in early youth, as is clear from the same examples. A jar, even though broken, preserves the odour with which it was imbued when new. When a tree is young its branches spread out all round it, and remain in this position for hundreds of years, until it is cut down. Wool is so tenacious of the colour with which it is first dyed, that it cannot be bleached. The wooden hoop of a wheel, which has been bent into a curve, will break into a thousand pieces rather than return to straightness. And similarly, in a man, first impressions cling so fast that nothing but a miracle can remove them. It is therefore most prudent that men be shaped to the standard of wisdom in early youth.
8. Finally, it is most dangerous if a man be not imbued with the cleanly precepts of life from his very cradle. For, when the external senses begin to fulfil their functions, the mind of man cannot remain at rest, and, if not engaged with what is useful, it occupies itself with the vainest and even with harmful things (a process which is assisted by the evil examples of a corrupt age), while later on, if it wish to unlearn what it has acquired, it finds this impossible or very difficult; as we have already shown. Hence the world is full of enormities which neither the civil magistrates nor the ministers of the Church are able to quell, since no serious attention is given to the source from which the evil flows.
9. If, then, each man have the welfare of his own children at heart, and if that of the human race be dear to the civil and ecclesiastical guardians of human affairs, let them hasten to make provision for the timely planting, pruning, and watering of the plants of heaven, that these may be prudently formed to make prosperous advances in letters, virtue, and piety.
