protagoras   

private and public; and, notwithstanding, they have their sons

taught lesser matters, ignorance of which does not involve the

punishment of death: but greater things, of which the ignorance may

cause death and exile to those who have no training or knowledge of

them-aye, and confiscation as well as death, and, in a word, may be

the ruin of families-those things, I say, they are supposed not to

teach them-not to take the utmost care that they should learn. How

improbable is this, Socrates!

Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood,

and last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and

tutor are vying with one another about the improvement of the child as

soon as ever he is able to understand what is being said to him: he

cannot say or do anything without their setting forth to him that this

is just and that is unjust; this is honourable, that is dishonourable;

this is holy, that is unholy; do this and abstain from that. And if he

obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows,

like a piece of bent or warped wood. At a later stage they send him to

teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to

his reading and music; and the teachers do as they are desired. And

when the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand

what is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they

put into his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on

a bench at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many

tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is

required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate

them and desire to become like them. Then, again, the teachers of

the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is temperate

and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of

the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other excellent poets,

who are the lyric poets; and these they set to music, and make their

harmonies ana rhythms quite familiar to the children's souls, in order

that they may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical,