young who are subjected to our comprehensive scheme of education may learn to imitate this, rules for conversation should be written, and the practice of them, by daily intercourse with tutors, schoolfellows, parents, and servants, should be insisted upon; masters also should take great care to correct any tendency to carelessness, forwardness, boorishness, or coarseness.
11. (ix) Boys will learn to endure toil if they are continually occupied, either with work or with play.
It makes no difference what is done, or why it is done, if only the boy be occupied. Much can be learned in play that will afterwards be of use when the circumstances demand it. It is by working, therefore, that we must learn how to work, just as we learn how to act by acting (as we saw above); and in this way the continued occupations of mind and body, in which, at the same time, all over-pressure must be avoided, will produce an industrious disposition, and make a man so active that sluggish ease will be intolerable to him. Then will be seen the truth of Seneca’s words: “It is toil that nourishes noble minds.”
12. (x) The cognate virtue of justice, or promptness and willingness to serve others, must be diligently cultivated in the young.
The abominable vice of selfishness is inherent in our corrupt nature, and through it each man thinks of nothing but his own welfare, and troubles his head about no one else. This is a great source of confusion in life, since all are occupied with their own affairs and neglect the common good. The true object of life must therefore be diligently instilled into the youth, and they must be taught that we are born not for ourselves alone, but for God and for our neighbour, that is to say, for the human race.
Thus they will become seriously persuaded of this truth and will learn from their boyhood to imitate God, the angels, the sun, and the more noble of things created, that is to say, by desiring and striving to be of service to as many as possible. Thus will the good fortune of private and of public life be assured, since all men will be
