Excerpts from Plutarch's writings on education
Adam Kissel

(using Charles William Super's tr., Plutarch on Education (C. W. Bardeen: Syracuse, N.Y., 1910))

We may remark in general terms regarding virtue what we are accustomed to say concerning the arts and sciences, namely, that three factors are essential to the formation of a well rounded character: phusis, logos, and ethos. By instruction I understand the acquisition and imparting of knowledge; by ethos, askêsis. Natural endowments are inborn; progress is a matter of education; application, of meletê (exercise); while the highest excellence is the result of all combined. In so far as any of these is wanting, aretê is necessarily defective. Natural endowments without education are blind; education, where there are no natural endowments, is inefficacious; and practice apart from both is incomplete and must fail of its end. … In confirmation of these views I might say that the three combined and cooperated in the psychic powers of the men of glorious memory such as Pythagoras and Socrates and Plato and all who have won imperishable renown. Fortunate and favored of the gods is every one upon whom the gods have bestowed all these gifts. If any one thinks that lack of natural endowments can not be supplied by suitable instruction and practice in virtue he is very much, yes, altogether mistaken. For disuse destroys the best natural endowments while didachê improves even weak ones. (49-50)

A good attendant [for the education of one's boys] ought to be such a person as Phoenix the tutor of Achilles was. But what I regard as most important of all and the capstone of everything I have said, I have yet to mention. Teachers for boys are to be sought who are of blameless life and of the best experience/reputation; for the source and root of all that is most excellent in the character is to be found in the right kind of education and training. (55-56)

A liberal education and mental culture alone of all things within our reach are immortal and divine. There are two faculties in the constitution of man that are supreme: reason and language. Reason is the master of language and language is the servant of reason. Reason can not be destroyed by misfortune nor taken away by calumny, nor enfeebled by disease, nor impaired by old age. Reason alone grows young with advancing years, and time which bears along everything else, adds to old age wisdom and experience. War that sweeps away all things else and destroys like a mountain torrent is powerless to deprive us of a paideia. (59-60)

Very appropriately did the philosopher Bion declare that when the suitors were unable to get into the company of Penelope that associated with her maid servants; so those who are incapable of comprehending philosophy give themselves up to other branches of instruction that are of no value. It is important then to make philosophy the sum and substance of all education.(64-65)

I regard as perfect men those who can combine and commingle the art of government with philosophy, for in my opinion they are able to attain the two greatest blessings within human reach: a regime under which each shall be helpful to all, and a peaceful and quiet life for the pursuit of philosophy. There are three courses of life open to our choice: the practical, the contemplative and one given to the pleasures. Of these the last-named bears the grand of the slave and the mere animal. A contemplative life, for the reason that it keeps aloof from practical affairs, is useless, while a practical life divorced from philosophy is without refinement and without culture. We should therefore strive to the best of our ability to take part in public affairs and to devote ourselves, so far as time and circumstances will permit, to the study of philosophy. According to such principles Pericles regulated his life; so did likewise Archytas of Tarentum and Dion the Syracusan and Epaminondas the Theban. The last two were disciples of Plato. (66-67)

Some one may say that such actions [of Socrates, Archytas, and Plato] are difficult and hard to imitate. I admit it; yet every one of us ought to try to the extent of his ability to pattern after models like these in order to subdue the violence of ungovernable and unreasoning passion, even if we are not the equals of these men either in knowledge or nobility of character. We ought none the less than they, just as if we were priests of the gods and torchbearers of wisdom, so far as in us lies, to imitate them and to strive to follow their example. (73-74)

It is important therefore that those fathers who are endowed with good sense should watch and be on their guard and strive earnestly to teach their sons self-control by appeals to reason, by threats and entreaties, by pointing out to them as warning examples the misfortunes into which those have fallen who yielded to their passions as well as the commendation and honorable fame gained by those who kept their passions in check. (77-78).

[introduction] If, as the poet Philoxenus says, O Marcus Sedatus, those parts of flesh which are not flesh, taste the best, as do also those portions of fish which are not fish, let us leave the paradox to be explained by those whose palates are more sensitive than their hearts, according to a saying of Cato. But that young persons find more pleasure in and pay more earnest heed to philosophical discourses that are neither too strictly logical nor conducted with too great seriousness is a plain fact to us. Not only do they read the Fables of Aesop and the works of the poets, the Abaris of Heracleides and the Lyko of Aristo, but they are delighted with the doctrine of souls as set forth in mythical stories. It is therefore not only important that they should conduct themselves like gentlemen when eating and drinking, ubt it is still more important to accustom them, when hearing or reading and enjoying that which is agreeable, to discriminate between the sensation of pleasure and what is useful and salutary. (85-86)

On the other hand, where poetry unites a measure of culture with what is graceful in diction, of where the charm and attractiveness of language is not unfruitful and empty, there let us introduce and mingle philosophy with it. … Poetry, though taking its logoi from philosophy, by combining them with the fabulous, furnishes easy and agreeable matter of mathêsis for the young. For this reason, those who purpose to devote themselves to philosophy should not eschew compositions in verse but should prepare themselves for the study of philosophy by means of poetry, thus seeking and acquiring a fondness for the useful through the medium of the agreeable. Poetry of such a character as to render this impossible is to be opposed and avoided. (88-89)

Neither meter nor style nor dignity of expression nor apt metaphors nor harmony and appositeness in all its parts communicate so much grace and charm to a composition as mythology fitly introduced. … In poetry when fiction is mingled with fact it becomes more impressive and is more attractive than a literary production which, though clothed in rhyme and meter, is unpoetic and without invention. (90)

When therefore anything improper or unfitting is said in his poems by a distinguished author either about the gods or about divine beings or about virtue, he who accepts it as truth is easily misled and gets a false impression. On the other hand, he who always keeps in mind and clearly comprehends that the witchery of poetry lies in the fictitious elements will always be able to say to it: "O thou contrivance more cunning than a lynx. … " One who can speak thus will suffer no harm and believe nothing base. He will reprove himself when he finds that he is afraid lest Poseidon should rend the earth and uncover Hades; and he will also restrain his anger against Apollo on account of the Achaeans. … He will no longer bweail departed Achilles and Agamemnon in the realm of Hades … (91)

Let us instruct the young from the very first [with respect to poetry] that poetry is not much concerned about the truth; and furthermore, that truth is hard to run down and capture even for those who give their whole attention to it and to the search for what really is according to their own confession. Let them always keep in mind the words of Empedocles: "Truth is not to be perceived with mortal eyes, nor can it be grasped with the mind" … And in truth Socrates also once declared with an oath, according to Plato, his ignorance in such matters. The young will place less reliance on the poets as knowing anything about those things when they see even the philosophers getting dizzy. (93-94)

The philosophers, you know, are wont to take their examples from such matter as they have at hand in orer to use it for exhortation and instruction, but the poets construct them out of figments of their own imagination. (100)

A young men … should feel even a stronger abhorrence for licentious words than for licentious conduct. (121)

We wish to remind those for whom this treatise is written that it is strange if the lover of myths does not notice the stories that are related in a new and extravagant style, or if the philologist fails to observe a narrative that is succinctly put and composed with a due regard to the rhetorical effect. Equally strange is it if the admirer of what is honorable and noble reads poetry for the sake of the entertainment and not for paideia, or if he passes lightly and carelessly over those passages that eulogize courage and self-control and righeousness. (127)

[conclusion] If a man were to go to his neighbor to ask him for fire and there finding a big and bright one were to stay near it permanently, warming himself, he would be doing just like a person who came to assist at another's discourse, but did not think it incumbent upon himself to kindle his own light or to apply the torch to his own mind, and who, if the discourse pleased him, sat still regaling himself. He may of course, carry away with him from lectures a sort of color and flush, like the man who has sat by a fire, but he has not driven out and thoroughly removed the rust and darkness from his innermost soul by philosophy. Though there may be need of other precepts now and then as to the matter of hearing, it is important to keep in mind and practice what has here been set down and to exercise our inventive genius while we engaged in the acquisition of knowledge; the end to be kept in view is that we may gain not only a sophistical and historical training, but also a thoroughly philosophical cast of mind, under the firm conviction that the beginning of a good and honest life is to be a good and honest hearer. (176-77)