PLATO'S THEORY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. BAD IS) 
I shall have to criticize at some length and with some 
asperity a great deal that is contained in Plato’s theory of 
education. I must begin by saying that the whole scheme at 
once attracts and arrests us by certain admirable and striking 
features. (Hear, hear.) In the first place there is displayed 
throughout the whole of the Politeia immense, I might almost 
call it a preter-natural, ardour for knowledge. In the second 
place it exhibits a highly admirable belief in the value and 
importance of educating the faculties of both mind and body ; 
and in the third place it exhibits a breadth of view and 
speculative freedom and grandeur which it may be said is very 
far remote indeed from, and apparently but slenderly under- 
stood by many of the most clamorous, and by many of the 
most obtrusive, advocates of education in the present day. 
(Hear, hear.) 
This is the scheme of education which one gathers from the 
Politeia. I would not have you suppose that it is categorically 
set forth as in the Code proceeding from Whitehall. It is 
mainly apparent in these parts: in the third book, in part of 
the fifth book, in part of the sixth book, and in the tenth book, 
where it divides with justice the honour of bringing the 
dialogue to a magnificent climax. 
This system of education which Plato here unfolds rests 
upon one single thought, the exclusive supremacy of the State 
in education. Education by the State and for the State is the 
distinguishing conception of Plato’s theory. Nothing may be 
allowed to interfere with that conception. That is the root, 
and it is the centre, and it is the close, of all Plato’s cogitations. 
It therefore now becomes my duty to describe Plato’s ideal 
state. I will begin by describing it succinctly. Plato’s ideal 
state is an aristocracy. That aristocracy rests upon a divinely- 
made distinction of classes. That distinction of classes is 
rigorously defended by a division of labour. It is an axiom 
with Plato—one man, one job. This is again and again 
insisted upon. A cobbler must cobble shoes in wternum. A 
shepherd must do nothing but tend sheep. A soldier must 
always be soldiering, and a guardian must always, from morn 
till might, and again from night till morn, be occupied in pro- 
tecting the State. 
This view of the State necessarily involves that the State 
should govern education. Accordingly, the whole question of 
education for Plato is ruled by one consideration. Is this, or 
that, a good thing for the State or not? Does this, or that, 
tend to make a good citizen, or a better citizen than something 
