and educate them? No doubt you have: and consequently you have been looking about for one well versed in the arts of human and civil life? Now I would gladly know if you have found a fit person for this trust?
CAL. I have.
SOC. Who is he pray, and of what country?
CAL. Evenus is the person, a Parian. He has long professed the art of teaching and moulding youth, and is reputed to be a perfect master of it.
SOC. He is a happy and useful man, if he be indeed qualified for this great work, and sedulously applies himself to it. How happy and valuable should I think myself if I thoroughly understood it? But what is his price?
CAL. It is not in reality high, tho’ many think it so. But perhaps you wonder he should take a hire.
SOC. You mistake the matter much. For had I money, I should think it, even at my age, very well bestowed in the purchase of wisdom. I know no profession that better deserves a high reward than that of a preceptor. And tho’ one may go about instructing in virtue and true wisdom in public places,9 those who are disposed to learn from him, without taking money; yet it cannot be expected that those who receive youth into their houses, which must be done in order to take all the care of them that is necessary for sowing the seeds of wisdom into their minds, and training them up in virtue;—’tis not to be expected, I say, that any should do this at their own expence. You know how greatly I value many who profess this art, and how much I think the state obliged to them; since it is by the right education of youth that the foundation-stones of public and private happiness are laid.—But what number may Evenus have under his tutorage at once?
CAL. He has a vast reputation, and his house is always full. He has at present above threescore pupils. But you seem to sneer—perhaps you prefer private to public education, and think one or two boys task enough for any one preceptor. So I once thought. But Evenus soon brought me out of this error. The question however has been so much debated, that I should be glad, Socrates, if you are not in a hurry, to hear you upon the subject.
SOC. I am not in so great a haste as to leave you till we have canvassed this important matter a little: on the contrary, I am very glad you have proposed it. For I lately found our Friend Hippias very pensive, and in great doubts what to do with his son. And having urged him to vent his anxiety to me his old acquaintance, in whom he had oftener than once placed some confidence, he told me, his son being now seven years of age, he was at a great loss what to do with him. For, said he, if I keep him always at home, he will be in danger of becoming my young master; and if I send him abroad to a school consisting of troops of boys, assembled together from parents of all kinds, how is it possible to preserve him from the infection of that rudeness and vitiousness which must prevail in all such moatly medleys. In my house he will perhaps be kept more innocent, but he will go out of it more ignorant of the world, and therefore very unfit for it. Yet launch into it he must. Wanting here at home sufficient variety of company, and being constantly used almost to the same faces, he will, when he comes abroad, be a sheepish or conceited creature.
CAL. There indeed is the difficulty, and how, pray, did you advise him?
SOC. What do you think, Callias?
CAL. I see the emulation of school-fellows puts life and spirit into young lads. Being abroad, and inured to bustle and shift amongst many boys of his own age, makes a young man bold and fit for justling and pushing when he comes into the world. Does it not?
SOC. We shall consider this afterwards. But let me first tell you how I answered Hippias.
CAL. Go on then.
SOC. Which do you, Hippias, said I, think most necessary to the happiness of your son, virtuous habits early established and well confirmed, or that which is called learning, suppose by Anaxagoras, who says he can unfold all the mysteries of nature, and explain her most secret operations; or by Palamedes, who places it in being able to call every thing into doubt, and to make either side of any question appear equally probable by his eloquence?10 Hippias having answered in his grave austere way, that he hoped I knew him better than to suspect him of preferring oratory, mathematicks, or any science, however ornamental, or even useful it may be, to virtue; I replied, you can then be in no doubt whether you should hazard your son’s integrity and virtue for a little literature or scholarship.—No, nor for a great deal neither, said he.—Well then, said I, you are certainly resolved not to part with your son till you can find a school where it is possible for the master to look after the manners of his scholars, and he can shew as great effects of his care and skill of forming their minds to virtue, as of their tongues to wrangling and disputation.—I am, said he.—Where lies your difficulty then, replied I? For may not the figures of rhetoric, the measures of verse, the refined subtleties of logic, and every other so much boasted of science be taught at home? Cannot you find a preceptor able to take this part of the task, at least, off your hands, while you yourself are his tutor and guardian with respect to what you acknowledge to be principal? But one thing more I must ask you, Hippias, on this head. What is this sheepishness and softness you are so much afraid of? What is this timorousness you dread so much? May it not be avoided at home? Or why is it, do you think, to be so carefully guarded against? Is it not principally for the sake of virtue, that is, for fear lest such a yielding tame temper should be too susceptible of vitious impressions and influences, and expose the raw novice too easily to be corrupted?—Truly, said he, it must be owned, that the chief use of courage is only for the preservation of virtue. He who cannot resist the assaults of vice, and bad example or persuasion, does not deserve to be called brave. For magnanimity consists in a bold undaunted adherence to truth and right.—You have said well, Hippias, I replied. But if so, it must be very unadvisable to risk a boy’s innocency for the sake of his attaining to confidence, and some little skill of bustling for himself among others, by his conversation with ill-bred and vicious boys.—Now, as for you, Callias, why is it that you are so anxious your sons should acquire a manly air and assurance betimes? Sure it is not merely that they may be sturdy and obstinate.
CAL. That is far from being my view.
SOC. And I am persuaded, that as it is not malepertness, so neither is it cunning you would have them learn by wrangling and rooking with play-fellows of various tempers and humours. This certainly, Callias, is not the skill of living well in the world, and of managing, as an honest man should do, his affairs. So far are tricking on the one side, or violence on the other, from having any affinity to those good qualities which make an able or useful member of society, that if your sons should acquire such habits from bad companions, must you not undo them again, or give them up to ruin? Besides, what is so becoming youth as modesty and submission? or how else are they rendered docile and pliable to instruction? Believe me, Callias, conversation, when they come into the world, will add to their assurance, but be too apt to take away from their virtue. And therefore that which requires the greatest care and labour in education, is to work deeply into young minds the principles and habits of probity. With this seasoning they should be so prepared for the world, that it may not easily be rubbed out. If confidence or cunning and dissimulation come once to mix with vice, and support a young man’s miscarriages, is he not only the surer lost?
CAL. That, Socrates, is undeniable.
SOC. Must it not then be very preposterous to stock them with confidence, before they are well established in the knowledge and love of virtue? In fine, my friend, either wisdom and virtue are the main thing in the institution of youth, or they are early to be inured to dissimulation and pertness. There is no middle. But if the former be the principal point, youth must be formed, where their manners can be carefully look’d after. Now, let a master’s industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible he should have a hundred, or even the third of that number under his eye any longer than they are in the school together: nor can it be expected, that he should be able to instruct them successfully in any thing but their books; the forming of their minds and manners requiring
