Chapter XX. That the Young Should Be Prepared for the Acquirement of Virtue by Learning Proper Hymns and Odes. From the Second Book of The Laws

[P] [1] ‘IT seems to me that for the third or fourth time our argument has been brought round to the same point, namely that education is the drawing and leading of children to that which has been declared by the law to be right reason, and which has been approved by the best and eldest men from experience to be truly right.

‘In order therefore that the soul of the child may not be accustomed in its joys and sorrows to go contrary to the law and to the rules laid down by the law, but may comply with it by rejoicing and sorrowing at the same things as the old man,----for this purpose, let these, which we call songs, be now in reality charms for the soul, seriously designed with a view to harmony such as we speak of; but because the souls of the young are unable to bear seriousness, let them be called and treated as plays and songs, just as those who are in charge try to offer to the sick and enfeebled in body the nutriment that is good for them in some kinds of pleasant food and drink, but that which is unwholesome in unpleasant things, in order that they may like the one, and be rightly trained to dislike the other.

‘And in the same way the good lawgiver will persuade, and, failing to persuade, will compel the poet rightly to represent by noble and praiseworthy language both the gestures in his rhythms and the music in his harmonies of the temperate and brave and thoroughly good men.’

With good reason then among us also the children are trained to practise the songs made by divine prophets and hymns addressed to God.