PLATO’S THEORY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. 259 
classes, and to each of these classes a certain education is by 
common consent given, and ought to be given. And it is a grave 
question whether in departing from that principle we have not, to 
a certain extent, made a great mistake ; because in endeavouring to 
give as much culture as possible to those whom we regard as the 
lower classes, we aim at giving them precisely the same education 
that we give to those of the upper classes; and as the result of 
that system it is a grave question whether we do turn out the kind 
of citizens and the kind of persons who are most useful to the 
State and most happy in themselves. (Hear, hear.) 
Now Plato, as | have said, in the desire to discover what justice 
or righteousness is, wishes to see it illustrated on a large scale, and 
in that large scale he seeks to include an education even as regards 
the lower classes, because he would consider that they had their 
education in doing their work well. Even in the class of cobblers, 
of whom he speaks in rather contemptuous terms, he makes 
distinctions. There are good cobblers and bad cobblers; and he 
assumes that in their cobbling they will receive that education 
which will render them happy in themselves, and useful to the 
community to which they belong. Is he doing altogether wrong in 
that? Is it better that we should have good cobblers who can 
cobble well, than that we should have bad cobblers who understand 
Plato? (Laughter.) I think we shall all agree that we would 
rather have the good cobblers who did not understand Plato 
(Hear, hear) and have never heard of him. 
But I think that if we catch the spirit of the Republic as it 
ought to be kept, Plato’s object is to show that there is in human 
nature a certain division of faculty and a certain division of powers 
each of which must be subordinated to the highest of all the 
powers, namely, reason 
The question is whether in the exercise of reason we ought to 
have husband or wife or child, or whether there should be any of 
those distinctions in the inner nature which will induce us to act 
contrary to what we conceive to be the principles of pure reason. 
Now the Ancients always believed that the father acting as 
judge, acted righteously, and acted as he should act, when he would 
bring himself, though no doubt after a great conflict with the other 
part of his nature, to give the sentence which justice requures. 
And if we look into the New Testament we find that there are 
