19.14
Yes, I see all this. You do! Then what is there in it that you don’t understand? Is it that you don’t know how to put the crocks on the top of the clay, Socrates? Of course there is nothing in what you have said that I don’t know, Ischomachus. But I am again set thinking what can have made me answer No to the question you put to me a while ago, when you asked me briefly, Did I understand planting? For I thought I should have nothing to say about the right method of planting. But now that you have undertaken to question me in particular, my answers, you tell me, agree exactly with the views of a farmer so famous for his skill as yourself!
19.15
Can it be that questioning is a kind of teaching, Ischomachus? The fact is, I have just discovered the plan of your series of questions! You lead me by paths of knowledge familiar to me, point out things like what I know, and bring me to think that I really know things that I thought I had no knowledge of.
19.16
Now suppose I questioned you about money, said Ischomachus, whether it is good or bad, could I persuade you that you know how to distinguish good from false by test? And by putting questions about flute-players could I convince you that you understand flute-playing; and by means of questions about painters and other artists—— You might, since you have convinced me that I understand agriculture, though I know that I have never been taught this art. No, it isn’t so, Socrates.
19.17
I told you a while ago that agriculture is such a humane, gentle art that you have but to see her and listen to her, and she at once makes you understand her.
19.18
She herself gives you many lessons in the best way of treating her. For instance, the vine climbs the nearest tree, and so teaches you that she wants support. And when her clusters are yet tender, she spreads her leaves about them, and teaches you to shade the exposed parts from the sun’s rays during that period.
