Antidosis (171-175)

However, it is not surprising that liberal pursuits have sometimes failed of recognition and regard, nor that some people have been utterly misled about them. In fact we find that this happens in regard to ourselves as well as to other things without number. For our city, which is now and has been in the past the author of so many blessings both to our own people and to the other Hellenes, and which abounds in so many charms, has, nevertheless, a most serious drawback.

For Athens is so large and the multitude of people living here is so great, that the city does not present to the mind an image easily grasped or sharply defined, but, like a turbid flood, whatever it catches up in its course, whether men or things, in each case it sweeps them along pell-mell, and in some cases it imbues them with a reputation which is the opposite of the true; and exactly that has been the fortune of this system of education.

You must bear these things in mind, and not pass judgement in any trial without the exercise of reason, nor be as careless when you sit in judgement as you are in your private occupations, but must examine thoroughly each point and search for the truth, mindful of your oaths and of the laws under which you have come together to dispense justice. It is no minor question which is under discussion and on trial here, but the most important in the world. For you are to determine by your votes, not my fate only, but that of a way of life to which many of our youths are devoting their minds.

I suppose that you are not unaware of the fact that the government of the state is handed on by the older men to the youth of the coming generation; and that since the succession goes on without end, it follows of necessity that as is the education of our youth so from generation to generation will be the fortune of the state. Therefore, you must not let the sycophants have control of a thing so momentous, nor punish those who refuse to pay them money, while permitting those from whom they have received it to do whatever they please.

But if philosophy has an influence which tends to corrupt our youth, you ought not merely to punish the occasional offender whom some sycophant hales into court but to banish all who are engaged in teaching it. If, however, it has the opposite effect and helps and improves and makes better men of its devotees, then you should call a halt on those who load this study with abuse; you should strip the sycophants of their rewards, and counsel our young men to occupy themselves with this pursuit above all others.