protagoras   

and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every

part has need of harmony and rhythm. Then they send them to the master

of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister to the

virtuous mind, and that they may not be compelled through bodily

weakness to play the coward in war or on any other occasion. This is

what is done by those who have the means, and those who have the means

are the rich; their children begin to go to school soonest and leave

off latest. When they have done with masters, the state again

compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which

they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning

to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style for the

use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes him

follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention

of good lawgivers living in the olden time; these are given to the

young man, in order to guide him in his conduct whether he is

commanding or obeying; and he who transgresses them is to be

corrected, or, in other words, called to account, which is a term used

not only in your country, but also in many others, seeing that justice

calls men to account. Now when there is all this care about virtue

private and public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and doubt

whether virtue can be taught? Cease to wonder, for the opposite

would be far more surprising.

But why then do the sons of good fathers often turn out ill? There

is nothing very wonderful in this; for, as I have been saying, the

existence of a state implies that virtue is not any man's private

possession. If so-and nothing can be truer-then I will further ask you

to imagine, as an illustration, some other pursuit or branch of

knowledge which may be assumed equally to be the condition of the

existence of a state. Suppose that there could be no state unless we

were all flute-players, as far as each had the capacity, and everybody

was freely teaching everybody the art, both in private and public, and

reproving the bad player as freely and openly as every man now teaches