with a passage from Plutarch's life of Cato the Elder, in which he describes the education given to his son by a man who was enlightened as well as austere. It was an exception to the general rule, and had it been generally imitated, the history of the later Republic might have been very different.
"As soon as the dawn of understanding appeared, Cato took upon himself the office of schoolmaster to his son, though he had a slave named Chilo, who was a respectable grammarian and taught several other children. But he did not choose (he tells us) that his son should be reprimanded by a slave, or pulled by the ears if he happened to be slow in learning; or that he should be indebted to so mean a person for his education. He was therefore himself his preceptor in grammar, in law, and in the necessary exercises. For he taught him not only how to throw a dart, to fight hand to hand, and to ride; but to box, to endure heat and cold, and to swim in the roughest and most rapid parts of the river. He wrote histories for him, he further acquaints us, with his own hand in large characters; so that, without stirring out of his father's house, he might gain a knowledge of the illustrious actions of the ancient Romans, and of the customs of his country. And he was as careful not to utter an indecent word before his son, as he would have been in the presence of the Vestal virgins."[1]
This is the older Roman education at its very best, fulfilling entirely the Aristotelian condition that the object of education should be to make the best of every individual in order to preserve the ἧθος of the State. Nothing is said in it of learning Greek; and we know from this same biography how bitterly Cato distrusted the growing influence of Greek rhetoric on the young Roman. But Rome
- ↑ Plutarch, Cato major, ch. xx.
