We now reach a topic more important and vital than any yet treated—that of the right teachers for our children. The kind to be sought for are those whose lives are irreproachable, whose characters are unimpugned, and whose skill and experience |C| are of the best. The root or fountain-head of character as a man and a gentleman lies in receiving the proper education. As farmers put stakes beside their plants, so the right kind of teacher provides firm support for the young in the shape of lessons and admonitions, carefully chosen so as to produce an upright growth of character.
As things are, the behaviour of some fathers is contemptible. Before making inquiry as to the proposed teachers, they put their children into the hands of frauds and charlatans, without knowing what they are about, or, maybe, because they are not competent to judge. In the latter case their behaviour is not so ridiculous, but there is another case in which it is in the last degree absurd. I mean, when they know, either from their own |D| observation or from the accounts of others, how ignorant and |*| bad certain educators are, and yet entrust their children to them. Sometimes this is because they cannot resist the fawning of some obsequious flatterer; sometimes it is done to gratify the whim of a friend. It would be just as reasonable for a sick man to gratify a friend by rejecting the doctor whose science could save him, and preferring the ignoramus who will kill him; or for a man to dismiss the best ship’s-captain and appoint the worst, because a friend asked for it. In the name of all that is sacred, can any one called a ‘father’ set the pleasing of |E| somebody who asks a favour above the education of his children? There was good sense in a frequent saying of famous old Socrates, ‘If it could be done, one ought to mount the loftiest part of the city and shout: Good people, what are you after? Why in such deadly earnest about making money, while troubling so little about the sons to whom you are to leave it?’ We may add that the conduct of such fathers is like that of a man who is anxious as to his shoe, while his foot may look after itself. Many fathers go to such lengths in the way of fondness for their money and |F| want of fondness for their children, that, to avoid paying a larger fee, they choose utterly worthless persons to educate their sons, their object being an inexpensive ignorance. This reminds one of Aristippus and his neat and witty repartee to a foolish father. Questioned as to what fee he asked for educating the child, he replied, ‘Forty pounds.’ ‘Good heavens!’ said the father: ‘What an extravagant demand! For forty pounds I can buy a slave.’ ‘Very well,’ was the answer: ‘then you |5| will have two slaves—your son, and the one you buy.’
To put it shortly, it is surely absurd to train little children to receive their food with the right hand, and to scold them if they put out the left, and yet to take no precautions that they shall be taught moral lessons of a sound and proper kind.
What the consequence is to these admirable fathers, when they bring up their sons badly and educate them badly, is soon told. On coming of age and taking rank as men, the sons show an utter disregard of a wholesome and orderly life, and throw themselves headlong into low and irregular pleasures. Then |B| at last, when it is of no use, and when their wrongdoing has brought him to his wits’ end, the father repents of having sacrificed his children’s education. Some of them take up with toadies and parasites, wretched nondescripts who are the ruin and bane of youth; others with haughty and expensive mistresses and strumpets, whom they ransom from their employers. Some spend recklessly on gormandizing; some are wrecked upon dice and carousals; some go so far as to venture on the more daring vices—they commit adultery, and think death not too much |C| to pay for a single pleasure. Had these last studied philosophy, they would in all probability not have succumbed to temptation of this kind. They would have been told of the advice of Diogenes—who, however coarse in his language, is right in his facts—‘Go to a brothel, my boy, and you will find that the |*| expensive article is not a bit better than the cheap one.’
In brief, then, I assert—and it would be fairer to regard me as repeating an oracle than as giving advice—that in these matters the one and essential thing, the first, middle, and last, is a sound upbringing and right education. It is this, I say, which leads to virtue and happiness.
|D| Other blessings are on the human plane; they are slight and not worth serious pursuit. Good birth is a distinction, but the boon depends on one’s ancestors. Wealth is a prize, but its possession depends on fortune, which often carries it off from those who have it and bestows it on those who never hoped for it. Moreover, great wealth is a target exposed to any rogue of a servant or blackmailer who is minded to ‘aim a purse’ at it. And, worst of all, even the basest of men have their share of it. Fame, again, is imposing, but uncertain. Beauty, though greatly courted, is short-lived; health, though highly prized, is unstable; strength is a thing to be envied, but it falls an easy prey to disease and age. Let us tell any one who prides himself |E| on his bodily strength that he is manifestly under a delusion. How small a fraction is human strength of the might of other animals, such as the elephant, the bull, and the lion!
Meanwhile culture is the only thing in us that is immortal and divine. In the nature of man there are two sovereign elements—understanding and reason. It is the place of the understanding to direct the reason and of the reason to serve the understanding. Fortune cannot overcome them, calumny cannot rob us of them, disease cannot corrupt them, old age cannot impair them. The understanding is the only thing that renews its youth as it grows old, and, while time carries off everything else, it brings old age one gift—that of knowledge. When, again, war comes like a torrent, tearing and sweeping everything away, it is of our mental culture alone that it cannot rob us. Stilpo, the Megarian philosopher, made what seems a memorable answer when Demetrius, after enslaving the city and razing it to the ground, asked him if he had lost anything. ‘O no!’ said he, ‘for virtue is not made spoil of war.’ The reply of Socrates is evidently to the same tune and purpose. |6| It was Gorgias, I believe, who asked him his opinion of the Great King, and whether he considered him happy. ‘I have no knowledge,’ said Socrates, ‘as to the state of his character and culture.’ He assumed that happiness depended upon these, and not upon the gifts of fortune.
Not only should the education of our children be treated as of the very first importance, but I once more urge that we should insist upon its being of the sound and genuine kind. From pretentious nonsense our sons should be kept as far aloof |B| as possible. To please the many is to displease the wise, an assertion in which I have the support of Euripides:
I am not deft of words before the crowd,
More skilled when with my compeers and the few.