The Education of Children (7)

When now they attain to an age to be put under the charge of attendants, then especially great care must be taken in the appointment of these, so as not to entrust one’s children inadvertently to slaves taken in war or to barbarians or to those who are unstable. Nowadays, the common practice of many persons is more than ridiculous; for some of their trustworthy slaves they appoint to manage their farms, others they make masters of their

ships, others their factors, others they make housestewards, and some even money-lenders; but any slave whom they find to be a wine-bibber and a glutton, and useless for any kind of business, to him they bring their sons and put them in his charge. But the good attendant ought to be a man of such nature as was Phoenix, the attendant of Achilles.

I come now to a point which is more important and weighty than anything I have said so far. Teachers must be sought for the children who are free from scandal in their lives, who are unimpeachable in their manners, and in experience the very best that may be found. For to receive a proper education is the source and root of all goodness. As husbandmen place stakes beside the young plants, so do competent teachers with all care set their precepts and exhortations beside the young, in order that their characters may grow to be upright. Nowadays there are some fathers who deserve utter contempt, who, before examining those who are going to teach, either because of ignorance, or sometimes because of inexperience, hand over their children to untried and untrustworthy men. And this is not so ridiculous if their action is due to inexperience, but there is another case which is absurd to the last degree. What is this? Why, sometimes even with knowledge and with information from others, who tell them of the inexperience and even of the depravity of certain teachers, they nevertheless entrust their children to them; some yield to the flatteries of those who would please them, and there are those who do it as a favour to insistent friends. Their action resembles that of a person, who, if he were afflicted with bodily disease,

should reject that man who by his knowledge might be able to save his life, and, as a favour to a friend, should prefer one who by his inexperience might cause his death; or again that of a person who should dismiss a most excellent shipmaster, and accept the very worst because of a friend’s insistence. Heaven help us ! Does a man who bears the name of father think more of gratifying those who ask favours than he thinks of the education of his children? And did not Socrates [*] of old often say very fittingly, that if it were in any way possible one should go up to the loftiest part of the city and cry aloud, Men, whither is your course taking you, who give all possible attention to the acquiring of money but give small thought to your sons to whom ye are to leave it? To this I should like to add that such fathers act nearly as one would act who should give thought to his shoe but pay no regard to his foot. Many fathers, however, go so far in their devotion to money as well as in animosity toward their children, that in order to avoid paying a larger fee, they select as teachers for their children men who are not worth any wage at all—looking for ignorance, which is cheap enough. Wherefore Aristippus not inelegantly, in fact very cleverly, rebuked a father who was devoid both of mind and sense. For when a man asked him what fee he should require for teaching his child, Aristippus replied, A thousand drachmas; but when the other exclaimed, Great Heavens ! what an excessive demand ! I can buy a slave for a thousand, Aristippus retorted, Then you will have two slaves, your son and the one you buy. And, in general, is it not absurd for people to accustom children to take their food with their right hand, and, if one puts out his left, to rebuke him, and yet to take no forethought that they shall hear right and proper words of instruction?

Now I will tell what happens to these admirable fathers when they have badly brought up and badly educated their sons. When their sons are enrolled in the ranks of men, and disdain the sane and orderly life, and throw themselves headlong into disorderly and slavish pleasures, then, when it is of no use, the fathers regret that they have been false to their duty in the education of their sons, being now distressed at their wrongdoing. For some of them take up with flatterers and parasites, abominable men of obscure origin, corrupters and spoilers of youth, and others buy the freedom of courtesans and prostitutes, proud and sumptuous in expense; still others give themselves up to the pleasures of the table, while others come to wreck in dice and revels, and some finally take to the wilder forms of evildoing, such as adultery and bacchanalian routs, ready to pay with life itself for a single pleasure. But if these men had become conversant with the higher education, they perhaps would not have allowed themselves to be dominated by such practices, and they would at least have become acquainted with the precept [*] of Diogenes, who with coarseness of speech, but with substantial truth, advises and says, Go into any brothel to learn that there is no difference between what costs money and what costs nothing.