Book VIII, 1337a–1340b

1337a11No one would dispute, then, that the legislator must concern himself above all with the education of the young. For where this does not happen in cities, it harms their constitutions. People must be educated to suit each constitution, since the character15 proper to each constitution both habitually preserves it and establishes it in the first place: democratic character a democracy, for example, and oligarchic character an oligarchy. A better character is always the cause of a better constitution. Moreover, for all capacities and arts there are things that must be learned beforehand20 and habits that must be formed beforehand for the work of each; so clearly this also holds for the activities of virtue. Since the whole city has one end, it is evident that education must also be one and the same for all, and that care for it must be common, not private, as it is now,25 when each person cares privately for his own children and teaches them whatever private course of study he thinks fit. Training in common concerns must also be common. At the same time, we should not think that any citizen belongs to himself, but that all belong to the city, for each is a part of the city. Care30 for each part naturally looks to care for the whole. In this respect one might praise the Lacedaemonians: they devote the greatest attention to children, and do so in common.

It is evident, then, that laws must be laid down concerning education, and that it must be made common. But what education is to be, and how1337a35 people should be educated, must not escape our attention. For at present the tasks are disputed. Not everyone supposes that the young should learn the same things, either for virtue or for the best life; nor is it evident whether education should be directed more toward the intellect or toward the soul's character. From the current40 education the inquiry grows confused, and it is not at all clear whether we should cultivate what is useful for life, what tends toward virtue, or the more refined accomplishments. For all these have found advocates1337b1 of one sort or another.

Nor is there any agreement about what leads to virtue. For not everyone honors the same virtue to begin with, so it is reasonable that they also differ about its cultivation. That the necessary among useful things should be taught1337b5 is not unclear; but that not all should be taught is evident from the distinction between activities worthy of free people and those unworthy of them. It is also evident that we should share in those useful things that will not make the participant vulgar. We must consider vulgar any work, art, or study that, for the exercise and10 activities of virtue, renders the body, soul, or intellect of free people useless. Hence we call vulgar both those arts that cause the body to be in a worse condition and those occupations performed for wages, for they leave the intellect without leisure and debase it.15 Even among the liberal sciences, it is not unworthy of a free person to engage in some up to a point; but excessive application to precision is liable to the harms just mentioned. The purpose for which one acts or learns also makes a great difference. For doing something for oneself, for friends, or for virtue is not unworthy of a free person,20 whereas doing this same thing for others might often be thought the work of a hired laborer or a slave.

The studies now established, as was said earlier, are of an ambiguous character. There are roughly four things that people customarily teach:

letters, physical training, music, and,1337b25 as a fourth, in some cases, drawing. Letters and drawing are taught as useful for life and having many uses, and physical training as contributing to courage. But about music one might already raise a difficulty. At present most people engage in it for pleasure; but those who first included it in education30 did so because nature itself seeks, as has often been said, not only to be rightly occupied, but also to be capable of enjoying leisure nobly. This is the one principle of everything; let us speak of it again. If both are needed, but leisure is more worthy of choice than occupation and is its end, we must inquire35 what we should do when enjoying leisure. Surely we should not play, for then play would necessarily be the end of our life. But if this is impossible, and play should rather be used amid our occupations—for the person who toils needs rest, and play is for the sake of rest, while occupation involves40 toil and strain—we must therefore introduce play, watching for the right time to use it, as though administering a remedy. For such movement of the soul is a release,1338a1 and, through its pleasure, a rest.

Leisure itself seems to contain pleasure, happiness, and blessed living. This belongs not to those who are occupied but to those who enjoy leisure. For the occupied person is occupied for the sake of some1338a5 end that he does not yet possess; but happiness is an end, and everyone thinks it involves not pain but pleasure. Yet they no longer take this pleasure to be the same: each determines it according to himself and his own disposition, while the best person takes it to be the best pleasure, arising from the noblest things. It is therefore evident that10 some things must also be learned, and education given, for the leisure in which we conduct our lives. These branches of education and study must be for their own sake, whereas those directed toward occupation are necessary and for the sake of other things. Hence our predecessors included music in education not as something necessary15 —for it has nothing of this kind—nor as something useful, as letters are for earning money, household management, learning, and many activities of public life, while drawing also seems useful for judging the work of craftsmen better. Nor, again, is it like physical training, which contributes to20 health and strength, for we see neither of these resulting from music. It remains, then, that music serves the conduct of life in leisure, and this is evidently the purpose for which they introduce it. For they assign it a place in what they consider the way of life of free people. Hence Homer wrote as follows:25 "But he alone should be called to the abundant feast," and, after speaking beforehand of certain others, "who call the singer," he says, "who may delight them all." Elsewhere, too, Odysseus says that this is the best way to pass the time, when people are rejoicing and "the diners throughout the hall listen to the singer, sitting in order." (Hom. Od. 9.5)

1338a30It is evident, then, that there is a kind of education in which sons must be educated not as useful or necessary, but as worthy of free people and noble. Whether it is one in number or several, and what these kinds are and how they are taught, must be discussed later. For now we have made this much35 progress: we have some testimony from the ancients too, in the established subjects of education, for music makes this clear. Moreover, children must also be educated in some useful things not only because they are useful—for example, the study of letters—but also because many40 other studies can arise through them. Likewise, drawing is to be learned not so that they may avoid mistakes in their own purchases and remain undeceived in the1338b1 buying and selling of furnishings,

but rather because it makes them observant of bodily beauty. To seek the useful everywhere is least fitting for the great-souled and for free people. Since it is evident that through habits before reason1338b5 we must be educated, and in the body before the intellect, it is clear from this that children must be entrusted to physical training and bodily instruction. For the former gives the body a certain condition, and the latter teaches its activities.

At present, among the cities thought most attentive1338b10 to children, some produce an athletic condition, damaging the form and growth of their bodies; while the Laconians have not made this mistake, but make their children beastlike through exertions, supposing that this contributes most to courage. Yet, as has often been said, neither15 one virtue alone nor chiefly this virtue should be the aim in providing care. Even if it were directed toward this, they do not achieve it. For neither among other animals nor among peoples do we see courage accompanying the most savage, but rather the gentler and lionlike characters. There are many20 peoples readily inclined to killing and cannibalism, such as the Achaeans and Heniochi around the Black Sea, and other peoples inland, some resembling these and others surpassing them, who are predatory but have no share in courage. Moreover, we know that the Laconians themselves,25 so long as they alone devoted themselves to arduous training, surpassed the rest, but now fall behind others both in athletic contests and in warfare. For they differed not by training their young in this way, but only by training in competition with people who did not train. Therefore the noble, not the beastlike,30 must take the leading role. For neither a wolf nor any other beast would face any noble danger, but rather a good man would. Those who turn children too far toward these things, and leave them uneducated even in necessities, in truth make them vulgar, rendering them useful for only one task35 of civic life, and even at this task worse than others, as the argument shows. We must judge not from their earlier achievements but from their present ones. For now they have rivals in education, whereas formerly they did not.

It is agreed, then, that physical training should be used, and how it should be used1338b40 —for up to puberty lighter exercises should be applied, excluding the forced diet and compulsory exertions, so that there may be no hindrance to growth.

For it is no1339a1 small indication that these can have this effect that among Olympic victors one would find only two or three who have won both as men and as boys. For those who train when young are robbed of their strength by compulsory exercises. But when, after5 puberty, they have spent three years on the other studies, it is then fitting to devote the following age both to exertions and to forced feeding. For we must not make both intellect and body labor intensely at the same time. Each kind of labor naturally produces a contrary effect: labor of the10 body hinders the intellect, and labor of the intellect hinders the body.

We have already raised some difficulties about music in our discussion, but it is well now to take them up again and carry them further, so that they may serve as a prelude to the arguments one might offer in declaring a judgment about it. For it is not easy to distinguish what1339a15 power it has, nor for what purpose we should engage in it. Is it for play and rest, like sleep and intoxication? For these are not in themselves among serious things, but are pleasant and, as Euripides says, give rest from care. Hence people also place music in this class and20 use all these alike—sleep, intoxication, and music—and they also include dancing among them. Or should we rather think that music tends in some degree toward virtue, since, just as physical training gives the body a certain condition, music can give character a certain quality, habituating people to be capable of taking pleasure25 rightly? Or does it contribute something to the conduct of life and to practical wisdom? For this must be counted as the third of the possibilities mentioned. That the young should not be educated for the sake of play is not unclear, for they are not playing when they learn: learning involves pain. Nor, indeed, is it fitting to assign the conduct of life to children30 and people of such ages, for an end belongs to nothing incomplete. But perhaps children's serious study might be thought to be for the sake of play when they have become men and reached maturity. Yet if this is so, why should they learn themselves, rather than, like the kings of the Persians and35 Medes, share in the pleasure and the learning through others who perform it? For those who have made this their work and art must perform better than those who devote to it only the time needed for learning. If they must labor at such things themselves, then they would also have to prepare40 the dishes for their meals themselves; but that is absurd. The same difficulty arises if music can improve character. For why should they learn these things themselves,

rather than,1339b1 by listening to others, take pleasure rightly and be able to judge, like the Laconians? For although they do not learn, they can nevertheless judge correctly, as they say, which melodies are good and which are not. The same argument also holds if music should be used for enjoyment5 and a way of life worthy of free people. Why should they learn themselves, rather than enjoy it when others perform? We may also consider the belief we hold about the gods. For in the poets Zeus himself does not sing and play the lyre. Indeed, we call such performers vulgar, and consider performing unworthy10 of a man unless he is drunk or playing.

But perhaps these matters should be examined later. Our first inquiry is whether music should or should not be included in education, and which of the three things whose difficulties we have discussed it can provide: education, play, or the conduct of life. It is reasonably assigned to all, and1339b15 evidently shares in them. For play is for the sake of rest, and rest must be pleasant, since it is a kind of remedy for the pain caused by toil. And it is agreed that the conduct of life must contain not only the noble but also pleasure, for happiness consists of both these.20 We all say that music is among the most pleasant things, both instrumental music alone and music with song. Indeed, Musaeus says that singing is the sweetest thing for mortals; hence people reasonably introduce music into their gatherings and pastimes as something capable of giving delight. Thus on this ground too one might suppose education25 in it to be necessary for the young. For harmless pleasures are fitting not only for the end but also for rest. Since people attain the end only seldom, but often rest and make use of play, not only for the sake of further activity but also30 for pleasure, it would be useful to take their rest in the pleasures music provides.

Yet people have come to make play their end. For perhaps the end too contains some pleasure, though not a chance pleasure; and in seeking this they accept the one as the other, because, in relation to the end of their activities,1339b35 it bears a certain resemblance. For the end is worthy of choice not for the sake of anything to come, and pleasures of this kind are likewise not for the sake of anything to come, but of what has already occurred, such as toil and pain. As for the reason why they seek to attain happiness through these pleasures, one might reasonably suppose this to be40 the cause. As for engaging in music, it seems that they do so not only for this reason, but also because it is useful for rest. Nevertheless, we must investigate whether perhaps1340a1 this is incidental,

and its nature is more honorable than the use just mentioned. We should not merely share in the common pleasure it provides, which everyone perceives—for music has a certain natural pleasure, and therefore people of every age1340a5 and every character love its use—but see whether it also contributes in some way to character and the soul. This would be evident if we acquire certain qualities of character through it. But that we do acquire certain qualities is clear from many other instances, and not least from Olympus's10 melodies. For these admittedly fill souls with inspired excitement, and such excitement is an affection of the soul's character. Moreover, when listening to imitations, everyone comes to share in their emotions, even apart from the rhythms and melodies themselves.

Since music is one of the pleasant things,1340a15 and virtue concerns taking pleasure, loving, and hating rightly, clearly nothing must be learned and made habitual so much as judging rightly and taking pleasure in good characters and noble actions. In rhythms and melodies there are likenesses, very close to their true natures, of anger20 and gentleness, and also of courage and temperance and all their opposites, and of the other qualities of character. This is evident from experience, for our souls change when we listen to such things. Habituation to feeling pain and pleasure in likenesses comes close to having toward the truth the same25 disposition. For example, if someone delights in looking at a person's image for no other reason than the form itself, then looking at the person himself whose image he sees must also be pleasant to him. Among objects of sense, the others contain no likeness of characters—for example, objects of30 touch and taste—but visible objects contain a little. For there are shapes of this kind, though only to a small degree, and not everyone shares in such perception. Moreover, these are not likenesses of characters, but the shapes and colors that arise are rather signs of characters, and these are manifest35 in the emotions. Nevertheless, to the extent that looking at these things too makes a difference, the young should look not at the works of Pauson but at those of Polygnotus, and of any other painter or sculptor who portrays character. But in melodies themselves there are imitations of characters (and this is evident.40 For the nature of the musical modes differs from the outset, so that listeners are affected differently and do not have the same disposition toward each: toward some they become more mournful1340b1 and more subdued,

1337a11No one would dispute that the lawmaker must give the greatest attention to educating the young. When cities don't do this, their constitutions suffer. Education must fit each constitution. For the character15 proper to each constitution usually both preserves it and establishes it in the first place: democratic character establishes democracy, and character favoring rule by a few establishes oligarchy. A better character always produces a better constitution. Also, every ability and skill requires some preliminary education20 and training in habits for its particular activities. Clearly, then, this is also true of actions that express virtue. Since the whole city has one goal, clearly everyone must have one and the same education. Its care must be public, not private, as it is now,25 when each person looks after his own children privately and teaches them whatever private course of study he chooses. Training for common concerns must also be common. At the same time, we shouldn't think that any citizen belongs to himself. All belong to the city, since each is a part of it. Care30 for each part must naturally look toward care for the whole. On this point one could praise the Lacedaemonians. They take the greatest care over children, and do so publicly.

Clearly, then, laws must be made about education, and it must be public. But what education should be and how1337a35 it should be given must also be clear to us. At present people disagree about its tasks. They don't all think the young should learn the same things, either for virtue or for the best life. Nor is it clear whether education should be directed more toward understanding or toward the soul's character. From the current40 education comes confusion about the question. It's not at all clear whether we should practice things useful for life, things leading to virtue, or studies beyond ordinary needs. All these have supporters1337b1 of some kind.

There is no agreement about what leads to virtue either. People don't all honor the same virtue to begin with, so naturally they also disagree about training for it. That the necessary useful things must be taught1337b5 is clear. But not all useful things should be taught, since we distinguish work fit for free people from work unfit for them. People should take part only in those useful activities that don't make them mere laborers. We must regard as a laborer's work, skill, or study anything that, for the exercise and10 practice of virtue, makes a free person's body, soul, or understanding unfit. That's why we call skills that put the body in a worse condition laborers' skills, and also work done for wages. They leave the mind no leisure and lower its outlook.15 Even among the studies fit for free people, learning some to a certain extent isn't unfit for a free person. But devoting oneself too intensely to mastering them is open to the harms we've mentioned. The purpose for which someone acts or learns also makes a great difference. Doing something for oneself, for friends, or for virtue isn't unfit for a free person.20 But doing that same thing for others would often seem to be the work of a hired hand or a slave.

The subjects now established in education, as we said before, have an uncertain position between these alternatives. There are roughly four subjects usually taught:

reading and writing, physical training, music, and,1337b25 as a fourth, drawing, which some people add. Reading and writing and drawing are taught because they're useful in life and have many uses. Physical training is taught because it contributes to courage. Music, however, raises a question. Most people now take part in it for pleasure. But those who first included it in education30 did so because nature itself seeks not only to work rightly but also to be able to use leisure well, as we've often said. This is the single starting point for everything. Let's discuss it again. Both work and leisure are needed, but leisure is more desirable than work and is its goal. So we must ask35 what we should do during leisure. Surely not play, since then play would have to be our goal in life. That's impossible. Instead, play should be used during work. Someone who works hard needs rest, and play is for the sake of rest. Work involves40 effort and strain. So we must introduce play at the right times, as if we were giving medicine. This kind of movement in the soul brings relaxation,1338a1 and its pleasure brings rest.

Leisure itself seems to contain pleasure, happiness, and a blessed life. This belongs not to those who are working but to those with leisure. Someone who works does so for some1338a5 goal that hasn't yet been reached. But happiness is a goal, and everyone thinks it comes with pleasure, not pain. Yet they don't all identify the same pleasure. Each judges according to himself and his own condition. The best person chooses the best pleasure, the one coming from the noblest things. So clearly10 we must also learn some things and be educated for the way we spend our leisure. These forms of education and study must be for their own sake, while those directed toward work are necessary and for the sake of other things. That's why people in the past included music in education, not as something necessary15 —for it has nothing of that kind—nor as something useful. Reading and writing, for example, are useful for money-making, household management, learning, and many public activities. Drawing too seems useful for judging the work of craftsmen better. Nor is music, like physical training, directed toward20 health and strength: we don't see either of these coming from music. So its purpose must be the way we spend our leisure, and this is clearly why they introduce it. They assign it a place in what they consider a free person's way of spending time. That's why Homer wrote this:25 "But he alone should be called to the rich feast," and after first mentioning some others, "who call a singer," he says, "to delight them all." Elsewhere Odysseus says that this is the best way to spend time, when people are enjoying themselves and "the guests throughout the hall listen to the singer, sitting in rows." (Hom. Od. 9.5)

1338a30Clearly, then, there is a kind of education that sons should receive not because it's useful or necessary, but because it's fit for free people and noble. Whether there's one such kind or more, what they are, and how they work must be discussed later. For now we have made this much35 progress: the established subjects of education give us some evidence from the people of the past. Music makes this clear. Also, children should learn some useful things not just because they're useful. Reading and writing, for example, should be learned also because they make many40 other kinds of learning possible. Similarly, drawing shouldn't be learned so that people avoid mistakes in their private purchases and can't be cheated when1338b1 buying and selling household goods,

but rather because it makes them able to observe bodily beauty. Looking everywhere for what is useful is entirely unfitting for people with greatness of soul and for free people. Clearly, through habits before reason1338b5 children must be educated. The body must be educated before the mind. So we must put children in the hands of experts in physical training and instructors in exercise. The former develop a particular bodily condition, and the latter teach the activities.

At present, among cities thought to take the greatest care1338b10 of children, some develop an athlete's condition, damaging the form and growth of their bodies. The Laconians haven't made this mistake, but their demanding exercises make children savage, as if this were the best way to develop courage. Yet, as we've often said, care shouldn't15 aim at just one virtue, and especially not at this one alone. Even if it does aim at courage, they don't achieve it. Neither among other animals nor among human peoples do we see courage going with the most savage. Rather, it goes with gentler, lionlike characters. Many20 peoples readily kill and eat human beings, such as the Achaeans and Heniochi around the Black Sea and other peoples inland. Some are like these, and others still worse. They are raiders, but they have no share in courage. We know that the Laconians themselves,25 as long as they alone devoted themselves to strenuous training, surpassed others. But now they fall behind others both in athletic contests and in war. Their superiority didn't come from training their young in this way, but only from training when their opponents didn't. So the noble, not the savage,30 should take the leading role. Neither a wolf nor any other wild animal would face any noble danger. A good man would be more likely to do so. Those who turn children loose too much in these pursuits, leaving them uneducated in necessary things, in fact make mere laborers of them. They make them useful for just one task35 of public life, and even in that task worse than others, as the argument shows. We must judge by what happens now, not by past achievements. They now have rivals in education; before, they didn't.

There is agreement, then, that physical training should be used, and about how to use it1338b40 (until puberty, lighter exercises should be introduced. Forced feeding and compulsory exertion should be kept away, so that nothing hinders growth.

The evidence is not1339a1 slight: these exercises can cause such harm. Among Olympic winners, one would find only two or three who won both as boys and as men. This is because compulsory exercises exhaust the strength of those who train while young. But when, after5 puberty, three years have been spent on other studies, it's suitable to fill the next stage of life with strenuous exercises and forced feeding. We shouldn't make the mind and body work hard at the same time. Each kind of effort naturally has the opposite effect on the other: effort in the10 body hinders the mind, and mental effort hinders the body).

We have already raised some questions about music in our discussion. It's good to take them up again now and carry them further, to give a kind of starting note to the arguments one might make in reaching a judgment about it. It isn't easy to determine what1339a15 power music has, or why we should take part in it. Is it for play and rest, as with sleep and getting drunk? These aren't serious things in themselves, but they're pleasant and "give rest from care," as Euripides says. That's why people put music alongside them and20 use all these things alike: sleep, drunkenness, and music. They include dancing too. Or should we think that music contributes to virtue? Just as physical training develops a certain condition in the body, music might develop a certain character, training people to take pleasure25 in the right things. Or does it contribute to the way we spend our time and to practical wisdom? This must be included as the third possibility. Clearly, the young shouldn't be educated for the sake of play. They aren't playing while learning, since learning is painful. Nor is it suitable to give children30 and people of that age the mature use of leisure. Nothing incomplete should have the final goal assigned to it. But perhaps children's serious study might be thought to serve their play when they've become grown, fully developed men. If that's so, why should they learn music themselves, instead of, like the kings of Persia and35 Media, sharing its pleasure and learning through others who perform it? Those who have made this their work and skill must produce better results than those who spend only enough time on it to learn. If people must work at these things themselves, they should also prepare for themselves the things involved in40 cooking dishes. But that's absurd. The same difficulty arises if music can improve character. Why must people learn it themselves,

rather than1339b1 listen to others and learn to enjoy and judge it rightly, like the Laconians? Although they don't learn it, they can still, they say, judge rightly which tunes are good and which aren't. The same argument applies if music should be used for a good life5 and a free person's way of spending time. Why should people learn it themselves instead of enjoying others' performances? We can consider what we believe about the gods. In the poets, Zeus doesn't himself sing or play the lyre. In fact, we call people who do these things mere laborers, and regard performing as unfitting10 for a man unless he's drunk or playing.

But perhaps we should examine these matters later. The first question is whether music should be included in education or not, and which of the three things we've discussed it can provide: education, play, or a way to spend our time. It's reasonably assigned to all of them, and1339b15 clearly has a share in them. Play is for the sake of rest, and rest must be pleasant, since it's a kind of cure for the pain that hard work causes. Everyone agrees that the way we spend our time must involve not only the noble but also pleasure, since happiness consists of both.20 We all say that music is among the most pleasant things, both instrumental music alone and music with singing. Musaeus too says that "singing is most pleasant for mortals." So people reasonably bring music into their gatherings and the way they spend their time, because it can give delight. From this too one might conclude that learning25 music is necessary for younger people. Harmless pleasures are suitable not only for the final goal but also for rest. People rarely reach the final goal, but they often rest and use play, not just to prepare for more work but also30 for pleasure. So it would be useful to rest in the pleasures that music provides.

People have come to make play their goal. Perhaps the goal too contains some pleasure, though not just any pleasure. In seeking that pleasure, people take this one to be it, because, compared with the goal of our actions,1339b35 it bears some resemblance. The goal isn't chosen for the sake of anything in the future. These pleasures too aren't for the sake of anything in the future, but for things in the past, such as effort and pain. For seeking happiness through these pleasures, one could reasonably suppose this to be40 the reason. But people seem to take part in music not for this reason alone, but also because it's useful for resting. Still, we must ask whether perhaps1340a1 this is only incidental,

and music's nature is more valuable than the use we've described. We shouldn't just share in the common pleasure it gives, which everyone perceives. Music has a natural pleasure, so people of every age1340a5 and every character enjoy using it. We must also see whether it contributes in any way to character and the soul. This would be clear if it made us have characters of a certain kind. That it does so is clear from many other things, and especially from Olympus's10 tunes. Everyone agrees that these make souls inspired, and inspiration is an emotional state of the soul's character. Also, everyone who listens to imitations comes to share the feelings they represent, even apart from the rhythms and tunes themselves.

Since music is among pleasant things,1340a15 and virtue concerns taking pleasure, loving, and hating rightly, clearly nothing needs to be learned and made a habit more than judging rightly and taking pleasure in good characters and noble actions. Rhythms and tunes contain likenesses very close to the real natures of anger20 and gentleness, courage and self-control, all their opposites, and the other qualities of character. The facts show this: our souls change when we listen to such things. Getting used to feeling pain and pleasure in likenesses comes close to having, toward reality, the same25 response. For example, if someone enjoys looking at an image of a person for no other reason than the form itself, he must also enjoy looking at the person whose image he is viewing. Among things perceived by the senses, the other kinds contain no likeness of character: for example, things30 we touch and taste. Visible things contain a little. There are forms of this kind, but only to a small extent, and not everyone shares this perception. Besides, these aren't likenesses of character. The forms and colors that appear are rather signs of character, and these signs appear35 in emotional states. Still, since looking at these too makes some difference, the young shouldn't look at the works of Pauson, but at those of Polygnotus and of any other painter or sculptor who expresses character. But tunes themselves contain imitations of character. (This is clear:40 the musical modes, or arrangements of notes, differ in their very nature. Those who listen to them are affected differently and don't respond in the same way to each. Some make them more mournful1340b1 and more restrained,