We have at present just touched upon this
subject; it will be our business hereafter, when we properly come to
it, to determine whether this care of children is unnecessary, or, if
necessary, in what manner it must be done; at present we have only
mentioned it as necessary. Probably the saying of Theodoras, the
tragic actor, was not a bad one: That he would permit no one, not even
the meanest actor, to go upon the stage before him, that he might
first engage the ear of the audience. The same thing happens both in
our connections with men and things: what we meet with first pleases
best; for which reason children should be kept strangers to everything
which is bad, more particularly whatsoever is loose and offensive to
good manners. When five years are accomplished, the two next may be
very properly employed in being spectators of those exercises they
will afterwards have to learn. There are two periods into which
education ought to be divided, according to the age of the child; the
one is from his being seven years of age to the time of puberty; the
other from thence till he is one-and-twenty: for those who divide ages
by the number seven [1337a] are in general wrong: it is much better to
follow the division of nature; for every art and every instruction is
intended to complete what nature has left defective: we must first
consider if any regulation whatsoever is requisite for children; in
the next place, if it is advantageous to make it a common care, or
that every one should act therein as he pleases, which is the general
practice in most cities; in the third place, what it ought to be.
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