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and do not hold the view that while diligence is of use in all other matters it is of no avail to make us better and wiser; and do not deem us, the human kind, so unfortunate that, although in dealing with wild beasts we have discovered arts by which we tame their spirits and increase their worth, yet in our own case we are powerless to help ourselves in the pursuit of virtue.This thought and comparison is elaborated with verbal echoes from here in Isoc. 15.209-214. Cf. the debate on whether virtue can be taught: Theog. 429; Xen. Mem. 1.2.19 ff.; Plat. Meno 95e. A conservative opinion is expressed on the question by Isocrates in Isoc. 15.209-214. On the contrary, be convinced that education and diligence are in the highest degree potent to improve our nature,
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and associate yourself with the wisest of those who are about you and send for the wisest men from abroad whenever this is possible. And do not imagine that you can afford to be ignorant of anyone either of the famous poets or of the sages; rather you should listen to the poets and learn from the sages and so equip your mind to judge those who are inferior and to emulate those who are superior to yourself; for it is through this training that you can soonest become such a man as we have assumed that one must be who is to perform properly the duties of a king, and to govern the state as he should.
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ButThe passage here to 39 is quoted in a somewhat abbreviated form in Isoc. 15.73. the strongest challenge to your task you will find in yourself, if only you consider it monstrous that the worse should rule the better,Cf. Isoc. 3.14 ff. and that the more foolish should give orders to men of greater wisdom; for the more vigorously you condemn folly in others, the more diligently will you train your own understanding.
