If all who are engaged in the profession of education were willing to state the facts instead of making greater promises than they can possibly fulfill, they would not be in such bad repute with the lay-public. As it is, however, the teachers who do not scruple to vaunt their powers with utter disregard of the truth have created the impression that those who choose a life of careless indolence are better advised than those who devote themselves to serious study.Indeed, who can fail to abhor, yes to contemn, those teachers, in the first place, who devote themselves to disputation,1 since they pretend to search for truth, but straightway at the beginning of their professions attempt to deceive us with lies?2
1 Captious argumentation in the field of ethics. He is not thinking of Socrates, who did not teach for pay, nor of Plato's dialectic, which was not yet famous, but of the minor Socratics, especially Antisthenes and Eucleides, who taught for money while affecting contempt for it. In general he is thinking of such quibblers as are later shown up in Plato's Euthydemus. See General Introd. pp. xxi ff.
2 Theirs is a cloud morality, not truth to live by on earth. Cf. Isoc. 13.20. See General Introd. p. xxii.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
