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THE THEORY OF EDUCATION
IN
PLATO'S “REPUBLIC”
.#
i BY
3. *
**
JOHN E. ADAMSON, M.A. (LoND.)
PRINCIPAL OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL, PRETORIA
AUTHOR OF “THE TEACHER's Logic”
LONDON r
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.
1903

PREFA CE.
iTHE chief value of the theory of education which is
; developed in the “Republic” lies, I think, in the
i closeness with which it is bound up with social and
i philosophical problems. Education is therein never
: divorced from life. But this is also its difficulty.
The details are so interwoven with matters social,
matters psychological, and matters philosophical,
that the young student finds them hard to appreciate.
These notes are the outcome of an intimate acquaint-
ance with these difficulties, and they will have
justified their existence if they help the thoughtful
teacher to lay hold of the high educational ideals
which Plato sets forth.
I have followed the translation of Davis and
Vaughan in the “Golden Treasury” series. The
figures at the foot of a page refer to sections, and
the small letters to subdivisions of these sections.
My plan throughout has been to first give a summary
of Plato's ideas, and then to add such expository and
critical notes as seem likely to be of help. I have
iv. ARAEFA CE.
been especially, some may think unduly, anxious to
show how Platonic ideas may illuminate modern
educational problems.
The works of Bosanquet and Jowett have been of
very great service, but my greatest debt is to the
delightful essay of the late R. L. Nettleship in
“Hellenica.” I have also to express my sincere
thanks to my friend and former principal, the Rev.
C. G. Brown, of the South Wales Training College,
Carmarthen, for his kindness in reading through the
proof-sheets.
J. E. ADAMSON.
October, 1902.
AN ALY SIS.
Chap. Page
I. INTRODUCTORY . g * ſº * © 1
Greek Philosophy before Plato's Time. His
Thought-ancestry.
Plato's Theory of Ideas.
The Theory of Ideas and the Educational Scheme. -
The Making of a Citizen.
. The Scheme of Primary Education.
How the Subject of Education is Introduced
º
TI. THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE : STORIES
OF DIVINE BEINGS © & e . 27
1. Analysis.
2. General Remarks.
3. The Beginnings of Moral and Religious Edu-
cation.
• 4. False Stories must be Logically True.
5. The Earliest Stories must reflect the Virtues
of Family Life.
6. Two Essentials of God’s Nature.
7. The “Genuine” and the “Spoken.” Lie.
A 8. Should there be a Censorship over the Litera-
S ture for the Young'ſ
9. The Treatment of Stories from the Bible.
10. Adaptation of Truth considered Generally.
V
vi
A/VALYS/S.
Chap.
III. THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE : CONCERNING
:
5
10.
COURAGE, TRUTH, AND TEMPERANCE
. Analysis.
. First Steps in Moral Training.
. Plato's Account of Courage.
. The Fusion of Material and Spiritual Aims
explains Peculiarities.
. We should accept this Account of the Essen-
tials of Courage and its Nurture.
. Manliness not to be found in Isolation.
(a) Mere Superiority to Physical Pain Un-
desirable.
(b) Fortitude dependent on a Rational
Balance of Interests.
. Plato's Account of Truth.
Only a Part of Plato's Treatment of
Truth.
. Two Senses of Truth.
(a) Lying springs from very Different
Motives.
(b) Which require Different Treatment.
. How can a Love of Truthfulness for its own
Sake be Cultivated?
(a) The Cultivation of a Love for Intel-
lectual Truth.
(b) The Difficulty of removing Prejudice.
(c) The Teacher's Example: his Devotion
to Truth.
Plato's Treatment of Temperance.
(a) Aesthetic Considerations are Prominent.
(b) An Account of Virtue Generally.
(c) Is allied to Courage and Truth.
(d) No Complete Antagonism between
Reason and Desire.
Obedience to External Law and Obedience to
Reason as Stages in the Development of
Temperance.
Extent of the Teacher's Influence over
this Development.
. Why Literature is a Powerful Factor in
Moral Training.
Page
44
ANALYSIS.
vii
Chap.
IV. THE FORM OF LITERATURE : THE DANGERS
OF IMITATION * ſº is e iº
1. Analysis. --
2. Statement of the Question.
3. First Objection to Imitation, mainly Economic
and Political. * 2^
4. Is Political Efficiency the End of Education.
Evils of Over-concentration.
5. Second Objection to Imitation, mainly Ethical.
, 6. Self-reliant Thinking is to be Encouraged.
7. And Genuine Feeling.
* 8. Self-originated and Self-guided Conduct.
9. Imitation in Higher Education.
10. Imitation and the Professional Training of the
Teacher.
11. The Third Objection to Imitation, mainly
Philosophical.
It nurtures the Emotional at the
'y Expense of the Rational Side of
Character.
12. This is in Keeping with the General Principles
of his Philosophy.
. 13. Summary of the Uses and Dangers of Imita-
Page
68
tion.
W. MELODY AND RFIYTHM
1. Analysis.
2. Special Harmonies for Special Virtues seem to
us Strange.
(a) It is, in part, “Applied "Psychology.
(b) We must bear in Mind the Kind of
Music in Question.
3. The Prescriptions about Music are Explainable
from Plato's Philosophy.
4. The Treatment of Rhythm.
Why the Question is Important.
5. The Dependence of Outward Beauty on Inner
Worth.
• 6. We may accept this Principle in its Fulness.
7. And carry it into Practice.
Suggestions for Practice.
91
viii
AAVAZ VS/S.
Chap.
VI. THE
T
&
º
10.
ENVIIRONMENT AND THE ENDS OF A
MUSICAL EDUCATION
. Analysis. - 1.
. The Relation between Outer Beauty and Inner
Worth.
mony.
. Does Aesthetic Culture imply Moral Culture ?
(a) Appreciation of the Seemliness of Good
Conduct is One End of Moral Cul-
ture.
(b) Aesthetic Culture must quicken this.
Appreciation.
(c) Experience supports this View.
. Control of Environment by the Teacher.
. Plato's Method of Aesthetical and Moral
Culture.
. The Same Method can be employed in Logical.
or Intellectual Training.
(a) Empirical and Rational Stages in
Logical Training. . . .
(b) The Rational Stage usually comes too
SOOI).
(c) Examples from (1) Meanings of Words;
(2) Arithmetic ; (3) English.
. Direct Aesthetical Training.
(a) Through Nature-lessons.
(b) Through Literature.
. The End of a “Musical” Education is a Good
Character.
Page,
. 105.
. The Wide Application of Rhythm and Har-
The Effect is felt on the Intellectual,
Emotional, and the Active Sides of
Mind.
The Parallel from learning to Read.
(a) Brings out the Importance of Ability
to discriminate between Right and
Wrong. -
(b) Shows the Need of attending to Things.
thought Trivial.
AMAZ PSYS. ix
Chap. - Page
VII. AND VIII, GYMNASTIC OR PBYSICAL CULTURE 130, 145
1. Analysis.
2. The Questions included under “Gymnastic”
are Wide and General.
Education a Factor in the Welfare of
the Republic.
3. The Relation of Bodily Training to the Train-
ing of the Whole Soul or Character.
4. Music is to discipline the Philosophic, and
Gymnastic the Spirited Element of Char-
acter.
The Great End of Education is Har-
monious Development.
5. The Bad Effect of too much Music.
And of too much Gymnastic.
6. The Joint Effect of Music and Gymnastic.
* 7. Plato's Idea of the Place of Gymnastic should
lead to Reflection on our own Efforts.
A Warming.
8. Physical Culture is, with us, Largely Un-
organised.
Possible Reasons for this.
9. Are there Psychological Grounds which justify
Physical Culture?
(a) The Connection of Bodily Condition
with Temperament.
(b) And with the Consciousness of Self.
(c) And with the Stream of Consciousness.
generally.
(d) Is “Sense”-training also Character-
training
(e) The Unity of Mind enables us to give
an Affirmative Reply.
(f) “Sense”-training and the Cognitive
Powers.
(g) Second Comparison.
(h) These are Essential to Morality.
() The Best Result is the Objective Atti-
tude which “Sense”-training brings.
IX A/VALYSIS.
Chap.
(j) “Sense”-training and the Affective
Side of Mind.
(k) “Sense”-training and the Active,
Wolitional Side of Mind.
(!) It cultivates Special Virtues.
(m) It nurtures the Power of Continuous
Effort.
10. Instances of too much Gymnastic.
Other Cases of this Abuse of Gym-
mastic.
11. The Effects of too much Music.
12. The Teacher and the Qualifications of the
Doctor.
v13. The Teacher and the Qualifications of the
Juror.
IX. EDUCATION A FIRST CONDITION OF THE
WELFARE OF THE STATE º º e
1. Analysis.
• 2. The End of Education is the Welfare of the
State.
3. It must develop the Idea of the State as the
Supreme End.
4. It must develop the Spirit of Loyalty.
5. Some Particulars of what a Good System of
Education can do. -
6. Some of the Effects of an Evil System.
7. Our Standpoint is Utilitarian and Indi-
vidualistic. -
8. No Real Opposition between Individualistic
and Social Aims.
9. Dangers of the Social Ideal.
10. An Indirect Way of developing the “Civic’
Sentiment.
11. The Direct Way of History.
Page
166
AWALYSIS. xi.
Chap. Page,
12. Voluntary Abandonment of Opinion.
(a) In Science.
(b) In Morals.
13. Involuntary Abandonment.
Artificial Trials of the Power to hold
fast to an Opinion.
X. THE CARDINAL VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY . . 190
1. Analysis.
2. This Section is Ethical in Character.
It seeks to set out the Cardinal Virtues.
3. Classification of Virtues is Unsatisfactory.
But Helpful.
. Wisdom.
. Courage.
. Temperance.
. Justice. -
. Method of the “Discovery” of Justice,
. Separation of the Virtues Artificial.
i
XI. THE CARDINAL VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAL . 206 T
. Analysis.
. The Principle of Contradiction.
. The Psychological Question.
. Account of Three Distinct “Faculties” in
the Soul.
5. Are the “Rational" and “Concupiscent "
Principles Distinct 7
(a) The Control of Impulse.
(b) If the Threefold Nature of the Mind
be taken as an Analogy merely, it is
Helpful. %
6. Are the “Concupiscent” and the “Spirited "
Elements Distinct '' .
The Complexity of the Contents of .
Consciousness. i
7. Are the “Spirited ” and the “Rational’’ Ele-
ments Distinct'.
8. The Virtues in the Individual.
f
:
xii
ANALYSIS.
Chap.
- - Page
XII. PRIMARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION - , 223
1. The Scheme is Rational.
• 2. The End of Education is the Welfare of the
º 3.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
• 16.
17.
Republic. -
That Welfare to be secured through the Per-
fecting of the Character.
. The Means seem Narrow and Limited. *
. Additions to the First Outline of the Primary
Scheme.
. How Music and Gymnastic are to be Regarded.
. The Warriors only reached an Empirical and
Unreflective Stage.
. The Classification of Objects and Mental
States.
. The First Division.
The Second Division.
The Third Division.
The Fourth Division.
The Idea of Good.
The Allegory of the Cave.
The Training of the Philosopher.
The Demarcation of Educational Spheres.
(a) Function of the Primary School.
(b) Function of the Secondary School
and University.
Education as a Lifelong Progress.
EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY,
SYSTEM of education may arise in different
ways. Its parts may grow together bit by bit.
according to felt need ; much as a house, at first a
mere protection against wind and tempest, may come
by a slow process of accretion to be at last an im-
posing, if somewhat irregular, structure. Or, its main
features, at least, may be the outcome of design, of
preconceived plan. Our own national system is,
speaking broadly, an instance of the first or piecemeal
mode of origin ; Plato's, the one we are to examine,
is emphatically an instance of the second ; and hence,
as it is hoped will appear, a peculiar value in the
study of it. Or, again, an educational system may
show signs of both modes of origin.
A design regards two things : first, the end to be
attained ; next, the means or material to hand ; and
this is clearly a rational or enlightened as against an
empirical or blind mode of procedure. Educational
material consists of minds and the influences—
subjects, exercises, etc.—which are to be brought to
bear on the minds. The mature of these latter and
- 1
2 A.DUCATION VAW P/LATO'S REPUBLIC.
the way they are to be used for the development of
the former will appear gradually as we watch the
system grow. But we must at the outset know
something of the end, of the constructor's purpose,
if we are to appreciate his manipulation of the
material. This purpose will not be fully apparent
until the system can be viewed in its entirety, no
more than one can with completeness fill out the plans
of an architect. Yet even if our idea of the end be
at first vague, it will give us, as psychologists say,
something to attend with. It will illuminate the
details of the system as they appear.
An educational end is never an independent con-
ception ; it is always secondary or derived. Like
the branch of a tree, it is an offshoot from some
parent stem ; and we must know something of the
nature of the stem, if we are to appreciate the
characteristics of the branch. Now, the parent stem
from which the designer derives his educational
scheme consists of his views about life and man’s
place and part in life. He may start from the deepest
and most fundamental views. He may ask what is
the highest and most vital part of the life of the
lº universe and how man participates in it ; and
an educational scheme may be designed to fit him for
# the most effectual participation. Or he may start
", from the narrower point of view of man's life in a
; particular society, and seek by education to fit him
i for this. Plato's scheme is an outgrowth of both
points of view. Sometimes it would seem that man’s
place in the universe is what he has in mind ; some-
times his place in a Greek state. Hence to under-
stand his scheme we must first get a general idea
of his views on both these questions. g
INTRODUCTORY. 3
GREEK PHILOSOPHY BEFORE PLATO's TIME.
HIS THOUGHT-ANCESTRY.
We cannot appreciate the philosophic ideas—ideas
about the innermost nature of man and the universe
—which Plato held, unless we know something of
the way in which they grew out of the ideas of
preceding thinkers. For the notion of growth is a
key to the interpretation of the world of thought as
of the world of nature. To understand the present
structure of a mountain-range, we should look to the
slowly-working forces which have been operative
through the long ages of the past. We must approach
the ideas of a philosopher in the same way. They
do not suddenly obtrude themselves without roots of
inspiration ; and these are to be found in the thoughts
of those who have gone before.
The Greek philosophers who preceded Plato, his
ancestors in the world of thought, may be divided
into two great groups. These two groups are to be
distinguished by the subject-matter of their enquiry.
I. First Group.
The first systematic enquiries of Greek thinkers
were directed, just as are a child's first questionings,
towards the external world. They wanted to know
how the stone was made, how the tree grew, how the
river flowed. Their enquiry was a truly scientific
one, inasmuch as they sought some common element
and some principle of its working which would explain
the natural phenomena on which their eyes were for
ever set. They sought to solve the riddle of the
innermost construction and wheelwork of the universe.
It was a riddle impossible of solution in this the
infancy of scientific knowledge ; but the answers they
4. EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
gave are a testimony to the keenness of their insight
and the fertility of their imagination—the only
weapons of enquiry they possessed. We may just
indicate the nature of some of these answers.
(i.) The earliest or Nature-Philosophers found the
essence of the world in something material. They
believed that the whole “furniture of earth '' was
made up of a single material substance worked up
into various forms. One believed it to be water,
another air, another fire ; while a fourth described
it as the “eternal, infinite, indefinite ground, from
which, in order of time, all arises, and into which all
returns.” All conceived it as something material.
(ii.) Another group, consisting of Pythagoras and
his disciples, found the essence of the universe in
something formal or abstract. What really mattered
for the existence of things was not the material sub-
stance of which they were composed, but rather what
we might call their mathematical framework—the
ordering of things in space according to size, bulk,
and position. “Number is the essence of all things ’’
—this was their root-idea. They abstracted from the
concrete world of sense, and believed its quantitative
aspect to be the essence of it.
(iii.) Farther yet from the world as we see and
feel it the Eleatics went to discover the secret of its
being. What we see and feel, they indeed declared
to be non-existent. There was in reality no multitude
of things. The manifold forms of nature changing
with time were illusory. There was but one real
existence, changeless and eternal. This idea first
arose in opposition to the idea of a plurality of gods
with changing forms. Afterwards it was opposed to
the idea of a plurality of things. In supposing these
INTRODUCTORY. 5
to exist, the Pythagoreans were as far from the truth
as the nature-philosophers. One single sphere filling
all space was the only reality ; all else was mere
semblance. The formal and abstract principle of the
Pythagoreans, and the singleness and changelessness
of the world as the Eleatics conceived it, are both
readily traceable in Plato's thought.
(iv.) Men could not rest satisfied with this. They
sought for a theory which did not deny the reality
of the changing phenomena of nature ; the evidence
of the senses was too strong for that to be accepted.
They desired, indeed, to account for the permanence
of the world ; but change called for explanation no
less loudly. They sought for a theory of unity with
variety. The answers which the latest philosophers
of the first great group gave were very much the
same. They conceived the essence of the world to
lie in, first, the existence of certain primitive elements,
or atoms, sometimes thought of as all alike, and
Sometimes as possessing different qualities ; and,
second, the existence of some force arranging these
atoms so as to produce the various objects of the
universe, sometimes thought of as mechanical and
Sometimes as a spiritual agency.
II. Second Group.
These contradictory views about the nature of the
world could only have one result. This was the
birth of doubt and scepticism. It had its origin in
the sceptical questions of the Sophists—a name given
to the professional teachers of grammar, rhetoric,
and allied subjects, of that period—who turned inward
the current of enquiry which had so long flowed out-
wards ; so that the pressing question now became,
not : what is the essence of the world P but : what is
6 AED UCATIO/W WW P/LATO'S REPUB/./C.
man's qualification for the discovery of that essence 2
It was a natural and a necessary question. The point
to be noted is that it entirely changed the object of
speculative thought. Instead of the world and its
workings, this now became man and his power to
know that world.
The result of this critical enquiry was that the
Sophists denied man’s power to know ; at least they
denied his power to reach knowledge universally
valid—that is, true for all men alike. This sceptical
result was reached through an examination of the
source of all knowledge of the external world. This
source they declared to be sensation. But sensations
differ ; no two sensations arising from the same object
are alike. What I experience is different from what
you experience when we both look at the same object
—so they argued. Hence the impossibility of raising
a permanent structure of knowledge, valid for all
alike, on such a basis. If “man is the measure of all
things”—the text which summarises the teaching
of one of the most prominent of the Sophists—one
man may as confidently and as rightly affirm that a
thing is round as another that it is oval.
In their destructive march they did not stop at the
facts of knowledge ; they assailed the facts of morality
also. If it can be maintained with equal rigour that
a thing is both round and oval, since everything
depends on the individual point of view, it can equally
well be maintained that an act is, say, both just and
unjust. And so they taught. In practical morals
as in theoretical knowledge every man is a law
unto himself. As there is no such thing as absolute
truth and error, so there is no such thing as absolute
right and wrong. Thrasymachus, one of the char-
AA/TRODUCTORY. 7
acters who carry on the dialogue in the “Republic,”
is an instance of a Sophist.
To rest in the conclusions of the Sophists was as
impossible as it was natural to ask the questions they
asked. They left men, like ships which have dragged
their anchors, helplessly adrift. No certainty of
knowledge, no fixity of morals—this was a nihilist
revolution, destroying everything and building up
nothing. It was no wonder that in their day the
Sophists were charged with being corruptors of youth,
and that their name has come to stand for what is
subtle but unreliable in thought and argument.
Yet the thinker—Socrates—who showed the way
out of the darkness they had created was put to
death on the charge of being a Sophist, dangerous to
religion and morals. He was classed with them
because he enquired, with them, what is the worth
of man’s claim to knowledge ; and because, like them,
he disclosed the uncertainty and worthlessness of
much that passes for knowledge. In reality, however,
there was this vital difference between them and him :
they stopped at scepticism, he showed the way to
construction ; they pulled down, he pulled down that
he might the better build ; their conclusion was his
point of departure.
He agreed with them that in sensation and in mere
individual opinion there is no safe foundation for
knowledge. He never tired of laying bare the in-
consistencies which lurk in the judgments of those
who accept their impressions passively, without
reflection. But he was equally strenuous in main-
taining that man is not confined to sensation and
opinion. To him belongs the supreme power of thought,
of intellect. Through this power he can escape the
8 A DUCATIO/W IAV PLA 7 O'S REPUBL/C.
limits within which sensation confines him ; through
it he can compare particulars, abstract from them,
and advance to the general motion. And this is
universal ; it appeals to all men alike. In a word,
through thought men can get to knowledge—i.e. truth
valid for all.
This is what Aristotle means when he tells us that
Socrates introduced the method of induction and
definition. Induction is the movement of thought
from the particular to the general ; definition is
but the completion of induction, the explicit state-
ment of the content of a general notion reached
inductively. A good instance of this Socratic method
may be found in the way in which he reaches the
conclusion that goodness implies changelessness." It
is to be noted that Socrates did not talk about
induction and definition ; he practised it. He did
not discuss the details of logical method ; he showed
the possibility of proceeding logically. He gave the
world no far-reaching theory; he merely showed, in
his practice, the road that all must follow who would
attain to truth.
A word may here be said of him as a teacher.
He adopted a conversational method, a dialogue. He
sought to quicken ideas in the minds of his hearers,
and bring them to the birth. Plato describes his art
as “intellectual midwifery.” In the “Republic,” it
is true, there is very much of Socrates and very little
of his hearers ; but this is because we have here
Socrates in Platonic guise. Frequently he is ironical.
He assumes a deference to the opinions of others only
to show the inconsistencies of these when they are
| II, 380 d-381 b, The substance of the thought is probably
Plato's ; the method is that of Socrates.
AAV7'RO/DUCTORY. 9
laid bare. A passage with Thrasymachus will supply
a good illustration."
We have to note that Socrates confined his method
of inductive enquiry almost entirely to moral
questions. In this he was like the Sophists. Like
them he turned impatiently from that investigation
of the wheelwork of nature which the first philo-
sophers of Greece had so strenuously prosecuted. He
declared that there was nothing to be learnt from
trees and meadows. It was the acts of men, not the
workings of nature, which he loved to discuss. What
is the essence of justice, of fortitude, and so on ?—these
were the questions he was for ever asking.
It has just been remarked that he gave the world
no theory ; his character and methods, rather than
definite results, constitute his claim to a first position
in the sphere of philosophy. This is, in the main,
true. There was, however, one truth about morals
which is ascribed to him, and which his disciple Plato
accepted. It is this, that virtue is knowledge. We
think of virtue in connection with action ; he con-
nected it with insight. Vice meant ignorance ; if a
man sinned it was because he did not know the right.
Traces of this theory will frequently be found in the
discussion concerning education. For example, it
will throw light on the startling statement that the
spoken lie is preferable to ignorance.” And, again, it
will help us to understand his definition of courage
as the preserving a right opinion concerning what is
to be feared.” He held that if the opinion, the
insight, were right, action in accordance with it must
necessarily follow—a truth, it may be remarked,
much less paradoxical than at first sight appears,
! I. 349-350. * II. 382, 8 IV. 430.
IO AºA)UCATION WAV PMA 7'O'S REAE UB/./C.
and of first-rate importance as a guide to moral
training.
PLATO’s THEORY OF IDEAs.
Such, in briefest outline, was Plato's thought-
ancestry. There were, as we have seen, two
tendencies. One was to discover the constitution of
the universe ; and here the difficulty was to reconcile
the ever-changing phenomena of nature with the
natural demand for permanence. The second was
to enquire into man’s power to attain certain know-
ledge ; and respecting this second and later enquiry
we have seen how Socrates showed that man as a
thinking being had that power, though the philosopher
confined it to the solution of moral problems. We
have now to see how Plato in his famous Theory of
Ideas wove these separate threads into a single web.
Reference can, of necessity, only be made to its central
and most essential features.
First of all, there is a startling advance in respect
of those general notions which Socrates had found man
capable, of constructing. These, the theory asserts,
exist not only in the mind of man, but have an actual
independent existence outside him. Thus there is a
second world behind the world perceived by way of the
senses which originates and corresponds to the general
notions attainable by way of thought. To the obvious
fact that there is something actually existing, the
rose itself, which gives rise to the percept of a rose
as a particular thing of a certain shape, colour, and
smell, there was added the startling assertion that
there is also something somewhere actually existing
which gives rise to the general notion of a rose, not
limited by any particular shape, colour, or smell.
AAV7'RODUCTORY. I I
This Plato called the “idea, " of the rose. Observe
that this term in Plato's philosophy carries the very
opposite meaning to that which we assign to it. It
implies, not something mental at all, but something
independently existing, and the most real of all
existing things.
Thus behind and beyond the world of sense there
is the world of “ideas.” One main characteristic of
this latter world is its changelessness and permanence.
In this it is in striking contrast to the changing
world known to perception, which is in all respects
less real, less stable, more illusory ; indeed, it
depends upon the world of ideas for its existence.
This latter point—the relation of the two worlds—
Plato never made clear. He speaks of individual
objects as “imitations” and “images” of the ideas,
and as “participating ” in them. And again,
although the ideas enjoy an independent existence,
he declares them to be in some way “present *
in individual objects. To illustrate the relation
in which these two objective worlds stand to each
other he employs, in the “Republic,” 4 the relation
of the sun to the earth. As the earth owes its light
to the sun, so the world of sense owes its existence
to the world of ideas. But how more exactly, and to
what extent, the analogy holds he does not say.
This was the theory on its logical side. It showed,
or sought to show, how the universal was related to
the particular, the permanent to the changing ; and
not in the mind but in the objective world or worlds.
We must observe, too, that Plato was a compound
of poet and philosopher. When the poetic impulse
was strong in him, he sought to picture the place
- 1 WI. 508.
I 2 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC
of this realm of ideas. He described them as sitting
enthroned beyond the vault of heaven, and the process
of knowing them as an “upward journey of the soul
to the supercelestial region.” "
Not less, but even more, important than the logical
side is the aesthetical and moral aspect of the theory.
The ideas were not only logically perfect, but
aesthetically and morally perfect also. They were
not only types of the changeless and true, but also
of the beautiful and the good. Indeed, the controlling
influence in the world of ideas, the source of all its
life and power, was what Plato called the Idea of
the Good. It was to the world of ideas what the
sun is to the world of visible objects. It was, he
conceived, the origin of all thought and of all
existence ; of the known world and of the power to
know it. “Now, this power, which supplies the
objects of real knowledge [i.e. the ideas] with the
truth that is in them, and which renders to him who
knows them the faculty of knowing them, you must
consider to be the essential Form of Good, and you
must regard it as the origin of science and of truth,
so far as the latter comes within the range of
knowledge ; and though truth and knowledge are
both very beautiful things, you will be right in
looking upon good as something distinct from them,
and even more beautiful.”” We seem to be justified
in identifying this Idea or Form of Good with the
divine mature ; and thus we have from an early
pagan philosopher such an ideal conception of the
constitution and control of the universe as no thinker,
pagan or Christian, has been able to surpass.
1 Quoted from Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” Vol. I., p. 119.
2 WI. 508 e.
INTRODUCTORY. I3
Two worlds, then, the world of ideas and the world
of sense—the former in all respects perfect, the latter
in all respects inferior, and somehow deriving sus-
tenance from the former—this is the central idea of
Plato's philosophy. To which of these worlds does
man belong P According to Plato he is a mixture
of elements drawn from both. His psychology will
be gradually revealed, but so far as it is part of his
theory of the two worlds, reference may be made to
it here. The soul of man is, through reason, allied
to the ideas. His reason is a part of that perfect
world, is derived from it. Through its affinity reason
can contemplate that world. But the vision is never
clear. It is confused and contaminated with sensuous
knowledge and desire, in which respects man is at
“, one with the changing and imperfect world of per-
ception, the world of “birth and death.” In him
the two worlds meet ; and he progresses towards
perfection according as the illusions of sense and the
sway of the baser emotions give place to the vision
of truth and the joy in its contemplation which take
their rise in the divine element of reason.
Our business is not to criticise this theory. We
may just note its suggestiveness and worth. Both for
a science of nature and for a science of morals it has
something of value to offer. In respect of the former
we may take it to be an anticipation of the uniformity
of nature. It is to be remembered that we postulate
the existence of immutable laws of nature behind the
particulars of sense. We see the unchangeable work-
ing of gravity, for example, in the revolving planet
and in the breaking wave. We do not think of it
as an easistence apart from these and its other in-
numerable manifestations ; but there is the closest
I4. A.DUCATIO/V ZAV PLA TO'S REAE UAE LIC.
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likeness between the immutability of Plato’s “ideas”
and the immutability of nature's laws. In the sphere
of morals it is still more important to believe in the
existence of eternal, changeless principles of right
and wrong. The puzzling, concrete cases of virtue
and vice exist in infinite variety ; but we are bound
to believe that the moral principles “themselves are
fixed and enduring ; and it is just this fixity and
permanence which Plato’s “ideas" of justice, of
courage, of temperance, etc., most strongly suggest
THE THEORY OF IDEAS AND THE EDUCATIONAL
SCHEME.
How, now, will our knowledge of the theory of
ideas help us to a better understanding of the system
of education which Plato proposes P. Well, we see
what view he took of the most vital part of the life
of the universe and of man’s share in it. We know
one end which education would have for him, namely,
to fit a man for that life. It was not the only end.
There was another, more immediate, more material,
narrower: the welfare of the imaginary state of
which the “Republic * gives an account. The effect
of this end on the educational scheme we, shall
consider immediately. Meanwhile we may note that
the theory of ideas exercises an influence on the
system which is all-pervading. We may anticipate
one or two details to show this. He tells us when
he is describing the effects of a musical education
; that “music ought to end in the love of the beautiful,”
X
t?
and we must remember that with him the beautiful
; meant the good. Why, then, should this be the
| end? Surely because, when it is gained, a man will
have been brought, in character, into close relation
IAWTRODUCTORY. 15
with that world of ideas where all is beautiful and
| go d. The highest elements in his complex nature
iwill have been developed. He will have grown to
; a condition of harmony with that better world. *.*.
Take another example. In selecting the literature
best fitted for the training of his soldier-citizens,
Plato rejects the dramatic form mainly on account of
the number of emotional transitions which it involves.
But what harm is there in passing from grief to :
joy, and so on, as we follow an author or an actor P :
Oile danger which he saw was that it would make
the unstable Athenian still more unstable. Apart
fism this political reason, however, there is the deeper
objection to which his philosophical principles point.
For in respect of these changing and unstable emotions
a man is a member of the lower world ; and dramatic
poetry would cultivate and nurture just those qualities
to which the permanence and immutability of the
world of ideas stand in such striking contrast. ~
A knowledge of his philosophic theory thus puts
us in possession of a code without which many
messages remain in unintelligible cipher. We may
represent this dependence of a system of education on
philosophy in this way:
The vision of the world of “ideas.”
A system of education which shall
bring a man into as close a relation
as possible with that world.
THE MAKING OF A CITIZEN.
We have now to take note of that more immediate
fend to which Plato's system of education is directed.
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I6 AEDUCATIO/V /AW AN/ATO'S REA UB/./C.
He regarded it first-of-all-as-a-means; and the mº
effective means, of preserving and promoting the
welfare of his ideal republic. It was, indeed, related
, to the world of ideas, as we have just seen ; his youth
was to reflect some of the perfect truth, beauty, and
goodness of that world. Its first aim, however, was
§the creation, or, as it is more in keeping with the
jspirit of his theory to say, the nurture and develdp-
ment of a good citizen ; it made first for the pre-
servation of all that he thought best in the life of
a society. This is its main characteristic ; and if
; we bear it in mind, it will help us to appreciate more
fully many details which would otherwise seem
strange. For this is a design we are unfamiliar
s
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; with ; or, at any rate, we rarely set it prominently
; before us as an end. We think of the individual
more—of his interests, his possibilities, his future.
Plato's first thought is for the interests of his state ;
the citizen, not the individual, as such, is what he
is concerned about.
Sometimes, then, he seems to be thinking of that
far-off world of ideas in arranging his scheme, but
far oftener of the republic. There was, however, for
him, no opposition between these ends, no clashing
of rival interests; for his state was to be organised
in the spirit of that wider world. Those who were
to direct affairs in the republic and control its destiny
were to draw their inspiration from a contemplation
of the world of ideas. Their fitness for their high
office was to depend upon their power to assimilate
the principles of that world and their skill in trans-
lating them into the sphere of practical affairs. So
that a citizen of such a state would, as an individual,
attain to perfection of character. We may set out
IAWTRODUCTORY. 17
the relation of the system of education to both ends, .
and these to each other, graphically. :
The vision of the world of ideas.

`s
NS.
The vision of an ideal republic.
V 2
A scheme of education taking its form
from both “visions.”
This emphasises : first, the fact that the “Republic”
is an offshoot from Plato's cardinal philosophic
thought : next, the fact that the scheme of education
is a factor in the construction of the republic, and
in immediate relation to this latter ; lastly, that it
is both directly and indirectly related to the world
of ideas.
We must get an idea of the plan of the “Republic”
that we may understand the place education occupies
within it. There is a second title of the work:
“Concerning Justice.” We should thus infer it to
be partly political and partly ethical in character ;
as a matter of fact it is both at once. The dialogue
opens with an enquiry into the essential nature of
justice. The unsatisfactory nature both of the
common and of the sophistical notions of this quality
is first shown by Socrates. Then he proposes to
reach a solution by constructing an ideal state in
| 2
I8 EDUCATIO/V ZAV PZLA 7 O'S A BAE UB/./C.
which, he assumes, justice will exist and will be
discernible. So that in reality the construction of
the state and the discovery of the essence of justice
come to be one and the same thing. At least the
ideal state will be the actual and concrete embodiment
of the conception of justice. This last ultimately
turns out to be realised in the harmonious co-operation
of all classes of the society in the promotion of its
highest interests. This solution is reached at the
end of the fourth book. The next three books are
occupied with the discussion of what Plato believed
to be the more ideal conditions of a republic—e.g.
community of goods and of wives and children ;
of the qualifications and training of the rulers of
the republic ; and of the naturé, of that ideal world
into communication with which they are by education
to be brought, and a knowledge of which is to fit
them for their task. In the remaining books the
dangers and perversions to which states are subject
are considered.
It is as a preparation of each class, so that all
may work harmoniously together and produce that
condition of moral well-being—i.e. justice in the
state—that education is introduced. There were three
classes, for each of which there was an appropriate
system of training. They were :
/ (i) The artisans. These constituted the lowest
class, whose condition was largely servile. For them
Plato prescribed no system of education. The learning
of their trade was all he thought necessary to fit them
to play their part in the corporate life of the republic.
(ii.) The soldier-citizens, or auxiliary-guardians,
sometimes referred to simply as “guardians.” . For
them a complete system of training was constructed.
|
|

A WTRODUCTORY. I9
It is to be found in that portion of the work extending
from about the middle of the second to the end of .
the fourth book. It makes up what we should call
“primary '' education ; though it is to be observed
that this lasted till the age of twenty. It is
what we shall be mainly concerned with. Its aim,
summarily stated, was to nurture in these warriors
a spirit of loyalty to the best interests of the state
and to develop a body capable of guarding them. … sº-
(iii.) The magistrates or “perfect guardians.” In
the seventh book a higher education is sketched for
this class. It was to be continuous throughout life
after the age of twenty ; though the years from
twenty to thirty-five were to be a time of special
concentration. Its aim was to develop to the utmost
degree the power of philosophic insight so that this
might be brought to bear upon the practical problems
of statesmanship.
Perhaps, however, we shall set out with the most
satisfactory idea of the parts of Plato's educational
scheme if we look upon them in this way: ~~~
(i.) The primary education was for all members :
of the two classes, soldiers and future magistrates. &
(ii.) The higher education was designed for those ſ
only who were to be magistrates. * s
Now, this view of education as a preparation of
classes so that they may most effectively fulfil their
function in a social organism, and of individuals only
as members of these classes, carries with it the evils
of narrowness. It is specialisation on a large scale ;
and specialisation, however valuable it may be for
promoting the common good, means some loss for
he individual. On the artisan, shut off from all
nowledge and all interests outside his trade, the
i
.:

2O FDUCATION IV P/ATO'S REPUB/./C.
effect would be pitiable; though we must, of course,
remember the age and its conditions: to judge from
our modern standpoint is absurd. The warrior, too,
would suffer some amount of intellectual atrophy.
Plato considered that his best training would be, in
the main, physical, moral, and aesthetical. Of course
the two latter involve some quickening of insight;
but, on the whole, the soldier would remain at a low
level of knowledge. Habit rather than insight,
wimmovable convictions rather than the power of justi-
fying them—these were to be, for him, the goal of
education. The magistrate escaped ; but just because
* he got outside the state. In the contemplation of
the world of ideas he became, what Plato said of
himself, the “spectator of all time and all existence.”
Still, even if we conclude in the end that Plato
in his political system, and in his theory of education
as a factor in that system, does seem to sacrifice
individual for general welfare too ruthlessly, we must
remember that, as Aristotle said, man is a political
animal. He derives much, most, of both his physical
and his mental sustenance from his membership of
(a society; and with a privilege there always comes
a duty. His duty is to further the material and
ºf moral welfare of the state to which he belongs to
the best of his ability, and one of the first ends
of education is to fit him for that duty. We are
apt, as has already been said, to lose sight of this
end. The magnitude of modern states accounts for
this. The throb of national life is hardly felt in
their remote ramifications. The difference betwee
then and now appears strikingly in the fact that
Plato's primary system was designed for about one
thousand warriors.

JAWTRODUCTORY. 2 I

Plato's system is, then, a valuable one to study,
because it constantly brings us face to face with
the fact that the individual cannot be considered,
educationally, in his isolation. It has another
suggestive feature. It is an instance of the way
in which ideal and material ends may be combined
and harmonised. For the interests of the state are,
it is to be remembered, largely material. Such
questions as its industrial efficiency and its power
of defence must not be overlooked ; though they
should not, as is too often the case, occupy attention
to such an extent that the spiritual welfare of a
people is lost sight of Nor do they in Plato's
educational system. The world of ideas is ever
with him, even when he is arranging for such a
simple, present fact as the defence of his republic.
He seeks to make the actual approximate to the
ideal. *—-
A detail we have already referred to illustrates
this union of ends in his mind. We saw that he
objected to dramatic poetry mainly because it
developed a side of the character—the emotions—
which his theory of ideas led him to depreciate.
This was a philosophical objection. He had, how-
ever, an equally strong political one. Imitation,
which dramatic poetry brought in its train, was
opposed to his “one man, one work,” principle.
Material and ideal ends meet here. s
However, criticism and even reflection are out
of place in an introduction. The business of this is
to help to the understanding of the system. This
; help will be ours if we bear in mind the fact that
i both civic and ideal ends are sought to be realised
* in it,
22 AºA) UCA TYO/V /AW P/ATO'S REPUB/C/C.
THE SCHEME OF PRIMARY EDUCATION.
As a further help to the understanding of Plato's
system of primary education, it will be well to set
out with a general idea of its main divisions and
of the relation of these to one another. It is
doubtful whether Plato decided beforehand on a
fixed order in which the parts should be developed.
Whether that be so or not, they are jointed in an
Orderly manner, and knowledge of the plan will be
helpful. \
Perhaps we shall appreciate his method better
, if we first consider how a modern theory of education
Y, might be developed. It might proceed on the
following lines :
(i.) First there would be a statement of educational
ends. These would be both material and ideal.
For the latter the sciences which deal with ideals
would be drawn upon. Thus, logic would suggest
the ideal of thought ; ethics (under which aesthetics
might, for this purpose, be included) the ideals of
taste and conduct; hygiene the ideal of health.
(ii.) Then there would follow a consideration of
subjects and educational im/uences in relation to
these ends.
(iii.) Lastly would appear a consideration of the
methods by which these subjects and influences might-
best be treated so as to secure these ends. Here
the sciences named above, with the important
addition of psychology, would be drawn upon.
i il Thus the order would be : ends, means, methods of
#l adapting means to ends.
This would seem, as thus stated formally and in
the abstract, to be the most rational method of
^
e º 23
developing a theory of education. As a matter of
fact, it is both impracticable and undesirable to treat
each part exhaustively before proceeding to the next.
It is impracticable because ends have to be shown
in continuous relation to means and methods, and
means and methods have to be continuously con-
sidered in relation to ends ; the ideal and the actual
have to be brought into constant juxtaposition. It
is undesirable because a gradual unfolding of ideals,
through critical consideration of the actual, fixes
and deepens the idea of their importance in, as
experience shows, the most effective way.
It is this commingling of means, methods, and .
ends, and the gradual unfolding of the last, which .
are the essential characteristics of Plato's theory. It
could not well have been otherwise, for there were
no established sciences—no logic, ethics, psychology,
or hygiene—to which he could appeal. He has to
expound, as need arises, such principles of these
as his theory requires. And this is, in the main,
a great advantage. At any rate, it brings the
theory and the practice of education very closely
together.
We may divide the scheme into two main sections,
with subdivisions, as follows :
I. The first section sets forth the subjects, or rather
in/uences, to be employed. The particular end of
each is stated. The section ends with the considera-
tion of the combined effect of the two great in-
struments of primary training—music and gymnastic
—on the soul or character. Thus we can distinguish
in order :
(i.) The contents of a musical education, concluding
|


24 EDUCATIO/W IMJPZA 7 OS REPUBL/C.
J.
(ii) A-statement of the ends of a musical
education.
(iii.) The general principles of a system of
gymnastic, and the relation of this to mental training.
(iv.) The combined effect of music and gymnastic
on the soul, considered psychologically.
Here we have, then, what we should call the
º up of a curriculum, together with a justifi-
cation of it on ethical and psychological grounds.
II. The second section deals more explicitly and
fully with the ends, both political and ethical, of
education. It includes : —
(i.) The view of education as a prime factor in
the welfare of the republic. This is its political
end.
(ii) An analysis of this highest welfare or perfect
goodness which the ideal republic would show.
This analysis reveals the four cardinal virtues—
wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice—as the
qualities which make up perfect goodness. Hence
these become the ethical end of education, so far as
Zie classes of the state are concerned.
(iii.) A discussion to show that goodness in the
individual man discloses itself through the same four
qualities. This makes it necessary to establish,
psychologically, the fact that the “parts,” “elements,”
or “principles’ in the individual soul correspond
with the three classes in the state. These cardinal
virtues thus become the ethical end of education as it
concerns the individual. -
This section, then, examines the ends of education
in a broader and more general way. It carries us
beyond the details of the system to their ultimate
political and ethical purpose.
INTRODUCTORY. 25
HOW THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION IS INTRODUCED.
It will be helpful to briefly summarise the argument
which is preliminary to the section of the “Republic *
which deals with education. We shall thus get
some idea of the relation of the part to the whole.
Book I. opens with a discussion between Socrates
and others concerning justice. The enquiry is started
in an easy and natural way, very typical of Socrates’
custom of finding in common opinion a point of
departure for a profoundly important ethical enquiry.
During a conversation which takes place at the house
of a wealthy old man named Cephalus, talk turns
on the pleasures and trials of old age. Cephalus
emphasises the value for peace of mind of the
consciousness of standing rightly with all, both gods
and men. From this questions about justice easily
emerge. What is it 2 What definition of it is to be
accepted P
The answer of tradition, of common-sense morality,
is first given. Justice consists in restoring to each
man what is his due. But Socraxes has no difficulty
in showing that this is unsatisfactory. If the enquiry
is pressed farther and it be asked : what is meant
by “due * P the superficial character of the definition
at once becomes evident. The ethics of the plain
man embodied in common sayings and proverbs is
but a very rough sort of guide.
Then a Sophist, Thrasymachus, intrudes the
startlingly subversive idea that justice is the interest
of the stronger. It is shown in obedience to the
laws, and these are always made in the interests of
the stronger governing classes. To this cynical
and sceptical assertion he adds that, as a fact,
26 FDUCATION IV PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
injustice is infinitely more profitable than justice.
Socrates endeavours with much subtlety to show
the inconsistencies of this position and to establish
the connection of justice and happiness. He admits,
however, that he is not satisfied.
In Book II. the discussion is resumed. It is
pointed out that they still are in the dark about .
what justice is in itself. The advantages which
the just man possibly enjoys do not indicate how
the just life is to be lived. Socrates suggests that
since a state may be said to be just as well as
an individual, they may more easily discover the
essentials of justice in the former. Here they will
have “larger letters” to read.
Thereupon they proceed to sketch the rise of a
society. The growth of different trades, the rise of
foreign commerce, of merchants, sailors, and so on,
are described. The multiplication of its members
will mean that a larger territory will be necessary,
and hence the possibility of wars of conquest and
defence. Thus will arise the need of a class of
warriors or guardians, carefully selected and carefully
trained for their task.
“But,” asks Socrates, “in what way shall we
rear and educate them P’’ -
Thus the subject of education is connected more
remotely with the essentials of justice, and more
immediately with the stability and permanence of
, the state in which justice is to be revealed.
CHAPTER II.
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE : STORIES OF
DIVINE BEINGS.
(Book II., 376 e—End.)
1. Analysis. The subject of education is entered upon
; because it bears on the wider question of justice
;
#
#
§
§
and the way this originates in a state. The
traditional education consisted of music for the
mind and gymnastic for the body. Under music
is included stories, both false and true.
Education begins with fables which are either
wholly false or contain but a core of truth. Since,
however, the minds of the young are highly im-
pressionable, it is necessary to exercise Supervision
over the authors of fables, lest children should learn
what as men they may have to unlearn. Their
minds must be moulded through the medium of
good literature. This will necessitate the removal
of many bad representations of the characters of
gods and heroes which appear in the works of
Hesiod and Homer, if these are to be referred to
in the presence of the young. -
For instance, the stories of Uranus and Cronos,
and of Cronos and Zeus, are not good for them to
hear ; for they must not come to think that the
inhuman treatment of a father by his son or of
27
28 A.DUCATIO/V /AW PLATO'S REAE UP/L/C.
sons by a father is justified by the examples of the
gods. Nor are stories of strife, especially among
kinsfolk, fit for their ears. They should rather
hear of affection and good fellowship. The accounts
of the quarrels of Hera, Hephaestus, and Zeus will
have to go, notwithstanding any deeper meaning
which they may contain. Children cannot discrimi-
nate between what is allegorical and what is not, and
the bad is as likely to be retained as the good.
Only the general principles of a selection can be
laid down. Concerning the literature which relates
to the gods, the following canons should be observed:
First of all, God must be represented as he really
is, as the author of good only. That which is good
in itself cannot originate evil. Good is to be ascribed
to God, but the author of evil is to be sought
elsewhere. Hence, stories which relate of God that
he is the author of good and evil alike, that he incites
to the breaking of treaties, that he promotes strife,
that he makes men sin in order to destroy them,
that he is the cause of suffering—all such are to be
suppressed. Such acts may have been punitive, the
outcome of God’s sense of justice ; but that he origi-
nates evil is a fiction which no writer shall be allowed
to assert, seeing that it is at once irreverent, harmful,
and self-contradictory. God is the author of good
only—this is the first regulative principle of theology.
Secondly, God does not change. Whatever
changes does so either through some other thing
or through itself. But that which is best in nature
and in art is least liable to be changed by another
thing, so that God, the most excellent, cannot be
changed by anything external to himself. Nor will
he change himself, since a change from perfection
7 HE SUBSTAAVCE OF LITERATURE. 29
must be to something worse. God, then, being
perfect in beauty and goodness, ever abides in his own
form. The stories telling of the gods going about
in divers disguises, wherewith irreverent and foolish
mothers are wont to terrify their children, must
consequently be suppressed.
Further, it cannot be admitted that the gods would
be guilty of such deception as would be involved
in making men believe they assume different shapes,
though in reality they remain unchanged. For this
would be to originate the genuine lie, which exists
whenever men harbour such ideas concerning the
highest truths as are not in agreement with reality.
Nor can there arise for God occasions when the
verbal lie seems justifiable, as when an enemy is to
be circumvented or a friend succoured thereby, or
when a poet seeks to represent times and events of
which he cannot have certain knowledge. God is,
always and in every way, a Being of perfect sim-
plicity, truth, and steadfastness. And no stories
which represent Him as changing must find a place
among the writings which are to mould the characters
of the young.
2. General Remarks. Before we turn to the details
of this opening section, there are one or two remarks
of a general character to be made. Observe, first,
that the subordinate position of education within a
wider ethical and political enquiry is stated clearly
in the first lines. The subject is to be discussed
because it is likely to further the prosecution of the
main object ; which is to discover “the manner in
which justice and injustice grow up in a state.” "
Observe, next, that Plato is no hasty revolutionist,
1 II, 376 d.
30 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
ready to throw aside the teaching of experience. He
is going to follow what is best in Greek education,
He puts these words into the mouth of Socrates :
“We could hardly find a better than that which the
experience of the past has already discovered, which
consists, I believe, in gymnastic for the body, and
music for the mind.” Thirdly, we may note that he
accepts the traditional view of the ends of the two
branches of education, that they are for body and mind
respectively ; but only to go beyond it. He accepts
common opinion only, after a true Socratic manner, to
systematise it, to improve upon it ; and we may antici-
pate his exposition so far as to observe that he gradually
develops the theory that gymnastic and music are, both
alike, for the training of the mind, soul, or character.
3. The Beginnings of Moral and Religious Education,
Education is to begin with music. The term covers
several branches,” of which the first to be employed
is literature; and the literature which tells of “gods
and heroes” is to be the earliest educational food of
the young citizen. He is to be first introduced to
divine beings and to what is most divine in man.
The reason is clear. At an age when the impulse
to imitation is strongest, characters of a noble type
are to be presented to him in order that his own
may be fashioned after their mould. We may say,
then, that Plato lays what we should call a religious
foundation for his educational structure. As we
begin the school day with the scripture lesson, so he
begins the statement of his educational theory with
! II. 376 e.
* “For Plato, as an educational instrument, it is almost equivalent
to our ‘art, including fiction and poetry, music, painting, and
plastic art" (Bosanquet).
THE SUBSTA/VCE OF Z/7ZZRATURE. 3 I
an account of the principles in accordance with which
the stories of divine beings which children are to
hear should be selected.
We must, however, be quite clear in what sense
and to what extent we can consider this a religious
foundation. It must be remembered that the Greeks
had not, as we have, an authentic narrative of a
revealed religion. The stories of their greater poets,
and especially Homer, contained a crude sort of
theology to which a traditional reverence was paid.
But they were essentially mythical, the imaginative
outcome of a natural desire of man to account for
the supernatural. Plato's apparent deference to the
authority of these poets is usually ironical. More-
over, we have no real ground for believing that he
conceived of the supernatural and divine in any
distinctly personal form. His Idea of Good—the
highest element in his world of ideas—is a very
abstract conception.
For these reasons he describes the fabulous and
legendary accounts of the gods as false. They are
creations of the imagination. There is, as it were,
no original by comparison with which their truth or
falsity might be tested. “They are like pictures of
which we are no longer able to test the accuracy.” "
Moreover, we are perhaps justified in adding that the
more these gods resembled men, the less likely was
it, in Plato's view, that the claim of the stories to be
true could be upheld.
4. False Stories must be Logically True. Yet these
false accounts are the material which education must
begin with, and this for a simple, yet sufficient, reason.
They are the only form of narrative which children
* Nettleship in “Hellenica,” See pp. 82-86 on the whole question,
\
32 A. DUCATIO/V WAV P/LA 7TO'S REAE UP/L/C.
can appreciate ; they fit with their mental capacity.
This we can readily understand ; but it is, at first,
difficult to reconcile the advice to begin with the
false with what follows. We gather from several
passages that the false stories, if they are to be
presented to the young, must be true. Thus he says :
“In the legendary tales of which we were talking
just now, is it not our ignorance of the true history
of ancient times which renders falsehood useful to us,
as the closest attainable copy of the truth P”* How
can fables, admittedly false, be at the same time
“the closest attainable copy of the truth"?
Only because we may look at truth in two ways.
We may distinguish between truth of fact, in this case
historical fact ; and truth of idea or logical truth.
This distinction may be made clear by means of an
example. Suppose any one were to relate an incident
in the life of Christ of which we had never previously
heard, and the question of its truth arose. There
would be two tests open to us. First the historical
test, which would consist in seeing whether the
incident fitted in with the other accredited details of
the sacred narrative ; then the logical test, which
would consist in applying ethical principles in order
to see whether the act related exhibited those perfect
moral qualities which alone would make it consistent
with the life and character of Christ.
This logical test is the one by which the stories
of the gods are to be tried. They are to be con-
demned “whenever an author gives a bad represen-
tation of the characters of gods and heroes, like a
painter whose picture should bear no resemblance
to the objects he wishes to imitate.” We see now
1 II, 382d, 2 II. 377 e,
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 33
what a “bad representation ” means. It will be
“bad” if false ; and it will be false if it ascribes
to the gods acts or qualities which are not truly
virtuous. Plato assumes that those who have to make
this literary selection will be able to discriminate
between what is seemly and good, and hence con-
sistent with the character and conduct of divine
beings, and what is not.
The stories which the young are to hear must be,
then, but partial and imperfect representations of
truth, being mythical and allegorical, and in this
sense false. Yet they will, if logically true, be a
satisfactory starting-point. They will not afterwards
need to be rejected, only extended and refined. They
will supply a fit groundwork out of which more
adequate knowledge may be developed gradually as
mental capacity improves. And this is just the
reason why a censorship is needful. The minds of
the young are so impressionable ; yet “a child cannot
discriminate between what is allegory and what is
not ” ; and “whatever at that age is adopted as a
matter of belief has a tendency to become fixed and
indelible.” And so the greatest care is necessary
lest they should “receive into their minds opinions
generally the reverse of those which, when they are
grown to manhood, we shall think they ought to
entertain.” ”
5. The Earliest Stories must reflect the Wirtues of
Family Life. Such, then, is the first and general
principle of selection. It is put negatively; it states
what the stories should not be. Nevertheless we can
gather from the examples of Cronos and Uranus,
Hera and Hephaestus, what positive virtues Plato
1 II. 378 e. ? II. 378 e. 8 II. 377 b.
3
34 A.DUCATIO/W WAV P/LATO'S REAEUBLIC.
has in mind. He seems to be specially emphasis-
ing the duties of parental affection and filial love.
Stories “in which gods and heroes fight against
their own kith and kin’ come in for special con-
demnation. It is, indeed, quite clear that his first
care is that the young soldier-citizen should be in-
troduced in literature to examples of reverence and
filial obedience. The virtues of family life are the
source whence the virtues of the citizen are to
Spring.
6. Two Essentials of God's Nature. But besides
giving an account of such qualities as the young
may reflect in their own lives and characters, Plato
is anxious that these stories should convey true ideas
concerning God’s nature. They are to describe him
“as he really is.” He lays down two essentials of
this nature, two “moulds in which the poets are
to cast their fictions.” The first is that God is good
and the author of good only. The evil that is in
the world is not of his doing. If it should appear
that he makes men suffer, this is to be regarded
as “needed chastisement,” really intended as ultimate
good. This principle, it need hardly be said, is one
applicable to all time. All teachers would make
God’s goodness a central feature of their religious
instruction. Moreover, the idea that suffering is of
the nature of just retribution is one which it is
obviously morally advantageous for any age to hold.
The second characteristic of God is that he is
changeless and true. Plato reaches this conclusion
by two steps. First of all, by means of a truly
Socratic induction (of which it forms an excellent
example) he establishes the principle that “every-
thing which is good either by nature or by art, or
7 HAE SU/3STAAVCE OF //TERATURE. 35
by both, is least liable to be changed by another
thing.” We at once recognise here the fixity and
immutability of his “ideas.” ” This principle he
then applies syllogistically to God, whose goodness
or perfection is thus seen to imply indifference to
external influences. Nor would God be willing to
change himself, seeing that such a change must be
from perfection to imperfection. “Therefore it would
seem that every god, inasmuch as he is perfect to
the utmost in beauty and goodness, abides ever simply
and without variation in his own form.” “
The second characteristic is much less familiar
than the first. It is, indeed, essentially Platonic,
being a root-conception of his theory of “ideas.”
We may note Mr. Bosanquet's remark that it is
“primarily aimed at savage ideas of the metamor-
phoses of the gods rooted, as we now suppose, in
the most primitive superstition.” “ But there is more
here than the overthrowing of an idol of the tribe,
as the same writer goes on to point out. God’s
changelessness is as essential to Plato as his good-
ness. And, indeed, it is full of suggestion for us. For
stability is an important feature of moral perfection ;
and we could hardly do better than present to children
the ideal of a character completely proof against such
influences, whether external or internal, as tend to
shake its moral equilibrium.
7. The “Genuine" and the “Spoken" Lie. In this
connection we find the peculiar and somewhat difficult
conception of the “genuine lie.” Plato defines it
as “ignorance residing in the mind of the deluded
person " — ignorance concerning, especially, the
1 II, 381 b, * See chap. i., p. 11. * II. 38.1 c.
t * “Companion to Plato's Republic,” p. 91.
*.
36 FDUCATION IN A2ZATO'S REAE UB/./C.
“highest subjects,” the “absolute realities.” To fully
appreciate this we must bear in mind the nature
and conditions of knowledge. Knowledge implies a
knower and a known ; an individual consciousness
and the system of the universe with which it is
confronted. It implies, further, a harmony between
them. If the world exists as I perceive and conceive
it, then I am the possessor of true knowledge. Again,
my eyes and ears may give knowledge, so also may
my intellect ; but it is to this last, the “highest
part " of me, that the all-pervading laws and inner
meaning of the universe—its divine control and
direction—are revealed. If, then, in respect of these
vital truths there is want of conformity between
ideas and fact, we have the darkest ignorance, the
genuine lie. And were God to bring it about that
men believed him to be where and what he was
not, he would originate false knowledge concerning
himself, the highest of all absolute realities; he
would be the author of a genuine lie of the most
vital consequence. Such an act would be impossible
for God, the absolute good.
Such, then, is the genuine lie, the lie in the soul.
“It is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth,
the deception of the highest part of the soul from
which he who is deceived has no power of extricating
himself.” It is this latter point which we must
bear in mind if we would understand the sense in
which Plato declares the spoken lie to be preferable
to the genuine lie. For ever seeking to penetrate
the mysteries of life and attain true knowledge him-
self, he sees the greatest evil in its absence. He
is not thinking of the spoken lie in its moral aspect.
| Jowett, “The Republic of Plato,” p. xxxix.
THE SUBSTANCE OF 7./TERA 7TURE. 37
His point is that the man who utters it may possess .
true knowledge, though he may deem it expedient
in certain circumstances to hide it. The attitude
of a man towards his fellows, which makes the
spoken lie, in any but extraordinary circumstances,
at the very least a mean transgression of social duty,
is not what he has in mind; it is his attitude
towards knowledge. The genuine lie means that he
has no hold on this latter; he is in helpless ignorance.
The spoken lie does not imply this ignorance ; he can
dispel the fabrication at will.
This will help us to understand the perplexing
laxity with which the spoken lie seems to be regarded.
Moreover, “in part at least he is alluding to fiction
in which there is no question of intent to deceive.”"
Again, in the other cases in which he appears to
justify intentional deception—to circumvent a foe or
save a friend who is beside himself—the ethical judg-
ment of the majority would be with him, at least to
the extent of taking the motive of the lie into account;
though there are no doubt many who hold the absolute
view that the spoken lie can never be justified.
8. Should there be a Censorship over the Literature /
for the Young Such, then, were the beginnings º
the moral and religious education of the citizen.
Plato's views rested on a philosophical basis; they
were justifiable on the grounds of principle. What
the young citizen was to hear—accounts of the good-
ness and truth of God, stories logically and ethically
true—would bring him into touch with the world of
ideas. The manner in which he was to hear it—
through legend and fable—had psychological warrant.
Both matter and method were rational. And we
* Bosanquet, “Companion to Plato's Republic,” p. 93.
38 FDUCATIO/W WAV P/LATO'S REAE UBL/C.
have now briefly to consider whether the principles
will bear transplanting to our own times and cir-
cumstances. Are they helpful to us in our efforts
at moral and religious education ?
Among the instruments of moral training literature
still occupies a foremost place. There is something
peculiarly dominating and pervasive about the char-
acters which live in books, both historical and
fictitious. They pervade our thoughts, sway our
feelings, and shape our ideals more completely and
permanently than living examples. Of course, in-
dividuals differ. There are some for whom pure
romance has no attraction, nor even such romance as
time can add to the details of history. The present
and the practical exhaust their interest. But they
are a minority. For most children, at all events,
with that power of vivid imagination so strangely
disproportionate to the measure of their years, the
story, be it spoken or written, is all-absorbing.
Since this power of realising details so far outruns
the power of discrimination of the bad and the good,
ought we to follow Plato in establishing a censorship
over literature ? Put thus generally, the question
must be answered unhesitatingly in the affirmative.
We may not be always able to select stories which
are “adapted in the most perfect manner to the
promotion of virtue.” But we should certainly con-
demn those which, by nurturing the lower feelings
and stirring to undue and unhealthy emotional excite-
ment, may be said to be adapted to the promotion
of vice. We need not be over-scrupulous. In the
artificial moral atmosphere of “goody-goody” stories,
habits of sturdy virtue are not nurtured. Still, all
would admit the need for some supervision.
7 HE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 39
It is, however, even more important that the moral
judgment should be trained than that its material
should be carefully selected. Children sometimes
draw curious moral conclusions from the best
material. Here is an instance. A class of boys had
learnt Kipling’s “Ballad of East and West” by heart,
as we say. The teacher, trying to make the poem a
medium of ethical training, was startled to find that
the daring capture of the colonel’s horse by the
robber-chief had aroused much more enthusiasm than
his subsequent magnanimity. A more or less sub-
ordinate incident had arrested attention and aroused
their strongest sentiments.
We are apt to forget that the power to view one
incident in relation to the whole, to keep the parts in
proper perspective, is beyond the power of a child's
mind. One vivid, picturesque detail will be for him
a centre for which the rest forms but a dim back-
ground. It will certainly not be selected on account
of its ethical worth. Rousseau felt this danger of
presenting complex ideas to an immature mind to be
so great as to justify withholding all books until the
age of intellectual discrimination is reached. This
is to lose sight of the real value of literature for
the young and to over-estimate difficulties. Still, it
points to the need of working stories over so as to
ensure the formation of a moral perspective which will
afterwards need only finer detail, not complete read-
justment. This is in the spirit of Plato's teaching.
9. The Treatment of Stories from the Bible. So far
no reference has been made to sacred literature. Is
there any need of a censorship in respect of stories
from the Bible P And, if so, will Plato's principle of
selection help us here 2
j
!
4O EDUCATIO/W //V P/LATO'S REPUBLIC.
Our position is very different from that of a Greek
of Plato's time. We find ourselves in possession of
the Biblical narrative of a revealed religion. For us,
as teachers, the question of the historical truth of any
part of that narrative cannot arise, still less of its
logical and ethical truth. No conscientious school-
master would care to sow the seeds of scepticism or
even doubt. Yet Plato's ideas can help us even in
the matter of specifically religious teaching, and that
in two ways.
First of all, we may omit all reference to an
incident or detail if there is any danger of its being
misunderstood. We may refrain, to take two ex-
amples, from mentioning, or at any rate emphasising,
the treachery of Rebecca or the readiness of Abraham
to sacrifice Isaac. Concerning the former instance
Mr. Adler, writing on this question of the treatment
of Bible stories, says: “All reference to the duplicity
of Rebecca should be omitted, for the same reason
that malicious step-mothers and cruel fathers have
been excluded from fairy tales.” Concerning the
latter, it is sufficient to mention the incapability of
young children to appreciate the willingness to
sacrifice Isaac in its proper relation to other sentiments
and duties. They might form a judgment upon the
character of Abraham of that false kind—ethically and
logically false—which Plato so strongly condemned.
In the second place, we may, in giving Bible
lessons, make the moral teaching of the facts most
prominent. Dr. Jowett says: “We should agree
with him [Plato] in placing the moral before the
historical truth of religion.”’’ This remark is here
“Moral Instruction of Children,” p. 126.
* “The Republic of Plato,” p. xxxviii.
THE SUBSTA/VCE OF LITERA 7 URE. 4I
to be interpreted as a teaching principle. Of course
we must utilise to the full the authority of the Bible.
We shall not fail to take advantage of the feelings of
obedience, reverence, and affection which attach them-
selves to Biblical characters, and give to the morals
they convey a living force such as belongs to no
profane story. At the same time we shall bring the
morality which the Bible teaches into prominence
rather than the authority of its prescriptions. As the
late Headmaster of Harrow says, in an essay in which
much stress is laid on the necessity of giving boys an
insight into the facts of the Bible and their authority,
“Boys’ difficulties and needs are chiefly moral.” "
10. Adaptation of Truth considered Generally. We
may now express Plato's principle of method in the
moral and religious education of the young through
literature in this summary way : The truth must be
adapted to their capacity for assimilation ; but the
foundation thus laid must be one which will support
the superstructure which maturer knowledge will
erect. We have seen that this is a principle which
teachers will be wise in adopting. But both the
principle that “all communication of ideas must be
adapted to the mind of the recipient,” and the warn-
ing which it involves, that in such adaptation there is
danger lest the truth should be irretrievably distorted,
seem to be applicable to all subjects of instruction.
We shall appreciate the particular application of it
better if we consider it in its more general aspects.
This adaptation of truth most commonly takes
the form of presenting what can only be fully realised
by an effort of the intellect in such a way that
* “Thirteen Essays in Education,” p. 60.
* Bosanquet’s “Companion to Plato's Republic,” p. 88.
42 A.DUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
an appeal is made to the senses and the imagination.
We try to present pictorially what can only be
adequately known conceptually. A few instances
will make the distinction clear. The astronomer
must represent infinite space by a closed circle ;
mental process is a stream of consciousness; the
intimate mutual relations of the clauses of a complex
sentence are illustrated by means of a tree and its
branches; the conception of force is made clear by
means of a line ; courage is presented in the not
too satisfactory example of Sir Richard Grenville;
and so on. This is what Plato is driven to, of
course, when he employs fables as the medium
through which to convey ideas of virtue.
Let us examine these two ways of knowing a little
more closely. Pictorial knowledge is sensuous or
imaginative. It is in this way that I know the shape
and colour of a rose, whether it is present or absent.
Conceptual knowledge is the function of the intellect.
In this way I know an abstract truth such as the
law of universal gravitation. But there is no absolute,
hard-and-fast line between these two forms of know-
ledge. For instance, I bring to the particular rose
a general idea of roses ; and if universal gravitation
is more than a phrase to me, the conception attaches
itself to a pictorial image of lines running from one
member of the universe of worlds to another. “Per-
ception without conception is blind ; conception with-
out perception is empty.” Still it is true that at one
time our knowledge is largely perceptual, at another
mainly conceptual. At one time we are all eyes, as
it were ; at another the general relations between
things are in the forefront of consciousness. Both
forms of knowledge are desirable, though Plato thought
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 43
little of the pictorial form. He for ever sought to get
away from what was for him the slavery of sense.
There is both loss and gain in presenting con-
ceptual knowledge in a pictorial way. The loss is
obvious from the examples just quoted. The image
of a stream, useful as it is, is inadequate when we
think of mental activity. And there is danger
lurking in all these whittlings-down of truth.*
Still there is great and compensatory gain. What
we can picture in definite concrete form is the most
vivid, real, and “stinging ”—to borrow a term from
Professor James—of all knowledge. And this belief-
arousing quality more than counter-balances any
imperfection in the images we figure out. Moreover,
pictorial knowledge is the only knowledge for the
young. For them, in particular, “conceptual systems
which neither began nor left off in sensations would
be like bridges without piers. Systems about fact
must plunge themselves into sensation as bridges
plunge their piers into the rock,” if they are to be
understood and believed.
We may return, in conclusion, to the particular
case of moral training. The example, imaginary or
real, from literature or from life, presents the ideals
of virtue in this impressive, concrete, and pictorial
way. It will embody these ideals but imperfectly,
unless it be the perfect example of Christ. It will
be but an approximation to moral truth. Yet the
mind will be able to find a resting-place upon it,
as does the bridge upon its piers.
* For instance, the “stream ” of consciousness always carries
almost irrestible spatial implications, as students’ answers to
questions in psychology show.
* James, “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. II., p. 7.
CHAPTER III.
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE : CONCERNING COURAGE,
TRUTH, AND TEMPERANCE.
(Book III., 386 a-392 c.)
1. Analysis. The stories of the gods, then, are to teach
the lessons of reverence, respect of parents, and good-
fellowship. The next question is the way Courage.
may be cultivated. Clearly the fear of death must
be removed, and this is fostered by descriptions which
paint the place of abode after death and the life
therein in the darkest colours. Stories of a future
empty of joy and intelligence are to be condemned, as
also are the single terms which, as it were, epitomise
the horrors of Hades, for they render the soldier
spiritless in battle. Nor must accounts of lamenta-
tions be permitted, seeing that a good man will fear
neither death nor loss, for himself or for another.
Especially must care be taken lest such weeping and
wailing be attributed to the gods; for this would
lead young men to think such behaviour commend-
able. Nor must they be led to believe that the gods
indulge in excess of laughter, which is usually
followed by excess of grief.
A high value must also be set on Truth. False-
hood, needing to be used with discrimination, must
44
THE SUBSTAAWCAE OF LITERATURAE. 45
be confined to rulers. The subject should feel it to
be as foolish for him to lie to a ruler as for a patient
to his doctor, a pupil to his training-master, or a
sailor to his pilot.
Temperance, involving obedience to governors in
the State and to reason in the soul, must be cultivated
in our young men. Hence passages recounting sub-
mission to authority will be retained, while those
which tell of insolence will be discarded. Accounts
of gluttony, drunkenness, and lust must go, while
stories of fortitude will remain. That the gods may
be bribed, that they are mean, insolent, cruel,
arrogant, and covetous—these are statements which
are at once irreverent and untrue ; and since they
exert a permicious influence on those who hear them,
they must be suppressed. wº
2. First Steps in Moral Training. This section opens
with a statement of the first moral lessons which
literature should teach. These are reverence of God,
filial affection and duty, and good will towards men.
Thus is the moral outcome of the first section sum-
marised. It is to be noted that these three moral
excellences possess a common feature : they are,
each of them, what we should call other-regarding
virtues, if we may extend the term so as to include
the first, reverence towards God. It would seem,
then, that Plato believed that the first step in the
establishment of his republic on a sound basis, and
so the first aim of Education, must be to cultivate
in the citizen a seemly attitude towards God and his
fellowmen.
A striking fact this, that a pagan writer should
so anticipate the essentials of the Christian code of
commandments, with its prescriptions as to duty
46 A. D OVCA 7TWO/V //V A/LA 7 O’S REAUB/C/C.
towards God and duty towards men. And it becomes
more remarkable when we reflect how history has
again and again shown that such a moral foundation
is the surest safeguard of national permanence. It
is just those nations among whom religious senti-
ment, family affection, and a feeling of brotherhood
have been strongest, which have longest withstood
the forces of disruption. Of even more immediate
interest to us is the thought that modern educationists
would be in complete agreement with Plato as to
how the basis of a sound training of character should
be laid. Reverence and obedience, love and sympathy
—these are the root-sentiments from which all moral
development springs.
Having shown how the youth is first to be brought
to what we might describe as a fitting upward and
outward orientation, Plato goes on to consider the
other qualities necessary if he is to be true to himself.
These are courage, truth, and temperance. We may
conveniently group them as self-regarding virtues.
We proceed to examine his account of each of these.
3. Plato's Account of Courage. First in order comes
Courage, or Manliness. Let us see what account he
gives of it, and how he proposes to regulate literature
so that it may further the realisation of his ideal.
We can distinguish three essentials. First of all,
no man can be brave or manly (i.e. true to himself)
who is “haunted by the fear of death.” To root
out this emotion, or rather to prevent its growth,
it is necessary that all the terrifying descriptions of
Hades, the abode of men after death, should be cut
out of literature. Accounts of its coldness and
dankness, of the emptiness and imanity of the life
therein, are not true, nor do they serve any useful
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 47
purpose. The same thing may be said of the single
terms which focus and perpetuate men’s fears of
the future. In the second place, Plato's guardian
must be superior to the feeling of sorrow for the
death of another, however near and dear. No loss
is to be of avail to move him, as he should be
“distinguished from the rest of the world by his
peculiar independence of external resources.” There-
fore the poets are not to be permitted to ascribe weeping
and wailing to the gods and famous men ; such dirges
and laments are to be associated in literature with
women and men of a baser sort. Thirdly, a like
control over joy and its too violent expression is to
be characteristic of the manly man. Violent laughter
brings a reaction towards violent grief, and such
oscillation between emotional extremes is a sign
of a want of manliness. Homer's description of
unquenchable laughter among the blessed gods
cannot, then, be sanctioned. *
The development of thought is easy to follow.
Starting from what we should call physical courage,
it passes readily to that higher form which we describe
as fortitude under affliction. The manly man must
not only look calmly on the prospect of his own
death, but he must face unmoved the idea of the
death of a friend or a brother ; from which there
is an easy logical step to superiority to loss generally.
The transition from excess of grief to excess of
joy is also easy. And thus this latter comes to
be a sign of a lack of manliness.
We may observe, too, how readily the conception
of courage passes over into that of temperance.
Superiority to the sway of the emotions is seen to
! III, 387 e.
48 FDUCATION /W P/ATO'S REAE UB/./C.
be the common and fundamental element of both
virtues. The attempt to classify virtues always leads
to this over-lapping, as is very apparent in Plato's
more detailed and exhaustive examination of them."
“In order to be temperate a man must be courageous :
in order to be able to resist the allurements of
pleasure he must be willing to endure the pain which
resistance involves. Similarly, in order to be
courageous he must be temperate—at least in his
desire for those kinds of pleasure which he is called
upon to forego in facing danger, e.g. the desire for
life.” 2
4. The Fusion of Material and Spiritual Aims explains
Peculiarities. This account of courage is somewhat
peculiar in two respects. First, it is strange to read
that courage appears more in a readiness to face the
terrors of a life after death than, as we should say, in
a readiness to sacrifice this life and forego its pleasures.
This is due to Greek ideas. “Death, as the inevitable
end of youth and strength and beauty, as the entrance
to a joyless and ineffectual phantom world, seemed
to the Greek imagination of all terrible things the
most terrible, and the man who could face it without
flinching the most worthy to be called a man.” "
Religion brings it about that, for us, the thought
of the after-life may give an impetus to courage.
And in the second place, a stoical superiority to
emotion and its expression hardly strikes us as an
exhaustive account of the virtue. Here, however, a
practical and immediate end is to be borne in mind.
“To the Greek of Plato's time, as to some Southern
! IV. 427 d –436 b.
* Muirhead, “Elements of Ethics,” p. 199.
* Nettleship in “Hellenica,” p. 89.
THE SUBSTAAVCAE OF Z/TERATURAE. 49
peoples now, the tendency to sudden and violent
revulsions of feeling was a real cause and symptom
of weakness of character.” Plato seems to have
had this weakness in mind in many of his educational
prescriptions. -
There is, however, deeper ground for this view of
courage to be sought in the central idea of his
philosophy. We have seen * how he found the reality
of the world in those fixed and changeless types which
shine through their particular and evanescent embodi-
ment ; and what was most real was of highest worth.
We have seen also how man through reason was
one with the highest world and through passion one
with the lowest. Naturally, then, he seeks to develop
in the character of man those elements which in their
permanence and fixity seem to him to stand opposed
to the unstable and enervating play of the emotions.
This harmonising of the material and the ideal is
an essential characteristic of the “Republic.”
5. We should accept this Account of the Essentials of
Courage and its Nurture. We should agree with Plato
in refusing to ascribe true manliness to one in whom
the floods of emotion are wont to sweep away the
landmarks of conduct. Character may be described
as a relatively stable and organised system of
tendencies ; and we broadly refer to a character as
virtuous when the conduct which is the outcome
of these tendencies makes for good, even though it
issues after a struggle. But we reserve our highest
praise for the character in which the good tendencies
have become so strong that they issue in action
without any antecedent emotional unrest. Virtuous
* Nettleship, op cit., p. 90.
* See p. 11.
5O FDUCATIO/V /AW P/LA 7TO'S REAE UB/./C.
conduct has, for such a one, become almost as
automatic as easy walking. And in the particular
case of fortitude, what we look for is just this un-
questioning, unhesitating pursuit of duty which
neither seducing pleasures nor distressing pains
have power to affect.
Even more readily would Plato's condemnation
of extravagant emotional “expression * be accepted.
The more so, since emotion and its “expression * are
connected, in the opinion of eminent psychologists,
not as, respectively, cause and effect but as effect
and cause. If the heartbeats and the tears, the
reddened cheek and clenched fist, feed the emotion
rather than discharge it, as we have been accustomed
to think, then any general objection which may be
brought against emotional tendencies is, ipso facto,
brought against these bodily phenomena. And,
theory apart, extravagant bodily manifestations are
usually characteristic of those individuals and races
who lack fortitude ; and we should follow Plato in
using whatever means we could command to repress
them.
Mr. Nettleship thought that English youths as
a whole needed contrary treatment. “Perhaps few
Englishmen,” he says,” “will feel themselves or their
children to be much in need of such precepts. Many
of us would be only too glad sometimes if our sense
of the pathetic or the ludicrous could find more
relief in expression. . . . To us, taught as we are
by example and temperament to be neutral and
moderate in our language and gesture, an analogous
danger may perhaps be found in the tendency to
nurse suppressed emotion until it becomes a drain
* “Hellenica,” p. 90.
THE SUBSTAAWCE OF //TERATURE. 51
upon the mental forces or breaks out in extravagant
action.” This is no doubt true. But the general
position that an undue tendency to emotion is
opposed to fortitude remains unaffected, and so to
cultivate the latter we must restrain the former.
The manly man, then, is to stand like a bluff head-
land unshaken by the waves of emotion ; and, as an
educational inference, the heroes of his literature
must not be given to emotional display. In its
broad outlines we should accept Plato's teaching and
act upon it in our endeavours to foster the virtue of
true manliness. It needs modification, however, in
one important particular.
6. Manliness not to be found in Isolation. This will
become clear if we ask: Whence does the manly man
derive his strength and stability ? What is the motive
which will keep him from flinching at the thought of
death or sinking under calamity ? Plato would seem
to find such strength in his isolation. He “is distin-
guished from the rest of the world by his peculiar
independence of external resources.” He is to be self-
centred, self-contained, after the manner of the later
Stoic sage. This is what a too rigorous suppression of
emotion leads to. It is true that in a later and fuller
account of courage the interests of the state are set
out as a reason for the self-sacrifice which fortitude
demands; and here there is a hint that a man
should be ready to endure death for the sake of
freedom. But the fact that it is only a hint, that
mere superiority to pain and loss is set down as the
ground of fortitude, makes the account of the virtue,
so far as it is to be a source of inspiration for the
teacher, incomplete.
! See IV. 429 b–430 c,
52 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
Consider the case of what we call physical courage
first. A fine scorn of suffering and the power to
meet death calmly do not, of themselves, make up
that true moral quality which gives to courage such
a high place among the virtues. The power to face
bodily pain may arise in several ways, indicating
very different degrees of moral worth. It may arise
from a mental or even a physical incapacity to realise
consequences : a short-sighted man is “bold’’ on the
edge of a precipice, and a man of sluggish sensibility
and slow imagination will lead a forlorn hope. Or it
may arise when emotion, or rather excitement, has
deadened sensibility and paralysed the power of
thought ; so, Surely, arises much of the courage of
the soldier in battle. Or, again, it may arise not
through intellectual eclipse, but through intellectual
exaltation, whereby some great end is brought into
such bold relief that the joy of helping forward its
realisation far outweighs the pain which the effort
must bring ; and this is the courage of the martyr.
We shall scarcely hesitate in forming an ethical
judgment. Only in the latter case should we give the
meed of praise ; for the virtuous quality of an act is
to be found in the motive whence it springs and in
the end at which it aims.
We may go even farther and assert that mere dis-
regard of physical pain, with no end beyond itself,
Mere is not desirable in the young. It is not
;*merely that sensibility becomes dulled and
Jndesirable, the sympathies consequently stunted: these
are real evils ; but there is the further conse-
quence that the true value of physical strength
is lost sight of. It is frittered away in aimless
asceticism or in brute display. For these reasons
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 53
the parent or teacher should hesitate before putting
stories of bravery into the hands of the young
without careful scrutiny. The ballad of Horatius,
to take an instance, seems preferable to the ballad
of “The Revenge” as a concrete representation of
the ideal of courage. For in the former case
“the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his
gods” appear as prominently as the mere fearlessness
of the “dauntless three º’; while in the latter Sir
Richard’s sheer pertinacity and insensibility to suffer-
ing and loss seem to stand out in such strong relief
as to overshadow the motives of his action, even if
these were entirely commendable.
If we consider next what we call moral courage
or fortitude, it seems both impossible and undesirable
to find its source in isolation and self-containedness.
It is impossible because a man is linked to his fellows
by means of such a net-work of common interests
that a wholesale snapping of the threads would leave
him resourceless. It is undesirable because a man
has his duty to the social life whence he draws
sustenance. Where a man takes there should he
give.
If, then, the strength of fortitude is not to be
got by tearing asunder the threads which bind the
Fortitude individual to his environment, where is
...al it to be found P In the right weaving
galance of of the web. For the weaving is, in a
interests, measure, within his own power, and even
more within the power of those who have charge
of his development. His interests must form an
organised system within which no one has power
to destroy or even unduly disturb the rest. The
love of parent and child, of wife and friend, of home
54 FDUCATION //V PZATO'S REAUBLIC.
and fatherland, must each have its due place, each
a help rather than a hindrance to the other ; and
all must converge on, or be submerged in, a great
final purpose. The well-spring of fortitude under
affliction is a rational balance of interests ; and this
balance will not be obtained by making firmer the
purely personal standpoint, but rather by letting
it go. -
The problem then, so far as the development of
true courage is concerned, is not how to repress
emotion, but how to extend and refine it. It must
be directed towards the remote and ideal as against
the merely personal ends. To suppose that the
virtue of fortitude can be obtained through the mere
annihilation of the emotions is, to employ a metaphor
of Dr. Stout's, like supposing that the mere setting
of sails will make a ship move in the absence of wind.
It is when the feelings have been linked to high
ends that the pains of personal loss can be withstood.
And literature will best subserve the cultivation of
fortitude, not by presenting heroes who are “in-
dependent of all external resources,” but rather by
bringing out strongly the number and strength of
the interests which are their support in times of
affliction.
7. Plato's Account of Truth. Truthfulness is a
quality of character and expression on which Plato
declares that he sets a high value, and one which
he will look for in his guardians. This value will,
however, be dependent on its usefulness to the state
as a whole. Those in authority may deceive those
in subjection at their discretion, provided the welfare
of the state seems to call for deception. Thus, the
misrepresentation by a leader of the fighting strength
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 55
of an enemy would, if it prevented panic, meet with
Plato's approval. But no such justification of
deception would be possible for the simple warrior.
A lie to his superiors—his relations to his equals
are not in question—could bring no possible good
to the whole community; for they who steer the
ship of state need the fullest knowledge of the
real intentions of its subordinate members, just as '
the pilot must know the real capabilities and exact
intentions of the sailors under him. The value of
truth, then, varies with its utility. As to the
obligation to truth : what is to compel the warriors
to truthfulness 2 Either what we should call their
common sense, which shows them that their own
good is wrapt up in the common good, and that
truth furthers this latter ; or their feeling of respect
for their superiors. Since, however, the warriors
will not always have sufficient discrimination to
see how their own welfare is linked with that of
all, the obligation to truth will mainly arise from
respect for leaders. And if this motive should be
lacking, as well it might, punishment must compel
to truth, which thus ultimately rests on obedience
Springing from fear.
This account of the virtue strikes us at first
as most unsatisfactory; we get a sort of moral
This is only shock. We must, however, remember
#...at here, as in the case of courage, the
mentofºruth, limitations under which Plato is writing.
He is thinking primarily of the character of the
warrior, and he refers to that particular form of
the virtue which it is possible to cultivate in him—i.e.,
truthfulness as an offshoot of respect and obedience.
If we read what he says here in the light of what
56 EDUCATION IAW PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
he says elsewhere, we shall see that he is only
considering a stage in the development of a love
of truth. He says earlier in the book that “a real
lie is hated not only by gods, but likewise by
men’’’; and the greater part of the latter portion of
the work is devoted to a consideration of the way
in which men may endeavour to learn the whole
truth and to rest satisfied with nothing short of it.
Indeed, Plato sets as high a value upon truth as
any philosopher before or since. But here truth
is something different from truthfulness, and this
distinction must be cleared up.
8. Two Senses of Truth. Truth implies a relation
between two things, and the relation is one of
agreement ; Plato says it is “akin to proportion.” ”
The two things which are in agreement are, however,
not always the same, and this gives rise to two senses
of the word truth which it is necessary to distinguish
Thus :
(i.) Sometimes we mean by truth a relation of
agreement between thought or intention and its
outward expression in word or act. What we think
or intend is in harmony with what we say or do.
This is what we mean when we speak of truthful-
ness or being true. If we think of it as a habit or
tendency we call it moral truth. Its contrary is
falsehood.
(ii.) Again, we sometimes mean by truth a relation
of agreement between thought and reality. What
we think is in harmony with what actually is ; we
do not harbour a distorted view of things. This is
commonly referred to as philosophical or intellectual
truth. Its contrary is falsity.
! II. 382 a. * WI. 486e.
THE SUBSTAAVCE OF Z/TERA 7TURE. 57
Clearly Plato is referring to truth in the former
sense when he is considering it in relation to his
guardians. The teacher must, however, pay atten-
tion to the motives to, and ways of cultivating, both
moral and intellectual truth. These we proceed to
discuss.
Starting with moral truth, we may first seek
Lying springs to discover what lies behind falsehood.
;...' Three kinds of lie seem distinguish-
Motives. able :
(i.) Ordinarily, a lie is a cloak for some act or
intention which is morally bad, and is known to be
so. It is born of the natural shrinking from the
shame or actual physical suffering which exposure
would bring. It is an outcome of the cowardice
which usually accompanies moral weakness.
(ii) Sometimes, with young children whose physical
characteristics foster timidity, the lie may hide no
fault, but may arise from a desire to please. Timid
children will frequently lie in order to appear to be
or to do what they believe a parent or teacher desires.
(iii.) Then there is the lie which springs from
strength, as when a child seeks by lying to shelter
another at the risk of pain to himself.
The mere enumeration of forms so different as
these leads to the conclusion that the cultivation
Which of moral truthfulness is no such simple
i., matter as Plato's summary treatment
Treatment suggests. One point stands out clear.
Before we can deal with the lie, we must get at its
cause, the motive or emotional tendency which lies
behind it. In the case of a lie of the first type, we
must get at the selfishness or depravity which it
cloaks; but when we have discovered it, the know-
58 A. DUCATIO/V ZN AZA 7TO'S REAEPUB/./C.
ledge that the lie is the offspring of cowardice will
keep us from any attempt to cure it by mere
terrorising. We must try and remove the vicious
tendencies first, and then by our practice bring
children to feel that, given right motives, their acts
will meet the respect they deserve. Justice is the
best antidote to the lie which springs from cowardice.
The treatment of the second type is similar to that
of the first. This form of untruth arises out of
dread of the unknown effect of disappointing a
teacher. If he be hasty, impatient, or unable to look
behind an answer, or, worst of all, if he be prone to
punishment for inability as for fault, then he is likely
to train liars. The child must feel that if he lays
bare his soul it will be to a sympathetic eye, and
that for his declared mental incapacity he will receive
encouragement rather than senseless rebuke. The
third type brings us to an ethical problem. We
want truthfulness, and we want the courage and
sympathy which cause a boy to screen his fellow at
the risk of punishment. Shall we praise the courage
and kindly feeling or blame the lie P Probably both ;
but in cases like these tact and insight will stand the
teacher in better stead than all the ethical formulas
in the world.
9. How can a Love of Truthfulness for its own Sake
be Cultivated? What has been said has reference only
to the removal of falsehood. Moral education can-
not, however, be considered complete until virtue is
practised for its own sake. How are we to get
children to love truthfulness for itself, apart from
any pleasant results which its practice may bring P
We have to remember that the love of truth is a
late-acquired and abstract sentiment, and that the
THE SUBSTANCE OF LITERATURE. 59
way to it lies through the more instinctive emotions.
We must start from the emotion of love. Truthful-
ness will spring from affection and the desire to
please the object of affection; and this is the spirit
of Plato's teaching. When he says that truth-
speaking must spring from the respect which rulers
should inspire in subjects, and from the impulse to
obedience which is but reverence run into action, he
is stating a principle applicable to all time and all
circumstances. It is here that the teacher must
begin, but only to get a firm foothold for a progress
towards a higher level of morality. He may make,
or rather help his pupil to make, the next step by
presenting the ideal of truth in the concrete garb
of “grown-upness,” as Mr. Barnett suggests." The
virtue has now left the womb of affection which
bore it, and begins an existence of its own as an ideal
or end to be gained; grafted, it is true, on to a
concreter and baser aim, but still in the way of
budding forth on its own account. At what moment
it will succeed in arousing admiration and desire of
attainment through its own perfect beauty is im-
possible to say. Perhaps not within the school life;
but boys vary. Anyhow, its separation from the
earlier emotions and ideals which gave it sustenance
is a question of its own inner vitality ; the teacher
can only control its environment. It will come to
the birth when a measure of self-consciousness, of
self-worth and the courage to support and advance
these, have been developed.
What has just been said has reference to moral
truth, to being true ; it is also most desirable that a
child should come to desire to know the truth in
“Common Sense in Education and Teaching,” p. 53.
6O A. ZDUCA TYO/V ZAV AZA 7TO'S ACA2A7 UB/C/C.
|
the second sense of the word indicated above. He
will be a lover of truth when he cannot rest satisfied
The with anything short of a relation of perfect
jº. agreement between his thought and reality,
Intellectual so far as the latter is presented to him
Truth. and so far as he is capable of penetrating
it. He cannot be the “spectator of all time and
all existence,” but he should seek the whole
truth within the limitations which the area of
knowledge and his own mental capacity must fix.
Training for this end Plato reserves for the
philosopher, the lover of truth ; he does not think
it necessary for the warrior as such. This is one
of the evils which attend all systems of training
for a specific purpose ; some side of a man, frequently,
unfortunately, the potentially larger and the ethically
better part, becomes dwarfed and atrophied in the
process; the philosophic “element” of the soul of
one of Plato's warriors would have suffered a grievous
starvation. Any system of education stands con-
demned if it does not develop philosophers in the
literal sense of the word.
But here again, as in the case of moral truth, the
more impersonal abstract sentiment has to win its
The plmouty way in conflict with emotions which are
of removing more deeply rooted in our nature. The
* truth, especially in respect of our social
environment, is frequently unpalatable ; the wish is
father to the thought, and fact is overborne by pre-
judice. We cannot remove the personal equation in
our judgments about others and about ourselves
in relation to others. To a less degree, but no
less truly, we distort the physical environment
! WI. 486 a.
7 HE SUBSTA/VCE OF //TERATURE. 6I
where it touches our interests. The Sunset is red,
if we would have it so ; and our flowers do
bloom, though all the world should see the blight
of frost.
How, then, may we train a child so that he may
come near, even if he cannot attain, such a measure
The reacher of philosophic truth as is possible for
must set the him P. We can follow Plato in this, and
#. * work from the sentiment of reverence
jº which in the young finds its expression in
imitation. We can work on it by showing
an absolute devotion to truth in the searches after it
which we undertake with our pupils in the class-
room. It is so easy to make an experiment illustrate
Our point, and we may even think it economical to
bring, say, an incident referred to in the history lesson
under one of our favourite generalisations by hiding
or glossing over some disturbing elements. But we
do not so train seekers after truth; and that this is
an infinitely higher educational end than the suc-
cessful driving home of an experiment or the satis-
factory classification of an incident is so obvious that
a formal statement of the fact seems to issue almost
apologetically. -
10. Plato's Treatment of Temperance. Plato finds the
basis of temperance or sobriety, as of truth, in
obedience—first in obedience to external authority,
of men to their governors ; then in obedience to
internal authority, of the passions to reason. The
pages of literature must be scrutinised if it is to
aid the growth of this virtue. They are to be
freed from all accounts which, by being attached to
those whose examples stimulate to imitation, tend
to set the individual against the powers that be or to
62 FZ) UCATIO/W WAV PZA TO'S REAE UB/./C.
justify the victory of desire over reason ; they are
to tell forth the story of reverence and self-control.
It is the spirit of reverence for law which is to be
nurtured that it may bring sobriety in conduct;
for “it is this law-loving spirit, whether the law
be the external law of the state or the voice of
reason within us, which is the enemy alike of
forwardness and insolence, of gluttony, drunkenness,
and lust, of meanness and avarice.”"
There are striking and instructive features in this
account of what constitutes the essence of temperance.
Aesthetic First, we may notice how Plato's main
!... idea seems to be to prevent the undue
Prominent. prominence of one part in the whole,
either of state or individual. What he wants is
balance, symmetry, among the parts. He says later : *
“Temperance has more the appearance of a concord
or harmony, than the former qualities had.” It is
as though he regarded a state or an individual
where sobriety is, as one would look at a beautifully-
proportioned and symmetrical object. The moral
aspect is mingled with the aesthetical ; the good is
the beautiful This is understandable when we re-
member the extraordinary artistic development of the
Greeks, and the absence of any definite religion, which
helps to set ethics on its own basis, apart from
aesthetics.
Secondly, we may note how this account of
It seems to be temperance is an account of virtue in
.." general, at least of moral virtue as
Generally, against intellectual, if the distinction is
warrantable. A man in whom the desires were
! Nettleship in “Hellenica,” p. 91.
2 IV. 430 e,
7THE SUBSTANCE OF Z/TERATURE. 63
completely subordinated to reason would have
attained to perfect moral excellence, perfect virtue.
We have noted before how each single virtue tends
to stand for the whole in Plato’s account.
Thirdly, we may note how closely the idea
And is anied of temperance approximates to the idea
to Courage of courage ; and again how it is linked
*** with truth in its dependence on reverence
and obedience.
A further point which merits special notice is
the fact that Plato's account does not involve
No complete the doctrine of the absolute opposition
ºrm between reason and desire, which some
reason and great moral philosophers have held, but
Desire. which makes the very beginning of morality
impossible for human beings. We find Kant laying
it down that a man “should promote his happiness
not from inclination but from duty, and by this would
his conduct first acquire moral worth.”.” But if to
act from inclination or desire means that the act has
no virtue, then morality cannot begin. Plato has the
sounder doctrine when he lays it down that virtue
(in this case temperance) consists in controlling the
desires. In themselves they are not evil, only when
we become “possessed” of them. They become evil
when the perfect equilibrium of character, to which
they must contribute, is destroyed by them.
Obedience to External Law and Obedience to Reason
as Stages in the Development of Temperance. The two
elements which Plato finds in sobriety—obedience to
external authority and obedience to reason—are the
* Understanding this to imply direction, not negation, of desire.
* “Metaphysic of Morals,” p 15 (Abbott's translation). The italics
are mine.
;
\
64 FDUCATIO/W WAV A/LA 7 O’S AºEAE UEZ/C.
outcome of that parallelism between the individual
and the state on which he was so frequently insisting.
The teacher will perhaps find it more profitable to
view them as stages in the progress of the individual
towards true temperance. The child feels the re-
straining force of his physical and social environment
from the first dawn of consciousness. At first it is
the material world exercising a blind and relentless
tyranny against which he is powerless. Then it is
the authority of parent and nurse, clothed in affection,
but none the less a force in conformity with which
his activities have to be modified. The family, the
school, and the world, the formal commandments
of a religion and the unwritten laws of social life,
each in their due time and order make him feel the
weight of an authority from which he cannot escape.
Nor will these powers and their prescriptions be always
illuminated with the spirit of morality and religion.
The social environment is unfortunately informed
more completely by economic than by moral con-
siderations, and there are homes and schools of
course whose controlling influence makes for evil.
But even where these encircling systems are fitted
to meet the youth’s highest needs, and their
authority so wielded as to call forth his love and
reverent obedience, moral progress can hardly be
said to have properly begun until the note of command
from without is swelled by an imperative from
within. It is when his passions come to obey the
dictates of reason, when he comes to be a law unto
himself, that he is fairly on the road to true
temperance. For morality means free acceptance of
duty. Though his passions must be enslaved, his
own reason must bind the cords ; and this slavery
THE SUBSTAAWCAE OF Z/7′ERA 7TURE. 65
means the absolute freedom of the moral law within
him. “What else then can freedom of the will be
but autonomy, that is, the property of the will to
be a law to itself P” "
The power of the teacher to help on the progress
of his pupils towards that true moral freedom which
Extent of the is the crown of temperance, and indeed
Teacher's of virtue, is very great. He has con-
Influence tº e
over nig siderable power to modify one great
Development, environmental force—i.e. the school. He
can make it a breeding-ground for temperance or
sobriety. Moreover, he has a large share in the
choice of literature, and can put into practice
Platonic principles. He has command over the
needful weapons of punishment and praise where-
with to check the victory of passion and enhance
the victory of reason. Most important of all is it
for him to remember that he is the ever-present
concrete example, perhaps more powerful than all
which literature can bring to bear ; and if his life is
lived openly under the imperative of reason there
need be little doubt that the spirit of true moral
freedom will live in his pupils.
11. Why Literature is a Powerful Factor in Moral
Training. This is a fitting place to briefly consider
literature as a factor in moral training. We have
seen what importance Plato attached to it. Placing
the question of its selection in the forefront of his
treatment of education, he seems to have regarded
it as the most direct means of fostering reverence,
piety, and goodwill in his guardians, and of making
them brave, true, and temperate men. Subsequent
experience has not tended to lower this high estimate
i Kant, “Metaphysic of Morals” (Abbott's translation), p. 65.
5
66 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBL/C.
of its value. Perhaps its direct moral effect has
been to some extent lost sight of in the exaggerated
importance which has been assigned to literature as
a medium of general mental culture ; but although
modern educational theory has not explicitly affirmed
its powerful formative influence over character, it is
safe to say that it has been implicitly assumed.
And the secret of its power is easy to discern.
Abstract moral principles are for the guidance of
men of mature age and of an advanced stage of
development ; but the heroes of history and fiction,
of poetry and prose, present the ideals of virtue
and duty in living concrete forms which powerfully
move the young to emulation. In some respects,
indeed, they surpass in moving power the present
personality of parent, teacher, or friend. Their
remoteness saves them from the reducing influence
which actual familiarity seems to exercise over the
noblest of living companions. No man is a hero
to his valet, and it is the after-years which bring
reverence for the schoolmaster of our youth. But
we can construct the ideal of the perfection of
knightly virtue about the figure of Prince Arthur
or the knight of Ivanhoe, and it will not shrink
under the reduction of felt imperfection—at least,
it will not for the young. It is with the favourites
of literature as with an old castle seen through
the mists of an autumn evening which we do not
hesitate to people with the knights and ladies of
romance : they escape the sense of incongruity. , And
their remoteness does not mean unreality. They have
not that “unyielding remoteness” which Schwegler
finely predicated of Plato's “ideas.”
* See “History of Philosophy,” p. 103.
THE SUBSTAAVCE OF Z/TERATURE. 67
Of course there are individual differences to be
taken into account : practical interests are so absorb-
ing to some—both men and boys—that the characters
which live in the pages of literature are powerless
to touch them. It is not so with the majority of
children, with their early developed tendency to imagi-
native play. Their emotional and active impulses
are largely fed from literary sources, much in the
same way as the general trend of a man's sympathies
owes much to the characters of the author whom he
loves. Remote and ideal characters they may be, but
the responsive thrills they arouse are very real and
present factors in the development of character."
* See MacCumn, “The Making of Character,” chap. x., on
“Example.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE FORM OF LITERATURE : THE DANGERS OF IMITATION.
(Book III., 392 c-398 b.)
1. Analysis. After the consideration of the subject-
matter of literature comes the question of its form.
All compositions are either (i.) in the form of mere
narration, or (ii.) those in which the characters speak
for themselves, or (iii.) those in which both the pre-
ceding forms are combined. This may be made clear
by “detaching” the method which Homer adopts
in the account of the interview between Chryses and
Agamemnon with which the “Iliad” opens. At one
time the poet “speaks in his own person,” at another
“he speaks in the person of Chryses.” This differ-
ence implies a difference in the extent to which the
poet loses himself in the narrative. At one moment
he is Homer, at another Homer is lost in Chryses ;
and this latter absorption of the personality of the
poet in his characters is brought about “through
the medium of imitation.” All narrative might be
thrown into the form where no imitation is necessary.
Now, the poetry in existence falls into three
“forms”: in the first, as in comedy and tragedy,
all is dialogue involving imitation ; in the second
there is no imitation, all is description ; while the
the third employs both description and dialogue.
68
THE FORM OF LITERATURE. 69
Which form would an educator of the guardians
choose for them P To answer this a deeper question
must be considered. Is the power or practice of
imitation desirable in a guardian P. Success in the
real business of life demands, as has been seen,
devotion to a calling ; it is also found that to
imitate successfully, a man had better not play too
many parts; therefore we may conclude that a man’s
capability to carry on the business of his life success-
fully will be lessened by any tendencies towards
imitation. The guardians, then, who are to safe-
guard their country’s freedom must know nothing
of imitation—at least they must imitate only the
good ; for imitation, be it of gesture, tone, or mode
of thought, breeds “habits and a second nature”: not
a woman overborne either by felicity or misery, nor
a slave, nor cowards, fools, ribalds, or madmen—these
shall not be imitated ; nor yet craftsmen, brutes, or
the phenomena of nature.
In telling a story a man of well-regulated life will
throw himself into the characters so far as they are
good, but he will scorn to impersonate what is bad ;
and simple narration will be much more frequent than
the form which involves imitation. Contrariwise,
the man of ill-regulated character will unsparingly
employ imitation, even to the wildest excess.
Such, then, are the two styles or forms: one de-
manding simplicity, with few transitions from one
character to another ; the other marked by the in-
finite number and variety of its transitions. The
latter is the more attractive, but it is opposed to
the “one man, one work” principle of the state.
Hence the former will be adopted, and the expert
at imitation will be politely bowed out.
7o EDUCATIO/W WAV P/LATO'S REPUBL/C.
2. Statement of the Question. That Plato should
have thought it necessary to supervise the subject-
ºnatter of literature on account of its bearing upon
the making of character is not surprising ; but that
its form should be regulated for the same reason
seems, at first, the outcome rather of the theorist's
desire to construct a complete system than of the
experience of the practical educator. We soon see,
however, that the question of literary form is but
the outward aspect of a deeper question which
touches immediately and directly upon the formation
of character. The way in which the subject develops
had better be made clear at once.
It appears at first that the question is purely
a literary one : In what manner or form must
poetry be written ? “By the form of poetry Plato
understands merely the mode in which the poet
represents the personages in his poem, that is,
whether he speaks in his own person and simply
describes what they say and do, or whether he
puts himself in their place and makes them speak
and act for themselves.” In this way three
“forms ” arise: one dramatic, another narrative, and
a third which is a mixture of these. But these
distinctions, interesting as they are from the point
of view of literary criticism, do not at first seem
of vital importance to the educator. To put the
question in a particular and modern form, we should
be surprised if we were asked whether it would be
better for a youth to follow the fortunes of Lear
in Shakspere's tragedy, or of Arthur in Tennyson's
epic, or of Gulliver in Defoe's descriptive narrative.
We should say that the “form * mattered very little,
! Nettleship in “Hellenica,” p. 98
THE FORM OF LITERATURE. 71
so long as the story was healthy and the reader of
age to appreciate it. -
It soon becomes evident, however, that there is
something deeper and more vital than literary fitness
in the balance. The dramatic form of poetry demands
from the author a power and a readiness to project
himself into the thoughts and sentiments of his
dramatis personae. He must “imitate’’ or im-
personate—i.e. he must be prepared to lose his
personality, or at least to let it be temporarily
absorbed in the characters of his play. And this
same imitation will be called for both in the actor
who interprets him and in the audience which
responds like a sounding-board to the vibrations of
strings. Here, then, is a matter of first-rate
educational importance. For “imitations, whether of
bodily gestures, tones of voice, or modes of thought,
if they be persevered in from an early age, are apt
to grow into habits and a second nature.” The
formation of character is the first end of training, and
imitation is one of the chief factors in the production
of character. It is not mere literary propriety, then,
which Plato discusses under “form,” but this
fundamental question : “Ought our guardians to be
apt imitators or not ?”
His answer is a guarded negative. He appears
to object to imitation on three grounds, which we
may distinguish conveniently as : first, economic or
political ; second, ethical ; and third, philosophic.
It is true that they overlap and merge into each
other ; they are, indeed, but different aspects of each
other or of one general objection. We shall, however,
get a firm grip of his view by considering them
separately.
72 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
3. First Objection to Imitation, mainly Economic and
Political. And, first of all, we must notice that the
most fundamental of his economic ideas was the
principle of the division of labour. He believed it to
be essential to the smooth and easy running of his
social machine that each man should devote himself
to the task for which he was by nature equipped,
“With us there is no twofold or manifold man, since
every one has one single occupation.”” In his
interesting sketch of the rise of a state he lays special
stress on differences of natural endowment and the
need of taking advantage of these for the furtherance
of the social welfare. “All things will be produced
in superior quantity and quality and with greater
ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in
accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right
moment, without meddling with anything else.””
With this principle, that in the real business of
life a man cannot successfully play many parts, he
combines another, that his powers of imitation are
equally limited. From these two premises he draws
the conclusion that a man cannot do his work if he is
given to imitation. And hence it becomes a matter
of economic and therefore of educational importance
that the forms of literature which foster and develop
the tendency to imitation should be ruled out.
On economic grounds, then, Plato objects to
dramatic poetry. This projection of the self into
other personalities which it begets means a dissipation
of energy, and is thus prejudicial to the successful
prosecution of the single business of a guardian’s
life. He will best serve the state by being a guardian
and nothing more. Let him concentrate his whole
1 III, 397 e. * II. 3700.
THE FORM OF LITERA 7'URAE, 73
life on his calling, and let the educator see to it that
there are no distracting influences.
4. Is Political Efficiency the End of Education ? This
does not appeal to us. It is too ruthless a sacrifice
of the individual to the body politic. It means one-
sided development, and the educationist deplores all
atrophy, mental or physical. We think : so many
powers as a man has, so many claims are there for
nurture and development. The civic standard is an
unsatisfactory educational criterion in so far as it
narrows down the sphere of a man’s sympathies and
interests. We want to broaden life.
The charge is, indeed, brought against our systems
of education, both primary and higher, that they do
not meet the national need. Technical skill and
commercial aptitude are, it is said, the weapons of
offence and defence in the future. It is the business
of education to see that they do not rust. -
It is true that one of the main ends of education is
to equip men for the “affairs" of life. It is also
true that division of labour has invaded modern life
to an extent which Plato never dreamed of. The
man who makes the soles of our boots knows nothing
of the “uppers.” Hence if he is kept within the
narrow grove, of his calling, if he is to be literally
“one man and not many,” if in his education there is
nothing which carries him out of himself and his
task, what a pitiful lot will be his l Equipment for
the business of life can never be the sole end of
education.
Besides, we may well wonder whether a man
Evils of does best for the social organism by
Over-COIl- e & e
centration. Such concentration upon his special func-
tion within it as Plato seems to demand. Mere
74 EDUCATION IN P/LATO'S RFPUBLIC.
reflection would not lead us to think so. It would
seem that an intelligent out-look over the tasks
and interests of others would help a man in his own
work. He would see it in relation to that of others,
his co-workers. He would realise the degree of mutual
dependence which obtains between the members of
a society. He would feel that every act is like the
dropping of a stone in an illimitable expanse of
Ocean, which ripples away to infinity. And since
the end is the motive in conduct, then the more
clearly the far-reaching effects of actions are realised
the more energetic and conscientious will be their
performance.
Nor does experience fail to support this reflection.
We do not find that the philosophic cobbler makes
worse shoes than his less speculative fellows; and,
to take an illustration from our own profession, the
best schoolmaster is the man who often looks up
from his own furrow, who is a diligent student of
life and things.
The truth is that though we may distinguish
between social interests and individual interests, and
hold them apart by an effort of abstraction, they are
inseparably interwoven in the concrete fact of life.
And we cannot increase the one at the expense of
the other. So much as the state gains in material
prosperity by complete concentration of the individual
on his special task within it, so much and im-
measurably more does it lose in enlightenment and
spiritual force.
For the individual must suffer though this specialisa-
tion. One-sided development is synonymous with
abnormality, and no perfect or even stable structure
can be erected out of abnormal elements. It may be
7 HE FORM OF LITERATURE. 75
that the exigencies of life demand that the hand should
show a finer discriminative sensibility than the ear,
but loss of capacity or under-development is for the
educationist always a matter of regret. For him it
is a pathetic sight to see the artisan taking his
literary food from the columns of an evening paper.
We find even a Darwin regretting that the con-
secration of his life to a great purpose left him
unappreciative of much that it is a pity to lose.
And so we are surprised that Plato's warriors are
not to be allowed “to imitate smiths or any other
craftsmen working at their trade.” Since we have
come so completely to accept the idea of mind as a
unity, not as a bundle of separate faculties ; since we
have come to realise that perception without conception
is blind, and conception without perception is empty ;
we cannot escape the inference that by improving any
one form of conscious process we are increasing the
general efficiency of the mind. The most ardent
supporters of all forms of “manual "training are not
inspired by the idea of training a boy for any special
work in the world. They believe that in training the
hand and the eye they are developing habits of
precision and accuracy which will make for good
work, whatever may be the department of the social
life to which a pupil may be called. It seems a far
cry from the discrimination which enables a boy to
see that one of the sides of a right angle is “out of
the true " to the discrimination which guides a
barrister in his cross-examination, but general
“manual ‘’ training has such a connection for its
fundamental postulate.
Emerson puts the evils of division of labour and
the over-concentration which it entails very clearly
76 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUB/./C.
in a passage which is worth quoting in this connection.
He says: “A man must keep an eye on his servants,
if he would not have them rule him. Man is a
shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a
new machine from his own structure, adapting some
Secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather,
to some required function in the work of the world.
But it is found that the machine unmans the user.
What he gains in making cloth, he loses in general
power. There should be temperance in making
cloth, as well as in eating. A man should not be
a silkworm, nor a nation a tent of caterpillars. The
robust rural Saxon degenerates in the mills to the
Leicester stockinger, to the imbecile Manchester
spinner—far on the way to be spiders and needles.
The incessant repetition of the same hand-work
dwarfs the man, robs him of his strength, wit, and
Versatility, to make a pin-polisher, a buckle-maker,
or any other speciality ; and presently, in a change
of industry, whole towns are sacrificed like ant-hills,
when the fashion of shoestrings supersedes buckles,
when cotton takes the place of linen, or railways
of turnpikes, or when commons are enclosed by
landlords. Then society is admonished of the mischief
of the division of labour, and that the best political
economy is care and culture of men.” "
5. Second Objection to Imitation, Mainly Ethical.
Interwoven with the objection to imitation which
we have called “political" is another more pro-
minently ethical. The man of well-regulated
character will “ disdain to mould and cast himself
after the models of baser men.”’’ The warriors will
“imitate from very childhood whatever is proper
* “English Traits,” pp. 97, 98 (Unit Library). 2 III, 396 e.
7A/E FORM OF LITERATURE. 77
to their profession—brave, sober, religious, honourable
men, and the like—but meanness, and every other
kind of baseness, let them neither practise nor be
skilled to imitate, lest from the imitation they be
infected with the reality.” You cannot play with
dirt and keep clean.
The danger here concerns morals rather than
political efficiency, though the two are not separated
in Plato's thought. It will be well for us to widen
the subject of enquiry and briefly consider the effects,
and especially the dangers, of imitation on the
mental life generally—on thought and feeling as
well as on action. This more extended reference
is implicated in what Plato says. He remarks how
“bodily gestures, tones of voice, or modes of thought"
which are imitations “are apt to grow into habits
and a second nature.” ”
Let us note one or two characteristics of this
imitation which are quite independent of what it
is that is imitated, whether this be good or bad.
First of all, it is the putting on of another's mental
attitude, and so far is a loss of independence. It
is comparable with wearing another man's coat.
Again, like the coat, it may not fit ; our minds are
at least not less dissimilar than our bodies. Thirdly,
imitation is opposed to initiation. The idea, the
sentiment, the impulse is another’s ; we had no
part in its origin. And if we too often play this
part of an echo, origination becomes difficult. The
man to whom borrowing is easy soon learns to
dislike the idea of earning his own living.
We are disagreeably conscious of all this when our
attitude is one of imitation, using the term in the
1 III. 395 d. 2 III 395 dº.
78 A37) UCA 7TWOAV ZAV P/LATO'S REAEPUB/./C.
wide sense. Passivity, receptivity, mere responsiveness
are not in themselves pleasant. The influence of
the great orator is too masterful ; there is an un-
pleasant sense of helplessness at the close of a
brilliant lecture ; we do not enjoy conversation when
it reaches the limiting case of a monologue, however
brilliant, unless, indeed, the monologue is our own.
One cannot sometimes help feeling for the inter-
locutors in the dialogue of the “Republic.” After
too strong a dose of Socrates they must have felt
like springs which have lost their elasticity, if these
can be said to feel.
This feeling of dissatisfaction which accompanies
the even temporary annihilation of the self by a
commanding personality is one which is to be fostered.
We can “follow nature * here with the utmost con-
fidence, and in so doing we shall catch the spirit of
Plato's teaching. Suppression of the self was the
great danger which he saw in imitation.
Indeed, that it is the business of education to
nurture and develop something given, the germ of
a personality, rather than suppress it from without,
is the very keynote and spirit of Plato's system.
“There is a faculty residing in the soul of each
person,” he tells us—“an organ whose preservation
is of more importance than a thousand eyes.” And
as too dazzling a light injures the eyes, so does this
“organ” grow weary and useless if it is compelled to
activity in an oppressive intellectual atmosphere.
There is a form of imitation which is the root-
principle of the highest educational procedure, an
imitation which develops instead of suppressing, which
expands rather than contracts, which strengthens
1 WII. 518 G. * VII. 527 e.
7 HE PORM OF Z/7ZZRATURE. 79
rather than weakens the personality. That is an
imitation of ideals, or “ideas,” as Plato would have
called them. What we should aim at is appreciation
of the thought, not of the thinker or the exponent ;
of art, not of the artist ; of goodness, not of the
good man.
6. Self-reliant thinking is to be encouraged. This
demand for independence of character which is behind
Plato's attack on dramatic poetry is the central idea
of educational reform to-day. It has led to an out-
cry against the lecture and the text-book with its
dark and light type. Exposition is to give place to
discovery as the fundamental principle of method.
Imitation of the “modes of thought ° of another is
what our pupils, young and old, have, until recently,
been engaged in, with the result that they have
neither laid a firm hand on truth nor even developed
the power to reach out towards it unaided.
This is especially true of primary education. Two
main reasons may be found. The first is the tendency
to set attainments before habits which the controlling
authorities, and consequently the teachers, have shown.
The second is the vicious tradition, which has survived
so long, and is even now dying but slowly, that
teaching is continuous exposition ; that the best
teacher is the teacher who is most in evidence,
expounding, illustrating, interesting, and thereby
sapping the power of independent effort | Plato
would have had his warrior “one man, not many ”;
our methods bring it about that the many are but the
echo of the one. -
That excessive oral teaching does destroy the
power of self-reliant thought is easy to show, if proof
were needed. Children who have been subjected to
A
8O FDUCATIOAV ZAV P/LATO'S REAE UAE L/C.
it are dumb before the questions of strangers. To
the teacher to whom they are accustomed they seem
responsive enough, but this is because they are
schooled to “chime in ’’ at the end of a thought-
process which is largely the teacher’s own. They
have become shrewd at catching his suggestions, and
to the same degree helpless when independent, self-
originated effort is called for.
Absence of the power of continuous speech is
another effect of such “imitation.” They are ready
enough with the “Yes!” and the “No l’ and jerky,
disconnected scraps of speech. But the weaving, the
synthesis, of the parts into a whole is the work of
the teacher. Still less rarely do they ask a question.
That is the teacher’s prerogative, although the formu-
lation of a question is the first step and frequently
the longest in the acquirement of knowledge. No
weapon of teaching has been abused so much. Yet
the skill of the cross-examining counsel has been
set up as an ideal after which the teacher should
strive He had much better play the part of the
tardy witness.
The truth is that what Plato has to say of the
dangers of imitation is as valuable (especially as a
general criticism of modern educational procedure)
as any part of his theory. And when his injunction
to preserve and strengthen individuality and self-
reliance is accepted as a general principle of method,
all unnecessary exposition and dogmatism stand
condemned. The teacher must be content to efface
himself, to stand aside. His business is to superintend
the presentation of material and to guide his pupils
to an orderly assimilation of it. But it is emphati-
cally not his - to impress his “modes of
THE APOA&M OF Z/TERATURE. " 8I
thought ° so that they become “a second nature *
in his pupils. Every bit of knowledge worth they
name bears the private mark of the individual who
has acquired it. . -
And after all it is not the bit of knowledge that
matters so much as the confidence and strength
that is gained through independent acquisition.
These are desirable qualities of character, the first
and final end of all education, but especially of
primary education, which entirely fails unless it leaves
a boy or girl with the power and the inclination to
go forward when the guiding hand of the teacher
is removed.
7. And Genuine Feeling. It might be agued that
the dangers of imitation, however real they may
be in the life of thought, do not threaten the life
of feeling. Our feelings are subjective, our very
own. In no sense are they copies of the feelings
of others; if they exist at all they are original.
And this is strictly true. At the same time, we
do as teachers sometimes strive to awaken the
reality, and fail to see that what we arouse is the
semblance, a spurious imitation, a sort of after-glow
of the warmth of our own appreciation.
The treatment of literature will supply a good
instance. We want our pupils to share some of the
warm, aesthetic feeling which a great poem kindles
in ourselves. It is a high ambition, but a dangerous
one. They cannot catch a spark from our feelings
in the same way as they can reproduce our modes
of thought. They must burn with their own fire,
if at all. But they will deceive the enthusiast
with the appearance of warmth, and from the not
unworthy motive of pleasing him. Such an imita-
6-
82 EDUCATIO/V IN P/LATO'S REAUB/L/C.
tion is deplorable to the degree that cant is worse
than coldness.
Hence, here, as in thought-exercise, the teacher
must in a measure efface himself. What he can do
is, first, to see that the art they are brought face to
face with—whether it expresses itself in picture or
poem or what not—is of the best ; and, next, to see
that it is realised and understood in the measure of
which his pupils are capable. Then he must let
appreciation come to the birth in its own good
time."
8. Self-originated and Self-guided Conduct. In con-
duct too, as in thought and feeling, we should not
remain satisfied with a “second nature" modelled
after the type of another. And this is true even if
that other be good and noble. We ought not to
consider the moral education of an individual to have
even approached completeness until he has become
a “law unto himself”: not in any arbitrary, antagon-
istic, or even unusual sense, for the moral law is
universal, laying its obligations impartially upon all ;
but in the sense which implies the highest moral
freedom, the imposition of duty's task on the self,
by the self, for the sake of the self.
Of course, such a high degree of moral development
will not be reached early. It is the ideal which we
may set before ourselves and our pupils, knowing that
few will even approximate to it. Nevertheless, it is
the end in which all other moral influences terminate.
* A common practice in recitation lessons illustrates how teachers
frequently attempt to force appreciation. The teacher will fervidly
recite the passage, phrase by phrase, and the pupils (often simul-
taneously T) attempt to reproduce the tones and inflections of
his voice.
THE FORM OF LITERATURE. 83
Examples from literature or from life, custom, the
controlling influence of authority, are all influences,
most powerful influences, in moral education. But
so long as they are merely external and alien, so long
does the child obey or follow them as an imitator ;
and his moral condition is inferior because it is
secondary and derivative. In supremely good conduct
the categorical imperative comes from within.
9, Imitation in Higher Education. We have gone
a step farther than Plato, and pointed out the danger
of imitation of any kind to that strength of character
which is sought in education. And we have made
particular reference to the education of the young.
But the evils attendant on a passive acceptance of
truth without any personal outward movement to—
wards it are not confined to primary education, though
here they are most dangerous, for here are laid the
foundations of habit, and the first and most important
steps in the making of character are taken.
Professor Watson tells us how “the teacher of
philosophy soon finds that a very powerful irritant is
needed to awaken his pupils out of their “dogmatic
slumber.’” Speaking of a didactic method in this
subject, he says: “My experience is that it is almost
impossible, by this method, to prevent the average
student from accepting what he is told without
mastering it and making it his own. Thus he passes
from one form of dogmatism to another, and with the
new dogmatism comes the conceit of knowledge with-
out its reality. The study of philosophy is of little
value if it does not teach a man to think for himself.
The process of self-education is necessarily a severe
one, and, therefore, distasteful to the natural man.
Yet any attempts to evade it by some “short and easy
84 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REAE UB/./C.
method’ defeats itself. What is required is a process
by which the student who is really in earnest may
pass, gradually and slowly, from a lower to a higher
plane of thought. . . . But the struggle upwards
Żmust be made by the student himself.” " -
10. Imitation and the Professional Training of the
Teacher. In connection with the professional training
of the teacher the question of the use and abuse of
imitation is of vital importance. There are some
who deny that such training is of any value ; they
assert the contrary, that it is positively harmful. For
them, culture, sympathy, and “tact in the concrete
situation * which experience brings, are the sole
factors of successful teaching; and any attempt to
discover the scientific and philosophical bases of
method is disastrous in the result, for it destroys that
resource and power of adaptability which every
teacher is most of all in need of.
That this is a shortsighted view would appear to
be the opinion of the majority, for everywhere we
hear a demand for further and more systematic
training. But the objection from which it starts is
one which every teacher would do well to keep clearly
in view. So far as a system of training establishes
a cast-iron scheme of methods within which there
is no room for individual “play,” so far is it open
to all the objections which may be brought against
imitation. If the teacher gets from his experience
during training the idea of a rigid method which
is to become “a second nature,” then he were better
untrained.
Every one who is engaged in the work of training
1 Prefatory Note to “Selections from Kant.” The italics are
mine.
7A/E APORM OF LITERATURE. 85
|
teachers must feel this danger. It seems impossible
to lay down any single rule of method with any ap-
proach to universality of application, and the impera-
tive mood ought to be ruled out whenever method
is under discussion. The teacher should certainly
feel that there are logical channels within which it
is well that the stream of his pupil’s consciousness,
as of his own, should run. He should certainly
realise that there are characteristics of the stream
common to all minds which he would do well to
ascertain, that he may work with them rather than
against them. But he should as powerfully feel that
there are many ways to the Sea of knowledge and
many differences among individuals which make it
dangerous to reckon too confidently on what the
stream will do. With these convictions he will never
be a lifeless imitator of method.
11. The Third Objection to Imitation, Mainly Philo-
sophical. We have now considered two reasons for
Plato's objection to imitation. First of all, he saw
in it a danger to the state, since its welfare was
based on the full realisation of the principle : one
man, one work. Secondly, it meant danger to the
individual who might “mould and cast himself after
the models of baser men.” Respecting the first
of these objections, the disadvantages of over-con-
centration were indicated ; in connection with the
second, we have gone farther than Plato and seen
danger in all imitation, even of the good. We now
come to a third, and, for Plato, the strongest reason
for limiting imitation, or—to put it from the literary
point of view from which he starts and to which
he reverts at the close of the discussion —for choosing
1 III, 397 b,
86 EDUCATION WAV PZATO'S REAE UEZ/C.
description rather than dialogue, a narrative rather
than a dramatic “style.” He prefers the former
because it is “pure and simple”; he objects to the
latter because it employs an “infinite number of
transitions.”
We can gather what it is that he objects to in
these transitions. They are emotional. The poet
Itnutures the may describe, the actor personify, and
*...* the guardian imitate the man whose con-
Expense of duct is “steady and sensible.” The
3.” danger arises when those aspects of char-
Character, acter which all three must in a measure
take on are “not those where it is simple, quiet,
consistent, and rational, but rather its emotional
aspects, with their shifting lights and shadows,
where the contrasts are strong and the transitions
rapid ; and the element in his audience to which
he [the poet] appeals, and upon which he reckons
for his success, is not the sober judgment which
sees life in its true proportions, but the illusory
feelings of the moment which care only for their
immediate satisfaction.” " &
That this is his real objection to dramatic poetry
and to the imitation which it needs must bring in
its train appears from passages in the later books
of the “Republic.” He says:* “In the case of love,
and anger, and all the sensations of desire, grief, and
pleasure, which, as we hold, accompany all our actions,
is it not true that poetic imitation works upon us
similar effects P For it waters and cherishes these
emotions, which ought to wither with drought, and
constitutes them our rulers, when they ought to
* Nettleship in “Hellenica,” pp. 100, 101.
? X. 6066
THE FORM OF LITERA 7 URE. 87
be our subjects, if we wish to become better and
happier instead of worse and more miserable.” And
again," speaking of the “imitative poet,” he says:
“We shall henceforth be justified in refusing to admit
him into a state that would fain enjoy a good constitu-
tion, because he excites and feeds and strengthens this
worthless part of the soul, and thus destroys the
rational part, like a person who should strengthen
the hands of the dissolute members of a state and
raise them to supreme power, and at the same time
bring the educated class to destruction.”
12. This is in Keeping with the General Principles of
his Philosophy. We reach here the bed-rock of all
Plato's objections to dramatic poetry and the imitation
which it entails. As he saw in the world of material
things which “change and pass " a world which was
worthless in comparison with the fixed, eternal, and
changeless types or “ideas" which shine through .
it, so within the human mind he sets the rational
element far above the changing passions which mark
a man as merely human. In respect of his rational
soul he approximates to the fixity and immutability
of the divine being, and this it is which should be
nurtured even at the extreme cost of removing
dramatic poetry, “which waters and cherishes these
emotions, which ought to wither with drought.”
Here we have the philosopher carrying the cardinal
principle of his system with vigorous logic to its
results. The stable, essential forms stand in contrast
with the mere particulars of sense. The former
alone are of worth. In like manner does the rational
element in man stand opposed in its stability and
worth to the changing passions. Such a conclusion
1 X. 605 !).
88 A DUCATIO/V ZAV A/LA 7TO'S REAE UB/C/C.
was the only possible one for the creator of the
“ideal” philosophy. It was a philosophy which was
the outcome of a particular time and a particular
people, and yet has elements of which all ages have
felt the force and truth. For we see in the universal
laws fulfilled in every breaking wave and whispering
breeze the stability of the universe, even while we do
not fall into the error of giving them a remote and
independent existence. Also we are at one with Plato
in seeing in reason the guiding, controlling principle
to which the desires must be subservient ; we see
in it the source of that stability of character which
is essential to moral perfection. At the same time
we do not acquiesce in his condemnation of the
emotions. The emotions in themselves are neither
good nor bad ; moral judgment must be upon the
objects to which the emotions are attached. The
problem for the teacher is not the suppression of
the emotions, but their refinement. We want them
to be grappled on to noble ends and worthy
ideals, but the end of moral progress would come
when the emotions were allowed to “wither with
drought.” "
13. Summary of the Uses and Dangers of Imitation.
We may here gather up summarily the conclusions
on the educational bearing of imitation which we
have reached. We have seen that all imitation, if
it be the mere putting on of the mental attitude of
another, is fraught with danger. Through it the
independent personality “withers with drought °;
and neither truth, nor beauty, nor goodness have a
real meaning, a living force, where such independence
is wanting. The danger is perhaps greatest on the
"Cf. p. 54,
THE FORM OF Z/7 ERATO/A&E. 89
intellectual side. But there is a sense in which
imitation is completely necessary—not the conscious
imitation of an individual, but the unconscious repre-
duction of a logical ideal in thought. And here is
found the teacher's function. He must see that the
child’s tentative movements along the path of discovery
are, so to speak, logically guided. He must stimulate
the young discoverer to be satisfied with nothing
short of the truth with respect to the data of
knowledge. The child must observe for himself;
the teacher must be the guide to observation. And
so with the formation of general notions, the
applying of them, the use of the imagination in
the formation of hypotheses, and so on, through
all the activities which logic has set out for us.
In all these the pupil’s business is to make the effort,
and the teacher's to “stand by,” only directing the
forward progress of his pupil with a sort of logical
rudder.
In respect of aesthetical culture, Plato prescribed
this method exactly.” “The fair and graceful” is
to act upon the young imperceptibly, in the same
way as healthful breezes bring physical vigour.
Beauty will be borne in upon him, but not so as to “
oppress him. It will silently become interwoven
with his impulses, which have not been deadened,
but have grown strong under its attraction. This
is the imitation which nurtures character so that
it neither withers from drought nor lacks strength
within itself to expand.
The same thing applies to moral training. Here,
at least, it might be said, it is well to take on the
spirit of another individual ; and imitation is good
* See III. 401.
90 EDUCATION IN PLATO's REPUBLIC.
without qualification, provided the other is of noble
quality. Of course there is no doubt that much,
most, moral training must be through the concrete
living form of example. Still, there must be some-
thing more than the transitory echo and glow which
arise within us when we are brought face to face
with noble deeds. The life of the individual himself
must be the apocalypse of moral ideals; and though
it would be absurd to fail to take advantage of the
impulse to such a life which concrete examples can
arouse, yet we should not consider moral education
complete until the individual comes to love truth,
courage, wisdom, justice, not only in the concrete
form of individual example, but for themselves in,
as Plato would say, their essential forms.
CHAPTER. W.
MELODY AMD RHYTHM.
(Book III., 398 c-401 a.)
1. Analysis. A song is made up of words, harmony,
and rhythm ; and the two last elements express
the spirit of the first. What, then, we said of
the words applies also to the harmony. We want
none which express lamentation and none which
suggest excess or effeminacy. One reflecting the
courage which faces wounds or death or adversity
unflinchingly, a “music of war”; one befitting a
man reverently seeking or imparting truth, or again
acquiescing in it when revealed to him, a “music
of peace”—these are the only harmonies we shall
need. Away, then, with the many-stringed instruments
and the flute of many harmonies. The lyre and
the guitar for the townsman and the pipe for the
countryman are sufficient for us.
Our regulation of rhythms will follow the same
lines. We do not want a great variety, but only “the
rhythms of a well-regulated and manly life.” What
these are perhaps Damon can tell us, for he has dis-
criminated between different rhythms and different
rates, praising some and blaming others. What we can
say with full assurance is that some rhythms, as also
9I
92 EDUCATION WAV PLATO'S REAEPUBLIC.
Some harmonies, are graceful, while others are ugly;
and that rhythm and harmony follow the words;
while the words, both in form and in substance, are
determined by the “moral disposition of the soul.”
Hence, where the character is well and nobly con-
stituted, there we shall find grace in all these its
external expressions.
Our young men, then, must come to love grace
and beauty in all these external characteristics, if
noble characters eager to play their due part in life
are to be nurtured.
2. Special Harmonies for Special Wirtues seem to us
Strange. That Plato should have thought it necessary
to control both the substance and the form of litera-
ture because of their effect on the characters of his
guardians is not surprising. So far as the substance
is concerned, we are all accustomed to look upon
literature as a powerful factor in moral training ;
and “form,” involving imitation, is, as we have seen,
of great educational importance. The prominence
given to music, however, seems at first unjustified.
We of course realise the power of music over the
emotions. We know that, for most men, there are
strains of sadness and strains of joy ; and we know
that, for some, the intricate works of great masters
admit of a refined and subtle emotional interpreta-
tion as real if not as definite as the under-current
of changing emotions which accompanies, for many,
the reading of a play of Shakspere or a Wordsworthian
sonnet. But, while this is admitted, there is a felt
difficulty to accept the postulate that certain
“harmonies” have certain definite effects on character
and express certain tendencies of character in the
same definite way as a poem, a story, or a play. To
MELO/DY A/VD R//YTHM. 93
say that there is to be one harmony for courage and
another for reverence, much as a modern writer,
Constructing a system of education, might prescribe
drawing to train the power of observation, and mathe-
matics to train the intellect, sounds unconvincing.
It may be admitted that there is here, in part
at least, the voice of the theorist, of the con-
It is, in eart, structive thinker following out a line of
“Applied" thought “as a vessel runs before the
* wind.” He starts from the idea of three
“principles’’ or “faculties” of the mind—the
philosophic, the spirited, and the concupiscent—as we
shall later see." These correspond roughly to reason,
courage, and desire ; and as he deems the two first
to be alone worthy of nurture, we have herein at
least a partial explanation of the “music of peace”
and the “music of war.” The practical man is,
perhaps unduly, sceptical of such bold application
:eory to practice. Psychology is, for him, a
is * of education in some far-off way. It is,
ſer, no small part of the value of a study of
ion as it is presented in the “Republic,” that
upels the reader to look behind the details of
iculum for their justification. One is driven
sider the bases and the ends of education.
is no doubt that, for teachers who are
pin their faith only on what their ex-
is taught them, it is good to be brought
Be with a thinker who dares to let the
f first principles carry him to conclusions
S prepared to put into practice.
sideration of other facts leads us to see
dea of the effect of music on character,
* See pp. 137–139.












94 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
and that in specific ways, is not so extravagant
as at first sight it appears. In the first place,
we must also the music of which Plato speaks was in
bearin Mind most cases wedded to words or to the
the Kind of
Music in movements of a dance, and thus served
Question to accentuate the spirit of these. What-
ever of definite effect on the feelings the words
exercised would be heightened by means of a melody
which caught their spirit. This is common experi-
ence. Most of us, for example, have felt how
much the moving power of certain verses in the
Bible is due to their having been wedded to the
sublime melodies of Handel’s Messiah. Secondly,
the very simplicity of the music of that day made
it a medium which could convey a specific meaning.
“The whole subject of harmony, in its modern sense.
is absent from his consideration. The truth seems
to be, paradoxical as it may sound, that it was, the
very simplicity of Greek music which led G \eek
writers to assign to it such a direct and imp
educational influence. As in the early da
sculpture or painting, the crudeness and Sym
makes the meaning of the artist more clear,
compared with the subtle design and colour
great masters, so when music was chiefly
to an accompaniment giving emphasis 0
to a recitation or a dance, its effect wou
strongly recognised in proportion as it
simple. Even now there are dancing an
melodies which exercise a direct and almo
influence on a susceptible hearer, just be
is nothing but the simple act of dancing o
which they suggest."
Nettleship in “Hellenica,” pp. 107, 108












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MEZODY AND RAYTHM. 97
or two undisputed facts in mind. In the first place,
rhythm is a form or framework into which movement
of any kind may be fitted. The essentials of rhythmic
movement are, first, that it shall consist of a group
of series of single movements of fixed duration or
magnitude; and next, that within each group there
shall be changes of intensity or duration. The
rhythm of a verse of poetry, of a bar of music, or
of a dance, will supply a familiar instance. It follows
from this that “rhythm has a very wide range of
application, from Swinging in a hammock to the
march of a hexameter.” Secondly, we have to
remember that rhythm produces a powerful mental
effect. This usually appears as an intensification
of the effect of that of which it is the form.
Thus the rhythm of skating enhances the mere
pleasure of movement, as does the rhythm of the
dance. The effect of rhythm in a verse of poetry
is to give it a living power over the emotions
which the less marked rhythm of prose lacks. The
young are in some cases particularly susceptible
to rhythmical effect, as was proved in a recent
experience of my own in reading Tennyson’s “Ode
on the Death of the Duke of Wellington’’ with a
class of boys. And, thirdly, it is important to
remember that we do frequently feel that certain
rhythms are marked by fitness or seemliness. We
find certain aesthetic and quasi-moral characteristics
in different dances. We talk of the “stately ’’
minuet, the “seductive” waltz, the “rollicking ”
polka. The march of a Handelian chorus is “noble *
and “majestic.”
Even where we do not give our feelings articulate
* Stout, “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. II., p. 285.
7
98 A DUCATIO/W WAV P/LA TO'S REAE UB/./C.
expression, we are frequently conscious of seemliness
or its opposite in the rhythm of speech. The rush
of words from the impassioned Orator sometimes seems
to us as “akin to madness”; and, per contra,
the balanced periods of the reasoned speech seem
to express the “natural rhythm of a well-regulated
and manly life.”
Whether we think, then, of the wide extent of
matter to which rhythmic form may be applied,
or of the powerfully-moving influence which it
exercises over the mind, we are constrained to
recognise that there is something more in Plato's
regulation of it than the interesting but, so far as
we are concerned, unpractical schemes of a theorist,
and that, as Mr. Bosanquet says, “it matters
intensely to our life what kind of music, poetry, and
dancing we accustom ourselves to like.” "
5. The Dependence of Outward Beauty on Inner
Worth. We come to see why Plato thought the
selection of harmonies and rhythms of such extreme
practical importance for the right nurture of his
guardians, when, leaving the consideration of par-
ticular modes and movements, he lays down a general
principle applicable to them all. He tells us that
the grace and beauty of a song—of the words and
of the melody and rhythm which must fit them—are
the necessary outcome and reflection of the grace
and beauty of the character whence it springs.
“Good language and good harmony and grace and
good rhythm all depend upon a good nature.” In a
word, external beauty means internal worth. This
principle is at the root of all Plato's regulations
concerning art. It lies behind everything that he
* “Education of the Young in Plato's Republic,” p. 93
MEA_O/DY AAV/D RAIPTH M. 99
says of the form of literature, of music, of rhythm,
and, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter, of
other forms of art.
Though few would deny the truth that “there is
some real connection between character and artistic
form,” when put thus generally, it is not easy to
find a satisfactory concrete illustration. For a work of
art may be too complex to express in any immediate
and direct way the character of the artist ; or, again,
it may be so simple that the form cannot be separated
from the conception, and hence from the character
whence it sprang. Still, it will be well for the reader
to try and keep form and substance apart in a
simple example. Consider Stevenson’s “Requiem ’’:
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie :
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me :
Here he lies where he long'd to be ;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
The thought and the style, the man and the words,
are indeed one. But it is possible to abstract for
a moment from the first so as to realise the second.
Then one may catch a sense of its exquisite sim-
plicity ; of the rising and falling cadence of each
successive pair of lines; of the joyous ring of its
opening and the soft music of its close. It is true
that our thought swings back to the substance. “We
cannot make music speak in words without its ceasing
to be music, any more than we can resolve a poem
into sound and rhythm without its ceasing to be
* Nettleship in “Hellenica,” p. 109.
IOO AºA) UCA 7TWOAV ZAV A/LA 7TO'S REAE UP/LAC.
poetry.” But we can feel that this is the “music
of peace ’’ which Plato would have had his young
warriors hear, and this is the rhythm of a manly
life which he would have had them feel.
6. We may accept this Principle in its Fulness. We
can scarcely hesitate to accept the truth of this
principle, that outward beauty stands in a relation
of dependence to inner worth, and so may be a sign
of its presence, in all its fulness—at least we cannot
so long as language and its form, and the tunes
and rhythms to which it is fitted, are the externals
in question. That the substance of what a man
says is indicative of what he thinks, feels, and is,
is almost too obvious to need mention. It is indeed
doubtful whether those permanent tendencies of
thought, feeling, and action which make up character
or personality would be developed apart from language.
That is to say, not only does language depend on
character, but character depends on language for
its development. “No thought without language ’’
might well be expanded into “No personality (worth
the name) without language.” Clearly, then, if what
a man says is fitting and seemly, we may infer inward
fitness and seemliness. Of course, the words may
be fair and the man foul ; but this only means that
the words are alien. So long as a man’s words are
his own in the strictest sense they are a guide to his
character, being indeed the medium in which his
character most readily expresses itself when it has
passed the earliest stages of development.
Nor is the style * in which a man writes or speaks
Nettleship, op. cit., p. 109.
* The word is used here in the modern sense, rather than in the
narrower sense which Plato attaches to it.
ME/LO/D V AAWD RHY? H.M. IOI
much less closely related to the “moral disposition
of the soul.” This follows first from the fact that
form and substance are so subtly intertwined in lan-
guage that form almost defies separation by analysis.
As a man’s coat reflects his physical attitude, so does
an author's style fit on to his mental bent as this is
exhibited in the substance of what he writes. You
read a passage of Stevenson, and you do not know
whether it is the substance of what he says or the
sheer beauty in the manner of saying it which takes
such hold upon you. It is both with the man behind
them. The point is that you do feel the man in part
by way of the style. To take another instance, one
seems to feel the vigour and resoluteness of Professor
James in the ringing march of his periods. Again,
in itself and apart from substance, style is an index
to character. Slovenliness and undue verbosity are
like slippers down at heel and a coat that is too large.
They point to a personality which either has not the
sense of what is seemly or is careless of it ; and
neither characteristic, even if only displayed in trifles,
is a sign of a well-balanced character.
Rhythm is, of course, a factor of literary style. But
if we extend it so that it covers all forms of move-
ment, it still appears to be no undue exaggeration to
trace beauty of rhythm back to a certain symmetry
among the elements of character. We know the
swinging walk which bespeaks a harmony between
noble impulse and the power to act ; and, physical
disabilities apart, we know the hesitating, uneven
step which tells of a will that limps behind impulse,
good or bad. Bodily movement can certainly indicate,
in some degree, “the well-regulated and manly life,”
as also its opposite. Seemliness of gesture, again, is
IO2 AºA) UCATIO/V /AW P.Z. A 7TO'S REAE UBZ/C.
rooted deep down in a well-balanced mind, just as
the irregular, spasmodic movements of those whom
passion or mental disease has seized have their ex-
planation in a mind in which the elements are pitifully
out of gear.
Music, too, may in a real sense be said to be the
expression of character. Like rhythm, it may be
linked with words. It also forms an independent
medium of expression which is, perhaps, impossible
for mere rhythm. But whether it be linked to words
or no, there is no doubt of its intimate relation with
those emotional tendencies which are a large part of
character. Both in respect of nations and of indi-
viduals we get an insight into their inner life through
the music which they produce and approve.
7. And carry it into Practice. In all these externals,
then, in the substance and form of words, in rhythm
and in tune, we have the expression, more or less
articulate, of what is within. They are not like
surface ripples, which hide the stillness of the deep.
They are outward signs full of inner significance.
Is this a truth which will bear translation to the
schoolroom and playground as a principle of practice P
Or will it evaporate before the pressing needs of the
hour, like a soft cloud at the approach of day ?
Assuredly it need not. If it was necessary for Plato's
“young men on all occasions [to] pursue these
qualities " if they were “to perform their proper
work,” it is not less necessary now. The value of a
harmonious nature has not diminished through the
lapse of time, and if it can be developed through
the cultivation of grace and beauty in its external
expressions, the fact carries with it an imperative.
And we need not doubt the fact. That outward beauty
MEDO/DY AAVD RHYTHM. IO3
means inner worth we have seen reason to accept ;
nor, in the face of the close intimate relation between
them that we have seen to obtain, need we hesitate
to think that when we are taking care for the externals
we are doing something for the elements of character
themselves.
The teacher who has grasped the spirit of this
suggestions truth will be at no loss for opportunity to
for Practice effectuate it. A few suggestions may,
however, be helpful.
He may nurture in himself and in his pupils a
habit of decorous speech. There is no more effective
way of elevating and ennobling character than
through the cultivation of a liking for what is seemly
in language. It is not merely that coarseness,
irreverence, and blasphemy should be felt to be ugly
and repugnant ; that is too obvious to need insistence.
Nor need the necessity for grammatical accuracy be
mentioned, save for a warning to the few who would
seem to take a strange pride in inaccuracy, as also
in provincialisms and a rough local accent. Most
men would see that these blemishes were not
harboured about them. But in slang, in harshness
of expression, in ugly abbreviations, and in the
hundred and one instances which every schoolmaster
knows, there is danger to the full perfection of “the
well-regulated and manly life”; and these are apt
to go unnoticed or unrebuked. The instruments of
nurture are literature, good in quality and copious in
quantity, with as much as possible committed to
memory ; and, most potent of all, the example of the
teacher himself. Without approaching pedantry or
priggishness, he can every hour renew the influence
of pure and dignified speech.
IO4 F/DOCA 7TWOW WAV PZLA 7TO'S AºEAE UAE/./C.
Then in the direction of movement, carriage,
deportment, there is an opportunity for the silent
Solidification of character. A slouching gait and
lounging attitude seem small things, and they may
mean nothing more than some physical weakness.
Yet they may be the index of inner lop-sidedness ;
and there may be, nay, there is, a way to the inner
through the outer poise. It is more than a mere
fancy that the character of the young recruit grows
more stable as his first ungainly movements give
place to the rhythmical swing of the trained soldier.
Some may see here the way to an unnatural
attitude. If the coarse jest, the loud, harsh laugh,
the life “without grace or rhythm,” can be made
unnatural, the aesthetic gain will be a moral gain.
Plato thought them largely identical ; at any rate,
the assumption that aesthetic culture is moral culture
underlies all his training in music. And experience
supports this view. Every one who has had to deal
with bodies of men or boys will admit that whenever,
through some cause or other, there is an absence of
the sense of what is seemly ; whenever it has come
about that coarseness in speech and roughness and
ungainliness of manner are thought manly, and all
refinement of bearing is thought effeminate ; then
it is that there arise those graver disturbances which
point to moral depravity. “The absence of grace,
and rhythm, and harmony, is closely allied to an
evil style and an evil character.”
CEIAPTER WI.
THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE ENDS OF A MUSICAL
EDUCATION.
(Book III. 401 a-403 d.)
1. Analysis. In all the products of men's hands and
in the phenomena of nature either gracefulness or
ungracefulness finds place. Here, too, what is outward
is a sign of what is inward. All, then, who contribute
through their labours to the environment must come
under supervision, for our young warriors are to
grow up among images of beauty, that these may
sink into their souls and make their inner lives a
reflection and reproduction of the grace and symmetry
that is without them. As the bodies of men thrive
in a healthful region, so will their souls in an en-
vironment of beauty.
This is the whole end of an education in music.
The harmony and rhythm that is without leave their
mark upon character. The man comes to detect.
ugliness, and to hate it, and to turn instinctively to
what is beautiful, even when he is young; and reason,
when it comes, only shows him the beauty which he
knew before.
He who has been nurtured through music is like
one who has learned to read. The letters he can
IO5
Ioé EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
recognise are the forms of virtue ; the literature in
which he finds them is the life around him. No form
is too insignificant for beauty, as no letter is too small
to be an index of meaning. -
For such a man the fairest spectacle must be one
in which inward grace shines forth through outward
beauty. But a bodily defect can be borne with where
there is beauty of soul. The love that a man feels
for such a one must itself be a thing of beauty; no
mad, disorderly passion, but of a sober and harmonious
temper. So the end of music is the love of the
beautiful.
2. The Relation between Outer Beauty and Inner
Worth holds with Respect to Artificial and Natural
Objects. In the preceding chapter we saw that behind
all Plato's prescriptions concerning harmony and
rhythm there lay the assumption that grace and
beauty in these outer respects meant that they had
their origin in a good nature. We saw no reason
to doubt this, for harmony and rhythm, whether
understood in the limited sense in which Plato
employs these terms or in the wider sense which we
attach to them, do seem to stand in a very close
relation to character. They are the expression of
thought and, especially, of emotion and temperament.
Here we have to observe how Plato extends this
idea of the relation between outer and inner grace.
He tells us that gracefulness or ungracefulness is to be
predicated of many things besides the style, rhythm,
and harmony of a song. “Such qualities, I presume,
enter largely into painting and all similar workman-
ship, into weaving and embroidery, into architecture, as
well as the whole manufacture of utensils in general;
nay, into the constitution of living bodies, and of
Z}/E EAWV/ROWMENT Io'7
all plants; for in these things gracefulness or un-
gracefulness finds place.” Here, too, these externals
have their inner explanation. “The absence of grace
and rhythm and harmony is closely allied to an evil
style, and an evil character : whereas their presence
is allied to, and expressive of, the opposite character,
which is brave and sober minded.””
3. The Wide Application of Rhythm and Harmony.
A word or two of explanation is perhaps necessary
here. Note, first, the extension of the application of
“harmony” and “rhythm.” These belong primarily
to sound and movement respectively, but they are
applied, through a fitting analogy, to things which
make their appeal through the eye and which belong
to still life. “Symmetry” would be commoner in
this context. It is, however, interesting to note that
what we call symmetry in, say, the lines of a cathedral
is perhaps based on rhythm in the literal sense—a
rhythm, namely, in the movement of attention which
symmetry of form facilitates. Note, secondly, the
assertion that not only do the products of formative
art express character (which we readily accept, for
the artist must be in his work); but that the
phenomena of nature—“the constitution of living
bodies, and of all plants *—have an inner meaning.
We are reminded of Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty,”
where, as in many other poems, the idea of a person-
ality behind natural phenomena is prominent. This
idea is particularly noticeable in the following stanza:
Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the Smile upon thy face :
* III. 401 a. * III. 401 a.
IOS FDUCATION: YM PLATO'S REAUBLIC.
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and
strong."
We can see, then, how others besides poets will fall
under supervision. All who through the formative
arts contribute to the environment in which the young
guardian is to grow up, whether their works be
original or imitative of the forms of nature, are to
be compelled “to impress on their productions the
likeness of a good moral character.”” Slowly and
imperceptibly, but none the less surely, these “like-
nesses' will do their work. As healthy breezes from
salubrious lands bring the body to strength and
perfection, so will the presentation of the forms of
the beautiful mould the character. The child will
catch something of their perfect harmony, and will
come, in due time, to rest content only with such
things as fit with and satisfy the criterion of perfec-
tion and beauty which is at once without him and
within him.
4. Does Aesthetic Culture imply Moral Culture? There
are two or three questions arising out of this
remarkable passage which it will be profitable to
consider. The first has reference to an assumption
which underlies the whole treatment of the training
in music. It may be stated in this way : Does it
follow that if simplicity, order, symmetry, and beauty
are characteristic of the sights which a youth sees
and the sounds which he hears, they will become
qualities of his character P More briefly and simply :
1 See his Poems in the Golden Treasury Series, p. 200.
* III. 401 b.
7 HE AEAVV/A&O/W//EAV7. IO9
wº
[.
Does he become good by learning to know and love
the beautiful ? Does aesthetic culture imply or
involve moral culture ? Plato evidently considered
`that it did. “He was very far from identifying or
confusing artistic beauty with moral goodness ; but,
believing, as he did, that the whole physical world
is “the image of its Maker, God made manifest to
sense, he could not but believe that in all things
sensible, and therefore in the relations of figure, time,
and tone, there is a right and a wrong, a good and
a bad, according as they do or do not express and
obey intelligence. And since bodily movement and
sight and hearing are among the most prominent
and important of our vital activities, especially in
early life, he drew the natural conclusion that it must
make a difference to the growth of the human soul
and character, how, and upon what occasions, those
activities are exercised, and that it is the function
of the arts to provide for their exercise in the best
way and upon the best objects.” "
We may approach this question in two ways : we
may ask what it is that we aim at in moral culture,
and consider whether such aesthetic training as Plato
would have provided for his guardians makes for
this end ; or we may ask whether, in our experience
of ourselves and of others, an environment graceful
and refined in the aesthetic sense does seem to
produce moral refinement. - *
To begin from the former point of view, it would
seem that all moral philosophers are agreed upon
the necessity of a certain insight into what con-
stitutes the goodness or badness, rightness or
wrongness of conduct. This is a necessary and
- * Nettleship in “Hellenica,” pp. 110, 111.
I IO F/DUCATVOAV ZAV AZA 7TO'S REAEUB/AC.
important factor in moral perfection. Socrates con-
sidered that it was the whole ; that virtue was
Appreciation knowledge. While we see that this is an
2.95.4 over-statement, that action as well as
neSS Of Good e e &
conduct is knowledge is an essential of virtue, we
jº"* must recognise that it emphasises a side
Culture of morality which is frequently overlooked.
The evil that men do is more often than not the
result of incapability of unwillingness to see clearly
the results of their action. Insight, through fault
or misfortune, is wanting. Whether such insight
is intuitive or rational, whether it is the function
of moral sense or moral reason, whether it is innate
or developed through the educative influence of
experience—these are controversial questions. But
no school of moral philosophers would minimise its
importance, or raise a doubt about the possibility
and desirability of a training which would make it
a more reliable guide to conduct.
{Nor can it be doubted that some part of the
approval we give to good conduct is the outcome
of our appreciation of its propriety, its seemliness,
its beauty. We do not look upon it coldly, as the
mere performance of duty. Our sense that it fits
with some end or ideal which seems to us of worth,
or, if it be the act of another, that it squares with
what we should feel and do—this is the origin of
the warmth of approbation. This sense of the
seemliness of conduct may be unanalysable. It may
be with a child a dim consciousness that such-and-
such an act is seemly because it is what a father or
mother would do; it may be with a man a vague idea
that it is in harmony with some high and abstract
ideal. In any case, it is felt in the fringe or margin
THE ENVIRONMENT I I I
of consciousness. But none the less is it a factor
of approval, and hence an impulse to the good. '
If these points be granted—that moral perfection
involves insight, and that this insight, when it
And Aesthetic becomes approval, attaches itself to the
... harmony between an act and an ideal
Appreciation, deemed worthy—then it would seem that
aesthetic culture is a part, and an important part,
of moral culture. To surround a boy or girl with
things which are graceful and beautiful is to
provide a source of experience which will enable
him or her the better to discern beauty and seemli-
ness in conduct. The sensibility to the ugliness
of vice will be even greater ; much as a boy
brought up amid the freshness of the country will
be keenly alive to the dirt and squalor of the
town.
The same answer is forthcoming if we appeal
to experience. Wild and disorderly fancies, ugly
::ii. thoughts, the petty upheavals which dis-
View. turb the even course of all men’s lives,
fall away into their proper insignificance before
a fresh and breezy country scene. It is not only
that the too subjective attitude is displaced by a
healthy outward look, but that the beauty without
seems to light up the ugliness within, so that it
dies away of sheer shamefacedness. And, to come
to smaller things, a beautiful garden, a well-lit,
tastefully-decorated room, even a well-fitting suit
of clothes, each and all do something to ostracise
immoral thoughts. They are a sort of moral scaffold-
ing. It may be an exaggeration to go so far as
Ruskin and say : “Taste is not only a part and
an index of morality; it is the only morality. The
II 2 A DUCATIO/W ZAV P/LATO'S REA2 UB/./C.
first and last and closest trial question to any living
creature is, ‘What do you like P Tell me what you
like, and I will tell you what you are ‘’” (“Sesame
and Lilies ''); ' for we are not without instances of
the combination of refined artistic taste and moral
depravity. At the same time, we shall not hesitate
to accept the full truth of Plato's words that “rhythm
and harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of
the soul, and take most powerful hold of it, bringing
gracefulness in their train and making a man graceful
if he be rightly nurtured, but if not, the reverse.””
5. Control of Environment by the Teacher. It is
pertinent to the conclusion we have reached to
consider some of the ways in which the environment,
as a means of aesthetic and moral culture, comes
within the power of the teacher to modify or extend.
For the fact that “sweetness and light” without
can produce their counterpart within, brings with
it an obvious obligation. The material environment
of the young is within the control of those who
are responsible for his development to a greater
extent than is commonly realised. A considerable
portion of the day is spent within the walls of the
schoolroom. It does not seem much to ask that
rooms shall be clean, orderly, and well lit. The need
for plenty of light is paramount. It is of course
a physical necessity ; but the need may also be
pressed on aesthetical and moral grounds. Sunlight
is a strong antidote to the smaller meannesses of both
teacher and pupils as well as to Weightier offences.
In the teacher it breeds magnanimity, sympathy,
cheerfulness; in the pupil the responsiveness and
| Quoted by Mackenzie, “Manual of Ethics,” p. 178.
* III. 401 &.
7 HE AEAVV/ROWMENT. II3
trustfulness which are complementary to these.
Orderliness in arrangement has numerous ramifications.
It extends to furniture, wall decorations, blackboard
demonstrations, written work, the movements of a
class from place to place, posture, drill, dress, etc.,
in addition to speech and gesture, to which reference
has already been made. In all these respects there
is discernible the “likeness of a good moral character,”
or its opposite.
More powerful still, and still more within the
teacher's power to control, is the social environment
or “tone * of a school. Here there is (or is not)
the spirit of order and seemliness which a boy can
no more escape than he can escape the atmosphere
which he breathes. And this is almost entirely the
teacher's own creation. It takes life from his cheeri-
ness, his optimism, his transparent honesty, his large-
mindedness. Where these are ever present, and
where they have, as they must, bred their like in
the members of a school, their aesthetic and moral
action on an individual may well be compared with
that of “a gale wafting health from salubrious
lands.”
6. Plato's Method of Aesthetical and Moral Culture.
An important question, and one full of suggestion for
us, is the method of training in aesthetics, and hence
in morals, which Plato approves for his young
warriors until they reach the age of reason. Their
tastes and characters are to be “insensibly ’’ and
“imperceptibly ’’ affected. The graceful forms among
which they are to be reared will, little by little, work
their effect, until ultimately the soul will have be-
come unconsciously grooved and lined, as it were,
after the pattern of those images of the fair and
8
I I4 EDUCATIO/V /AW PZLA 7TO'S REA) UARZAC.
graceful. This means, in psychological language, that
[he common tendency to imitate whatsoever the
environment provides is to be turned to good moral
and aesthetical purpose, and that the fixing power of
habit is also to be enlisted in the same gööd cause.
The training which is effected in a young teacher
who has the good fortune to spend the first years of
his professional life in a school which bears the
impress, and is what Plato would call the “image,” of
sound principle, is of an exactly similar nature. He
unconsciously imitates what is going on around him,
and comes imperceptibly to work in harmony with the
laws which lie behind teaching methods. The analogy
may be pursued farther. When, at the completion of
his training, he comes to set his methods out before
him to justify or condemn on rational grounds, he
finds, if his early training has been so satisfactory
as we have supposed, that what he has been un-
consciously doing is in no wise different from what
reason would have him do.
So would it be with the aesthetical culture of
Plato's warriors. It would be such that when their
likes and dislikes, their permanent habits and ten-
dencies, came to be critically examined, they would
be found to be in “harmony with the true beauty
of reason.”
The analogy from the training of the teacher
supplies us with a warning. The age of reason or
of critical examination of acquired tendencies, which
should be reached by him while he is yet within the
training college, rarely comes to the great majority
of men. Now and then a man will put the things
he likes at arm’s length, as it were, and test them
by means of such criteria of ethical value as his
THE EAWVIROWMEAVT. II 5
reason and his education enable him to supply. But
this speculative and critical attitude is confined to the
few. Nor would this be altogether occasion for regret
if one could be sure that the early training of the
many had left upon them the mark of the true
beauty of reason, even while they knew it not.
The very reverse is too emphatically the truth. To
the early training of a large number of the population
Plato's description may be literally applied. They
are “reared among images of vice, as upon unwhole-
Some pastures, culling much every day by little and
little from many places, and feeding upon it, until
they insensibly accumulate a large mass of evil in
their inmost souls.” " -
Seeing, then, that such is the nature of the early
experience of so many, and seeing that there is no
further training for them, no time “when reason
comes * with power to critically examine permanent
tendencies, it behoves the teacher to see that no
effort on his part is spared to make the school a
place where some of the evils of such an environ-
ment may be counteracted. If he realises that this
silent, imperceptible, unconscious nurture is the only
training in morals which most of his pupils will receive,
he will be careful to fashion their environment while
they are with him, so that it shall bear the impress
“of a good moral character.” For “in every work
the beginning is the most important part, especially
in dealing with anything young and tender’”; and
even if the age of reflection is never reached, it will
not matter so long as the things which are blindly
striven for are in harmony with the true beauty of
reason. The principles of ethics and aesthetics, even
! III. 401 a.
116 FDUCATION WAV P/CA TO'S REPUB/./C.
if they were better established than they are, are
of little avail against permanent tendencies acquired
and fixed in youth.
7. The Same Method can be employed in Logical or
Intellectual Training. We may now go on to consider
whether the method of aesthetical and moral training
approved by Plato for his warriors, is a method which
can be adopted in respect of logical training. The
essentials of beauty and goodness can be developed
within the soul through the silent influence of
familiarity. Can the tendency to logical truth be
developed in a similar manner P Unquestionably.
The characteristics of accurate observation, of valid
inference, of a logically-satisfactory explanation do
not need labels to be realised. They can be in the
environment equally with the forms of beauty. A
child will come through mere imitation and habit
to record exactly what he sees, to conclude no more
than his premises warrant, to be satisfied only with
such an explanation of a fact as really brings it
within the area of established knowledge. Un-
fortunately, the logical ideals which find concrete
realisation about him are not always of the highest.
It is commoner to find the mental atmosphere of
a school unhealthy in a logical than in an aesthetical
or moral respect ; though, of course, in the mind
perhaps even more than in the body disease spreads.
There is, however, one important difference between
logical and aesthetical or moral training. Respecting
Empirical the former there is a time when reasons
and Rational and grounds are to be sought for ; when
Stages in tº º f s tº g ſº
Logical imitation is no longer desirable ; when
Training statements and conclusions are to be
examined in the light of established principles.
THE EAVVIRONMEAVT. I 17
Many would deny that there has been any logical
training before this stage is reached. There is, at
any rate, an empirical stage which is essential and
which, in a good system of training, ought to lead
up to the rational stage. For example, a young child
playing with a ball-frame may, under the guidance
of a skilled teacher, be unconsciously “imbibing,”
to use a metaphor, the relations between single things
and groups which lie behind the system of notation.
Here may be the beginnings of a logical training ;
and beginnings, as Plato saw, are perhaps most
important of all stages. After this empirical stage
there must come a rationalising stage, if logical
training is to be worth the name. This late stage
does not seem necessary, at any rate to anything
like the same extent, in aesthetical and ethical
training. The greater part of what is possible in
these latter respects will have been done if pupils
carry away a vivid impression of concrete examples
of virtue and a lively sense of what is beautiful, even
though they can give no abstract justification of
these. It is different with logical training, and herein
the difficult question is to keep a fitting proportion
and relation between the empirical and the rational
stages.
The tendency in the primary schools is towards
premature generalisation and rationalisation. This
The Rational is due to a healthy reaction against
.* methods which tended to develop the
SOOn. more mechanical side of mind and left
the intellect without any field for its activity.
But the pendulum has swung too far ; and now
the danger is that the pupil is called upon to
generalise almost before he can appreciate data. He
II.8 Jº DUCATIO/V /AW A/LA 7TO'S A&AEAE URL/C.
is examining his steps before he has learnt to walk.
This is a worse state of things than the other. The
intellect had better lie fallow than exhaust itself
prematurely by beating the air. Nothing makes the
gaining of knowledge more distasteful than an abstract
treatment of it which is alien to the bent and stage
of development of the pupil. A few illustrations will
perhaps be helpful.
The way in which an unreflective teacher will
try to reach the meaning of a word illustrates the
Examples point very well. It is an established
ºnme. principle of logic that denotation should
of Words, precede connotation in the development of
exact thought ; that there should be an examination
of individuals before the concept of a class is fixed.
Some vague idea of resemblance will be present,
of course, or individuals would not be grouped at all.
But the point is that there should be no attempt to
clearly separate out the elements of a concept until
considerable experience of the members which may
be held under it has been gained. The history of
the individual mind, as psychology gives it to us,
sounds the same note of warning. The concrete
precedes the abstract, or at least the abstract is away
in the margin of consciousness, and there is danger
in attempting to drag it to the front too soon.
Yet in arriving, or seeking to arrive, at the meaning
of a word—i.e. in attempting to develop a concept—
these obvious principles are frequently violated.
The commonest question to be heard during a reading-
lesson is : “What does so-and-so mean P” and this
in cases where the teacher has no means of knowing
whether or no the term is for the first time introduced
to the reader. A man will ask “What is a seaport P.”
THE EAVVIPOAWMEAWT II9
before London and Liverpool have been even noted on
a map. Children will use words correctly enough long
before they are capable of the abstract attitude of
mind which the formulation of a definition demands.
There must be familiarity with correct usage before
justification is possible.
In the treatment of arithmetic, again, common
practice is in many respects vicious. To revert to
(b) Arith. Platonic language, there should be much
metic. “insensible accumulation * of processes
before they are brought into “harmony with reason.”
Instead of this, we find even very young children
treated to an exhaustive discussion of the principles of
notation before they are allowed to attempt such
manipulation of numbers as they are capable of.
With older boys the same thing applies. Is complete
rationalisation of a process, for example of division of
decimals, to precede practice P Of course, some idea
of the principle underlying a rule may be given ; but
it does not seem desirable to attempt to make this
clear and adequate before some experience of its
working has been gained. Arithmetic would, perhaps,
best fulfil its function as an instrument of logical
training if in the higher classes of a school there
was a working-over of rules of which previous ex-
perience had been gained, with a view to the explicit
treatment of the principles underlying them.
The Platonic method of thoroughly familiarising
his warriors with what is seemly before any reflection
upon the grounds of seemliness takes place
may be applied, mutatis mutandis, with
the best results to the teaching of English. Of all
subjects of the primary school, this is handled worst.
And the fault which is commonest is the attempt
(c) English.
I2O EDUCATIO/V /AV A/LA 7TO'S ACEA) UAE LIC.
to force children into an abstract and generalising
attitude prematurely, with the result that there is
the form of knowledge without, frequently, even a
shadow of the substance. There is not enough of
that unconscious accumulation of the forms of speech
which should go before any attempt to arrive at their
function analytically.
Take as an instance the logical division of the
sentence or proposition into two parts, the subject
and predicate. Many men would seek to make
children realise this division, and even the separate
functions of the parts, in three or four lessons, or
even less ; whereas such an analysis of the sentence
would properly come after, say, a quarter of a year,
during which an empirical knowledge of the parts
might have been built up without any formal analysis
ever having been attempted. This can be done
through composition. For example, in directing
observation during object-lessons, nothing is easier
that to bring, first, some object, and secondly, some
one of its qualities, under attention. The subject is
first held apart, a sort of centre for thought to start
from, and then a predicate is linked on to it, and
there is the complete judgment or proposition with
the two movements of consciousness—the finding of
a focus or centre, the subject, and attaching of an idea,
the predicate, to this—made evident in the making.
The children are, of course, not explicitly conscious
of the wheelwork ; in fact, no reference is made to
it. But when the time is ripe for an analysis of the
sentence, its parts will be familiar through use, and
there will be some chance that they will flash across
the understanding, like old friends with new faces.
So with formal grammar generally. It should
THE EAWV/ROAVMAEAV7. I2 I
follow upon much practice (informal so far as the
pupils are concerned, though systematically arranged)
in using various constructions. Particular care
should be taken to avoid all premature reference to
those parts of grammar which involve relations—
e.g. case, transitive and intransitive verbs, pre-
positions, and conjunctions.
Further instances are unnecessary. One general
Warning appropriate to this discussion may be given.
It is this : every lesson cannot reach a “generalisa-
tion stage.” It would be ludicrous, if it were not
serious, to recall the triumphant manner in which
teachers call upon their pupils to parade a scientific
law or the definition of some geographical term which
has come to them, if it has ever reached them,
through the flimsy experience of two or three rough
experiments or a clay model.
8. Direct Aesthetical Training. Returning now to
the question of method in aesthetical training, we have
to note that though the secret and unnoticed working
of beauty and order in the environment must always
be the main factor in the development of taste, yet
it is possible to make use of a more direct method.
We may stimulate the aesthetic sentiment in a youth
by pointing the finger to the beauty that is about
him. . We may pointedly call his attention to it.
There is, however, a certain risk here. We have seen
the danger of imitation, how the habit of it completely
saps the independent, self-reliant attitude which ought
to be the outcome of any system of training. It is
peculiarly detrimental to aesthetic culture. A merely
spurious and reflected appreciation is cant, which is
only a degree less repellent than moral hypocrisy.
Unless the pupil is ripe, unless the teacher is confident
I 22 EDUCATION JAV PLA 7TO'S REAE UBLIC.
that he can arouse the warmth, the thrill, which
means that the beauty of the object has linked itself
on to the very bodily organism, no explicit reference
to its aesthetic quality should be made.
(i.) If this danger is kept in view (and perhaps it
has been over-estimated), there will be no lack of
Through opportunity to thus directly stimulate the
Nature- aesthetic sentiment and refine taste.
lessons. Chances arise in connection with object-
lessons, and particularly nature-lessons, wherein a
light is shed upon the great world-forces which in so
Wonderful a way control all things both great and
Small. It is not enough that the child should come
to know ; he should be stimulated to appreciate.
And thus we can escape the danger which Words-
worth saw lurking in an attitude towards nature
which is but coldly inquisitive :
Sweet is the love which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous form of things:
We murder to dissect."
There is no reason why the structure of a flower,
the colours of the sunset, the daily march of the sun
across the heavens, should not gain in impressiveness
from being understood. -
(ii.) A great opportunity comes in the literature-
lesson. A carefully-selected poem can be made the
Through medium of valuable aesthetical and moral
Literature training. An account of a recent experi-
ment” of my own will illustrate in the shortest
! “The Tables Turned.”
* This formed one of the “technical exercises” which are a
feature of the practical training of elementary-school teachers in
training-Colleges.
7 HE EAVW/RONMENT. I23
way one method of procedure which was effectual.
The ballad of “The Revenge” was the medium.
A class was selected which was engaged in the
study of the Elizabethan period of English history.
The exercise consisted of three formal lessons given
at intervals of one week, and during the intervals
the boys were encouraged to make themselves as
familiar as possible with the poem and its circum-
stances by their own reading.
The first lesson had for its aim the making vivid
and clear the circumstances with which the poem
dealt. It created an atmosphere within which
appreciation might be expected to thrive. All aids
to a realistic effect were enlisted : pictures of the
ships of the time, sketches showing the arrangement
of the Spanish fleet and the audacity of the little
Revenge, all the powers of graphic description.
The children's knowledge of the circumstances of
the period was of course drawn upon. The lesson
ended with a spirited, declamatory recital of the
poem.
The second lesson of the series consisted of a
reading of the poem aloud by the children themselves.
They only remembered the spirit of the previous
rendering, so that the interpretation of the separate
stanzas was their own. Before the third lesson they
were encouraged to learn as much of it as they
could, and especially parts which they liked, “by
heart.”
The aim of the last lesson was to bring them to
realise, to such an extent as was possible for them,
the grounds of the appreciation and liking which
they expressed. Of course their enjoyment sprang
from fierce partisanship ; but the majority of them
I24. EDUCATIO/V I/V P/LATO'S REAE UB/./C.
could quote the lines, or give them in substance, which
told of the Spaniards’ courtesy and of the way they
honoured the dead hero. Anyhow, they had got some
inkling of the seemliness of a brave deed done in a
noble cause. They felt that there was a justification
for their admiration, though their statement of it
was crude. Further, they found for themselves the
meaning and fitness of such changes of rhythm as
the following: &
(i.) Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud.
(ii). And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that
shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.
They felt the force of this contrast, which they
discovered themselves under my direction :
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the
Summer Sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-
three.
And they saw the pictorial and impressive power
of the repetition of the opening of each of the
following lines : -
Ship after ship, the whole might long, their high-built galleons
Came, -
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder
and flame,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her
dead and her shame.
In some such way as this the teacher may do
something more than lay the seeds of a refined taste
and provide favourable conditions for its growth.
He can bring it some way towards maturity. The
AAWD OF EDUCATIO/W WAV MUSIC. 125
only danger is, as has been seen, that he may
produce a hot-house flower.
9. The End of a “Musical” Education is a Good
Character. In the latter part of the section we are
considering there is a summary statement of the
aim and purpose of a “musical" education. We
are by this time familiar with what should be said
of gods and heroes, and we know what should be
the manner of its saying ; we know the characteristics
of those harmonies and rhythms which are approved;
and we have seen how these characteristics are to
be sought in the whole artificial and natural environ-
ment. The treatment of this side of education
fittingly ends with a statement of the general purpose
and end which lies behind each of the details which
have come under consideration. Here is the unifying
principle which links together the details by showing
them to be one and all subservient to one great
final purpose.
This purpose is the making of a noble and
beautiful character. This is the end of “music” for
the mind. It is to make a man inwardly graceful.
His life is to move with the harmony and rhythm
of moral perfection. All the details of his “musical *
training are to converge on this one end : that his
character be stamped through and through with
the pattern and impress of the beautiful and the
good. This general effect will make itself felt
in three different ways which we may distinguish.
First of all, such a perfection of character will
show itself in a power to discriminate between grace-
fulness or ungracefulness, between attractiveness or
repulsiveness, wherever these qualities appear. There
* III. 401 e—403 b.
I26 EDUCATION //V PLATO'S REAEUB/AC.
will be a knowledge of good and evil. “He that
has been duly nurtured therein [i.e. amid what is
The Effect is beautiful and good] will have the keenest
:... eye for defects, whether in the failures
Emotional, of art or the misgrowths of nature.”
hºlas. For he will carry with him the safe
ormina criterion of beauty and ugliness which the
symmetry of his own life provides. In the second
place, there is /involved an effect on the emotions.
He “will commend beautiful objects and gladly
ºreceive them into his soul and feed upon them, and
grow to be noble and good ; whereas he will rightly
censure and hate all repulsive objects.” Thirdly, in
the action which springs from emotion the qualities
of rhythm, symmetry, and grace, which make up
perfection, will be discernible. The man of graceful
character will not be the victim of disorderly out-
bursts of passion ; his affections will display them-
selves “in a sober and harmonious temper.” Thus
the effect of such a nurture as Plato would provide
will show itself on all three sides of mind.
10. The Parallel from learning to Read. The training
on the intellectual side which the education in music
was to provide is well illustrated by the almost complete
parallel which the process of learning to read affords.
This art is mastered when the several letters of the
alphabet can be recognised in the changing com-
binations which words provide. Each has its part
to play in the concrete system of language, and no
one can interpret the system until each element is
unerringly discriminated.” So it is with the inter-
* This appears to me to be literally true of the young. The
mistakes they make are most frequently errors in sense-discrimina-
tion. Of course, understanding implies much more than this, but it
A.ND OF EDUCATIO/V AAW MUSIC. 127
pretation of life. The thoughts, emotions, and actions
of men are the elements of the system. They are
ever recurring, each time in a different context, never
quite the same, yet always with moral values which
are readable if we have but insight enough.
Such insight is difficult to acquire and is never
perfect. We can never interpret the ways of men
as we can interpret the words of a book. But in
some measure it must be developed, if we would
have a knowledge of good and evil, and the details
of Plato's musical education are suggestions which
indicate to us ways in which we can set about
developing it. It is very instructive to observe just
where the parallel from learning to read fails. So far
as reading itself is concerned, we have acquired the
art when we can fill in the meaning of the written
symbols ; but the ethical interpretation of conduct
involves a critical attitude, a comparison with
criteria, even if these be never distinctly formulated,
which is over and above anything to be found in the
interpretation of words."
(i.) This illustration from learning to read is
suggestive in several ways. To begin with, it brings
out prominently the importance for moral training
of developing the power to discriminate between
good and evil. We are so impressed with the need
for good and rightful action as the sine qué non of
must start from this. The wealth of meaning amassed through
association is only set free when a word is clearly discriminated.
Galton has told us that the most profound thinkers are slow
readers.
The logical reader will be reminded of the value of the negative
instance, the “just-not” position which, as Mr. Bosanquet points
out, is so essential to logical thought. See “Essentials of
Logic.” ve
I 28 EDUCATION /W PZATO'S REA) UAE//C.
moral perfection that we are apt to lose sight of
the fact, of assured psychological warrant, that
Brings out action follows insight. We seem to take
the Import- the insight very much for granted. Of
...:” course there is too often insight which
*...* results neither in the performance of what
Right and is seen to be good nor in the inhibition of
Wrong. what is seen to be evil. At the same
time, the importance of what might be called a
keen sensibility to the moral quality of conduct needs
keeping continually in view ; and it is just this
that the illustration brings out.
(ii.) Then, again, the bad effect of slurring over
letters which seem unimportant has an obvious
shows the counterpart in morals. The “forms of
Need of temperance and courage and liberality
i., and munificence and all that are akin
:ºat to these ’ are not confined to what we
e might call the literature of conduct. The
book of life is made up, for the most part, of what
we blindly look upon as the meaningless and trivial
activities of the passing hour. These have their
beauty or their ugliness, and these are the moments
which matter more than all the parade-days when
we are on show to the “distinguished foreigner.”
And until the sense of this has filled the mind,
until the spirit of it has informed the daily round
of duties and pleasures, the first aims of a “musical ’’
education have not been realised.
The contrast between the images of letters and
the letters themselves will appear somewhat meaning-
less until the different orders of knowledge have
been made clear." The application of it is, however,
* See pp. 236-247.
E/VD OF A MUSICAL EDUCATION. I29
clear enough as soon as we pass from the “illustration
to the things illustrated.” The letters themselves
have their analogue in the virtues and vices them-
selves, as qualities of character ; the images of letters
correspond to all the externalities which we take to
be in any way symbolical of character. Thus books,
Songs, pictures, buildings, to name but a few things,
are among the “reflections” or “images” which one
musically nurtured should be able to “read” by the
light of ethical standards. And among these, as
among the “forms” of virtue which they in some
sort reflect, what he chooses to attach himself to,
and what he rejects, will mark the success or failure
of his education in music. He is to be able to in-
terpret the language of life not only in the more
direct medium of action, thought, and feeling, but
also in the more remote and less articulate expression
which it finds in such productions as we have
referred to.
CELAPTER VII.
GYMNASTIC OR PEIYSICAL CULTURE.
(Book III., 403 b–412 c.)
1. Analysis. Care for the body and care for the
mind are equally necessary, but it does not follow
that the two are, as it were, on the same plane.
The perfecting of the mind is the more fundamental,
for if this is seen to, proper care for the body will
be thereby secured. Of the general principles of such
a mode of life as a properly balanced mind would
approve, the first, that drunkenness is undesirable in
a guardian, will be accepted without comment. As
to eating and training, the habits of the professional
fighter will suggest what is to be avoided ; for, instead
of sharpening the senses and making the body in-
different" to changes of food and climate, they do
the very reverse. A simple, moderate system, wherein
no room for pampering or excess is to be found,
will be the best gymnastic. In this respect it will.
resemble the music which was approved, and will
bring health to the body as did the latter to the
mind.
A signal proof that the systems both of bodily
and of mental training are bad is to be had when
physicians and lawyers flourish ; for the presence of
3o
GYMNASTIC OR PAYSICAL CULTURE. , 131
these latter points to the fact that men lack the sense
of justice, and it is worse when they take a delight
in being skilled in unfair dealing. So, too, the
physician thrives, not on the diseases which the
natural course of things brings, but on those which
are due to an unnatural mode of life. The multiplica-
tion of diseases and the continual bolstering up of
a weak body which occupied Herodicus were not
approved by Asclepius, who recognised that it inter-
fered with the due performance of a man's work. The
carpenter sees this, and wants a quick cure, not a
long course of treatment, for his complaint ; his work
ill not permit of such devotion to his malady, and
he would prefer to die rather than that such a state
of things should be If we ask whether the rich man
has any such pressing task as would make excessive
attention to the boly impossible, we reach the same
conclusion. His civic duties, and, above all, that
part of virtue which lies in study, suffer from that
“excessive care of the body which extends beyond
gymnastic.”
We agree, then, that Asclepius was right in
confining the benefits of the healing art to those
who, being naturally sound, caught the diseases
incident to the ordinary course of things, and in
refusing them to those whose constitutions were
diseased. And we shall believe that his sons carried
his principles into practice and refused to be seduced
from them by bribes, in spite of what some writers
assert to the contrary. r,
We must have the best physicians in the city, but
it is a mistake to suppose that a good physician and
a good juror are produced by analogous and parallel
courses of training. The former must have had












I 32 A DUCATWOW ZAV AZA 7TO'S REAEPOB/L/C.
experience of diseases in his own body in addition to
“a large practice both among the healthy and among
the diseased,” for the mind which directs his efforts
is not affected. Not so, however, is it with the juror.
His mind, which guides him to decisions, must not have
been depraved “by a round of crimes,” or through
an evil environment. Moreover, young people,
although they may have been well nurtured in respect
of their character, are not fitted to be jurors, for they
are easily imposed upon, seeing that neither through
experience nor through mature thought have they
any knowledge of evil. Hence an old man, free from
experience of evil, but capable of recognising it a
estimating it, makes the noblest kind of juror. Th!
man who has himself gone the round of the vices
will be capable of estimating the characters of others
like himself, but will not know how to deal with one
essentially noble. We shall not, then, choose the
juror from this class, but from the former, “for vice |
can never know both itself and virtue ; but virtue, in
a well-instructed nature, will in time acquire a know-
ledge at once of itself and of vice.”
The duty of the physician will be towards those
whose bodily constitution is good, and that of the
lawyer towards those who are mentally sound. A
good system of education will ensure through music
that the law is made proper use of, as, through
gymnastic, it will ensure that the art of medicine is
not abused. The true end of gymnastic will also be
seen to be not the body in itself, but the soul through
the body.
It is an error to say that education consists of
A gymnastic for the body and music for the soul, for
i both are for the good of the soul. Music is for the




GYMNASTIC OR AEA/VS/CA/L CU/CTURE. I33
improvement of the philosophic element of the soul,
and through it the soul may become gentle, orderly,
temperate. Exclusive devotion to music brings
softness and feebleness of spirit, or else irascibility,
for the spirited element languishes from lack of
exercise. Gymnastic is for the improvement of the
spirited element, and will make the soul brave and
confident. If, however, it be indulged to excess
to the neglect of music, then, instead of courage,
it will bring harshness, violence, and a soul to which
reason vainly makes appeal : for without exercise,
reason dies away, and the taste for learning becomes
weak and deaf and blind from the want of stimulus
and nourishment.
The best education is one which employs music
and gymnastic in such a proportion that all the
elements of the soul are nurtured and duly blended
in the harmonious whole of a perfect character.
2. The Questions included under “Gymnastic * are
Wide and General. The reader who comes to this
section of Plato's theory of education treating of
“gymnastic * with such ideas about physical culture
as arise from the modern conception and treatment
of the subject, will be surprised both at the number
and nature of the questions which he touches upon.
Prefacing his remarks with the statement that his
intention is to indicate “no more than the general
principles,” he first points out the general character
of the training and mode of life which would harden
the body and quicken its sensibility. Derisively
brushing aside the bodily excesses to which men
are prone, and which tradition seems almost to
sanction, he is satisfied to refer in general terms to
the desirability of following a simple and moderate
I34. EDUCATIO/W WAV P/LA 7TO'S REAUBI./C.
mode of life, since “simplicity in gymnastic is as
productive of health as in music it was productive
of temperance.” Nothing in the way of a scheme
of physical exercises is to be looked for. By far the
greater portion of this section is devoted to such
questions as the proper place of medicine and the
physician’s art ; the evil of exalting the body until
its health becomes an object of morbid care ; the
need, both for the workman and the rich man, of
putting work and the practice of virtue before con-
cern for health ; the futility of patching up a
diseased constitution, and the danger, in so doing,
of facilitating the transmission of disease ; the train-
ing of the physician ; and the aim of education
through gymnastic to secure that men should, except
in extreme cases, stand in no need of medicine.
Most of these questions are matters of serious
ethical and social importance, but they are rarely
This is included in an educational discussion.
because Plato Their introduction here and the absence
jon of much, indeed most, of what we take
*::::::, to be the subject-matter which would
welfare of fall within a review of the plan and
the Republic purpose of physical culture are explained
when it is remembered, first, that Plato has the
training of a particular class, the warriors, in
view ; and secondly, that, with him, the welfare
of the state is always the end to which all that he
has to say on the subject of education is directed.
His theory of education, it is to be remembered,
is, first and last, a factor in the production of a per-
fectly ordered community. All that he says has an
immediate and direct bearing upon the weal or woe
of the ideal republic he is constructing. It cannot
Griſwaszyc or PHYSICAL CULTURE 135
but follow that his treatment of any branch of
educational theory will be very different from that
which modern writers will adopt, confined, as they
necessarily must be, within much narrower limits,
and with the claims of the individual calling for
recognition.
And it is just in this that the value of a study of
such a system lies. It constrains us to look outside
details for the general aim and purpose of educational
schemes and methods. Problems of education are
problems of life, and even if Plato seems to us to
have sacrificed the individual life somewhat too
ruthlessly to the health and vitality of the life of
the republic as a whole, it is a most valuable result
to have one's eyes opened to the claims of this wider
life, and, generally, to have looked upon problems of
education in their more remote relations and bearings.
3. The Relation of Bodily Training to the Training
of the Whole Soul or Character. From the opening
paragraphs of this section we are considering, we
get a clear statement of the relation in which
bodily training ought to stand to the training of the
whole soul or character. “My belief is,” he says,
“not that a good body will by its own excellence
make the soul good; but, on the contrary, that a
good soul will by its excellence render the body as
perfect as it can be.” It is important to understand
this clearly. It does not mean that care for the body
will have no effect on the character ; indeed, the
latter part of the section consists of a clear statement
of the way in which gymnastic does affect character
for good or for evil. It is to be understood as a
simple statement of the fact that if the character
be made perfect, the legitimate claims of the body,
I36 AºA) UCA 7TWOAV ZAV A/LATO'S REAE UB/./C.
in the way both of exercise and of nourishment,
will be recognised and satisfied. It indicates that
the body and the soul or character are not on
the same plane, and that the claims of each to
training and nurture stand in such a relation as this
prescription indicates: make the soul perfect, and
in so doing you will secure proper attention to the
body. The training of the character is a wider end
within which a lesser, the training of the body,
will be secured. This may be made clear by means
of a diagram :
As the greater circle includes the less, so the
complete training of the character includes within
it the making of the body excellent.
We may look at this relation between bodily and
mental or character training from two points of view,
from each of which a conclusion of practical importance
for education is visible. First of all, the perfecting
of character may be taken to mean that the indi-
vidual takes a right view of his duty in life, both
to himself and to others, and that the impulse towards
the fulfilment of duty is strong enough to pass over
into dutiful action, whatever may be the force of
seducing influences. He finds that for such activity
he needs a body sound of constitution, with the organs
of sense responsive to stimuli, and hardened to the
extent of being superior to, at any rate, the smaller
disturbing influences. He will, then, be careful of

G VMAWASTIC OR PATVS/CAL CULTURE. I 37
it, husbanding and developing its strength, and
avoiding the excesses which sap its vitality and
lessen its efficiency. In this sense “a good soul [that
is, a character which distinguishes the lines of duty
and is strong enough to follow them] will by its
excellence render the body as perfect as it can be.”
But, in the second place, he will not fail to see
that, after all, the body is only an instrument, a
means to an end. It will never become, with him,
an object of morbid care. He will realise that “that
excessive care of the body which extends beyond
gymnastic” is as foolish and unjustifiable as the
miser's hoarding of his gold. He will see the truth
of Plato's remark that a good body cannot “by
its own excellence make the soul good.”
4. Music is to discipline the Philosophic, and Gym-
nastic the Spirited Element of Character. It will be
well to consider at this point Plato's account of the
precise manner in which music and gymnastic produce
their effect upon character, an account which occupies
the last part of the section we are considering. From
what he says here and from a more exact and
detailed account which he gives in a later portion
of the book, it appears that he distinguished three
“elements’ within the human mind, each of which
needed the attention of any one who would make
the whole man perfect. We need not stop to consider
what he understood by “element,” nor to give such
an account of the three elements as psychology would
demand.” The general meaning of his remarks is
* 435 a-441 b.
* The gradual approach to greater precision with respect to these
“elements” is a good example of the way in which a teacher's (or
any other's) psychology ought to develop.
I38 EDUCATION IV P/CATO'S REPUBZ/C.
clear enough. He names two sides of mind which
it should be the business of the educator to nurture;
and we may include the third, which, though not
actually named here, is yet assumed. These three
elements or aspects of the mind or character are as
follows:
(i.) There is, first, the philosophic element. This
corresponds in the main to what we should call the
intellect, though it is something more. It includes
appreciation, which obviously touches the emotional
side. It is to this element of mind that music
appeals—music both in the literal sense and in the
wider sense in which it includes literature and art
of all kinds. It is that element in virtue of which
the mind discerns and appreciates order and beauty
in the natural and artificial environment. It is what
distinguishes man from the brutes and makes him
likest God.
(ii.) There is, secondly, the spirited element. This
is somewhat difficult to describe. It is the source of
courage and self-confidence, but it may also breed
violence and obstinacy. It is a power which allies
itself either with the first or with the third element, the
choice depending largely on education. It is an ally of
good or of evil. Plato speaks of it as the “sinews of
the soul,” and this is an instructive metaphor. The
sinews are not in themselves the originators of bodily
movement and effort, but they are the means by
which these are sustained. The spirited element
occupies an analogous position within the soul. It
does not guide activity but sustains it, whether it
be for good or for evil.
(iii.) Thirdly, there is the concupiscent element.
It is the source of all the “bodily ’ desires. It is the
G VMAVAS 7/C OR AEA VS/CA/L CULTURE. I39
lowest in order of worth of the three parts in man's
complex nature, and is to be kept in subjection to the
other two. Of the desires to which it gives birth,
some are Mecessary, and their satisfaction is for
the good of the whole man ; others are “unnecessary,”
and may work evil in him. Thus the desire for food
is necessary, but the craving for luxury is un-
necessary. Some desires, again, are tameable, others
“wild,” “bestial,” and “lawless.” But ſº
this element is to be held in subjection, and discipline)
directed towards this end is the only training which
it will receive. *
The union of these diverse elements in the whole
man is illustrated by means of an allegory to be
found in the ninth book.” There a composite creature
is imagined which is part man, part lion, and part
a “multitudinous, many-headed monster, having a
ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild,
which he is able to generate and metamorphose at
will.” “ This creature has the outward semblance of
a man ; and the curious trinity which this apparent
unity hides is intended to supply an analogy to the
three elements of man's complex mature.
Towards the two first-named of these elements
the two branches of education are directed : music
The great for the philosophic and gymnastic for the
End of. spirited element. The great end of any
Education is •
Harmonious educational system has not, however,
Pevelopment been provided for, when means for the
discipline of each separate element of character b
* See VIII. 55S°d.
* See IX. 571 b, and Nettleship, op. cit., p
* See IX. 588.
* Jowett's translation, p. 588.







I4O A. DUCATIO/V /AV A/LA TO'S REA) UAE/./C.
been found. The great thing is harmonious develop-
ment. “Some god as I for my part shall maintain
has given to men two arts, music and gymnastic, not
for soul and body distinctively, except in a secondary
way, but expressly for those two temperaments [the
philosophic and the spirited], in order that by the
iucrease or relaxation of the tension to the due pitch
they may be brought into mutual accord.” It is in
the latter sentence that the ultimate object and, it
may be added, the chief difficulty of education is
set forth.
5. The Bad Effect of too much Music. The dangers
of over-development of either of the two worthy sides
of character are impressively stated. Plato saw com-
plementary effects of too much music and too much
gymnastic which a good system would avoid. In
describing the evil effects of too absorbed a pursuit
of music, he seems to have had music in the literal
sense primarily in view, though we may take the
general drift of what he says and apply it directly
to a too exclusive devotion to literature, the arts
generally, and the whole subject-matter of philosophic
or scientific enquiry. He takes as typical the example
of a man who “surrenders himself to music and flute-
playing, and suffers his soul to be flooded through the
funnel of his ears with those sweet and soft and plain-
tive harmonies of which we just spoke, and spends his
whole life in warbling and delighting himself with
ong, . . . [and who] relaxes not in his devotion, but
ds to the enchantment.” The effect of such
ion is that the “spirit is melted out of him,
ews of his soul are extirpated.” The fibres
Rength to the web of character lose
&T. The whole man becomes (to






G VMAWAS 7/C OR PA VS/CA/C CU/LTURE. I4 I
change the figure) like a highly sensitive balance
easily thrown out of equilibrium, incapable of standing
the wear and tear of life, perpetually oscillating
between extremes of exaltation and depression. A
proper admixture of gymnastic would prevent this.
It would give the strength and stability now lacking,
and would make the character more consistent and
less likely to be “quickly kindled and quickly slaked
by trifling causes.”
In an excess of gymnastic he saw a danger of
an opposite kind. The philosophic element becomes
And Of t00 “weak and deaf and blind from the want
much of stimulus and nourishment.” There is
* no sensitiveness, no responsiveness, to all
that is beautiful and good in the world of art or
of nature. But this negative effect, this atrophy of
faculty, is not the only result or even the worst.
When the power to recognise what is true, what is
right, and what is seemly, has been lost, the
strengthening of the body, and through it of the
spirited element, becomes a source of danger. Usurp-
ing the place and functions of reason, its sole criterion
and court of appeal is brute force. “Abandoning the
use of rational persuasion, he settles all his business,
like a wild beast, by violence and roughness, and lives
in ignorance and awkwardness, with no symmetry
and no grace.” Symmetry and grace of character
come largely from the education through music, using
this latter term in its widest sense. But if a man
cannot see and appreciate the beauty which is about
him, his own life will be one “with no symmetry
and no grace.”
6. The Joint Effect of Music and Gymnastic. We are
now able to get a clear view of the end of that primary
I42 EDUCATION IV PLATO'S REPUBZ/C.
education which was the only education for the
majority of the members of the republic. This end,
the means which were to be employed to secure it,
and the psychological foundations of these, may be
set forth in the following manner :
Education should make a man capable and desirous
of fulfilling his function in the state Satisfactorily.
This ..". in the case of the guardian, a well-
balanced, harmonious Soul, or, better, character.
| | |
The philosophic The spirited ele- The concupiscent
element is to be ment is to be nur- element is to be
nurtured through tured through “tamed ”—i.e. kept
music. gymnastic. subordinate to the
| other elements.

The training through music and gymnastic
is to be so proportioned that undue develop-
ment of either element, with its attendant
evils, is to be avoided.
We can also see clearly from this arrangement
the place of bodily training in a complete system of
education. We can realise how the “good soul will
by its excellence render the body as perfect as can
be.” The idea of a perfect character and its duties
will direct, control, and illuminate gymnastic, ex-
hibiting it in its proper subordinate relation within
the whole system of training, which is to aim at the
accomplishment of this final purpose. So viewed (and
in this way alone it ought to be viewed), physical
training has only a relative, not an absolute, value.
Bodily perfection is no end in itself, but is only of
worth in so far as it promotes the great end, the
formation of a perfect character.
If, now, we keep two conclusions prominently before
\,
GY///VAST/C OR AA/VS/CAM, CUL 2 URAE. I43
the mind, Plato's, at first sight, somewhat peculiar
treatment of “gymnastic * will be understood. The ,
first is that gymnastic has only a relative value, and
the second that all training, through music or through
gymnastic or #. media, is to fit a man
to do his special Work in...the republic to the very)
best purpose, and should make him feel that the
welfare of the republic should be his highest care,
to which all personal claims and desires are to be
sacrificed. Remembering these two principles, we
shall see that the regimen prescribed—a simple,
moderate system—is directed towards the cultivation
of quickness of eye and ear and indifference to
climatic changes, and these are just the physical
qualities desirable in a guardian. We shall under-
stand the condemnation of those excesses which are
the first causes of physical degeneration. Further,
we shall see why within this condemnation the
existence of a large number of physicians (and jurors
in the analogous case of mental disease) is included ;
for it is a standing testimony to an undue exaltation
of the claims of the body. The condemnation of that
“excessive care of the body which extends beyond
gymnastic,” alike in the case of the carpenter and the
rich man, will also appear to us as a necessary outcome
of Plato's view of education, for it is likely to turn
them from the efficient performance of their civic or
philosophic duties. $
7. Plato's Idea of the Place of Gymnastic should lead
to Reflection on our own Efforts in this Respect. Now
that we have some idea of what Plato included under
“gymnastic,” of the important position it occupied
within his system of education, of its use in the
development of character, and of the effects of its

|
I44 EDUCATIO/V /AW PLA 7TO'S REAE UEZ/C.
abuse, we are in a position to consider our own
educational systems in the light of the knowledge
we have gained. And this ought always to be the
method in which any part of the history of education,
or any other branch of history, is studied. We ought
to find warnings as to both what principles to adopt
and what to avoid in the efforts of educational, as of
other, reformers. In the study of history it is most
especially true that comparison should follow close
on the heels of presentation. -
It is necessary, however, to bear two things in mind
when making this comparison. First of all, and most
important of all, it ought to be remem-
bered that, if we find anything in a system
of education remote in time or place from our own
which we think it would be well to adopt, it is the
principle, the spirit, rather than the details, which
will bear transplanting. The details will be the
outcome of a particular time and particular conditions,
as well as of human idiosyncrasy ; the principle will
transcend the limits of time and place. We must
beware of the dangers of imitation. In nothing more
A Warning.
than in education is there a greater danger of trying
to fit a square peg into a round hole. If we adopt
a principle, we must be careful in applying it to
|
allow plenty of “play” for peculiar circumstances.
And, secondly, we must keep differences of aim
in view. Plato sought, first and foremost, the good
of the state. We also want a good citizen, but we
aim at an end, at once wider and narrower—a good
man : wider, because we hold that the duties of a
man come before those of a citizen ; marrower,
because the individual, whose claims we recognise, is
something less than the citizen.
A/E/LO/DY AAVZ) RAF VTHM.
The reader must particularly note that the
translated “harmony” implied something v
different from what we understand by the wo
The idea of a complexity of parts is misleadin
“Key" or “mode,” as in “minor’’ or “maj
mode,” gives some sort of equivalent." Jowett says,
speaking of the exaggerated effect which seems to
be ascribed to music : “The power of a simple and
characteristic melody on the impressionable mind of
the Greek is more than we can appreciate. The
effect of national airs may bear some comparison
with it.” It is not, of course, suggested that a simple
melody would be more moving than an orchestral
Symphony ; but that its very simplicity suggests
the possibility of its being directed to some definite
effect on the mind.
3. The Prescriptions about Music are Explainable from
Plato's Philosophy. Returning now to the question
as to what modes were to be adopted and what
condemned, it is easy for us to see the whole ground
of his choice. The music of peace and the music
of war were intended, as we have seen, to develop
two sides of the character, the philosophic and the
spirited. An equally obvious psychological and
philosophical reason is to be found for the con-
demnation of certain harmonies. The third element
of character, the concupiscent, needed to be suppressed
rather than nurtured. It consisted of the whole com-
plex group of passions and desires which in their
turbulence and disorderliness stood opposed to the
law-directed reason and its ally the spirit. The
* See Bosanquet, “Education of the Young in Plato's Republic,”
p. 92. • ,
* “The Republic of Plato,” p, liv.



FDUCATION /AW ANZATO'S REAEP UBZ/C.
thesis between the one and the many, the stable
the unstable, appears again. And those modes
harmonies, like the Lydian and the Ionian, which
the flame of the passions and weakened the sway
reason, we are by this time prepared to see con-
emned. “The instrument that has many strings
and serves for many harmonies’ we also expect to
be discarded, for we are reminded of the objection
to the infinite number of transitions which dramatic
poetry employs. A philosophic principle that only
the permanent things are of worth, and the particular
case of this to which psychology leads, that stable
reason is to be cultivated and the unstable passions
suppressed—these are behind all Plato's prescriptions.
4. The Treatment of Rhythm. What is said of
rhythm is essentially the same as what is said of
harmony. It is assumed that there are “natural
rhythms of a well-regulated and manly life,” and
these are to be sought and adopted. It is laid down
that “we must not aim at a variety of them or
study all movements indiscriminately.” There is
more hesitation, however, in prescribing specific
rhythms for specific purposes than was noticeable
in the case of harmony. Still, in the reference to
Damon it is taken for granted that different rhythms
can be classed as right and wrong, or desirable and
undesirable, in a distinct moral sense, though the
whole account is in a more tentative strain than the
discussion on the various harmonies.
We shall perhaps come nearer to an appreciation
Why the of the importance which Plato attached
Question is to this question of rhythm—an import-
* ance which astonishes us at first even
re than that ascribed to harmony—if we bear one










CHAPTER VIII.
GYMNASTIC OR PHYSICAL CULTURE-(continued)
(Book III. 4036–412 c.)
1. Physical Culture is, with us, Largely Unorganised.
Being thus forewarned, we may take advantage of the
luminous point of view which we now occupy, and from
it look upon our own efforts, or rather absence of organ-
ised effort, at physical culture. And one of the first
conclusions from such a survey will be the very much
lower degree of importance which we, as compared
with Plato, appear to attach to bodily training. Of
his scheme we might say, if a quantitative estimate
is possible, that it occupies one-half; at any rate,
it stands on an equal footing with music as an instru-
ment in the development of character. It receives
at his hands an equally formal and systematic treat-
ment. -
With us, until latterly, any form of bodily training
was thought to lie outside education proper. It was,
and is still to a very large extent, regarded as entirely
recreative. That it is a condition of health, and this
latter a condition of mental progress, is, of course,
recognised. Further, games are encouraged, as some
would say to an abnormal and even demoralising
extent, because they do seem to nurture and develop
those qualities of character which go to make up
I45 10
I46 EDUCATION VAW P/ATO'S REPUBLIC.
true manliness. Still, gymnastic, to use the term
in Plato's wide sense, has, until very recently, received
no official recognition. It has not been directly
controlled and introduced among prescribed curricula.
Though it would be generally recognised that physical
excellence is a part of, or is conducive to, that general
all-round excellence which all would accept as the
main end of education ; though it would be generally
granted to Plato that “the behaviour of each in his
[bodily] exercises is one of the tests of character, and
a very important one too”; yet no care has been
taken to elaborate a system of such exercises, or
even to insist on their inclusion within a scheme
of training.
Take our national system of elementary education
as an example. It is only latterly that some attention
to physical development, either of the body as a
whole through drill or of the special senses through
fitting occupations, has been demanded; and even
now it occupies but a very small part of the daily
routine. The teaching of the greatest educationists
on this matter has not met with much more than a
passive acquiescence with us. Setting Plato aside,
the enthusiasm of Froebel, the eloquence of Rousseau,
and the logic of Spencer, are but very slowly in-
fluencing practice.
Two reasons may be suggested for this. The first
is a wrong view of the end of education. It has
Possible been thought more important that children
Reasons for should gain a smattering of knowledge
This. than that there should be built up within
them the elements of a wholesome character. The
second is a certain inertia in the English temperament
which makes it sceptical of, and even averse from,
GVMNASTIC OR PAVSICAL CULTURE. 147
anything which has not the sanction of tradition.
Contented to paddle in the shallows of experience,
we have rarely ventured to plunge into the deep of
first principles.
2. Are there Psychological Grounds which justify
Physical Culture as a Part of the Training of Character 2
It might, however, be objected that there are no
well-established first principles from which the effect
of physical training on character could be rigidly
inferred. Plato's psychology, with its three elements
which are to be kept in due relation in the perfect
man, might be declared fanciful, and his application
of it the dream of a theorist. Nor, it might be
said, have the results of modern psychological
enquiry shown conclusively that by hardening the
frame and making the sense-organs responsive and
exact, you are refining or in any way improving the
character. The character of a red Indian is scarcely
an ideal type, yet he has developed the physical
excellences to an extraordinary extent. Unless it
can be shown that these do affect the character for
good, the plea for general physical training is un-
justifiable. For, with Plato, the end justified the
means. It is easy to see why he thought so much
of a gymnastic which was to make the guardian
capable of subsisting on the barest of necessaries,
superior to extremes of heat and cold, and acutely
sensitive of eye and ear. But why adopt such a
system generally, not only for those who need
this physical development for their business in life,
but for all P Of what advantage, apart from health,
is it to, say, the clerk or the barrister P
| Such objections as these are raised and must be
met, if the claims of “gymnastic” to an influence over
148 A. DUCA TVOAV ZAV A/LA 7'O'S REAE UPAL/C.
character are to be substantiated. In our brief en-
deavour to meet them it will be convenient to consider,
first, the bearing of a healthy mode of living—of
simplicity of diet and wholesome exercise—upon
the inner life ; and, secondly, the effect on that
life of “sense *-training as it is commonly and, as
we shall see, erroneously, or at least imperfectly,
named.
The first point need not detain us long. The
direct connection of bodily condition with tempera-
The connec. ment is a truth of such wide acceptance
;..." and of such general remark that it has
With been given a safe keeping in the store-
.* house of our vocabulary. It has been
Established, perpetuated in the terms which imply
differences of temperament : melancholic, sanguine,
choleric, phlegmatic. Science gives its support to the
general principle underlying these, perhaps, over-bold
assumptions. Sudden changes of temperament, which
in their more striking and abnormal forms involve a
complete alteration of personality, and fall within the
pathetically-interesting cases of insanity, are ascribed
by medical men, in part at least, to changes of
physical condition. They range from hourly changes
of mood, through the more striking developments
of character incident to critical periods of life such
as the approach of adolescence, to those complete
alterations of temperament, when deep moroseness
is followed by wild gaiety, or when kindliness and
sympathy give place to homicidal mania, and which
are the signs of grave mental disease. But whatever
their degree, they are said to be in causal relation
with bodily derangement.
A slightly different aspect of the same truth is
G VMAVASTIC OR PATVSYCA/C CULTURE. I49
afforded us in the conclusion, in which all psycho-
logists concur, that the complexus of bodily sensation
And with the "" we call the vital, feeling is the
conscious stable basis of the consciousness of self.
*** It is on this that the permanent interests,
the hopes and ideals, which make up our individuality,
are built. It is analogous to the quality of im-
penetrability in material things. It gives “body’ to
the character. This consciousness of embodied exist-
ence gives reality to all the more ideal elements of
character—the virtues and ideals we strive for—just
as solidity makes the size and form of objects possible.
Again, this vital feeling exercises a powerful
influence over the general trend of our thoughts and
And with the feelings. It is to the predominant feeling-
i.: tone of the complex of sensations having
116SS their origin in the organs of the body that
*Y. our prevalent moods are to be ascribed.
We are exalted or depressed according as vital
processes are free or restricted. And it is a matter
of common knowledge that the ideas which cross the
threshold of consciousness are such as fit with and
feed its predominant tone. Every one knows how
in our fits of gloominess the door is closed to light-
bringing ideas, while more sombre subjects will pass
and repass through the chambers of the mind. So
in our times of elation, when we are full of the joy
of living, we can trace stage after stage of an imagined
progress towards the goal of our desire. The pre-
valent mood is a powerful rival of association of
ideas in directing the current of consciousness, and it
is largely, most psychologists would say entirely, the
resultant feeling-tone of the organic sensations.
These theoretical conclusions point in no uncertain
I 50 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC
manner to the practical need for a simple, moderate
system of living which will keep the body in health
and for a course of training which will husband and
develop its powers. And not for health and vigour
alone, or even primarily. If mood and temperament,
the contents of consciousness, the very sense of
personality, owe so much to the body, we can see
that “a simple and moderate system of gymnastic *
is a demand of the higher inward life which the
conscientious educator cannot overlook. A clean
tongue, tense muscles, and full vitality are more
than symptoms of animal vigour; they are the strong
allies of high endeavour.
We have now to go on to consider whether the
sharpening of the organs of sense, as well as
Is “sense". the promoting of general healthfulness,
jº" can be justified on grounds of principle
training? in a system which aims first at the
perfecting of character. There was an obvious
practical reason for making Plato's warriors quick of
eye and ear; but the question for us is whether,
practical pursuits apart, the development of the senses
is so necessary to the development of the whole
mental life and character as to make its omission
from any scheme of education a grave error. It is
necessary to see clearly what is included in this
question. To think of it as “manual” training or as
“hand-and-eye’ training is to unduly and undesirably
narrow the issue. Thomas Hardy speaks somewhere
of the countryman’s power to recognise trees in the
dark by the characteristic sounds which they give
out when their leaves are shaken by the breeze. It
is this attitude of alertness to all sensational stimuli,
to the multitudinous variety of sights, sounds, touches,
GPMWASTIC OR PHYSICAL CULTURE. I51
smells, and even tastes, which is in question, as well
as the manual and visual dexterities.
General reasons for an affirmative reply are readily
forthcoming. The unity of mind is a commonplace
The Unity of of modern psychology. It is one and the
Mind enables same power, which now knows through
.." the medium of sense and now through
Reply of a the relations which conception can grasp ;
General Kind. ge º
now experiences a thrill from the beauty
of a flower, and now clings with warmth to the
thought of some high ideal; now turns impulsively
to a single task, and now resolutely embarks on
a long-drawn-out effort which is to bring many con-
Verging means to the focus of a distant end. And
the unity of mind means, further, that there is no
line of separation between its “higher ” and “lower”
activities. Kant has taught us that there is no per-
ception without conception, and no conception without
perception ; and the same connectedness is discernible
in the life of feeling and in the activity of will. In
the sense-feeling there is the germ of the “subtler”
emotions, and resolution, choice, and control are all
present in the earliest voluntary movements.
So it comes about that in training the eye to
distinguish the colours of the sunset you are bracing
the intellect which may afterwards hold apart the great
world-forces; that in awakening the ear to the beauty
of Sound you are preparing the mind for the apprecia-
tion of Seemliness in conduct; that in encouraging
accuracy in the drawing of an angle you are fostering
respect for the weightier matters of the law.
It will be well, however, not to let our vindication
of “sense ’’-training stop short at a general statement
of the unity of mind. We may profitably go a step
I 52 EDUCATIO/W IAV PZATO'S REAE UB/./C.
farther and show how each of the three sides of mind
—the cognitive, the affective, and the volitional—is
affected.
Taking them in the order named, we may consider
what is involved in the accurate observation of the
“sense”- shape of a leaf, accompanied possibly
::::::::. by the reproduction of it in drawing
POWers. or model. A moment's reflection will
convince us that there is much more here than
control over a well-trained organ of sense. In
the discrimination of form there is, first of all,
abstraction from everything else which is irrelevant
and concentration upon this quality alone. From
amongst all the sensations which are arising by
way of the eye, this one must be selected and held
apart ; and from amongst all the movements which
the practised hand can make, that one must be
selected and approved which reproduces in accurate
outline the original. But note that it is the mind
on its cognitive side which is the master in these
operations; the hand and eye are but obedient, though
expert, servants. And it is in the precision and
concentration of the cognitive powers that these opera-
tions demand that their first great educative value
lies. In this respect training of the mind through
perception is very similar to the discipline which
mathematics affords. The solving of a mathematical
problem starts from the isolation of, and concentra-
tion upon, what is relevant, and demands the same
mental capabilities as are a first condition of
accurate perception.
But accurate perception is not merely complete
isolation of the quality or object under observation.
It involves at least implicit comparison. To note
G. VMAWAS 7/C OR PAYS/CA/L CULTURE. I 53
a colour accurately there must be a colour-scheme in
the background of consciousness within which the one
Second in the focus could be placed. And, in close
Comparison, observation, the near or remote members,
or both, are apt to be brought into the forefront of
consciousness to aid the identification ; implicit
comparison becomes explicit. The enthusiastic
botanist, after calling your attention to the colour
or form of a flower, rarely fails to tell you of others
which it is like or with which it is in contrast. In
the trained observer isolation is followed by relation ;
analysis by synthesis.
In “sense "-training, then, a wholesome discipline
of the functions which subserve cognition in all its
These are forms is provided. While you are training
Essential to the eye to take in all the details of a scene,
* you are bracing the intellect for the problems
which life and things will bring to it for solution.
And this is clearly a perfecting of character, for it
is a development of that side and of those powers
on the efficiency of which all activity will depend.
It is a mistake to think of character as exclusively
the expression of the volitional side. Of course a
man is what he is largely through the acts of his
choice ; but these follow, it is to be remembered,
frequently upon deliberation, especially when they
are critical ; and deliberation is largely an intellectual
affair. The first great ethical writers of Greece
grasped much of the whole truth when they saw
that virtue is knowledge. If we could clearly discern
the motives and consequences of acts ; if we were
accustomed to look at these in the light of ethical
criteria, the first, and perhaps the most difficult,
steps on the road to virtue would have been taken.
I54 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUB/./C.
After all, however, it is not in the perfecting of
particular powers that the greatest value of careful
The Best training in perception lies. This is to be
Result is the found in the outward, objective attitude
Objective * , sº & &
Attitude of mind which it brings and makes
*...". habitual. The keen observer, be it of
training men or of things, forgets the self which,
Brings. when brooded over with an eye ever
turned inward, bears a perennial crop of petty hopes
and groundless fears. It does not much matter what
we look at or what we listen to—setting evil aside,
of course—so long as it is not ourselves. It is not
by chance that the geologist and the farmer, the
engineer and the amateur gardener, are usually such
good fellows to live with.
If we turn to the affective side of mind we can
see equally strong reasons for developing that
“sense”. “utmost quickness of eye and ear” which
j Plato demanded of his warriors. With a
Side of Mind. view to the refinement of taste, we want
to impregnate our pupils with some of that warm
aesthetic feeling which characterises the attitude of
the artist and the poet towards the world of nature.
The point of attachment of that feeling, the centre
round which it forms a halo, is usually a sensational
process in consciousness which for the artist has kept
some of its first freshness. We can most of us re-
member the intensity of the sensations of childhood :
how yellow was the buttercup, how full the tone
of the clock in the tower ; and we also know how,
for most of us, the years bring it about that our
perceptions become so completely a matter of the
accumulated effects of past mental process, that the
sensational element from which they start is com-
G. VMAVAS 77C OR PA/VS/CA/L CULTURAE. I 55
pletely swamped. Where the painter sees ten colours,
we see one, and that probably wrong ; where he sees
wondrous symmetry in the lines of a wayside leaf,
we look but do not see. The cadence in the sounds
of the sea, the notes in the songs of birds, the
modulations of the human voice—these are for the
trained ear only, and they make up a grievous
total of aesthetic loss for the untrained. The
melody of diction, again, which is a considerable
part of the charm of good literature, is not for
the unsensitive ear; while music itself furnishes an
obvious case.
Now, we cannot afford to diminish the stock of
material which is of aesthetic value by a sort of
atrophy of our sensational selves. We ought not
to quietly submit to the loss of so much of the
fulness of life. Our aesthetic side has its needs,
and if these are not satisfied, in part at any rate,
from the sources on which the artist and the poet
of nature draw, then they will be fed from some
of lesser worth. Hence the justification for drawing
(if associated with observation of objects), colour-work,
music, and such like in the school. Not only in
special subjects, but from moment to moment the
same end is to be sought. For example, it is curious
and not very satisfactory to note how many teachers
fail to notice the harsh, unnatural tone in which their
pupils speak and read, and to realise that this is
but a faithful reproduction of their own carelessness
in this respect." It is a great pity that the limits
to the range of effective attention make it almost
impossible for us to at once talk and listen to
ourselves.
* Cf. Burrell in “Clear Speaking and Good Reading.”
156 A. WDUCATION WAV P/LA 7TO'S REPUB//C,
When we come to consider, thirdly, the effect
of “sense”-training on the volitional side of mind,
sense”. We have to notice, first, that the bracing
* of the cognitive powers and the enrich-
voitionai' ment and refinement of the life of
side of Mind feeling, both of which results such a
training can bring about, are, indirectly, effects
on volition. For the will may be regarded as the
whole mind on its active side ; and while to cognition
it owes the direction of its activity, from the feelings
it gets motive power. If we compare the mind in
action to a ship in motion we may, to our enlighten-
ment, think of cognition as setting the sails and
holding the rudder, and of feeling as the force
of the wind. And the metaphor will help us the
more fully to realise how both cognition and feeling
will play their part in bringing the ship of character
to the port of virtue. We have already referred
to the work of cognition in accepting the truth of
the principle that virtue is, in part, knowledge.
Respecting feeling we have noted how Plato iden-
tified aesthetical and moral training, since it was a
central idea of his philosophy that beauty in nature
or art is but the outward and visible sign of good-
mess. Wordsworth has expressed a similar thought
in the passage :
Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her."
Such ideas a prosaic age sweeps aside as mythological,
though the truth may more probably be that they
convey a meaning too dazzling for our dull vision.
But even those who cry aloud for what they call
“Tintern Abbey.”
G VM/VASTIC OR PATVS/CA/L CULTURE. I 57
facts will admit that the moral sentiment is complex
enough to include the aesthetic sentiment as an aspect
of it.
In the training of the perceptive powers and
Organs there is that more direct effect on the
It cultivates character through which its permanent
Special tendencies, of virtue or of vice, are nurtured.
Virtues. Of course, other, in fact all, forms of
activity, beside the activity of sense, may discipline
the character to perseverance, resolution, courage, and
all those moral excellences which make up what
are called the self-regarding virtues. The arithmetic-
lesson can do this as well as the drawing-lesson. But
there are desirable qualities of character which those
lessons aiming at co-ordination of hand and eye—
not very happily referred to as providing “manual ‘’
training—are peculiarly fitted to develop. There
is truthfulness, for example. The habit of accuracy
which these lessons demand is a part, and an im-
portant part, of truthfulness, for truth-speaking is
as much an unconscious habit as the conscious
realisation of an ideal. Roger Ascham tells us
that “it was one of the three excellent praises amongst
the noble gentlemen of the old Persians always to
say truth, to ride fair, and shoot well.” He might
have gone on to assert that the third of these “praises”
was somewhat of a guarantee for the first.
Perhaps the highest educational value of manual
work lies in this, that it calls for adaptation of
means to end and for inhibition of impulse away
from the end ; and this with a persuasive power
over the majority of children which no other exercise
seems to exert. And it is just in this adaptation
* “The Schoolmaster,” p. 36 (Cassell's Edition).
I 58 EDUCATIO/W WAV PLATO'S READ UAE LIC.
and inhibition that will consists. The germs of
resolution and control over impulse, which are the
It nurtures signs of mature will, or rather which are
i..." the will, are to be found here. Mr.
Effort, of Felix Adler has strongly urged the
...,n, claims of manual work as a medium for
to one End, strengthening the will-power of criminal
and delinquent children. As every delinquency, petty
or extreme, is the victory of impulse over reason,
the disappearance of will in wilfulness, we may, con-
veniently with our present aim, conclude this dis-
cussion of “manual" training with a quotation from
this writer. Taking the making of a box as an
example, he says: “The variety of Occupations which
enter into the making of the box constantly refreshes
the interest after it has once been started. The wood
must be sawed into line. The boards must be care-
fully planed and smoothed. The joints must be
accurately worked out and fitted. The lid must be
attached with hinges. The box must be painted or
varnished. Here is a sequence of means leading to an
end, a series of operations all pointing to a final object
to be gained, to be created. Again, each of these
means becomes in turn and for the time being a
secondary end ; and the pupil thus learns in an
elementary way the lesson of Subordinating minor
ends to a major end. . . . The child that has once
acquired, in connection with the making of a box,
the habits just described, has begun to master the
secret of a strong will, and will be able to apply
the same habits in other directions and 2n other
occasions.” "
4. Instances of too much Gymnastic. We are thus
“Moral Instruction of Children,” pp. 263, 264.
G. VMAWASTIC OR /2H/VS/CAM, CULTURE. I 59
compelled to admit that there are fundamental
reasons, of both a psychological and an ethical nature,
which may be urged in favour both of a general
discipline of the body through diet and exercise, and
of special training aimed at increasing its sensitivity ;
and we must regret, on grounds of principle, that
the value of a regulated and organised system of
physical culture as a part of the training of character
is being so slowly recognised. At the same time,
there is every reason to think that, outside the limits
of overseered education, so to call it, there is to be
found “that excessive care of the body which extends
beyond gymnastic,” the evil effects of which on the
character Plato so clearly foresaw. To quote the late
Mr. Nettleship : “Our public schools and universities
have no lack of the sleepy and brutalised athlete
who has not an idea of doing anything except by
force, whose preceptions are cloyed and dull, whose
life moves without grace or rhythm, and who prob-
ably could not serve on a campaign or geographical
expedition. Nor is the well-to-do Valetudinarian an
unfamiliar creature among us, the man who suffers
torments if he depart at all from his accustomed diet
and is always in labour about his body.” It is very
instructive to observe how in these two cases we
have the positive and negative effects on character
which flow from the exaltation of the body into an
end in itself. In the “brutalised athlete ’’ we see
the spirited element as the active ally of the con-
cupiscent element ; while the valetudinarian is a
pitiful exemplification of the way in which the higher
interests which take their rise in the philosophic
principle can “wither with drought.”
To this latter point the irony of Charles Lamb is
I6o A2ZD UCA 7TWOAV ZAV AZA 7TO'S ACA2A2 OAPAC.
very pertinent. “How sickness enlarges the dimen-
sions of a man’s self to himself he is his own
exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated
upon him as his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of
the law to him. . . . He has put on the strong
armour of sickness, he is wrapped in the callous hide
of suffering ; he keeps his sympathy, like some
curious vintage under trusty lock and key, for his
own use only. He lies pitying himself, honing and
moaning to himself; he yearneth over himself; his
bowels are even melted within him, to think what
he suffers ; he is not ashamed to weep over himself.
He is for ever plotting how to do some good
to himself.””
To return to athleticism, every one has some experi-
ence of the temporary atrophy of the philosophic
spirit, owing to a too exclusive regard
:*. . the claims of the body. The effect
* of being an animal, as we say, during a
long holiday is well known. Literary pursuits seem
distasteful and impossible at first.” The field-labourer,
too, supplies a good instance. His face, while it is
a curious complex reflex of the freshness of the
morning and the stolidity of the cow, gives no
indication of the vitality of reason within him. How
different is a healthy, vigorous frame when the spirit
of a lofty purpose shines through it ! A keen, active
intellect in an enfeebled frame commands our admira-
tion as a triumph against odds, but body without
mind is offensively incongruous.
And so, on the ground of a necessity for con-
“Essays of Elia’’: The Convalescent, pp. 247, 248 (Mac-
millan's Edition).
* Cf. Spencer's “Education,” p. 163.
`- º-
G VM/VASTIC OR PAYSICA/L CULTURE. 16I
tinuously harmonious development, for continuous
attention to what might be roughly described as the
physical and mental factors in character, we should
hesitate to follow Plato in devoting two and a half
years," or even a small fraction of this period, en-
tirely to physical training. “Weariness and sleep
are enemies to study,” so much so, indeed, that if
through continuous physical exertion they held the
dominion for so long a period, it is doubtful whether
the power to study would survive. The effect on
the labourer of the grinding round of physical toil is
pathetically corroborative of this conclusion. Dull
of sense, given to violence, finding the only literary
food he can assimilate in the scraps from the columns
of an evening paper, he affords a pitiful proof of the
evils of that one-sided education which the modern
conditions of life so mercilessly prescribe for the
majority.
All this does not, of course, tell against the value
of games and athletics generally when they are not
allowed to go beyond due limits. The qualities of
character which they can bring out need no enumera-
tion. We might, however, do well to consider
whether the consequences of their neglect through
too close a pursuit of what Plato calls “music” are
noticeable among us.
2 5. The Effects of too much “Music.” We have
seen what these consequences are, according to
Plato. An enfeebled spirit, “quickly kindled and
quickly slaked by trifling causes,” a choleric, irrit-
able, and morose temper—in a word, a character
of altogether too subjective a turn. We should agree
that this is an accurate description of the weaknesses
! See VII, 537 b.
11
I62 AºA) UCA 7TWOAV ZAV AZA 7 O'S REAE UB LIC.
of the sensitive, artistic temperament, and, as we
have noticed, Plato takes the example of one who
“suffers his soul to be flooded through the funnel
of his ears with those soft and plaintive harmonies”
to illustrate this form of one-sided development.
But we may go farther and say that absorption in
any subject of study, be it art or science, has its
danger. It may bring intolerance of others’ pursuits ;
it may induce “a certain blindness in human beings ’’
which makes them impatient as well as unappreciative
of another's point of view." Of course, for the good
of humanity and for the progress of knowledge (which
is the same thing in the end) the genius must use his
peculiar power for all it is worth. We can put up
with intolerance, when it occurs, in a Newton or a
Rant, a Darwin or a Spencer. But for the average
man, and especially for the average schoolmaster, the
sphere of his intellectual activity should not be, so
to say, a water-tight compartment. The schoolmaster,
at any rate, must be a student, but he must always
be something more.
6. The Teacher and the Qualifications of the Doctor.
As a last suggestive thought, of which this division
of Plato's system has so many, we may take the
qualifications of the doctor and the juror. Concerning
the former it might be said that surely there is
little to be gathered which can guide the teacher.
Of details, this is true. The idea, for example, that
the doctor should have “had personal experience
of every kind of malady” is remote enough from the
question of the training of the teacher, except,
perhaps, that it suggests the need for sympathy
* See a fine essay on “A certain blindness in human beings" in
James's “Talks with Teachers.”
GKMAVASTIC OR PHYSICAL CULTURE. 163
with ailment or deformity. Yet from the principle of
this training of the doctor the teacher may gather
something, for he must come to be alert not only
to the symptoms of disease, but to the bodily signs
through which mental activity and brain activity,
normal and abnormal, are indicated. For example,
it is a necessary part of the equipment of one who
is to have the care of children that he should be
able to distinguish between the free, spontaneous
movements which are the sign of healthy activity,
and the irregular, uncontrolled movements which
tell of defective brain-action, whether due to per-
manent defect or temporary fatigue; he must be
able to interpret posture of all or part of the body
in general brain-terms ; he must be able to follow
the bodily signs which constitute emotional “ex-
pression,” or else, as is more probable, are themselves
the cause of emotion.
7. The Teacher and the Qualifications of the Juror. .
The attitude of a juror is one which the teacher is
called upon even more frequently to adopt ; and the
qualifications which Plato looked for in the good juror
are qualifications which he will need. Plato's juror
was “from his early youth to have been free from
all experience and taint of evil habits.” Yet a
knowledge of evil was necessary for him. It was
to be gained, however, from observation of it in
others, not from experience gained through personal
participation in evil practices ; and this, because,
vicious habits make a man incapable of recognising
good in another. The debased mind is always
suspicious of others, and cannot understand a healthy
character. But the healthy character, when mature,
can discriminate between good and evil through the
I64 FDUCATION IN P/ATO'S REAE UBZIC.
standard of rightness and goodness which the purity
of its own life has not debased, and which has become
clearer with the development of intellect and the
extension of experience. In the striking words of
Plato, “Vice can never know both itself and virtue ;
but virtue, in a well-instructed nature, will in time
acquire a knowledge at once of itself and of vice.”
The pertinence of this to the making of the teacher
is very obvious. Two points stand out clear. First,
the need of a mind not only free from the taint of
vice but rich in virtuous quality. The more pressing
danger of a miscarriage of justice within the school-
room arises rather from the dwarfed and stunted
character than from one positively vicious, for the
former is a commoner type and would be less seriously
regarded. “Your smart and suspicious journeyman’
who “fancies himself knowing and clever,” and yet
who frequently “shows himself to be no better than
a fool, with his mistimed suspicions,” is a description
which, unfortunately, fits many of our teachers. The
judgments of suchlike are usually wrong, for the
impulses of the average boy are generally sound
enough. But the mischief does not end here. Like
breeds like ; suspicion breeds deception. Dr. Arnold’s
influence is an instance of the same law working
for good. One of his pupils said it was impossible
to lie to him because he believed you so thoroughly.
But, secondly, purity of character is not of itself
a sufficient guarantee that justice will prevail in
the miniature state of the school. There are some
whom even the strong influence of a noble nature
cannot reach. The schoolmaster must be the quick
detective of evil “from long practice in discerning
its baneful nature.” His own life of virtuous en-
GVMAVASTIC OR PATVS/CA/C CULTURE. I65
deavour must not blind him to the fact many have
to learn to live it through the stern discipline of
punishment. But this instrument must be in the
hands of a “well-instructed nature,” instructed
through the fulness of years and experience ; it should
never be wielded by a young and immature teacher.
CHAPTER IX.
EDUCATION A FIRST CONI)ITION OF THE WELFARE
OF THE STATE.
(Book III., 412 b–IV., 427 c.)
1. Analysis. Now that the outlines of the system
of education have been decided upon, the next
question is the selection of the rulers. These must
be of mature age, capable, and notoriously zealous
for the interests of the state. Moreover, they must
have proved, through the failure of all seducing forces,
that these interests are all-powerful with them. The
good of the state is an end which they must never
have made subordinate to one less worthy, even
inadvertently and against their will, for only thus
involuntarily will a man be deprived of an idea which
he knows to be good. Time or persuasion may rob
him of the ideal when he is unwary ; pain may
constrain him to abandon it in spite of his better
} self; pleasure may allure him from it with enchant-
ments he cannot resist. But with him who is to
be a ruler the interest of the state must be an idea
with a constraining power which is stronger than
them all, so that he must be tried by the severest
of tests. Time and deception, pleasure and pain—
<these must all be brought to bear against him. Those
I66
EDUCATION AWD SOCIAL WELFARE. 167
alone who survive these tests, proving themselves
on all occasions true to the principles which are
revealed to them in music, ever promoting the general
welfare, with which their own is bound up—these
shall be the guardians of the city, to whom belong
|
the highest honours and privileges. These shall be,
called Guardians, and their less worthy fellows,
Auxiliaries.
How can we make sure that the citizens will
submit to these arrangements of ours ? We seem to
be justified in concocting a fiction about them. We
may try to make men believe that the divisions of
}
rank we propose are of divine origin, are ordained
of God. The fiction may fail. Nevertheless, we shall
try to make the rulers, the warriors, and the whole
body of artisans and cultivators of the soil, believe
that while they fancied they were being educated,
they were really being formed in the earth, their
mother ; and that they ought to care for the earth
whence they sprang, and to feel a brotherly affection
towards their fellow-citizens. We shall add that the
division of the members of the state into guardians;
or rulers, auxiliaries, and artisans is the work of God,'.
who in creating these mixed in their natures gold,
silver, and iron or copper respectively. It does not
follow, however, that a golden parent may not produce
a silver child, and so on ; and it will be the business
of the rulers to watch over offspring, and see that
they are put into the class for which their nature
fits them. Such a fiction might in course of time
come to be believed. ~~~
Whether this idea is practicable or not we need
not stop now to consider. These guardians must
pitch their camp where dangers both from within
I68 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
and from without may best be met. They must not
aspire to luxurious dwelling-places. They must live
in accordance with their character as guardians, and
nothing must be done which shall change into wolves
and tyrants those whose duty it is to use their power
for the purposes of protection. Education should
secure this. But it will be wise to see that their
circumstances are arranged so as to be in keeping
with their function. Thus they must possess neither
property nor money more than their needs require,
We shall tell them that they must not pollute with
earthly ore the gold which they have by nature from
God. Then will they be the true saviours of the
city; whereas the possession of land, houses, and
money will bring them into enmity with those whom
they ought to protect.
It may, however, be objected that in our scheme
no provision is made for the happiness of this class.
None of the pleasures which wealth can bring will
be theirs. Though the most powerful class, they will
be as mercenaries. Nay, more ; the power even to
make a journey or gratify other ordinary desires will
be denied them. How can this objection be met P
In this way. Our aim is to construct a state in
which justice may be found. We shall do this by
aiming at the happiness of the whole, not at the
happiness of any particular class, though this will
probably follow from the happiness of the whole. In
the painting of a picture, the artist should aim at the
beauty of the whole rather than at the beauty of any
'special part ; otherwise this part will no longer occupy
its proper place within the whole. So our guardian
must be a guardian, our cultivator a cultivator, if we
are to have that perfect whole of which an ideal state
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL WELFARE. 169
consists. Providing for their pleasures might, nay,
would, endanger their proper view of their function.
Our object, then, should be, not to consider whether
any particular class is happy, but whether the state
as a whole is so ; and, by seeing that each class
performs its task to the best advantage of the whole
body, to secure to them such a measure of happiness
as properly falls to their lot. --- ‘ſ
The condition of our guardians, then, must be a
mean between wealth and want. So of artisans, for
wealth will make them careless of their trade and
poverty must bring inferior workmanship. The
guardians must see to it that neither condition
prevails.
Lack of wealth need not be a cause of alarm if the
city has to go to war. For, in the first place, against
the advantage which wealth may give to the opponent
we shall be able to set the training of our soldiers.
Again, we shall not want allies when it is known
that we desire no share of the spoils of war. Nor
will the accumulation of these spoils in another state
be a source of danger, for with the introduction of
wealth come internal divisions, the rich striving
against the poor. Unity is the source of abiding
strength; and this being given, there need be no
fear of cities which, though much more populous, are
divided into factions. This also decides the question
of the limit beyond which the city must not expand.
The actual size matters not, so long as it is one. The
guardians must see to it that this unity is preserved,
and they will best do it by assigning to each in-
dividual the work for which his native ability fits him.
These matters and others, such as the relations
between the sexes, will not press heavily upon the
17o EDUCATIO/W WAV P/LATO'S REPUBLIC.
guardians if they look to that first condition of social
welfare—education and rearing. Men made reason-
able through a good system of education will recognise
the need for them. So also progress will be secured.
The effects of good training will be cumulative, and
the citizens will ever grow better and better.
In education, then, the rulers must recognise their
guard-house. They must especially beware of any
innovation in the system. This generally finds a first
lodging in song, where it seems harmless. But it is
the germ of lawlessness, which, first getting a hold
on the manners of the people, spreads gradually over
the more serious relations of life, until at last it
brings decay and death to the institutions which are
vital to the very existence of the state. If, on the
contrary, music shall ever inspire the spirit of loyalty,
this will not only preserve what is good but originate
it. Legislation concerning such things as dress and
the attentions due to the old from the young will be
needless. Education will bring a man to see what
is fitting in these respects. Nor will regulations for
the conduct of affairs in the market, the law-courts,
and the custom-house be needed. Good and cultivated
men will need no direction in such matters.
But unless the foundations of loyalty are laid in a
good education, all these things will be continually
calling for the legislator's interference. The condition
of the state will then resemble that of a man who
is for ever seeking a remedy for his bad health,
while at the same time he continues in the pernicious
mode of life which is the cause of it. Wrong at
bottom, its foundations rotten, such a state will need
continuous tinkering. Yet its members will resist
drastic changes, and will welcome one who, while
FDUCATIO/V A/VD SOC/A/L WAE/LFARE. I7 I
pandering to them, can slur over its weaknesses.
Such a one, blinded by the applause he receives,
thinks himself a statesman ; and naturally, seeing
that there is no way in which his error may be
brought home to him. It is impossible to make such
people see that to try to root out evils in such a
state is as hopeless as trying to cut off the heads
of a hydra which grow again as fast as they are
removed. “Minute regulations are superfluous in
good states, and useless in bad ones.””
And here our work as legislators ceases. In
religious matters—sacrifices to gods and offerings to
the dead—we shall follow our national tradition and
trust to Apollo, whose seat is at the centre of the
earth.
2. The End of Education is the Welfare of the State,
This section sets education in a new light, or rather,
we might perhaps say, it brings to a focus what was
before scattered. The idea of education as a first
condition of social welfare, as a fundamental factor
of the health and stability of the state, has certainly
been present throughout, but it has remained more or
less in the background. It has been implicitly
assumed without being explicitly referred to. While
attention was fixed on the details of the system, on
music and gymnastic and the immediate ends o
these, the ultimate aim of it all naturally fell some-
what out of view. Here it is made clear enough.
Education is at once the foundation and the corner-
stone of the state, the prime source of its º
tº
$
y
*
* }
º tº $ tº & e & e sº § {
and the main condition of its security. Without it}}
the construction of a new state is as impossible asſ;
A
* Jowett, “Republic,” p. lviii.
the reform of an old one is useless. ~"
|
I
I72 EZ) UCAZYON IN PZATO'S REPUBLIC.
SQ
__2
|
It is this idea of the effect of education on the
vitality of a whole community which makes the study
of Plato's system so stimulative. It may be that
there are objections to the view which takes the
good of a whole body politic as the end at which
education should aim. We shall have to take note
of them. But there are greater objections to the
commoner practice of limiting the consideration of
educational questions so that the view does not extend
beyond the school or the university. The study of
such a system as Plato's will correct the narrowness
and shortsightedness which springs up alongside such
a view. It will arouse in the teacher an idea of
the breadth and meaning of his work, and deepen
the sense of his responsibilities.
3. It must develop in the Guardian the Idea of the
State as the Supreme End. Let us first consider the
place of education in the making of a perfect guardian.
We shall thus see to what extent we are justified in
saying that Plato looked upon it as the corner-stone
of his republic.
The whole life of him who would be a guardian of
the republic must be dedicated to its service. How
can such devotion be realised ? Evidently education
cannot originate it. Its source will be found in those
social and altruistic feelings which are from the first
strong in some men. There are some for whom the
A conflict of egoistic with altruistic impulses rarely arises.
). They find their own in others’ interests. These are
to be sought out, and education must nurture their
social instinct. The task will be hard. The germ
must be tended and developed till, in its full maturity,
the good of the state becomes an ideal which is at once
the supreme end and the strongest motive of every
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL WEZFARE. 173
act. Music must inform the soul so that it unerringly
sees what makes for the state's welfare ; gymnastic
must (serve it so that no stress of pleasure or pain,
present or to come, can turn it from the course. Such
training was essential for the guardian. It was not,
as thus described, complete. All the store of philo-
sophic knowledge, all the discipline which the gaining
of it gave, were needful for the perfect guardian. But
that primary training, through music and gymnastic,
was the first requisite.
The result is that “they show themselves under
all circumstances inaccessible to witchcraft, and seemly
in their bearing, good guardians of themselves and of
the music which they have been taught, approving
themselves on every occasion true to the laws of rhythm
and harmony, and acting in such a way as would
render them most useful to themselves and the state.”"
In another respect, too, education was needful for N.
a guardian. Besides developing in him the idea of |
the good of the state as the Supreme end of conduct
and nurturing in his soul the strength to hold fast to it,
it was to fix a right attitude towards those whom he/
was to govern. Power is always beset with tempta-
tions to oppression. But the perfect and harmonious
nature which a good system of education will alone
ensure is superior to them. Hence the guardians
“must have the right education, whatever it may be,
if they are to have what will be most effectual in
rendering them gentle to one another, and to those
whom they guard.” To bind the elements of a
structure, the corner-stone must dovetail delicately
with them.
We may now go on to see how education is the
! 413 e. ° 416 b.
I74 EDUCATIO/W IN A2 LATO'S REPUBLIC.
foundation of the republic as well as its corner-
stone. t
4. It must develop in Those Who are to be under
Authority the Spirit of Loyalty. Perfect guardians
and perfect laws do not of themselves make a
state strong and healthy. The first must draw help
and the second must gain approval from those
who are to be under authority. It is with the
laws and conditions of a society as with moral laws.
So long as they are merely imposed from without,
they are liable to be evaded or, at best, grudgingly
and ungenerously obeyed. They only become reliable
conditions of security when their justice and utility
are recognised by those whom they bind. Then, sub-
jection means freedom. It may be, nay, it must be,
that their justice and utility cannot be fully appreciated
by the subject. Otherwise, the distinction between ruler
and subject, guardian and auxiliary, would be unneces-
sary. Still, ready assent and warm appreciation must
be forthcoming, though the ground of it be unknown.
It is just this ready acceptance and approval of
justifiable laws which it is the important business
of education to foster and develop in those who are
to be under authority. This is what Plato means
when he speaks of children receiving “loyalty into
their minds through the instrumentality of music.”
This is what he means when he says that “it is here
in music that our guardians should erect their guard-
house.” This is the end of that simplicity in music
and gymnastic which he so strongly insisted on.
Orderliness in these develops a sense of reverence
for law. Only a Señsé perhaps, a feeling without
understanding; yet a surety that for good laws
reverence will be forthcoming. Thus is education to
AADUCATION AND SOCIAL WELFARE, I75
set the foundations right, as it is also to shape the
corner-stone. It must carve the sounding-board as
well as attune the strings.
Plato goes farther than a general statement of
the fact that education nurtures that spirit of loyalty
and reverence which is the strongest safeguard of
the security of the state. He shows us the particular
departments of the social life which it will affect
for good, and points to some of the consequences
of its decay or corruption.
5. Some Particulars of what a Good System of Educa-
tion can Do. To take the good effects first, we learn
that when loyalty is fostered by a good system of
education, excessive and detailed legislation will be
needless. Thus the well-trained youth will need no
guidance from others respecting his attitude towards
his parents and elders. The externals of respect will
issue naturally from the spirit of reverence within.
Neither will he need supervision in the matter of dress
and “personal decoration in general.” Again, since
“the bent given by education will determine all that
follows, . . . all regulations of the market, the police,
the custom-house, and the like ** will be unnecessary.
Weightier matters still such as the transposition
of banks, “the relations between the sexes, marriage,
and the procreation of children,” “need not trouble
the law-maker. “For if by a good education they
be made reasonable men, they will readily see through
all these questions.” Finally, in a remarkable passage
in which some of the most striking results of modern
thought appear to be in a measure grasped, we learn
that education is one of the conditions of progress.
“If a state has once started well, it exhibits a kind
| 425 6.d. * 423 e.
176 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
of circular progress in its growth. Adherence to a
good system of nurture and education creates good
natures, and good natures, receiving the assistance
of a good education, grow still better than they were.”"
6. Some of the Effects of an Evil System. A corre-
sponding series of evils will result from any corruption
of the music which is so powerful a factor in the
development of a spirit of loyalty. At first the
results of innovation are scarcely noticeable. Manners
are looser perhaps, nothing more. But the evil
does not stop here. It begins to affect what we
should call business transactions. The standard of
honourable dealing is debased. Still spreading, the
laws and institutions on which the very life of the state
depends are undermined by its ravages. “It ends in
overturning everything, both in public and in private.”
In still another way Plato shows how all-important
to social welfare is a good system of education. At
the end of this section he says that without that
spirit of loyalty among the members of the state
which education alone can bring to perfection, the
work of legislators will be as useless as that of a
valetudinarian trying to bolster up a diseased con-
stitution while yet he refuses to give up his
“drunkenness, gluttony, debauchery, and laziness.””
The seeds of legislators need the good ground of
loyalty to feed them. If this necessary condition
is wanting, the legislators themselves will become
corrupt. They will become “quack” politicians,
pandering to those from whom they gain praise or
material reward, and eventually losing their power
to discriminate between what makes towards the
good of the state and what makes away from it.
, 424 a. * 424 e. ° 426 a.
A.DUCATIO/V AAWD SOCIAZ WEZFARE. 177
Such, then, was Plato's view of the end of education.
Through its influence on the mind and character of
both ruler and ruled it was to ensure the welfare
of the republic. To the ruler it was to discover the
idea of the welfare of the state as the Supreme end
of worthy effort; in both ruler and ruled it was
to nurture that spirit of loyalty which is the safe-
guard of all that is best in the corporate life of a
state. So that for this both would ever strive : the
ruler under the felt guidance of principle, the ruled
through the half-unconscious working of habit.
To the reader seeking guidance for his own practice,
the question at once arises: Is this a complete
account of all we ought to aim at in education ?
Ought we to be satisfied when we have produced a
loyal citizen P Do the state and its welfare constitute
a sort of closed circle with which the educator
should be content to remain P. The subject is wide,
and only a general reference to it is possible here.
7. Our Standpoint is Utilitarian and Individualistic.
It may be observed, first, that we are less accustomed
to look upon education from this point of view, which
colours all Plato's theory, than from any other.
One might almost say that, until very recently, the
idea of a relation between the work of the school
and the welfare of the nation is one which has not
penetrated the sphere of educational practice. Other
utilitarian ideas—the gaining of a livelihood, equip-
ment for a profession or trade, and so on—have held
the field. The making of a citizen is an end which
has shown little of motive force. From time to
time vague reference has been made to education as
a rock on which any permanent national structure
must be built ; but rather from the point of view
12
178 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBZ/C.
of its value in the hot race for commercial and
industrial supremacy than from that of its relation
to the spirit of loyalty to laws and institutions, which
was Plato's starting-point. But, generally speaking,
the consideration of the practical or, less often, the
aesthetic and moral needs of the individual has been
the starting-point and the goal of our educational
schemes.
Here, then, appears to be complete opposition.
Plato sought, above all, the good of his republic ; we
\ aim, in the main, at the interest of the individual.
Reflection, however, will show that the opposition
is not so complete as it appears, for individual per-
ffection and the perfection of the whole body politic
Ware, evidently to even a superficial reflection, mutually
(involved. It follows that a system of education
which aims at perfecting the individual is doing
< something to promote the welfare of the state. So
also the converse proposition which Plato would
have maintained holds—i.e. that in making the state
as perfect as possible, the members of which it
consists are being perfected.
8. No Real Opposition between Individualistic and
Social Aims. So far, then, as Plato's republic is an
ideal one, his subordination of the individual to
the whole can scarcely be objected to. Individual
perfection can only be reached in a society, and in
a perfect society we might expect to find the perfect
individual. One who objected that the restrictions
of any particular society prevented his complete
development, could only mean that there was a higher
and more perfect community within which a perfect
equilibrium, nay, identity, between his own and the
common interests might be found. There are no
FDUCATION AWD SOCIAL WELFARE. I79
individual interests as against the interests of some
society—not for man, anyhow. Whosoever delighteth
in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. To be
a perfect man one must be a citizen, but of no mean
city. Christianity, humanity, the civitas dei, call
it what you will, is the only state within which
manhood can come to complete maturity. No more
limited corporation, no lesser realm, will serve.
In the splendour of his vision Plato doubtless
saw such a state—at any rate, there only would his
philosopher-rulers have found a fitting sphere. In
actual states, however, citizen duties and the pleasures
they bring do not complete the tale of the in-
dividual’s requirements. Nor do they always, or even
frequently, accord with his inclinations. Conflict
arises. There are times when the injunctions “to
keep off the grass” irritate. Moreover, in great states
like our own, where the unity which Plato sought
is lost, an extraordinarily minute differentiation of
function makes it difficult to feel the faint throb
of common life. The waves of individual interest
are too strong. Hence there is certainly need for
the educator to see that the sense of national life
is not lost, that the spirit of true loyalty does not
die out, but is, what Plato would have had it, the
source of abiding strength. We may learn this
further lésson from him, to see in education the
“guardhouse" of national welfare.
9. Dangers) of the Social Ideal. While we admit
that it is the plain duty of the educator to do all
he can to make the pulse of national life quick,
steady, and strong, we must be on our guard against
some methods which are commonly adopted. To
begin with, we must realise that patriotism is a

I8O AºA) UCA 77OAV ZAV PLATO'S REPUB/./C.
dangerous emotion. It readily runs over into pre-
judice. The worst sort of “guardhouse” is that
spurious patriotism which finds everything in the
national character and mode of life admirable, and
with perverse blindness condemns whatsoever is
alien. Something suspiciously like this is discernible
in our latter-day modes of thought and feeling. The
charge of “insular prejudice ’’ preferred against us
by our neighbours is not altogether unfounded, and
the schoolmaster must be careful not to foster it.
Of course no one would avowedly ; but there is always
a danger of doing so unawares. The very strength
of the emotions of boys and youths makes them
dangerously undiscriminating. Hence racial pride must
always be strongly leavened with magnanimity. One
does not feed a fire with petroleum.
A safer way is through industry and commerce.
Much is being done, and more remains to be done,
to turn out from our schools youths who are better
equipped for the commercial and industrial race
which it seems to be the destiny of modern nations
to run. This, we might safely say, is the main
stream of educational reform—belated it is true, for
we have been slow to see how directly material
prosperity depends upon education. Still, the thought
is strong upon us now, and there is a danger that it
may lead us to set too high a value on material
results. Important as commercial aptitude un-
doubtedly is, it must always be subordinate amongst
educational ends. The highest test of any educational
system must always be a character test, a moral and
spiritual test. Recent remarks by Mr. Sadler set
this in a clear light : “To gain commercial and in-
dustrial supremacy at any price is not the fundamental
i
|
i
AEDUCATION AND SOCIAL WEZFARE 181
aim of the national policy, neither is it the supreme
end of education to impart commercial aptitude and
industrial skill. Let schools be practical and service-
able for the actual needs of modern life, but they
must at the same time be unswervingly loyal to
spiritual aims and to a high ideal of character. This
is the true road to national welfare.” +
It was this effect on character which Plato meant
when he said : “It is here in music that our guardians
should erect their guardhouse.” It was in that spirit
of loyalty which children were to receive “into their
minds by the instrumentality of music” that he saw
the source of abiding strength. His was a republic
which was to rest not on wealth but on what we
mean by spiritual force. He depended on this to
arrest decay and to promote development. It was
to be the strongest fibre in the web of character.
And it is here too that we must look for the safe-
guard of national dignity, for the condition of the
noblest prosperity. What, then, can the schoolmaster
and the schools do to realise this ideal of perfect
loyalty, which feels national debasement as its own,
and rejoices at all the signs of national dignity and
worth with a personal joy P
10. An Indirect Way of developing the “Civic"
Sentiment. The first way is indirect. It lies through
the nurture of corporate sentiment. Family life will
begin this, but it is in the school, perhaps, that most
can be done. The school is a state in miniature.
One might find in it a fanciful parallel to the
republic. There is the schoolmaster and his staff
* From an address delivered at Oxford on August 5th, 1901
(Daily Telegraph report).
2 412 d
182 AEDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUB/AC
for the ruling element, in which wisdom is supposed
to abide ; there are the capable ones, in games and
in studies, whom we might label “guardians' ; and
the whole rank and file, who make up the strong body
of auxiliaries. At any rate, here is the material for
corporate life. At its best the school provides an
atmosphere in which fidelity to all that is good in
such a life can grow strong. Here the individual is
called upon to sink his own interests in those of the
community, to identify himself with its failures and
its successes. Here, too, there are written laws and
an unwritten tradition stronger than any code of
commandments. The esprit de corps of a good school
is a strong and living force calling forth a willing
fidelity to itself. The creation of this atmosphere is
a slow process, but it is within the power of earnest
effort. To suggest ways and means to a conscientious
and tactful schoolmaster would be, to say the least,
superfluous. One may venture to refer to the com-
bined attack on the fortress of knowledge within the
classroom (and where each individual, master and
pupil alike, feels that he is necessary to its success, one
of the greatest problems in method has been solved),
and to the effort for a side in the playing-fields. The
corporate sentiment is instinctive and strong in the
young, and if it is sympathetically and continuously
nurtured it will readily develop. The point to be
borne in mind—the lesson which Plato's theory
teaches—is that this loyalty in the school is but a
preparation for loyalty in the state. School life must
be felt to be a training for the wider and fuller life
of the citizen.
11. The Direct Way of History. Then there is the
direct way of history. We have a glorious tale of
F/DUCA 77OAV AAWD SOC/AL WEZFARAE, 183
the making of an empire to tell our young. While
they are gaining the habit of loyalty in the school,
we can unfold the story of the heroic efforts and
unselfish sacrifices by which the noble heritage of
British citizenship has been won. We can show them
the treasure it is their privilege to preserve. This
is not the place to speak at length of method. But
among the deeds that won the empire must be
numbered the doings of the civilian as well as those
of the soldier and sailor. Hampden must stand with
Drake and Pitt with Nelson. Nor will the dry out-
line of history suffice. In the pages of historical
literature and in the tones of the enthusiast the story
must live. Then we may hope for fervent loyalty,
for worthy patriotism.
It is easy to hope for too much from the school.
The shortness of the elementary school life makes
it pitiably inadequate for the discharge of its duty
to the national life. And the disconnectedness of
its curriculum, combined with the almost general
absence of history" within it, are not encouraging. But
there is promise for the future. Experts are beginning
to show how co-ordination may be secured and how
history may be given the importance and the relation
to other studies which it deserves.” And no teacher
need wait for these more desirable conditions. He can
do something, and something effective, to promote
courtesy in the street and home, honourable dealing
in the market-place, and, for the nation is but its
members, even dignity and righteousness in inter-
national relations.
* Since the above was written the latest Government Code has
made history an obligatory subject in Elementary Schools.
* Cf. Professor Withers’ pamphlet.
184 FDOCA 7/ON IV AZATO'S REAE UB/./C.
12. Voluntary Abandonment of Opinion. A question
of great educational importance is incidentally raised
by Plato in this section. After insisting that those
who are to rule in his republic must be “tenacious
guardians of the . . . conviction that they ought to
do what is best for the state,” 4 and that they must
never be “bewitched or forced into a forgetful
abandonment of the belief,” he turns aside to consider
how such an abandonment may come about, how
an opinion or conviction may lose its footing in the
mind. This is a question in psychology which it is
of the utmost importance that the teacher should
think out for himself, for moral progress and the
attainment of a high degree of moral excellence
depend almost entirely on the power to hold fast
to sound opinions and noble ideals. Hence he should,
like the interlocutor, be anxious to learn how the
“abandonment " of them comes about.
Plato tells us that “opinions appear to quit the
mind either by a voluntary or an involuntary act.””
Let us begin by considering the voluntary
act ; and we will take the case, first, of an
opinion concerning the physical world. Suppose one-
harboured the impression or opinion that the moon is a
ball of fire. This would be false, what Plato would
call a “genuine lie.” What is in the mind would not
accord with the actual physical fact. If, now, it were
clearly demonstrated that the moon is a cold body,
reflecting the light of the sun, we should let the
old false opinion go ; we should assent to and accept
the new and true idea. This voluntary abandonment
is thus at once negative and positive—it is at once a
letting go of the false and a taking hold of the true.
1 412 e. ° 413 a.
(a) In Science.
AºA) UCATIO/W AAV/D SOCIAL WELFARE. 185
The same kind of two-sided activity of the will
is observable when the opinion refers to the moral
4. rather than the physical world. Suppose
that up to a certain critical moment of life
one were convinced that the truth ought always to be
spoken ; and that then it were suddenly revealed to us
that to hide the truth, even by distorting it, was the
nobler course. A case in which we should inflict great
pain on another without any compensation, beyond
that which always accompanies strict fidelity to fact,
will supply an illustration. This conscious adoption
of a new ethical standpoint would involve the letting
go of the old opinion about truth-telling, and the
taking hold of this other that, on occasions, there is
something higher than truth. The voluntary abandon-
ment would not be such a clean-cut process as when
a physical fact was in question. We do not, in
matters which directly affect conduct, throw off the
old and put on the new with one clean stroke, as
it were. There is no clearly defined moral system
outside us comparable with the material system, by
comparison with which our opinions may be tested.
Moreover, through a certain inertia of the feelings, we
continue to have an affection for opinions concerning
conduct even after they have failed before the bar
of reason. Still, there is that conscious acceptance
of the new, constituting what Plato calls a “voluntary
act.” It is a deliberate judgment. Two opinions
are weighed in the balance. The one which is found
wanting is discarded ; the other is deliberately taken
up.
13. Involuntary Abandonment. To illustrate what
Plato calls an involuntary abandonment of an opinion,
we will take the case of a moral idea—one, that is,
(b) In Morals.
186 EDUCATION IN PLATOS REPUBLIC.
which bears upon and affects conduct ; for it is
conduct, and not mere matter of fact, which is in
question here. Suppose a boy holds the opinion that
it is right to uphold the written and unwritten laws
of his school. Esteeming it to be a true, right, or
good opinion, he would desire to hold to it, in action
as well as in idea. This he would will or determine.
The question then is : How will he come to act
contrary to this determination ? how may his will
in this matter be overcome? Plato distinguishes
three ways.
First, there is the way of “theft.” One thief is
time. If for a considerable period there had been
no critical occasion when the principle had been called
in question, either to be vindicated or otherwise, a
sudden impulse might cause the boy to act contrary
to it. The sight of a river might lead him to bathe
out of prescribed hours or in a forbidden spot. The
principle has lost its power to control conduct through
remaining so long in abeyance. Another thief is
argument. A persuasive friend might bring forth
specious grounds for a line of conduct contrary to
the principle.
Secondly, there is the way of “violence.” Physical
or mental pain might by its very intensity make
the operation of the principle impossible. Thus,
under such circumstances, the preparation of lessons
might be shirked.
Thirdly, there is the way of “witchcraft.” The
prospect of the pleasure of a ramble or fear of the
contempt of companions might lead him to break
bounds. Through the delusion which the stress of
these emotions would bring about the principle would
again go to the wall.
AEDUCATION AND SOCIAL WELFARE. 187
Reflection soon leads to the conclusion that these
distinctions between “theft,” “violence,” and “witch-
craft ‘’ are the outcome of a superficial analysis.
The abandonment of the belief or principle is in each
case essentially the same. What happens is that
some idea, either pleasurable or painful, comes into
the mind with a constraining force, a stress towards
action, which is greater than that which the principle
exercises. This idea dominates consciousness. If we
think of consciousness as a field or area, we find
that the idea occupies a central, focal position, strongly
impressing and effectively arresting attention and
ousting the principle, until it either disappears entirely
from the field (i.e. is forgotten, as we say), or driving
it to an ineffective position in the margin, where it
is powerless to affect action. This result may be
brought about quickly or after an interval. But the
essential feature is the struggle for predominance in
consciousness. And it is easy to see why the idea
so often prevails over the principle. Being present
and actual, it exerts a stronger impelling force than
the more remote and ideal principle. It is essentially
an impºlse. g
We can now see in what sense this abandonment
of an opinion or principle of conduct, under the
constraining influence of an impulse, is involuntary.
It is not a blind or unconscious act. The point is
that it takes place in opposition to a principle which
has been accepted as right and good and with which,
consequently, the will has identified itself. It is the
victory of momentary impulse over a permanently
adopted end of conduct.
Such, them, is the psychology of what Plato calls an
“involuntary * abandonment of an opinion. He
188 FDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
has something to say of the way in which the will
or character is to be made superior to it. It is to
Artificial be disciplined by means of a series of
... tests. . All the forces which tend to pro-
OWerto hold * tº º
fast to an duce the temporary eclipse of a principle
** are to be brought to bear against it.
Against the strong character of the ideal guardian
these forces will beat in vain. Only such as exemplify
the victory of principle over impulse are fitted for
the high office of guardian. And we may assume
that these trials, while primarily tests of such fitness,
would nerve and strengthen the characters which
they tried.
Our aim, as teachers, is of course not the selection
of a superior few. We require strength of principle
and relative weakness of those impulses which en-
danger it in all our pupils. Nevertheless, it will
be well to ask whether we should employ the artificial
means which Plato advised, even though our end
is somewhat different. It may be said at once that
life, and especially school life, with which we are more
immediately concerned, furnishes opportunities enough
for a contest between principle and impulse ; there will
be no need to supply them. At the same time, there is
something for the teacher to do. He can, first of all,
arouse his pupils to an awareness of both the reality
and the nature of the contest. The psychology of
it, which we have just considered, shows that the
victory of impulse is frequently of the nature of a
surprise. The principle has not time to get into
the field before the fight is lost. There is, then, a
plain duty of the teacher to see that principles are
frequently on parade. They languish unless they
appear from time to time. And, again, to give
AEDUCATION AAWD SOCIAL WELFARE. 189
them life and constraining power over conscious-
ness is an obvious end ever to be striven for,
whatever the likelihood of success. Whether it is
to be presented in the concrete form of example or in
the abstractness of stated rule or ideal is a matter
for the moment ; the point is to see that it is
presented, and presented often.
Professor James puts the essence of the matter
in the following fine passage : “Keep the faculty
of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise
every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic
in little, unnecessary points; do every day or two
something for no other reason than that you would
rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need
draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and
untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort
is like the insurance which a man pays on his house
and goods. The tax does him no good at the time,
and possibly may never bring him a return. But
if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his
salvation from ruin. So with the man daily inured
to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition,
and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand
like a tower when everything rocks around him,
and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed
like chaff in the blast.” ". In other words, a principle
or an ideal will have some chance in the fight with
impulse.
* “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I., pp., 126, 127.
CHAPTER X.
THE CARDINAL VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY.
1. Analysis. Now that the state is organised, we may
see whether it exhibits the quality of justice, and
if so, how ; and whether justice means happiness.
Since it is rightly organised, it must be perfectly
good and therefore wise, brave, temperate, and just.
If we can locate the first three, the fourth should
appear as a residual phenomenon. }
The wisdom of the state may readily be seen. It
will appear as knowledge ; not the limited knowledge
of the carpenter or farmer, but the protective science
of rulers acting on behalf of the whole state. It
seems, indeed, somewhat strange that the wisdom
of the whole body should depend upon the knowledge
of a small minority. Yet such is the case.
The courage of the state will clearly be a
characteristic of its fighting members, and it will
appear as a tenacity of opinion which is proof against
all seducing forces. The opinion they will hold to
concerns what is to be feared. Observe how dyers
fix a true sea-purple. They select white wool; they
give it a careful preparatory dressing ; then their
dye fixes an indelible colour. So we select our
warriors; train them through music and gymnastic ;
and they become stained through and through with
I90
THE CARDINAL VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY. 191
the colour of a loyalty which nothing can subvert.
This courage is superior to a like quality in beasts
and slaves, and perhaps inferior to a higher form.
Temperance seems more like a harmony than the
other two. Common expressions like “master of
himself” and “slave of himself” give us a clue to
it. These are absurd and meaningless unless they
imply the existence in the human character of two
principles, a better and a worse, either of which may
gain the mastery. The same two elements appear
in the state. On the one hand you have the vulgar
crowd blindly swayed by a multitude of desires; on
the other the cultured few in whom impulses are
guided and moderated by reason. Where both classes
agree, as in our state, that the latter shall rule, we
have the condition of temperance. It is this agree-
ment concerning authority, this harmony between
all classes, which constitutes temperance and which
distinguishes it from wisdom and courage, which are
qualities of single groups.
What, then, will justice be, the last constituent
of virtue 2 The quest is hard and will need all our
efforts. Why I here it is at our feet, while we have
been searching for it afar. We made it a first
condition of perfection in our state that each man
should occupy just that place within it for which his
nature fitted him. Surely, then, justice will be shown
in the perfect fulfilment of function. Thus justice
is that remaining quality which appears after wisdom,
courage, and temperance have been eliminated; for
it is justice, “doing one’s own business,” which
makes these other virtues possible. It is the first
condition of all virtue. Whether it is superior to
the other three or no we cannot say. But it is the
equally important residual quality.
192 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
Again, the rulers in whom authority is vested will
see that no one appropriates what belongs to another.
And why? Because this, too, is a part of justice.
The prosecution of his special task by each citizen
will further its prosperity. The intermeddling of
one class with the duties of another will be ruinous.
We see now what justice is. But our task is not
yet complete. We started on an enquiry into the
nature of justice, and we thought we might discover
its essentials more easily in the “larger subject’
of the state. This larger subject we have examined.
Now we must return to the individual and see whether
our results hold good for him.
2. This Section is Ethical in Character. In the
preceding chapter we have had under consideration
the conditions of the health and stability of a state,
and, what was of peculiar interest and importance
to us, the prominent and even pre-eminent position
of education among those conditions. Our present
task is different, and the reader will probably find
it more difficult. It will be more difficult because
it will demand an attitude of mind which, for the
majority, is an unusual one. A clear understanding
of the nature of the task is therefore first to be
aimed at.
A state set up, organised, and safeguarded in
the way we have been considering may be assumed
It seekatoset to be good. In what, then, does this
out the goodness consist, and how Will.it show.
Essentials of ºr e i o
jº itself? What are the good qualities or
*****
*- characteristics which we may expect to
ºrial find when we look either at the internal
Virtues. life of the state, the relations existing
between its constituent classes, or at its external
THE CARDINAZ VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY. 193
life, the relations existing between itself and
other states, be they friends or foes? We have
to follow Plato as he seeks to answer these
questions.
The enquiry is of an ethical nature. It is part
of the business of ethics to set forth the qualities
through which goodness expresses itself, makes itself
apparent. Here it is the "goodness of a state or
society which is in question, and the characteristic
qualities which are the evidence of such goodness
make up the cardinal or chief virtues of a society.
These Plato shows to be wisdom, courage, temperance,
and justice. , cºrrº-rr-,
The reader may be inclined to think that such
a wide question, essentially of social or political
interest and importance, cannot bear, in any very
direct and profitable way, upon the special work
of teaching. But it should be by this time clear
that the chief value of the study of Plato's educational
theory is that it forces the reader to reflect on
educational problems in their wider social reference.
Particularly is this true of the question before us.
Besides, it is a fundamental point with Plato that
the cardinal virtues of a society are identical with
the cardinal virtues of an individual. This will
become clearer as we proceed ; but it may be
immediately asserted that the virtues of a society
must have their ultimate origin and basis in the
virtues of the individuals of which it is composed.
And with these and their moral training the teacher
is concerned immediately enough.
But, again, the reader may find, and probably will
find, the consideration of these different virtues or
different departments and directions of goodness
13
I94 EDUCATION IV P/ATO'S REPUBL/C.
unprofitable. He is clear enough about what is
meant by virtue, and knows wisdom, courage, and
the rest, when he meets them. Analysis of them
with a view to laying bare their essentials seems to
lead to nothing new, and may even bring confusion
where before clearness was. This is the difficulty
just now referred to, and to many it is insurmountable.
The endeavour to find out what lies behind such
commonplace conceptions as courage or temperance
seems like beating the air. Interest withers in the
absence of definite material result and gives place
to distaste.
This reflective and speculative attitude of mind
is, however, absolutely essential for any one who
approaches ethical questions. This is indeed true of
any part of a theory of education which otherwise
falls on very stony ground. It may be hoped that
Plato's treatment of the immediate question before
us will be an effective stimulus.
3. Classification of Virtues is. Unsatisfactory. There
is another preliminary matter. Plato seeks to show
what is the characteristic virtue of each class of
citizens, and thus to give an exhaustive account of
the virtues of the whole. But no satisfactory classi-
fication of the virtues has ever been made. The
number of pigeon-holes, so to call them, may readily
be shown to be either too large or too small. It
will be too small because the number of ways in
which goodness may and does express itself is infinite.
Every conscious act, every sentiment and thought
even which do not pass over into action, is, it is
to be remembered, of a certain moral quality or worth.
It is virtuous or it is vicious in some respect. But
the number and infinite variety of these defy ex-
THE CARDINAL VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY 195
haustive classification. Again, any classification will
be too large, in that any given act may fall under
more than one heading, according as we are regarding
it. For example, is the self-restraint of the drunkard
to be classed as courage or temperance P. It might
clearly be regarded as either or both. The truth is
that we cannot divide off actions, in respect of their
moral quality, with the same definiteness and pre-
cision as we can separate triangles into equilateral,
isosceles, and scalene.
irtue, then, is one. It is a quality of gharacter
through which actions are brought into conformity
antagona. With sºme ideal which he dº...akes to
be good or noble of Wörthy. Still, it does
not by any means follow that the attempt to classify
virtues is valueless. On the contrary, it is a necessary
preliminary, if the essential unity of virtue is to be
ultimately realised. Material substances were divided
into solids, liquids, and gases before the identity of
matter in these different forms was grasped. Classi-
fication is a necessary milestone on the road which
leads to all-comprehensive generalisations. Our pro-
cedure is a natural one, then, when we go on to
consider Plato's treatment of the different virtues
of a society, and afterwards briefly note how they
run into one another.
4. Wisdom. The first mark, sign, or expression
of the good state will be its wisdom. It will be
“prudent in counsel’; its acts will be enlightened;
thèy-wiſſ spring from knowledge. But whose
knowledge? Not the carpenter's or the farmer's,
for their knowledge will be of the things which
bear upon their trade or calling. There is a class,
however, “which takes measures, not in behalf of


196 ÉDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
anything in the state, but in behalf of the state
as a whole, devising in what manner its internal
and foreign relations may best be regulated.”" The
“perfect guardians” make up this class. They are
fewer in number by far than the members of the
other classes, yet their knowledge it is which,
paradoxical as it may seem, makes up the wisdom
of the whole state. And what sort of knowledge
is this which the perfect guardians must have P It
is “protective science ’’ or “guardian knowledge”;
that is to say, it is knowledge of what makes for the
best and highest interests of the state as a whole.
One step, then, towards a solution of the problem
is taken. The first element or factor in the goodness
of a perfect state will be the wisdom shown by those
who act for it as a whole. -
Within the limits of our purpose in this work, we
may accept this without critical comment. Taken
broadly, its truth is obvious, and instances are every-
where to be found. The control of a corporate body,
be it nation, company, party, School, or family, must
be vested in a few members ; and for the moral health
or goodness of that body, wisdom is the first quality
essential for the few who direct its welfare. When
we come to consider the cardinal virtues which make
up individual goodness, we shall find further justifica-
tion for the pre-eminent position here given to wisdom
or knowledge.
5. Courage. If it is clear that wisdom is to be
the characteristic virtue of the governing class, it is
equally or more obvious that courage will be the
characteristic virtue of its fighting members. The
description of this particular quality—what it consists
* IV. 428 d.
THE CARDINAL IVIRTUES IN A SocIzzy 197
in, and how it will show itself—is, however, a
Somewhat strange one ; at least, so it seems at first.
“Courage is a kind of safekeeping, ... the safe keep-
ing of the opinion created by law through education,
which teaches what things and what kind of things are
to be feared.” Such is Plato's account. Another
definition, given a little later, is practically identical
with this: “This pºwere therefore, to hold fast
continually the ght and lawful opinion concerning
things to be feared and things not to be feared, I
define to be courage.” This seems to make courage
a mental matter ; it amounts to having a right out-
look and holding fast to it ; not harbouring a false
view. We think of courage as crystallised in action ;
it is doing rather than thinking ; it is, as commonly
regarded, even doing something which thought or
reflection on consequences might prevent ; it is action
in the face of calm consideration.
We have had occasion before to note the importance
which early Greek thinkers, and especially Socrates
and Plato, attached to a right attitude of mind. We
may take it for granted that they did not think of
right opinion or thinking divorced from action. To
know what was right meant to do it. Nor is the
view of modern psychologists very different from
theirs. Professor James finds that deciding to act
rightly against the pull of opposing desires is very
much a question of getting the good and the evil
consequences well within the area of clear conscious-
ness. It is an effort of attention, a mental matter.
It would indeed be absurd to suppose that this
characteristic virtue of the guardians, the fighting
members of the state, would be found in the mere
! IW, 429 d. * IV. 430 b.
198 EDUCATION IN PLAT&FS REPUBLIC.
holding fast to an opinion. They were to be men of
action rather than of speculation ; only it was to be
enlightened action, if the quality of true courage or
manliness was to be found in ''them. That this en-
lightened opinion was but t \le bud which would
perforce blossom into appropriá 3 action appears from
the illustration from dyeing. The true sea-purple
of courage, so carefully matured in the long process
of education, must stand fast against the searching
washes of pain and pleasure, of desire and fear.
These are the tests met in a life of action ; half their
power would go if they were but the phantom foes
of the imagination , and the memory.
This metaphor from dyeing," which so strikingly sets
out the process by which the quality of courage is to
be developed and fixed, will help us to realise how any
side of virtue, any direction of goodness, may be made
a permanent quality of character. We are not called
upon to train a particular class to a particular form
of moral excellence, and hence the preliminary selec-
tion of suitable characters is neither possible nor
necessary. We shall not get “one variety, that of
white wool”; nor shall we seek to fix only the sea-
purple of courage. But for the many-hued varieties
of virtuous quality the early years of education should
provide “much careful preparatory dressing.” Story
and example, literature and life, will help, so that
the pupil may take the colour of virtue as brilliantly
as possible, and in the hands of the schoolmaster
are the forces of pleasure and pain with which to test
and strengthen its fastness.
This courage of the soldiers lies half-way between
two other varieties of this same quality. First of all,
! IV. 429 e.
7 HE CARDIA
(Z ZIRTUES IN A SOCIETY. 199
it falls short
on “opinion.”.
is something
B ghest form because it is based
i is to be feared, and what not,
is felt rather than understood.
The soldier-citiz ºugh in no doubt, would not be
able to justify h timion and action on rational
grounds. It would sº habit, a sort of second nature,
which education had produced, rather than knowledge.
This is the position of the vast majority of men.
They are in no doubt as to what they ought to do,
what view they ought to take, in certain circumstances,
but they cannot find an ethical principle under which
their case would fall. In the second place, the
“courage of citizens” is higher than the corresponding
quality which beasts and slaves show. Theirs is
blinder, and probably not dissociated from obedience.
It is hardly worth the name of courage, for virtuous
action is free action.
6. Temperance. Two virtues out of the cardinal
four have now been described and assigned, each to
a particular group of citizens. There is a third
group, strongest in numbers, the great body of the
industrial or artisan classes. Is temperance, the
next in order of the virtues, the peculiar quality
which the goodness of the whole body politic requires
of these ? With the answer to this question Plato
combines another—i.e. the account of what this
temperance is.
He finds a clue to the first question in common
expressions which are used with reference to individual
character. It is a term of praise to speak of a man
as “master of himself”; and in like manner “slave
of self” is a term of reproach. These expressions are
meaningless unless they imply the existence of two
parts within the human soul, one by right superior to





200 EDUCATION IN PLAT is AEPUBLIC.
Similarly,
}ctions, and it
ºve of itself.”
the other, “a good principle al
the state may be divided into: A
will be “master of itself” of
according as one or other of tº is predominant.
The first point is, then, that ten ſnce or intemper-
ance, master of self or slavéºf self, whether in
individual or state, are qualities in the making of
which all parts or classes are concerned. “Tem-
perance has more the appearance of a concord or
harmony than the former qualities had.”"
What, then, are these parts of the soul or divisions
of a society, the harmony between which makes
up temperance P In the individual soul the good
principle is that which Ought to control. It is reason
allied with noble desires. Against this good principle
there is ranged the host of ignoble passions and
desires. When these latter rule, a man is enslaved,
beside himself; when they are in orderly subjection
to the rule of reason and noble motives, he is master
of himself or free. There is the same division to be
made among the members of the state. On the one
hand there is the small number of men with simple
desires under the guidance of reason ; on the other
the vast majority with desires many and various.
Under the rule of the former a state is master of
itself. Temperance is a “concord between the natur-
ally better element and the naturally worse, whether
in a state or in a single person, as to which of the
two has the right to govern.””
We observe how, for the purpose of deciding what
temperance is and in whom it is to be sought, Plato
divides the citizens of his republic into two classes
instead of three. These two are the governors and the
1 IV. 430 e. * IV. 432 a.





THE CARD/AWAZ VIRTUES //V A SOCIETY 201
governed. The former will include both the perfect
guardians, whose insight and knowledge fit them to
direct the internal and external life of the republic,
and the auxiliaries, whose loyalty and education will
lead them to support good counsel.
7. Justice. It would seem, then, that the varieties
of goodness would be complete with the account
of this third virtue. If the counsellors were wise,
the soldiers brave, and the masses loyal in subscribing
to what their governors, in their wisdom, thought
fit to prescribe—that is, if all showed that harmonious
working which Plato thought to be the essence of
temperance—the goodness or perfection of the whole
would seem to be fully secured, and the duties of the
several classes completely assigned. Such, however,
is not Plato's view. " The most important factor of
that complete virtue of the ideal republic has yet
to be found. Hence he goes on to ask: “What will
that remaining principle be through which the state
will further participate in virtue 2–for this, we may
be sure, is justice.”
He humorously and dramatically suggests a difficult
search. “The ground seems to be hard to traverse ;
. at all events, it is dark and difficult to explore.” "
But the difficulty is due to the blindness or perversity
of the searchers. It is of their own making. They
are straining anxious eyes towards the distant horizon
for what lies ready to their feet. They had already
agreed that “every individual ought to have some
one occupation in the state, which should be that
to which his natural capacity was best adapted.””
Devotion to that occupation must be the virtue they
are in search of “To do one’s own business . . . is
! IV. 432 c. * IV. 433 a.
2O2 EDUCATION IV PLATO'S REPUB Z/C.
justice.” But why is this a virtue co-ordinate with
wisdom and courage and justice P Because “it must
be that which made their entrance into it possible,
and which preserves them there so long as they
exist in it.” 1
This result seems, at first, puzzling and unsatis-
factory. We cannot, accept justice, as thus defined,
as an additional virtue ; it is rather a common way
of regarding each of the virtues already described.
The counsellor will be wise, the soldier will be brave,
and all will be temperate, in so far as, and because,
they are just or mind their own business. This
account of justice only serves to accentuate the one-
ness of virtue in all classes. Nevertheless there is
abiding truth and an ethical lesson of great value
in the conception of it as the condition of all virtuous
quality. The soil is necessary for the plants that
adorn it; without it they would wither ; they are
not found apart from it. So is a man’s work the
soil in which his virtues must flourish if they are
to flourish at all. They are its embellishments, the
signs of its intrinsic value. In this way we may
come to appreciate the importance Plato attaches
to the quality of justice. Without it, without the
faithful pursuit of one's calling, the other signs of
goodness—wisdom, courage, temperance—cannot come
to be. This is a lesson of first-rate ethical importance,
that the flowers of virtue are to be found in the field
of common daily activities rather than in the far-off,
almost inaccessible heights where we are wont to
locate them.”
1 IV. 433 b. -
* Cf. Bosanquet, “Companion to Plato's Republic,” p. 142 : “The
well-meaning popular moralist, with his abstractions and his ideals,
THE CARDINAZ VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY 203
Plato clinches his argument demonstrating the im-
portance of justice among the qualities which make up
the goodness of a state, by showing the evil effects of
injustice or “any intermeddling in the three classes.”
This “would inflict great damage on the state,” and
would be an “evil-doing of the worst kind towards
one’s own state.” It is instructive, too, to note that
the somewhat unusual view of justice here put for-
ward—unusual, that is, to modern ways of thinking—
is made to cover our conception of it as fair dealing.
It is just that no one should “appropriate what be-
longs to others nor be deprived of what is his own.”
8. Method of the “Discovery” of Justice. We may
conclude this section with a note on the logical
method by which Plato claims to discover justice
as the fourth essential of goodness in a society.
Starting with the assumption that these essentials
are four in number, he shows what three are, and
where they are to be found, and then claims that if
a fourth, co-ordinate in importance with these, is
discernible, this will be the quality he is in search
of. This is an anticipation of what modern logicians
have called the method of residues. An example
from some branch of physical enquiry will serve
to make this process more clearly understood.
Suppose one were called upon to determine the part
played by atmospheric friction in determining the path
of a bullet, it being given that the force of projection,
the force of gravity, and the force of atmospheric
friction were the only factors operative in determining
is like a man Štaring about the room in search of something which
he holds in his hands. Many great religions and great philosophers
have combated this false idealism. . . . Looking to some remote
point, some far-fetched conception, for the nature of morality,
instead of analysing the given relations of life, was a mistake.
2O4 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
the path. Then, if the combined effect of the first
two factors could be calculated, the residual effect
might, with all confidence in the certainty of the
inference, be ascribed to the third.
It is, however, obvious that the method, applicable,
under certain preliminary assumptions, to a physical
phenomenon admitting of quantitative determination,
is quite inadequate to such a problem as that to which
Plato appears to apply it. The elements of goodness
cannot be determined in this way. “The modern
logician will be inclined to object that ideas cannot
be separated like chemical substances, but that they
run into one another, and may be only different
aspects or names of the same thing, and such, in this
instance, appears to be the case.”"
9. Separation of the Virtues Artificial. We are,
indeed, driven to the conclusion that this separation
of the virtues is artificial. We may, if we like,
look upon virtue or goodness from different points
of view, and label it now wisdom, now courage, and
so on ; and it is especially valuable for the educator
to do so. But this need not hide the fact that the
essence of virtue is the same in every act, whatever
be the particular name we choose to attach to it.
This common quality is the agreement of the act
with moral law, or the fact that it promotes some
ideal which we take to be good.
The difficulty of separating the virtues comes out
strongly in Plato's account. For instance, wisdom
is needful for each of the other three virtues to be
realised. Courage, again, as Plato defines it, is an
essential of all ; for, for all it is needful to “hold
fast to a right opinion.” And again, temperance and
* Jowett, op. cit., p. lxiii.
THE CARDINAZ VIRTUES IN A SOCIETY 205
justice are not only difficult to distinguish from
one another, but each seems to be a complete account
of goodness.
To reduce the four to two is suggestive. If we
take wisdom and courage together, we may say that
they emphasise the need for insight ; while temper-
ance and justice both bring out the idea of activity.
These are two sides of virtue which it is well to
distinguish. They are complementary to each other
in the complete conception ; for knowledge divorced
from action is an undeveloped germ, it is virtue
not yet born. And action that is unenlightened—
e.g. that of the fanatic—is but an abnormal birth,
a monstrosity. The union of the two gives the
healthy virtuous offspring.
CHAPTER, XI.
THE CARDINAL VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAL.
AT the close of the preceding section, Plato indicates
that he will not rest satisfied with the conclusions
he has reached with regard to the ways in which
the goodness of a society will show itself, and especi-
ally with regard to justice, which is the first condition
of all forms of goodness, unless he finds these con-
clusions corroborated after an analysis of the goodness
of an individual. Through a comparison of the two
the spark of perfect truth may flash out. To this
analysis of individual virtue he now turns, expressing
the hope that the task may be expedited through
the conclusions reached in the review of goodness
on a large scale in a society." It may help the reader
to follow him through the somewhat intricate steps
of his argument if they are set out summarily at
this point.
1. Analysis (i.). The virtues of the society were
shown to depend upon the existence and mutual
relations of three separate classes. If the yirtues
of the individual are to correspond, there mast be
three parts in the soul- --
(ii) That the three parts or “faculties” exist in
* It may be noted that in the particular case of temperance he
found it easier to begin with the individual. The “print” or
“clue" was plainer there.
2O6
CARDINAL VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 207
the individual soul is proved by the existence of
the corresponding classes in a society. Whatsoever
characteristics are to be found in a society–the
spirited element of Northern tribes, the Greek love
of knowledge, or the Phoenician love of riches—must
be in the individual also. But—
T(iii) Are they, in the individual soul, distinct
faculties, powers, or principles?
(iv.) To answer this question we must assume
the truth of the principle—the modern “principle of
contradiction ”—that the same thing cannot, at the
same time, in the same part of it, and relatively to
the same object, be acted upon in two opposite ways,
or be two opposite things, or produce two opposite
effects.
(v.) The mind does exhibit states which may
be classed as opposites: assenting to an object and
dissenting from it, seeking after it and refusing it,
attraction to it and repulsion from it.
(vi.) If desire for drink and aversion from it be
taken as an example of a pair of opposed mental
states ; and if, by showing that these may exist
together, we wish to infer the existence of two parts
in the soul, one of which desires and the other restrains
the desire ; we must be careful not to make the
inference fallacious by taking the desire for some
particular drink as our instance. For, to take an
example, aversion from a hot drink might be due
to the desire for a cold drink, and not to something
in the Soul distinct altogether from desire."
(vii.) Seeing, then, that the desire for drink—and
a f e •
* Théºdoctrine of relative terms as set forth by Plato has only
been drawn upon so far as it is necessary to make the proof of
distinct generic parts in the soul valid.
208 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
not a particular kind of drink—and aversion from it
do occur in the same individual at the same time,
we may safely infer the existence of two separate
parts or principles—one the “rational” and the other
the “irrational " or “concupiscent ’’ principle.
(viii.) By a similar application of the principle
of contradiction the existence of a third part—the
“spirited principle”—distinct from desire may be
inferred. For both the example of Leontius and
common experience go to show that there may be
at one time in the same mind a desire and anger,
the activity of the spirited principle, that the desire
should exist. This spirited principle is closely allied
with the rational principle.
(ix.) Still, the spirited and rational principles,
though allied, are distinct, for we find the former
in brutes and little children, whereas the latter is
wanting. Moreover, the same distinctness is reached
in the case of the man in Homer by applying the
law of contradiction as before.
(x.) The separate existence of parts or principles in
the soul corresponding to the classes in the state
having been thus established, the likeness or identity
of the virtuous qualities in each is then readily
shown.
2. The Principle of Contradiction. This section,
then, is mainly psychological and logical. Only a
small portion of it is given up to the ethical question,
whether the virtues of the individual are identical
with those of a Society, because the solving of the
psychological question carries with it, so Plato assumes,
an affirmative answer to the ethical question.
The logical part is mainly confined to a clear state-
ment of the principle of contradiction. An instance
CARDINAZ VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAZ. 209
may make it clear to the reader how this is a first
fundamental principle of thought. Consider the
following case of reasoning, constituting, in the
language of logic, a syllogism :
All the planets revolve round the sun ;
Jupiter is a planet :
Therefore it revolves round the sun.
If we were asked on what ground the certainty of
this conclusion is based, we should answer that
Jupiter could not be a planet and yet differ from
the planets in an essential feature. If we generalised
this, we should reach some more or less adequate
statement of the principle of contradiction—e.g. that
a body could not exhibit two contradictory qualities.
A simple case of mathematical reasoning may help
to illustrate the relation of the principle to the
particular argument :
AB = CD ; CD = EF; .". AB = EF.
We should readily realise that the certainty of this
latter conclusion was based upon the axiomatic truth
that things which are equal to the same thing are
equal to one another. This axiom, then, bears the
same relation to the second argument as the principle
of contradiction bears to the first. It is to be ob-
served, however, that they are not both on the same
plane. The principle of contradiction lies deeper
down, is more fundamental, the axiom being, indeed,
a particular case of it.
The reader may, however, feel that the tedious
care with which the principle is elaborated is but
a beating of the air. Why such emphasis of the
obvious P No one would think it a necessary pre-
14
2 IO FDUCATION IN P/LA 7TO'S REPUBLIC.
liminary to a mathematical investigation to carefully
elaborate a self-evident axiom. This examination of
first principles is, however, the first business of
philosophy. To the casual reader they may appear
trite ; to one of speculative bent they are of interest
as the wheel-work which lies behind the vast output
of all human thought. Moreover, it is to be re-
membered that in the infancy of speculation every
stone in the fabric of knowledge needed to be tested.
“These are the discussions of an age before logic ; and
any one who is wearied of them should remember that
they are necessary to the clearing up of ideas in the first
development of the human faculties.”" The marvel is
that this principle, which is the bedrock of all thought,
should have received such adequate treatment so early.
3. The Psychological Question. The psychological
question may arouse a livelier interest in the reader
because the conclusions reached bear directly upon
the practical affairs of life, and especially upon the
work of education. What can be learnt about the
constitution of the human mind must, on the face
of it, be valuable to those whose business lies with
it. It is as needful to take guidance from what
psychology can teach us concerning the material we
have to work upon, as it is needful to learn all we
can from ethics and logic concerning the ideals of
thought and character at which it is desirable to aim.
But the psychology must be of the best. At least
we must be on guard against starting with erroneous
conceptions concerning the constitution and working of
the mind ; and for this reason we must be quite clear
about the problem which Plato sets himself to solve.
It is thus stated by his translators: “Are...all
* Jowett, op. cit., p. lxvii.
CARDINAZ VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 211
our actions alike performed by the one predominant
faculty, or are there three faculties operating severally
in our different actions? Do we learn with one
internal faculty, and become angry with another, and
with a third feel desire for all the pleasures connected
with eating and drinking and the propagation of the
species ; or upon every impulse to action do we per-
form these several operations with the whole soul ?” .
4. Account of Three Distinct “Faculties " or “Prin-
ciples” in the Soul. Plato's argument goes to prove
that the former of these two alternatives is to be
accepted—viz. that there are “three faculties operat-
ing severally in our different actions.” The erroneous
conception that we have to guard against is this :
that the mind is sharply divided off into three
distinct compartments, each with its own special
function, much in the same way as the British
Government is said to consist of Sovereign, Lords,
and Commons. The language of the translation
suggests this almost irresistibly, and the parallel
which Plato draws between the three principles
of the soul and the three classes of the state helps
to convey the same idea. Nevertheless, it is entirely
erroneous. The actions of men are not to be explained
as the outcome of such a simple system of mental
machinery as this. We do indeed commonly say
that a man acts under the influence of reason or
under the influence of passion ; but we are not to
take this to imply that in the former case a certain
lever has been pressed, the lever of reason, and in
the latter case a very different one, the lever of
passion ; at least, we must not take this to be a
scientific explanation of the origin of the acts. In the
! IV. 436 a.

2 I2 FDUCATION IV PIATO'S REPUBLIC.
infancy of the science of psychology such an account
wonld be natural, much as a child might refer wind
by night to some creature of the darkness. We must
not, however, start with such conceptions, if only for
the single reason, sufficient in itself, that, as we shall
almost immediately see, they carry with them wrong
ideas of moral training. The better preliminary con-
ception is that “We perform these several operations
with the "whole soul.” I
*5. Aréthé” Rätiöial” and “Concupiscent” Principles
Distinct 2 The sense in which we must interpret these
separate “faculties” or “principles’ within the soul
will become clear, if we consider critically the way
in which Plato establishes the distinctness of the
“rational" and the “concupiscent * principles. He
appeals to experience for the fact that thirst, the
impulse to drink, can occur simultaneously with
something that repels from drink. These states are
opposites, and by the law of contradiction cannot be
states of the same thing. Hence there are different
powers or principles, the rational and the concupiscent,
or reason and desire, within the soul. This distinct-
ness is compared to the distinctness of the two hands
of the bowman in the act of discharging the arrow.
We may set out the opposition, as thus described, in
the form of opposing forces, thus:
Rational Concupiscent
pºli, <--> j
This implies that the impulse to drink is prevented

* It is not, of course, suggested that Plato sought to destroy the
unity of the soul. The aim is to prevent the reader who is limited
to a translation, and perhaps, unfortunately, to but a small portion
of that, from starting with a faulty hypothesis of mind which
seems in danger of revival in common educational theory after its
death in pure psychology. (See Ward in “Journal of Education.”)
CARDIMAZ VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAZ, 213
from passing over into action by a sort of direct
heave of the rational principle in the opposite direction.
To the positive pull of desire there is directly opposed
the negative pull of reason.
This is a misleading account of what takes place
The control in the control of impulse. This process
of impulse of inhibition may be made clearer by
means of a diagram :
j
Suppose the large circle on the left to represent
a section of the stream of consciousness at the moment
when an impulse is felt. The small circle stands
for the object of the impulse, in this case drink ;
the shaded portion for the strongly marked feeling-
tone which attaches itself to the object of the impulse ;
and the arrows may conveniently represent the strong
tendency to action directed towards the satisfaction
of the impulse. How, now, may this impulse be
checked P. How may the connection between impulse
and action be broken P
Not by what has been called a negative pull on
the part of the reason. Just as we never make a
purely negative judgment for practical purposes, so
there is no such thing as a mere “I will not ”
amongst the edicts of the reason. Control of impulse
consists in substituting for the object of the impulse
(the small circle of the diagram) some other object,
which shall prevail in the sense of ousting the
original object from the focus of attention. It is

214 A.DUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
this substitution, not blind negation, which is the
essence of control. And herein lies the whole
difficulty, for the idea which is to accomplish this, is
probably, almost necessarily, more ideal and abstract,
and has the additional disadvantage of a rival in
full possession of the field of attention."
We can now see how the rational principle or
reason works in this business of control. The desire
for drink is ousted by some higher and more ideal
desire ; but the recognition of this ideal desire as
higher, the approval, in part,” of it as of greater
ethical worth, are to be ascribed to reason. It may
thus oppose desire indirectly through desire ; but
such metaphors as that of the bowman tend to con-
fuse rather than illuminate. --
This distinction between the direct and the indirect
action of reason in control may seem fine-drawn and
academic ; but consider how it bears upon practical
training in morality. Following the clue given by
the account of control here adopted, we infer that
the cultivation of this power will take two directions :
first, the mind must be filled with ideals made
attractive enough to become motives ; and secondly,
the power of attending to these in preference to
present and pressing desires must be cultivated. No
such practical suggestions flow from the conception
of reason and desire as opposing, or at least distinct,
principles or faculties.
* These remarks on control of impulse and the diagram by which
they are illustrated appeared in the Jou?”val of Education for
March, 1901, being included in an article entitled “Teachers and
Psychology.” I am indebted to the courtesy of the editor for
permission to reproduce them.
* Some part of approval, which almost defies analysis, may safely
be set down to the feelings. It is aesthetical as well as intellectual.
CARDINAZ VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 215
It may be remarked that little practical danger
will be involved in this pictorial way of thinking
of the different mental forces, provided we
; recognise that it is pictorial. It may
9f the Mind even be advantageous, helping towards
be taken as & e * & g * & * ... I 5
an anio; a vivid imaginative picture of the mind’s
;" is working. The same thing may be said
of the use of a diagram, as here, to make
a distinction clear. There is, of course, especial
danger lest the diagram should be thought of as
anything more than an analogous help. There is
danger that it should help to carry spatial conceptions
over into the immaterial phenomena of mental life;
but if precautions are taken against this, it is a
great help towards a clearer realisation of these
phenomena. In a similar manner, the distinction of
separate faculties within the mind is a help, if we
keep it on the plane of illustration, and do not
fall into the error of looking upon it as scientific
explanation.
It would seem, then, if the account of control here
given be accepted, that the opposites, desire and
aversion, do not occur at the same moment in the same
mind. The more pressing concrete desire alternates
with the more ideal and abstract motive in regard
to possession of the central portion of the field of
consciousness. A safer parallel than that of the
bowman is supplied by the idea of impressions of
a moving scene taken in consecutive moments on
sensitive plates.
Although, then, we should be careful how we in-
terpret the distinctness of the rational and concupiscent
* The vivid account given by James in his “Principles of Psy-
chology,” should be read.
216 AEAE) UCATION IV PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
principles, and although we need to be especially
careful when we are trying to realise the way in
which the former exercises control over the latter,
it is still an easy matter to see the part they play
in the mental life. The latter stands for the lower,
and especially the bodily, appetites—that part of
Our nature through which we come closest to the
brute creation ; the former stands for our power of
discernment, the source of wisdom and knowledge
—that part of our mature which brings us nearest
what is superhuman and divine. It is not so easy to
mark off the function of the third part or principle,
which Plato names the “spirit.”
6. Are the “Concupiscent" and the “Spirited"
Elements Distinct It is the source of the anger and in-
dignation which we feel whenever reason is mastered
by desire, as in the story of Leontius. It gives rise to
no resentment against punishment if this is just, but
it makes a man “boil and chafe” under punishment
that is unjust. It is naturally the ally of reason.
Yet it may degenerate under a faulty system of
nurture and education so that it becomes the source
of brutality and lawlessness. What is there in the
mind which can give rise to results so diverse P
We shall perhaps find the nearest equivalent for
Plato's spirited principle in what we call the emotional
element of our nature. If we distinguish this from
the lower bodily feelings, so as to keep quite clear
of his concupiscent principle, we seem to get an
idea of what he means. For it is the warm wave of
emotion which carries an idea approved by reason
onward to fruition in act ; and it is the same wave
which carries us back from an act suggested by
base desire. It is the motive force in the mental
CARDINAE VIRTUES IN THE MAWD/VIDUAE, 247
life, ready to direct the current along lines which
reason approves. It may be the ally of reason. But
it may be debased. In unfavourable circumstances
it will turn the current against reason in the directions
where sordid desires lead. It is a force which needs
careful nurture, or it will spend itself in the service
of the brute part of man, aiding in the supplanting
and subversion of what is divine in him.
While we can thus find an intelligible meaning
for what Plato calls the “spirit” or the “spirited
principle,” we must be on our guard against the
error of conceiving it as existing separately. The
diagram used above will help us to realise how we
ought to think of it. The small circle may be taken
to represent the object at which, at any moment
of life, we are aiming ; or, to be strictly accurate,
it stands for the object as we imagine it or conceive
of it. This object may be noble, high up in the
scale of worth, and hence approved by reason or
the rational principle ; or it may be base, the outcome
of the concupiscent principle. Its presence will be
accompanied by an emotional glow which the shaded
ring is intended to represent. This state of feeling
will move us towards the act which is the desired
consummation, be this noble or base. In this sense
it is the spirit, the ally either of the rational or of
the concupiscent principle. But it has no separate
existence. It disappears when the object of desire
disappears, just as a shadow disappears with the
removal of the object which throws it.
The latter illustration is in one respect mis-
leading ; like all analogies it must fail somewhere.
A shadow disappears instantaneously on the removal
of the object which throws it ; an emotional glow
218 AEDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUAEL/C.
dies down more slowly. Moreover, at any moment
The of consciousness there may be more
Complexity than one object. One may predominate,
*or occupy the focus of attention, as it is
ºlour called; while others faintly affect the
margin. This may be represented in
diagram :
The central circle with the shaded ring is meant
to represent the most prominent object before the
mind and the emotion it arouses at any moment of
consciousness. The large outer circle stands for the
whole of consciousness at any moment, a section of
the “stream ” of consciousness, so to speak. The
two smaller circles with their shaded rings represent
other objects of consciousness with their emotional
tone which are present simultaneously with the
central object, but which are less prominent. The
story of Leontius will supply a case. In that instance
the central object, pressing and imperious, was the
dead bodies. Existing along with this were ideas
of seemliness, faint and with an emotional stress
which was powerless to prevent the central object
from dominating consciousness, but strong enough

CARDANAF VIRTUES IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 219
and lingering long enough to give rise to a feeling
of disgust, even while the eyes were satisfying the
base desire.
This distinction between what is focal and what
is marginal in consciousness enables us to understand
how a higher emotion may be present simultaneously
with a base desire. What we are clearly aware of,
what occupies the main current of consciousness,
does not exhaust what is present. There may be,
generally is, much in the margin of which we are
dimly aware. In this sense the concupiscent principle,
in the shape of a base desire, may occupy the clear
foreground, while the spirited principle, in the shape
of a higher emotion, may be stirring in the remoter
confines of consciousness.
7. Are the “Spirited " and the “Rational" Elements
Distinct ' To show the distinctness of the spirited
and the rational principles, Plato does not rely upon
the law of contradiction. This seems to him to be
proved by the fact that the former appears before
the latter. He speaks of brutes and young children
showing “spirit” before they have reached the age
of reason. Interpreting “spirit” as higher emotion,
we can readily see what he means. A child may
act benevolently, bravely, or justly, even in a blind
sort of way, through an impluse born of imitation.
Perhaps such acts, being scarcely enlightened, do
not deserve the name virtuous. We have a parallel
to this gradual process of development on the in-
tellectual side of mind. A child will often show skill
in working examples in mathematics with but the
faintest idea of the principles involved. So in morals,
his acts may outwardly, show the quality of virtue
long before he is able to appreciate its essentials.
220 AE}}{VCATION IN PLATO'S REP&BZIC.
8. The Virtues in the Individual. When Plato has
shown the existence of three principles in the human
soul corresponding to the three classes in the state,

he feels no need to supplement his first account
? . . . , , , , -j-...-2 s.r.º.º.ºxfº'ºrºsº; iswº-ºº-ºººººº-º-º: *** * * *
of the virties. Those of the individual will clearly
correspond to those of the society. Nevertheless,
********:::::-1: …sº
in the brief summary of individual virtues which he
.A.”
gives a tendency to go beyond the first account
is noticeable. He is not concerned so much about
the differentiae of virtues as with their related-
ºness, their unity. We gather the impression that
their artificial separation, possible only through the
power of abstraction, is being superseded by the idea
of their combination...and...union. To borrow ex-
pressions from the science of mechanics, the resolu-
tion of goodness into distinct elements is to be
crowned by their recomposition. We are reminded
of the way in which he arrives at the idea of the
true end of music and gymnastic. After temporarily
accepting the common opinion that they are for mind
and body respectively, he ultimately shows that both
are for the mind or soul. So here we are carried
beyond the idea of separate faculties and virtues to
the idea of their unity. This synthetic movement is
noticeable in several details.
Thus We are.9nge more reminded that music and
gymnastic are for the blending of reason and spirit.

*...*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.
Through these éducational influences they are to

stºrs, ****ºf nºr.”*** "in end": sº tºº
*** ***** * * * *** * * * * **** -, -, -e-... x s - --~~...~--~~~~
ecome one in end and aim, though we may by
analysis resolve them into guiding and fiótive forces
zººxºtrº-º-º-º-º- ºr ºf
respectively. Their union is as closé as is the “set"
of a sail with the wind that fills it. And with these
two the concupiscent principle must merge itself.
In the just man it is no longer a separately.9xistent
*******wrºteº-a--~" -> * * , , , , --,+, r , ºilº à rºtºt}^*, *, *.*, *, * : * ~ *, * r *-*. ~ *.*.*.* tºxycºtºxfºrewºrrºyºnºree...-
CARD/MAZ V/RTUES WAV THE WAV/D/V/ID UAZ. 22I
and antagonistic principle ; its individuality is lost in
a generºr harmony of character.
TWith unify among the elements of character there
goes unity in virtue. The four seem to disappear in
ong, justice. This appears”&ſearly where Plato is
anticipating questions about his perfect individual.
If it be asked whether he will break a treaty, steal,
be false to friend or country, commit adultery, or
neglect parents and the worship of the gods, a single
reason is sufficient warrant for a negative reply to
all these questions. He will do none of these things,
not because he is wise or brave or temperate, but
because, being just, he is all of these at once. All
are secured in that single and harmonious life which
characterises the just man.
Again, Plato here openly declares that the distinct-
ness of classes within the state, each devoted to its
own particular work, supplies but a “rude outline *
for the conception of justice. It is imperfect, just as
the fables, concerning divine beings are imperfect.
Helpful, of course, as these, but not to be accepted as a
complete parallel. It is almost on the same level as
the fable of the separate existence of three animals—a
many-headed monster, a lion, and a man—in a human
being." These were to represent “in rude outline”
the union of concupiscent, spirited, and rational
elements in the one character. They give a clue, as
it were, but by no means a complete account.
Such “outlines” fall short of the truth especially
in this, that they suggest a real external division of
parts, whereas the essence of justice, and hence of
true virtue or goodness, is internal union. This is
...~ **** * > x --> .* .* x_t.*.*.*. ..ax ºn A& ſº * actºiáhººd
the essential: internal harmony among the elements
* See p. 136.
3.
*

222 Az/DUCATION IV AZA 7TO'S REAUB/./C.
of character. The just man is he who, “having
gained the mastery over himself, will so regulate his
own character as to be on good terms with himself,
and to set those three principles in tune together, as
if they were verily thrééchörds of harmony, a higher
, , , ; ca. i - - -2 \'ºſ----, …, z -, -º-º: in a middle, and whatever may lie


and a lower and a middle * , “r- -
between these; and after he has bound all these three
together, and reduced the mafiyêléñénts of his nature
to a real unity as a temperate and duly harmonised
man, he will then at length proceed to do whatever
***…*&tº .**** - : * * * * * * * * , ” – -
he may have to do.”
9. We should call Plato an idealist or perfectionist -
in ethics. What he seeks in his perfect man is a
harmonious and evenly balanced character—a balance
which is the result of the equilibrium of higher and
lower elements in the soul. Reason is to rule, while
<><is...se-re.--~~~~~~~"****** : * ***** *** * *** *** * . . . ~ *.*.* tº-º;..." * . . . " ". . . tº
spirit and desire gladly acknowledge...its. authority.
Thus, we have an ethical position which escapes the
kºrudeness of two extremes: it escapes asceticism,
******ºrrºr-r-in-cºrrºw --~~~
which refuses any place to desire ; it escapes
----------- - . . . . . . ~~~-ºº-º-º-º-ºr-º-º: *** *** - -, - • . ...~~~~~...~, ºr:- : * * * * - -
hedonism, which exalts desire into the highest place.
We note also that though justice is a quality of .
chäracter, this is not in any way divorced from conduct.
He will carry the principle of justice into the trans-
actions of his daily life, whether these be “the
acquisition of property or attention to the wants of
the body, whether it be a state affair or a business
transaction of his own.” i > --> * >
• ,-,--~~~...~~~wr-------.
IV. 443e.
s
ſ
º*
t
-
**
CEIAPTER XII.
PRIMARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION.
WE are in this chapter briefly to review some of the
most characteristic features of Plato's educational
theory. Previously we have been more or less
absorbed in the details ; here we propose a more
comprehensive survey with the whole system held,
as it were, at , arm’s length. We shall consider
especially the relation of the primary scheme for
warriors to the higher training for philosophers.
1. The Scheme is Rational; has a Philosophic Basis.
First of all our general impressions will be that of
the rational nature of the system. Perhaps it could
scarcely have been otherwise. A. system which is
the outcome of the imagination of a constructive
thinker must necessarily be directed towards the
achievement of a certain purpose. At any rate, Plato's A
theory shows at every turn evidence of design, of $
teleological : it treats for the most part of educationak
aims with but little reference to educational methods.
It is rational, again, not only because it looks to
ends, but because it employs the formative influences
—music and gymnastic—with an enlightened view
of the specific effect of each on the mind. The
psychology is necessarily somewhat crude and scanty,
223
the adoption of means to an end. It is, indeed, º
{,
224 FAD UCA 7TWON IN A2ZA 7TO'S REPUB/./C.
but it gives a scientific basis to the system ; and the
lack of more elaborate and precise detail is not by
any means altogether a disadvantage. The three
elements are, at any rate, simple ; and the combination
of them into one harmonious whole of character by
suitable and proportionate discipline supplies a useful,
if somewhat rough-and-ready, conception of the way
in which educational procedure should regard mental
capacity.
The result is a certain simplicity, directness, and
unity about the whole scheme, which is in striking
contrast with the more elaborate but more disjointed,
tentative, and empirical character of our own educa-
tional systems. Of course the cases are very different,
especially in respect of ends. In the one there is an
| imaginary scheme constructed to meet the educational
needs of the minority of a small community ; in
& the other the systems have grown and become
modified and differentiated to meet the changing
requirements of a vast number of people, every
section of whom rightly claims to have its wants
attended to. But though such simplicity and direct-
ness of purpose would be impossible in these latter
days, it is in the suggestion of it that the great value
of the study of this remote system lies. Of immediate
/ends we have enough and to spare : the examination
to be passed, the scholarship to be won, the language
which for commercial purposes it is necessary to
acquire, and so forth. But of the ultimate why and
wherefore of it all we should be puzzled to give
account. There seems to be no point of convergence
for the details of our curricula or for the many and
varied activities which our educational forces call
into play.


PRIMARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 225
2. The End of Education is the Welfare of the Republic.
In Plato's system the point of convergence is easily
found. It is the welfare of the republic. He viewed
education as “an integral and vital part of the
wider subject of the welfare of human society.” ". It
was, as we have seen in a preceding chapter,” to fix
the foundations and carve the corner-stone of the
political edifice. Its sole and essential business was
to fit the warrior-citizen and the rºl -
for the performance of their respective functions
in the social organism.
We have already criticised somewhat adversely
the civic standard as an educational criterion ; but
only because, in the concrete and actual, it introduces
so many limitations to man’s complete development.
In the abstract, however, it is a perfect ideal. The X
perfect citizen of the perfect city would be a perfect)
man ; and the simple converse of the proposition'
is also true. The civic standard is related to the
, character standard as the outside of a curve is related
to the inside. It is but another side of it, the objec-
tive side, indicating how the perfect character fulfils
itself.
Moreover, it is an extremely valuable result of the
study of Plato's theory that it does so compel us
to reflection upon the close relation of education ...)
the national life. This aspect of it makes it perhaps
more valuable as a source of inspiration than the
writings, say, of Rousseau or Locke, with their
pronounced individualistic standpoint. At any rate,
it is complementary to these and their like. For
“ultimately, no doubt, it is as true now as it was
in the times of Plato and Aristotle, that the character
* Nettleship, op. cit., p. 61. * See Chap. IX.
15
226 A.DUCATWOW WAV P/ATO'S REAE UAE//C.
of a people is reponsible for its social and political
life, and that education is mainly important because
it produces or modifies that character, and thus affects
the public interests.”" The way in which it does
So is perhaps less direct now than then. Our class-
rooms are farther from the stream of national life
than were the gardens where Plato walked and talked.
Yet through the characters that are there being formed
that life will be affected. Here it is that much may
be done to raise the civic standard until it satisfies the
demands of perfect manhood. Through the interaction
of these two ideals there may be set going that move-
ment towards the perfection of society which Plato
described as a “kind of circular process in its growth.”
3. That Welfare to be secured through the Perfecting
of Character. How, now, did Plato seek through
education to secure the stability and welfare of his
republic P What sort of preparation was the in-
dividual to undergo that he might become a perfect
citizen P. Not certainly the preparation which the
accumulation of a store of the facts of knowledge might
possibly provide. What seems at first so strange
is the almost complete absence of any reference to
the things which it is good for the young to learn.
These were not entirely to be neglected, as we shall
presently see : but the question of importance for
|. young warrior was not what he was to know
but what he was to be. The branches of music were
not different fields of enquiry, but different influences
which were to mould the personality after a seemly
pattern. Not instruction, but nurture, is the keynot
of the system. z *
This “flashes out,” as Plato would say, from a
! Nettleship, op. cit., p. 98, * IV. 424 a.
AR///ARY A/VD HIGHER EDUCA 7TWO/V. 227
comparison of its different parts. Whether we think
of what he looked for from literature, melody, rhythm,
and the environment—i.e. from the elements of
“music ’’; whether we think of what he looked for
from diet, exercise, and mode of life—i.e. from the
elements of “gymnastic *; or whether we think of
their combined effect convergent, as he conceived it,
on a single purpose, we see that it was an ideal
of character which he sought.
Setting habits before attainments, relying on \
discipline rather than instruction, the education º
his warriors was, in the main, moral and aesthetical.
This involved, of course, some training of the mind
on what we call its cognitive side. The young
soldier was to have “the keenest eye for defects,
whether in the failures of art or the misgrowths of
nature.”" He was to know the “essential forms of
temperance and courage and liberality and muni-
ficence,” “ recognising them as recurrent letters in
the book of life. But only that he might shun the
evil and cleave to the good. Knowledge was valuable
if it affected his tastes and bent. He was to be beauti-
ful and good without and within. “There can be
no fairer spectacle than that of a man who combines
the possession of moral beauty in his soul with
outward beauty of form * *; and it was towards the
production of such a spectacle that the nurture
through music and gymnastic was directed.
Again we may note the striking contrast which
our Qwn systems present. If we can get our whole
educational procedure for a moment at arm’s length,
we find that the question of habits and tastes, which
was all-important for Plato, is quite in the back-
! See p. 126, * III, 402 a. * III, 402 d.
228 A DUCA TVOAV ZAV A/LA 7TO'S A&EPUB/./C.
ground. Think of the body of studies, of the time-
table which regulates their succession, or of the
manner in which lessons proceed, and the one thing
of paramount importance seems to be the addition
of something to our pupils’ store of knowledge. Our
care would seem to be for the intellect rather than
the feelings and the will ; we have substituted the]
acquisition of knowledge for the making of character.
There is, it need hardly be said, no opposition
between the gaining of knowledge and the formation
of character. All mental effort is discipline, and as
such is character-training. The important thing is
to decide which shall be the primary aim. And the
most valuable lesson we learn from Plato is this : tha |
what ultimately matters is what a man is, not what{\
he knows. What he knows, and especially the way .
he has come to know it, will certainly account in
a measure for what he is ; for in the former his
emotions and desires will find points of attachment,
while from the latter spring those habits of mind
which are so much of character. But the point to
realise is that the highest test of a subject, or of
the way in which it is treated, is applied when we
ask : Is the character the better for it P
This external beauty and internal worth, this
symmetry. in the whole man, seems a high ideal of
a young warrior of the republic. But the truth is
that Plato is often looking through and beyond that
merely human society, to a more perfect sphere where
only truth and beauty and goodness are. Com-
mingled with the vision of the ideal republic is the ' --
vision of the world of ideas. We can now more fully-
appreciate what was said in the introductory chapter
concerning the way in which these two visions unite
PRIMARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 229
in Plato's thought," and how his educational ideals
are the natural offspring of their marriage. The
warrior he sought to create would be a fit member
of either society.
4. The Means seem Narrow and Limited. When we
pass from the consideration of ends to that of the
means by which they were to be attained, our first
. Yºmpression is of their narrow and limited character.
With our views of what constitutes a liberal education,
even of an elementary kind, so far as this can be said
to be liberal, music and gymnastic seem to make up
but scanty fare, even when the former is seen to
cover literature, melody, rhythm, and the environment.
This impression becomes stronger when we recall the
fact that, through the application of the criterion of
simplicity as a principle of selection among these
subjects, if we may so speak of them, the scope in
each would be strictly limited. We miss our long
$ list of subjects, our well-filled time-tables.
We may, however, easily account for the difference
now before us. For a clearly conceived end—the
- development of a manly character—Plato prescribed
what seemed to him the most simple and direct
means ; and when we remember that it was the
aesthetic and moral side of character with which he
was most concerned, we can see the appropriateness
of the means he selected. Our educational ends are
naturally much more complex, and, as a consequence,
|: relation of the variety of subjects to these ends
is not so clearly conceived. Hence the subjects them-
~ selves come to be looked upon as ends, and multiply
with the extension of knowledge. We do, however,
seek through the co-ordination and correlation of these
* See pp. 17, 18.
23O EDUCATIO/W /AW PLA 7TO'S REAE UB/./C.
an objective one, the unifying of knowledge, sometimes
a subjective one, the development of some particular
power of mind or tendency of character. The need
for this is an outcome of the various causes which
have multiplied subjects; with Plato his “subjects”
were never unrelated. -
5. Additions to the First Outline of the Primary
Scheme. This is a convenient point at which to note
that Plato did expand his curriculum, to adopt
modern phraseology, so that it might include some
of the fundamental elements of instruction. In later
parts of the “Republic ’’ he mentions some omissions
from his scheme of primary education which would
have to be supplied, if the primary education was to
be a satisfactory preparation for the higher education
necessary for the philosopher ; and he implies, further,
that they would be included in the early course for
all, destined to become philosophers or not. Thus, .
we learn that “arithmetic and geometry and all
the branches of that preliminary education which i
to prepare the way for dialectic, must be taught our
pupils in their childhood.”" And again, referring
to those who showed promise of being capable of
directing the affairs of the republic, he says: “The
detached sciences in which they were educated as
children must be brought within the compass of a
single survey, to show the correlation which exists
between them.”” e
We recognise here the counterpart of the reading )
subjects to bring them to a common focus, º
y
writing, arithmetic, and nature-knowledge, which
make up, for us, the large proportion of elementary
instruction. We note, too, that these additional
! VII, 536 6. 2 VII. 537 6.
ARIMARY AAWD HIGHER EDUCATIO/V 23 I
subjects would train the cognitive side>6f mind, for
\º the music prescribed would have provided
insufficient exercise. Nevertheless, the very fact
that they are introduced as a sort of appendix, and
without discussion, in that later portion of the work
where the higher education necessary for the
philosopher is mainly in question, indicates that they
occupied a subordinate position in the primary edu-
ſº to which the majority of the citizens would
be limited. Observe, once more, how we have
~/exactly reversed the relative importance of training
on the cognitive side and training on the moral
and aesthetic side of mind. We devote the largest
part of our time, energy, and subjects to the former
end. Of course every intellectual exercise is a moral
ſº discipline, but so far as direct moral training is
concerned, the amount of time devoted to it is small.
* This is a weakness in our system, not to be explained
away by the comfortable reflection that we may
safely leave this side of training to the influence of
example and the silent working of a healthy material
and spiritual environment.
6. How Music and Gymnastic are to be Regarded.
Returning now to that first impression of a narrow
and limited curriculum, we find, on closer acquaint-
ance with, and deeper reflection upon, the spirit and
character of Plato's system, that it rests upon a
misapprehension. We have fallen into the error of
making our modern conceptions the starting-point for
a criticism of an ancient theory. We have been
looking at it from the point of view of school-hours,
time-tables, and subjects—the machinery of modern
educational procedure. But literature, melody, and
rhythm were not for him subjects to be apportioned


232 A. ZO UCA 7TWOAV ZAV A/LA 7TO'S REAE UAE Z/C.
to the hours of a school day; they were rather
formative influences always at work upon a highly
intellectual and artistic people. The working of an
environment embodying in stone “the fair and grace-
ful,” whence the Athenian youth, “ dwelling as it
were in a healthy region,” might “drink in good
from every quarter,” supplies us with the sort of
conception from which these “subjects * are to be
viewed. They were not so much parts of a curriculum,
as constituents of an atmosphere.
So, too, with gymnastic. The details of this branch
of education are not to be regarded as suggestions
for drill and physical exercise ; they lay down the
permanent conditions of a healthy and vigorous life.
The charge of narrowness, then, rests on a mis-
conception. Viewed as subjects, the means which
Plato prescribed for the attainment of his end do
convey that impression, though they exhibit a
connectedness, a singleness of purpose, which would
satisfy the most enthusiastic Herbartian. Viewed
as formative influences, they are wider and extend ==
further than all the forces which modern educationists
seek to directly control. The most thorough-going
among these would hesitate before demanding that
all poetry must be tried by the test of its educational
value, or before requiring that the practice of medicine
should be limited by the consideration of its effect
on the development of character.
There was, however, a direction in which the
primary education of the citizens of the republic
was limited.
7. The Warriors only reached an Empirical and
Unreflective Stage. The early education only carried
! III. 401 c.
PRIMARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION. 233
/
a youth to a certain stage on the road to knowledge.
Reference is not here made to the matter of know-
lº. The imperfection in question was not that
the youth acquired a few facts and should have
acquired more ; it was the character of the
Iknowledge he did possess which was unsatisfactory.
And if we look at the same point from the side of
mental development, the imperfection lay in this,
that it left the pupil at a low degree of intellectual
efficiency.
What that stage of knowledge was, and what the
corresponding degree of intellectual efficiency was,
we may gather by examining Plato's own account
of the method of training in music. He says: “It
trained our guardians by the influence of habit, and
imparted to them, not science, but a kind of har-
moniousness by means of harmony and a kind of
measuredness by means of measure.”" That is to
say, through familiarity with the poems, songs,
rhythms, sculpture, and paintings approved, the
guardians unconsciously grew to be like them.
In habits and character they reflected the noble
simplicity of these elements of their material and
social environment. But they stopped short at this
familiarity, this power to recognise grace and beauty
and to imitate it. They made no further enquiry
concerning these objects, which were, we might almost
|say, passively accepted and approved. We may put
it in this way: that they had habits without insight ;
they had made no advance beyond the empirical
owards the rational stage of knowledge.
Their position may be made clear by means of
examples. Children of ten will readily recognise the
VII. 522 a.
234 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
similarity between, say, a candle-flame, a lamp-flame,
a gas-jet, and the blaze of a fire. They will apply
the term “fuel ” accurately in the different cases ;
but they have no rational conception of the nature
of the unity hidden away in these various particulars.
They are at the “object-lesson’’ stage rather than
the science stage. Similarly they will recognise the
common element of courage in the character of
Horatius and Ivanhoe, of Franklin and Sir Richard
Grenville ; but they would be puzzled to separate
out the essence of the quality. Their ethics is the
empirical ethics of the “plain man.”
That the stage of intellectual development reached
through the primary education may be quite clearly
realised, we venture to quote the following passage
from Nettleship's essay in which he is describing it.
Speaking of the means—poetry and the arts—which
the first education employs for the development of
the “philosophic” side of mind, he says: “These
last are the appropriate nurture of the ‘philosophic ’
nature, not in its entirety, but in that phase of its
growth when it is mainly imaginative and emotional,
not logical and reflective. By presenting to the soul
the true principles of life in the sensuous material
which it is able to assimilate, they prepare it un-
consciously for assimilating them when presented at
a later stage in a more rational form. They teach it
to live by telling how divine beings and great men
live and have lived ; they teach it what to love by
surrounding it with what is really lovable ; they
foster its acquisitive instincts by encouraging the
quick and accurate use of the senses ; they develop
its tendency to order and law by accustoming it to
recognise severe symmetries of Sound and form ; and,
ARVMAA’Y A/V/D AIGAZEAE A2Z) UCATWOAV. 235
finally, they introduce it to manhood endowed with
an instinctive capacity of doing and saying the right
thing at the right time, and with an instinctive per-
ception of what is right and wrong in the deeds and
words of others. In calling the capacity and perception
thus acquired ‘instinctive, it is not intended that
Plato conceived them to be received at birth or got
by natural selection. . . . By ‘instinctive ’ is meant
that the substance of the education in ‘music” is
appropriated and held by the soul without real
reflection ; that, in Greek phraseology, it feels neither
the need nor the capacity to give an account of it ;
that it is conscious of it only as a part and parcel of
itself, not as an object which it can hold apart, look
at, and criticise.”"
Empirical knowledge, here called “instinctive,” is
the kind of knowledge which the majority of men
have to rely on, and are content to rely on, in the
majority of circumstances which affect both their
thought and their actions. They are familiar with
disease, but they do not enquire into the essential
conditions of health ; they recognise the beauty of a
scene, but they do not reflect upon it ; they admire
virtue and hate vice, but they would be puzzled to
account for them. Yet it is the characteristic of such
knowledge that it is always leading men astray. In
the face of what is unusual it is unreliable. For
those who have to direct the activities of others it is
altogether inadequate. It is a poor outfit for the
captain of a ship or the master of a school. And we
can readily see that for the training of those who
were to direct the fortunes of the republic, an edu-
cation which left a man with empirical knowledge
* Op. cit., pp. 122, 12
236 FDUCATIO/W /AV AZATO'S REAEPUB/./C.
only would need to be supplemented by one which |
carried him on to rational insight.
8. The Classification of Objects and Mental States.
To understand how this advance from the empirical
to the rational was to be made, to realise what a halt
at the empirical stage meant and what the advance
to a rational stage involved, we must try to under-
stand a division among the objects which the mind
can know and among the mental states by which
the different objects are known which Plato made.
Here is the division, arranged in tabular form :
MENTAL STATES. OBJECTS KNOWN.
N
r H
5-
GD - H CD
.# 4. Real existences, or, the | #59
, Q 4. Pure Reason. essential “forms ” of £5'5
> existence. § 3 &
O :
gº * }. 3 * #
O oq →
dº S. | 3.
3 - e ă ş-;
$ º 3. Hypothetical objects— 3 S ºf
CO 3. Understanding. e.g., the circles of Ø g
mathematicians. 3.
\ J
f \ º
§ 2. The world of nature 43.2
‘E 2. Belief. and of art (“the world #33
'F', of birth and death *). £5. ;
9 ºff.;
‘5 33 (a
3 § 1.3
--> ſº
e * d S d * cº- >
# 1. Conjecture. 1 shºw and Reflec ă ş #
GD
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\ w J
Under the figure of a line divided into four unequal
segments—the dark central vertical line of the diagram
–Plato represented four kinds of objects and four
kinds of corresponding mental states. The line was
ARIMARY A/VD HIGHER EDUCA 7/O/V. 237
first divided into two unequal segments. The dark
horizontal line in the diagram represents this division.
Then each segment was unequally divided as by the
light horizontal lines above. The lengths of the
segments had meaning. The smaller segment of
the first or lower main division meant as regards
the objects less reality, and as regards the mental
states less certainty. The unequal segments resulting
from the second or upper subdivision carry the same
implication. Hence we have on the right of the table
an arrangement of the objects of knowledge increasing
in reality as we pass from lowest to highest ; and on
the left an arrangement of mental states increasing
in certainty as we pass from lowest to highest.
We may now proceed to fill in for ourselves the
abstractions named in this table, so that through
concrete embodiment they may be clearly realised.
The illustrations which Plato himself used will help
us, and others may be added.
9. The First Division. Beginning with the first and
lowest group of objects, we find that it covers shadows
and reflections and “everything of the kind.” The
last phrase warrants us in including everything which
is a copy or representation of something else. A
picture, a photograph, or, to take an example from
the schoolroom, a clay-model would, we may well
assume, be included in this group. The essential
characteristic of members of this group of objects
is that they only enjoy a derived sort of existence.
Their reality is a derived reality. A shadow dis-
appears if the object which throws it disappears;
and in an analogous way the reality of a portrait
or model depends upon that which it represents.
Corresponding with this lowest stage of reality
238 EDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
there is the lowest degree of certainty, described as
“conjecture.” This mental condition is familiar
enough, though it is difficult to describe. It is less
vivid, less “stinging,” to use a word of Professor
James's, than the mental condition produced by the
presentation of the original object. There are, of
course, degrees in the closeness with which the
“image * approximates to the original. Thus a
verbal description—an “image * in the sense implied
—an outline sketch, a relief map, a model, and a
picture would, perhaps, supply an instance of an
ascending scale of degrees of closeness, the original
being, say, a mountain. Corresponding to this would
be an ascending scale of mental conditions arranged
according to vividness. The highest of them, however,
would be far short of that condition which the
presentation of the real object produces. It would
even be different in nature—a sobering reflection
for those teachers who are accustomed to rely too
exclusively on such representations.
10. The Second Division. Ascending the ladder
of reality, the second group consists of “the real
objects corresponding to these images—namely, the
animals about us, and the whole world of nature and
of art.”" That these should be put low in the scale
of real existences is, at first, inconceivable. What
we can see and handle (the birds and the trees),
what resists our free movement (the earth and the
air), have no touch of unreality. The material world
is, so we exclaim, of all worlds the most real. If,
however, we consider that this is the world of con-
VI. 510 a. By the “world of art” is here to be understood
artificial additions to the material environment, such as buildings,
dribges, etc.
ARZMAAEY AAVZD HIGHER EZO UCA 7TWO/W. 239
tinuous change, the “world of birth and death,”
as Plato called it ; and if, further, we remember that
changelessness and permanence were for him the
first condition of reality; then we begin to understand
the low degree of reality which he assigned to it.
Consider, too, how much the material world about
us owes to our consciousness. We give it its light
and its shade, its colour and its sound, its coldness
and its warmth, possibly even its arrangement in
space. And what a proportion, striking in respect
both of quantity and quality, we thus add to the .
sum-total of the material world as we know it !
Though so startling a truth reveals itself to re-
flective thought, it does not cause us to lose our firm
grip of the world that is about us. Ordinarily we
are conscious of nothing illusory in its appearance.
Nor could we be ; for though it owes so much to
consciousness, we cannot strip it of the gorgeous
raiment in which our sensory experience clothes it.
Imagination may enable us in a measure to figure
out the chaos of vibrating atoms, and thought may
supply us with a working theory of their mutual
interaction and their effect on us ; but the world
of our stable belief is the world we see and hear
and touch. Knowledge of its innermost constitution
cannot make us shake off the constraining influence
of sense. “Conceived molecular vibrations are by
the physicist judged more real than felt warmth,
because so intimately related to all those other facts
of motion in the world which he has made his special
study.” Yet “let the physicist himself but nod,
like Homer, and the world of sense becomes his
absolute reality again.” "
James, “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. II, pp. 300, 301, 302,
24O FDUCATIO/V /AW PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
Why, then, is belief in this physical world, joined
with conjecture to make up that ideal of mental
states called “opinion,” not worthy the name of
knowledge P Because for the ordering of his scale
of certainty and reality Plato is not employing a
psychological criterion, but a logical one. The
vividness of sense-impressions was for him no
guarantee of the truth or certainty of the knowledge
which they convey. On the contrary, he distrusted
all knowledge of merely sensuous origin. For if it
had the psychological characteristics of vividness and
constraining power, it had the logical characteristic
of particularity ; and general or universal knowledge,
independent of time, place, and the individual con-
sciousness, is the logical ideal. Thus the contrast
between visible and intellectual objects coincides with
the contrast between particular and universal know-
ledge. In this sense, then, “opinion ” was low down
in the scale of worth. It was knowledge of this
or that object as an individual thing, without the
power to penetrate its individuality and reach the
universal truth which lay behind and beyond it.
11. The Third Division. The first subdivision of the
kinds of “knowledge” and of “intellectual objects,”
and the third in the complete scale, is distinguished
by the fact that it is in a large measure set free
from the slavery of sense, and that it does transcend
the particular in order to lay hold on the universal.
Mathematics is the science from which Plato chooses
illustrations of the kind of objects and the kind
of knowledge he refers to. Speaking of the students
of this subject, he says: “They summon to their
aid visible forms, and discourse. about them, though
their thoughts are busy not with these forms, but
AAEAA/AA’Y A/VD HAGAZZZZe AE/O UCA 7TWO/V. 24. I
with their originals, and though they discourse not
with a view to the particular square and diameter
which they draw, but with a view to the absolute
square and the absolute diameter, and so on. For
while they employ by way of images those figures
and diagrams aforesaid, which again have their
shadows and images in water, they are really en-
deavouring to behold those abstractions which a
person can only see with the eye of thought.”
Here we have the advance from the concrete to
the abstract with which every teacher is more or
less familiar. It is, of course, not confined to mathe-
matical questions, being indeed that necessary step
towards a scientific knowledge of all subjects which
the logic of induction seeks to explain and make
perfect. It is a movement of thought which is being
attempted during every hour of the school day.
From concrete to abstract quantity, from experiment
to law, from instance to rule—we are for ever helping
our pupils to climb from the second to the third
rung of Plato's ladder. It is true that the march is
often too hurried. It is true that the utmost we get
in very many cases is but a faint, inarticulate refer-
ence to the universal felt somewhere in the fringe of
consciousness. Still, until the step is made, however
falteringly, until the reference is felt, however faintly,
we have not left the uncertain path of “opinion ”
to tread on the firm ground of “knowledge.”
12. The Fourth Division. Even the abstract and
universal truths so reached do not satisfy Plato's
ideal of knowledge. They are, in the first place,
tainted with the concrete particulars from which
they start. The basis of the structure is sensuous.
| VI. 510 e.
1 (3
242 FDUCATION IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
Moreover, these truths suffer from another imperfec-
tion—they remain as hypotheses. Investigators,
“having adopted them as hypotheses, decline to give
any account of them, either to themselves or to others,
on the assumption that they are self-evident.”" To
take an illustration from mathematics to which he
is particularly referring, what are these perfect circles,
triangles, etc., which mathematicians assume 2 The
question is not raised. Having assumed them and
their properties, and having derived from them con-
sequences which fit with concrete experience, no
further investigation is made. The limit of explana-
tion has been reached.
That the most far-reaching of physical generalisa-
tions also remain at this level of hypotheses cannot
be doubted. Such, for instance, is the position of
the law of universal gravitation, the atomic theory
of the constitution of matter, and the vibration theory
of radiation. They go far towards a complete ex-
planation of natural phenomena, but remain them-
selves unexplained. The impulse to get behind them
is not wanting. It is felt by the scientist and philo-
sopher, who desires to see these laws and hypotheses
welded together into one complete and consistent
theory of the universe. It is characteristic, too, of
the unbridled curiosity of the young. The following
instance of it, quoted by Professor Morgan, is in-
structive : “A good many years ago, when I was
a young student, a clever lad in Cornwall asked me
the old question, ‘Why does a stone fall to the
ground?” Not wishing to put him off with the long-
sounding words, “Universal gravitation,' I replied,
* Because it is heavy.” “But a feather is not heavy,
* VI, 510 d.
AAC/MARY A/VD HIGHER EDUCATIO/W. 243
and yet it falls to the ground,’ was the prompt
answer. I replied that the feather was relatively
heavier than the air. The lad was silent for a
moment, and then said, ‘That's just one of the things
I want to know : does the air fall to the ground
and collect there like water in a pond, only we cannot
see it because we are in it, and it is invisible P’
I saw this lad's powers of comprehension were fully
equal to the occasion, and explained the whole matter
as best I could. I told him he was quite right in
supposing that the air, like the stone and the feather,
was attracted by the earth ; I pointed out the
universality of gravitation as a law of nature ; and
then, reverting to his first question, I said, ‘You see
that we explain the fall of the stone as a particular
case of the action of a law universal in its generality.’
He was again silent for a moment, and then asked,
“But what makes the earth attract it, after all P’
I laughed, and said, ‘You’re a philosopher l Nobody
can answer that question. Perhaps you may like
to find it out, or at any rate to understand the
solution when it comes, as come it may.’”*
It has not come yet. Nor has there yet been
achieved that combining of the results of the separate
sciences which Plato regarded as but a prelude to
the highest of all studies. “If the study of all
these sciences which we have enumerated should ever
bring us to their mutual association and relationship,
and teach us the nature of the ties which bind them
together, . . . all this is but the prelude to the actual
hymn.” What this hymn was, what was the nature
of that highest group of the objects of knowledge,
* “Psychology for Teachers,” pp. 12°, 129.
* VII. 531 (7.
244 ACDUCATIO/V /AW ANZATO'S REPUB//C.
we cannot clearly discern. Reference has already
been made to it." It was a world of changeless
objects, transcending in beauty and reality the world
of sense, known only through the activity of pure
intelligence or pure reason. He who wishes to pene-
trate this world, to solve its mysteries, relying upon
“a simple process of reason, independent of all
sensuous information—never flinching, until by an
act of the pure intelligence he has grasped the real
nature of good—arrives—arrives at the very end of
the intellectual world.””
13. The Idea of Good. What was the “real nature
of good,” which is the most real of all existences,
and a knowledge of which is the “very end of the
intellectual world,” and hence the Supreme goal of
education, we cannot definitely say. “He has
nowhere given an explanation of his meaning, not
because he was ‘regardless whether we understood
him or not,’ but rather, perhaps, because he was
himself unable to state in precise terms the ideal
which floated before his mind.” ” But ideals are of
this nebulous and indeterminate nature, and they do
not therefrom lose any of their constraining and
inspiring power. They are at once elusive and
pervasive : elusive of analysis, yet pervasive of our
being. They flee before the coldness of critical
examination to take refuge in the warmer confines
of feeling.
We shall, however, better appreciate the Idea of
Good if we try to understand what the term “good"
implied to a Greek. “That sense is perhaps most
simply and clearly illustrated in the familiar expres-
* See chap i., p. 12. * VII. 532 a.
* Jowett, “The Republic of Plato,” Index, p. 356.
AA’/MARY A/VZD HIGHER AE/DOCA 7TWO/W. 245
sion, ‘What is the good of a thing P’ and ‘What is a
thing good for P’ The answer to both these questions
will give us the use, purpose, or end which the
thing in question serves, and when we say a given
thing is ‘good’ in this sense, we can generally para-
phrase the expression into ‘it does its work or serves
its purpose well.” . . . We shall understand not only
Plato, but the whole of Greek moral philosophy,
better if we accustom ourselves to think of man
as having a specific work to do, of morality as his
doing that work well, of virtue or “goodness” as
the quality which makes him do it well, and of the
‘good’ as that which the work serves or realises, and
in serving and realising which it is itself ‘good.”"
If we think now of a point of convergence for all
that is highest and best in life, a final purpose to
which all that is noble in thought and deed is
directed, an end which throws light backward and
makes all virtue clear and intelligible, we may form
some conception of the Idea of Good in its ethical
aspect. Men may be but dimly conscious of this
ideal, the revelation of its “real nature” may be
complete we know not when, yet it is here and now
operative as the fount of inspiration of every virtuous
act.
Besides being the source of the idealisation of
life, it is the origin of knowledge. “Plato sees in
it the condition not only of conduct but of knowledge
also. What the sum is in the world of visible
objects, that he conceived ‘the good to be in the
sphere of intelligence. To the complete fact of sight
there are, in Plato's view, four factors mecessary—an
eye capable of seeing, an object capable of being seen,
* Nettleship in “Hellenica,” pp. 158, 159.
246 EDUCATION /AW PZA 7 O'S REAUB//C.
light in the eye and the object, and the sun, of
which light is an “effluence.’ The fact of knowledge
may be analogously analysed : there must be a subject
capable of knowing and an object capable of being
known, there must be an intelligence present in both
making the one intelligent and the other intelligible,
and there must be a source of intelligence from
which it is diffused through the twin world of sub-
ject and object, soul and being. Such a source is
‘the good,” which ‘supplies truth to the object of
knowledge and gives to the subject the power of
knowing.’” This is what the Idea of Good means
on its logical side.
Finally, the Idea of Good may be thought of,
consistently with Plato's suggestion, as the “creative
cause of the universe.” And thus we may say that
Plato's theory of education ends where it began, with
a revelation of the divine being. *
Perhaps, however, the thought of this highest
department of enquiry as moral and aesthetical is
the one which is fullest of suggestion for us. When
the co-ordination of the sciences shall have been
completed, when their results shall have been dove-
tailed into a perfect structure of knowledge, if ever
these things come to pass, there will still remain
a further and, in the scale of worth, a higher field
of enquiry. Room will remain for speculation upon
the meaning and reflection upon the beauty of the
universe. And the highest group of “real exist-
ences * revealed to the “pure reason '' need not
remain the mere dream of a philosopher. We need
not look upon them as a separate group of objects,
but as aspects under which all objects may be
* Nettleship, op. cit., p. 161,
ARIMARY A/VD HIGHER EDUCATIO/V. 24?
viewed—i.e. their moral and aesthetical significance.
In this sense we may say that the child drinking
in the beauty of a rainbow and the philosopher
reflecting on the majesty of some all-pervading law
of nature are, each in his degree, penetrating the
mysterious world of “real existences.” Each may
be realising, dimly or clearly, that “the world is
not an unmeaning chaos, but a something of which,
however slowly and with however many mistakes,
we are discovering, and not merely inventing, the
significance.” "
14. The Allegory of the Cave. To the majority of
men, however, these moments and this power of
penetration is not given. They remain for ever in
the misty plains of opinion, never reaching the
clear heights of knowledge. This truth Plato illus-
strates by means of his famous allegory of the cave.”
The life of most men is passed, as it were, in a cave.
There, chained in one position, they see but the
shadows of objects cast upon a wall, and hear but
the echoes of voices whose sounds are reflected there-
from. Their knowledge is of shadows and reflections
only ; the realities are for ever hidden from them.
On a par with their low degree of knowledge is the
base condition of their desires. They “cling to
the pleasures of eating and gluttonous enjoyments
of a similar nature,” and know nothing of higher
enjoyment. Yet they possess the capacity for better
things ; only care must be taken, if they are to be
lifted out of the darkness of the cave, that the process
is gradual. They must not, by a too sudden intrusion
into the light of reality, let the “eye of the soul”
* Nettleship, op. cit., p. 159.
* Book VII. to 521 b. The whole passage should be carefully read.
248 EDUCATIO/W //V P/ATO'S REPUBLIC.
;
!
t
i
be dazzled so that it can discriminate nothing therein,
and prefers the gloom of the cave; nor yet must a
too speedy and sudden refinement of their pleasures
be attempted. “Habit will be necessary to enable
him to perceive objects in that upper world,” I and
“from earliest childhood” he must be gradually
divorced from the lusts of the flesh.
15. The Training of the Philosopher. Such, then,
were the stages of knowledge ; such were the evils,
moral and intellectual, of a halt at the lower stages;
and such was the ideal at which a complete scheme
of education was to aim. The course for philosophers
was mapped out in the light of this ideal. For twenty
music and gymnastic, so that they might be “dyed ‘’
with worthy habits and sentiments; but they would
not then have advanced beyond the stage of “opinion,”
!, |º they were to be subject to the discipline of
sound though it might be. Between the ages of
t
}
A
twenty and thirty a study of the sciences—arithmetic,
plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and
harmonics, in crder—was to exercise the “under-
; standing,” training them in the power of abstraction
so that they might “see” with the intellect with
. . . ; *
the least aid from sense. From thirty to thirty-five
was to be given up to the exercise of “pure reason,”
in contemplation of the objects of that world of ideas
&
}
ſ
- º,
* *
void of all suggestion of sense, change, or particularity.
Then they were to bring the results of their training
to bear upon the everyday affairs of the republic
until they reached the age of fifty, for the new #.
vision which the perfecting of their intellectual powers
brought, and the new life which the refining of their
emotions had made possible, were to be used now "
! VII. 516 a.
PR/MARY A/VD A/GA/EAE EDOCA 7/OM. 249
# for the common good. The vision of truth and the
idealisation of life were not to bring cleavage between
them and their less favoured fellows. They were to
mix with ignorance and baseness for the betterment
of these. Then, having played their part in the
uplifting and ennobling of ordinary citizen life, they
It is not difficult now to see the relation in which
the earlier primary education fitted for all citizens
stood to the higher education necessary for those
who were to rise to the highest offices. The early
leducation was at once complete and preparatory. It
was capable of supplying a complete outfit of sound
opinion which would guide the ordinary citizen to
a healthy and beautiful life ; and if he passed to
the high office of philosopher, the development of
reason would disclose nothing in that body of opinion
which should be discarded. Reason would but show
im old friends under mew faces." We may say
of the primary education generally what Plato said
of the fables to be presented to the young, that
it will have fulfilled its function if it has not intro-
duced into the mind “opinions generally the reverse
of those which, when they are grown to manhood,
we shall think they ought to entertain.””
16. The Demarcation of Educational Spheres. The
problem of the relation of early to higher educa-
tion, which Plato solved in the manner just described,
is one which is ever recurring. It stands in the
very forefront of the educational questions which at
present press for settlement. One of the few prin-
ciples upon which specialists are in unanimous agree-
ment is the desirability of continuity between our
! III. 402 a. * II. 377 g.
might return in old age to a º contemplation. --~~~~
Z



250 EDUCATIOAV ZAV P/CATO'S REPUBLIC.
*
various educational systems. The capable pupil, it
is agreed, should be able to pass without undue loss
of time or energy, and without undue interference
with the orderly progress of his development, from
one educational sphere to another ; from, say, the
elementary school through the secondary school to
the technical institute or the university, or from the
preparatory school through the public school to the
same termini. The need for smoothness and economy
in these transitions and for the making of them
possible for all who are in a position to take ad-
vantage of them is recognised by all. Disagreement
arises when an attempt is made to map out and
limit the different spheres. The problem of boundaries
is a most difficult one in educational as in more
purely material affairs. It savours of irony to suggest
that we might hark back some two thousand odd
years for a clue to a satisfactory solution, yet we
shall find no better guiding principle than that on
which Plato seems to have relied in dealing with
the same question.
/ He did not, as we have seen, make the º:
A º º º tº e e o -
4, of subjects the basis of his division of education
into primary and higher. Of necessity the question
of difficulty was a factor affecting the division, but
it was not the principle, the fundamentum divisionis.
That principle was a stage of knowledge or a degree)
of development. It was an internal rather than an
external criterion. If we adopted it, there would be
no need for a lawyer to fix the lines of demarcation
between the elementary and the secondary or advanced
stages. The “whole choir of heaven and furniture
of earth’’ would supply material from which the
primary teacher could make a selection. Of course, .
PRIMARY AWD AIGHER EDUCATION. 25 I
many considerations would influence his selection ;
but independently of the nature of the material, his
peculiar function would be determined by the way
àn which he dealt with it.
Thus, following Plato's cue, he would be concerned
primarily, not absolutely, as we shall see, with the
Function of empirical stage of º knowledge. / Looking
the Primary at this from the side of mind, he would
School. seek to develop good moral and intel-
| lectual habits and to refine the tastes. He would
seek to cultivate a tendency to follow the true, the
beautiful, and the good; so that if his pupils were
to proceed to a higher course, the ground would be
duly prepared, and if their formal education was then
to end, they might have at least the capability for
nobility and fulness of life, and perhaps, too, an
impulse to themselves discover more of its meaning.
Looking at it from the side of objects known, he
would be satisfied with their recognition and apprecia-
tion ; his pupils would remain, for the most part, at
the object-lesson stage.
The task of the master in the second-grade school
could be readily defined on the same lines. His
The would be the important task of conducting
jº his pupils to the third stage in Plato's
University, table of the orders of knowledge. A He
would have to see that a rational standpoint was estab-
lished. The power of abstraction would need to be
developed. He would require a knowledge of the facts
of nature in their general and systematic aspect, an
appreciation of the beauty of, say, a poem on justifi-
able grounds, and some insight into the grammar of
morality/ /Finally, to the universities would be left
the task of carrying the work of education a fair way
252 A.DUCA 7TWOAV ZAV A/LA 7TO'S REAE UBZ/C.
towards completion, so that even the world of “real
existences” might not be too dazzling to look upon. '
Of course, these spheres could not be rigidly
separated; it would be extremely undesirable that
they should, for the progress of mental development
does not keep an even pace alongside the steady
march of the years. Many a child of the elementary
School can grasp a far-reaching generalisation of
science, and even peer into deeper mysteries. And
all should be carried some way out of the region of
empirical knowledge. The way out of the cave
should at least be indicated to all. Any system of
education which does not make every one a philosopher,
So far as his abilities go, stands condemned. At the
same time, the general principle of the division is
suggestive; and if it were sufficiently realised, it
might lead to the removal of one chief defect of
our elementary education—viz. the tendency to pre-
mature rationalisation.
and invaluable lesson to be drawn from Plato's con:
ception of a complete education is this, that it is
a matter of a lifetime. In our thought the idea of
finality is too often present. We start from the
economic fact that for most men but a short span
of years can be devoted to direct education, and we
readily fall into the error of seeking to compress
too much into that short period, and the even more .
fatal mistake of endeavouring to give it a veneer
of completeness. The result is a forced and premature
growth, and an artificial and stifling educational
atmosphere from which our pupils are only too glad
to escape. The leaving of school or the ºx
17. Education as a Lifelong Progress. One º

of a “final * is, too often, a great emancipation-day.
AAEM/MAA’Y AAVZ) A/GATE/e. EZOUCA 7TWOAV. 253
The spirit of Plato's thought is the idea of a slow
maturing of worthy habits and refined tastes in a
healthy environment, to be followed by a close
communion with what is highest and best, lasting
through life. And it is an abiding consolation to
think that he considered the fuller and deeper life
f contemplation possible, in a measure, for all. No
one need dwell for ever in the cave ; all can climb
some way upwards towards the light, even though
he highest pinnacles in the full glare of the sun are
|for those only in whom the philosophic spirit is
strong. “There is a faculty residing in the soul
of each person and an instrument enabling each of
us to learn ; and just as we might suppose it to be
impossible to turn the eye round from darkness to
light without turning the whole body, so must this
faculty, or this instrument, be wheeled round, in
company with the entire Soul, from the perishing
world, until it be enabled to endure the contemplation
of the real world, and the brightest part thereof,
which, according to us, is the Form of Good.”"
But though we may draw inspiration from the idea
of education as a lifelong progress, and though it
is a legitimate inference from Plato's theory that one
chief end of primary education should be to develop,
as far as may be, the power and the inclination to
go forward, we must be careful how we conceive
of the nature of this progress. If it is to be possible
in a measure for all, it must not be the ascent of
rung after rung of a ladder of abstractions. There
need be no “wheeling round ’’ from a “perishing ”
world to find the “real' world. Higher education
need not proceed by means of a divorce of the
! VII. 518 (7.
254 FDUCATIO/W ZAV PZA 7 O'S REAEPUB/./C.
truth revealed to the senses from the truth revealed |
to the reason. It is through the marriage of these
that educational progress will appear as a healthy
offspring. -
What a man can do is to take some area from the
field of concrete enquiry and come to regard it con-
templatively and reflectively. He can choose a branch
of science, history, or literature ; or he can confine
himself to his own garden. Only he must try to
appreciate the beauty and the significance of it all.
The ideal world is not far off. A man may be the
“spectator of all time and all existence * if he will
but look closely enough at the simplest flower at
his feet.
IND EX.
A.
Adaptation of truth, 41-43
Adler, 40, 158
Aesthetic and moral culture, 108-
112
Arnold, 164
Artificial trials of character, 187-
189
Artisans, 18
Ascham, Roger, 157
Auxiliary-guardians, or soldier-
citizens, and their training,
18-20
IB
Barnett, 59
Bible stories, treatment of, 39-41
Bodily condition and tempera-
ment, 148
— — and consciousness of
self, 148, 149
— — and the stream of con-
sciousness, 149
Bodily training and character-
training, 135-143
Bosanquet, 85, 41, 95, 98, 127
Burrell, 155
C
Cardinal virtues in a society, 190-
205
255
Cardinal virtues in the indi-
vidual, 206-222
Cave, allegory of the, 247, 248
Censorship of literature, 37-39
Cephalus, 25
Certainty, degrees of, 236-244
Citizen, the making of, 15-21
Civic sentiment, indirect develop-
ment of, 181-182
— — direct development of,
183
— standard and narrowness,
19-20, 179-181
Classes in the state and their
education, 18-20
Concupiscent element, 138-139
Conduct, self-originated, 82-83
Consciousness, its complexity,
217-218
Control of impulse, 218-216 ,
Courage, 46-54, 196-199
D
Doctor and teacher, 162-163
Dramatic poetry, objections to,
15, 72, 87-88
Dyeing, metaphor from, 198
E
Education and loyalty, 174-175
— — legislation, 175-177
256
IVDEX.
Education as a lifelong progress,
252-254
Educational spheres, 249-252
Eleatics, 4-5
Emerson, 76
Emotion and imitation, 86-87
suppression of, 51-52
Emotional expression, 50-52
Empirical stages in teaching,
116-121, 232-236
End of education derived from
philosophy, 2
-— — — as welfare of
state, 171-175
— ethical, of primary scheme,
24
Ends, union of material and
spiritual, 21
Environment, 105-125
--—- control of by teacher, 112-
113
F
Fables. See Literature
Faculties of the soul, 211-212
— rational and concu-
piscent, 212-216
— — concup is cent and
spirited, 216-219
— —- Spirited and rational,
219
Feeling, genuine, 81, 82
Form of Good. See Idea of
Good
Form of literature, 68-90
Fortitude, 53, 54
G
Generalisation. See Rationalisa-
tion
Genuine lie, 35
God's mature, essentials of, 34, 35
Good. See Idea of Good
Greek philosophy before Plato,
3-10
Guardians.
dians
— perfect. See Magistrates
Gymnastic, 130-165
— wide treatment of, 133-135
— effect of too much, 141, 158-
161
See Auxiliary-guar-
FI
Harmonies, special for special
virtues, 92, 93
Harmonious development, 139-
140
Harmony, 93-96, 107-108
I
Idea of Good, 12, 31, 244-247
Ideas, the theory of, 10-14
— — and the educational
scheme, 14-15, 17
— the world of, and the world
of perception, 11
Imitation, political objection to,
72–76
— ethical objection to, 76–85
— philosophical objection to,
85-88
— summary of dangers and
uses, 88–90
in higher education, 83-84
— and the professional train-
ing of the teacher, 84, 85
Individualistic and social aims,
178, 179
Insight as a factor in moral
culture, 109-110, 127-128, 153,
197
Introduction of subject of edu-
cation, 25-26
Involuntary abandonment of
opinion, 185-187
J
James, 43, 101, 162, 189, 197,239
AWDAX.
257
Jowett, 36, 40, 95, 136, 171, 204,
210, 244
Juror and teacher, 163-165
Justice, definition of, 25, 26
— account of, 201-204
— discovery of, 203-204
— “Concerning Justice,” a
second title of the “Republic,”
17
K
Kant, 63, 65
L
Lamb, Charles, 159-160
Learning to read, the parallel
from, 126-129
Literature, as a factor in moral
training, 65-67
— false before true, 27
— substance of, 27-67
— form of, 68-90
— principles of selection of,
28, 29
— a lesson in, 122-125
Locke, 225
Lying and its treatment, 57-58
M
MacCunn, 67
Magistrates and their education,
19-20, 248, 249
Material and spiritual aims, 48-49
Melody and rhythm, 92-104
Method of aesthetical and moral
culture, 113-116
— in logical training, 116-121
— direct, of aesthetical culture,
121-125
Moral and religious education,
beginnings of, 30, 31, 45, 46
Morgan, Professor Lloyd, 242-243
Muirhead, 48
Music, its great educational in-
fluence, 94-95
— effect of too much, 140-141,
161-162
— and gymnastic, joint effect
of, 141-143
Musical education, end of, 125-
129
N
Nature-philosophers, 4
Nettleship, 48, 49, 50, 62, 70, 94,
99, 109, 136, 159, 225, 226, 234,
235, 244, 245, 246, 247
O
Orders of knowledge, 236-247
Outward beauty and inner worth,
98-101, 106-107
Over-concentration, evils of,73-76
P
Philosopher, training of the, 248,
249 *
Philosophic element in soul, 138
Physical culture and character,
147-158
Political efficiency and education,
73 *
Primary education, outlines of
scheme of, 22-24
— scheme, apparent narrow-
ness of, 229-230
— — additions to, 230-231
— — limitations of, 232-236
— school, function of, 250-251
Principle of contradiction, 208-
210
Psychology of Plato, 13, 137-139,
210-219
Pythagoras, 4
Q
Questions and imitation, 80
17
258
JAVZ).E.X.
R
Rational basis of educational
scheme, 223-224
Rationalisation, 116-121
Reality, degrees of, 236-244
Reason, the divine element in
man, 13
Religious foundation of educa-
tional scheme, 30, 31
“Republic,” the plan of the, 17, 18
Rhythm, 96-98, 101, 107-108
— importance of, 96-98
Rousseau, 39, 225
Ruskin, 111-112
S
Sadler, 180, 181
Schwegler, 66
Secondary school, function of,
251, 252
Self-reliant thinking, 79-81
Sense-training and character-
training, 150-151
— — cognitive powers, 152-
153
— — emotions, 154-156
––– — volitional side of mind,
156-158 -
Social welfare, education and,
166-189, 225
—— — the ideal character
and, 226, 227
Socrates, 7-10, 25, 26, 30
--— his method as a teacher, 7
Sophists, 5-7
Speech, decorous, 103
Spencer, 160
Spirited element in soul, 138,
216-127
Spoken lie, 35
Stevenson, 99, 101
Stout, 54, 97
Style, 100, 101
T
Temperance, 61-65, 199-201
Tennyson, 123
Theory of education, develop-
ment of a, 22-23
Thought, as source of know-
ledge, 7, 8
Thrasymachus, 6, 9, 25
Truth, two senses of, 56, 57
historical and logical, 32
— Plato's account of, 54-56
Truthfulness, love of, 58-61
V
Virtue, its unity, 220-222
— and knowledge, 9
Virtues, classification of, 194-195,
204-205
Voluntary and involuntary aban-
donment of opinion, 183-189
W
Warrior, training of, 223-236
Watson, 83
Wisdom, account of, 195-196
Wordsworth, 107-108, 122, 156
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury,
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