Before BOOK VIII.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Plato and Benjamin Jowett
But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered.
Yes, clearly.
You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before?
Certainly, he said.
The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, Bto the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education.
And what are these?
The natural gifts which are required in the dialectician: a towardly understanding; a good memory; strength of character; Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study 239 than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind’s own, and is not shared with the body.
Very true, he replied.
C Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line; or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which we require of him.
Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts.
The mistake at present is, that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand and not bastards.
What do you mean?
Dindustry; In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry—I mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or enquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness.
Certainly, he said.
love of truth; And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed Ehalt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected?
To be sure.
536the moral virtues. And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities states and individuals unconsciously err; and the state makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard.
That is very true, he said.
All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered Bby us; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast 240 system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present.
That would not be creditable.
Socrates plays a little with himself and his subject. Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I am equally ridiculous.
In what respect?
C I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement.
Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so.
For the study of dialectic the young must be selected. But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we Dchose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things—for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil.
Of course.
The preliminary studies should be commenced in childhood, but never forced. And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of education.
Why not?
E Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Very true.
Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but 537let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.
That is a very rational notion, he said.
Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken 241 to see the battle on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them?
Yes, I remember.
The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things—labours, lessons, dangers—and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number.
B At what age?
The necessary gymnastics must be completed first. At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected.
Certainly, he replied.
At twenty years of age the disciples will begin to be taught the correlation of the sciences. After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old will be promoted to higher honour, and the Csciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being.
Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root.