[1336a]
[1]
must be punished with a loss of
privilege suited to the offence.When the children have been born, the
particular mode of rearing adopted must be deemed an important determining
influence in regard to their power of body. It appears from examining the other
animals, and is also shown by the foreign races that make it their aim to keep
up the military habit of body, that a diet giving an abundance of milk is most
suited to the bodies of children, and one that allows rather little wine because
of the diseases that it causes. Moreover it is advantageous to subject them to as many movements as are
practicable with children of that age. To prevent the limbs from being distorted
owing to softness, some races even now employ certain mechanical appliances that
keep the bodies of infants from being twisted. And it is also advantageous to
accustom them at once from early childhood to cold, for this is most useful both
for health and with a view to military service. Hence among many non-Greek races
it is customary in the case of some peoples to wash the children at birth by
dipping them in a cold river, and with others, for instance the Celts, to give
them scanty covering. For it is
better to inure them at the very start to everything possible, but to inure them
gradually;
[20]
and the bodily habit of
children is naturally well fitted by warmth to be trained to bear cold. In the
earliest period of life then it is expedient to employ this or a similar method
of nursing; and the next period to
this, up to the age of five, which it is not well to direct as yet to any study
nor to compulsory labors, in order that they may not hinder the growth, should
nevertheless be allowed enough movement to avoid bodily inactivity; and this
exercise should be obtained by means of various pursuits, particularly play. But
even the games must not be unfit for freemen, nor laborious, nor undisciplined.
Also the question of the kind
of tales and stories that should be told to children of this age must be
attended to by the officials called Children's Tutors. For all such amusements
should prepare the way for their later pursuits; hence most children's games
should be imitations of the serious occupations of later life. The legislators in
theLaws1 forbid allowing
children to have paroxysms of crying, but this prohibition is a mistake; violent
crying contributes to growth, for it serves in a way as exercise for the body,
since holding the breath is the strength giving factor in hard labor, and this
takes place also with children when they stretch themselves in crying. The
Tutors must supervise the children's pastimes, and in particular must see that
they associate as little as possible with slaves. For children of this age,
1 Plat. Laws 792a. Plato merely says that a child's crying shows it to be annoyed, and that it ought to have as little pain as possible or else it will grow up morose.
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