Assuming children of these dispositions to be found, we must provide for them the best training and education. The training must be twofold: musical, addressed to the mind: gymnastical, addressed to the body — pursuant to the distribution dating from ancient times.[54] Music includes all training by means of words or sounds: speech and song, recital and repetition, reading and writing, &c.
[54] Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 E. Τίς οὖν ἡ παιδεία; ἢ χαλεπὸν εὑρεῖν βελτίω τῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ πολλοῦ χρόνου εὑρημένης ἔστι δέ που ἡ μὲν ἐπὶ σώμασι γυμναστική, ἡ δ’ ἐπὶ ψυχῇ μουσική.
This appeal of Plato to antiquity and established custom deserves notice.
Musical education, by fictions as well as by truth. Fictions addressed to the young: the religious legends now circulating are often pernicious: censorship necessary.
The earliest training of every child begins from the stories or fables which he hears recounted: most of which are false, though some among them are true. We must train the child partly by means of falsehood, partly by means of truth: and we must begin first with the falsehood. The tenor of these fictions, which the child first hears, has a powerful effect in determining his future temper and character. But such fictions as are now currently repeated, will tend to corrupt his mind, and to form in him sentiments and opinions adverse to those which we wish him to entertain in after life. We must not allow the invention and circulation of stories at the pleasure of the authors: we must establish a censorship over all authors; licensing only such of their productions as we approve, and excluding all the rest, together with most of those now in circulation.[55] The fables told by Homer, Hesiod, and other poets, respecting the Gods and Heroes, are in very many cases pernicious, and ought to be suppressed. They are not true; and even were they true, ought not to be mentioned before children. Stories about battles between the Gods and the Giants, or quarrels among the Gods themselves, are mischievous, whether intended as allegories or not: for young hearers cannot discriminate the allegorical from the literal.[56]
[55] Plato, Republ. ii. p. 377 C. ὧν δὲ νῦν λέγουσι τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐκβλητέον.
Compare the animadversions in Sextus Empiricus about the mischievous doctrines to be found in the poets, adv. Mathematicos, i. s. 276-293.
[56] Plato, Republ. p. 378 D.
Orthodox type to be laid down: all poets are required to conform their legends to it. The Gods are causes of nothing but good: therefore they are causes of few things. Great preponderance of actual evil.
I am no poet (continues the Platonic Sokrates), nor can I pretend to compose legends myself: but I shall lay down a type of theological orthodoxy, to which all the divine legends in our city must conform. Every poet must proclaim that the Gods are good, and therefore cannot be the cause of anything except good. No poet can be allowed to describe the Gods (according to what we now read in Homer and elsewhere) as dispensing both good and evil to mankind. The Gods must be announced as causes of all the good which exists, but other causes must be found for all the evil: the Gods therefore are causes of comparatively few things, since bad things are far more abundant among us than good.[57] No poetical tale can be tolerated which represents the Gods as assuming the forms of different persons, and going about to deceive men into false beliefs.[58] Falsehood is odious both to Gods and to men: though there are some cases in which it is necessary as a precaution against harm, towards enemies, or even towards friends during seasons of folly or derangement.[59] But none of these exceptional circumstances can apply to the Gods.