children of princes, or flatterers who teach them the empty forms of ceremonies while religion and prudence are neglected. Those actors will not make fathers of the fatherland.