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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 [p. 19] 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,
[p. 21] 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 1 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,
[p. 23] 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 2 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.’