Book 7
811
Ath. My good Clinias, I have had, it would seem, a stroke of luck.
811
Clin. How so?
811
Ath. In the fact that I am not wholly at a loss for a pattern. For in looking back now at the discussions which we have been pursuing from dawn up to this present hour—and that, as I fancy, not without some guidance from Heaven—it appeared to me that they were framed exactly like a poem. And it was not surprising, perhaps, that there came over me a feeling of intense delight when I gazed thus on our discourses all marshalled, as it were, in close array; for of all the many discourses which I have listened to or learnt about, whether in poems or in a loose flood of speech like ours, they struck me as being not only the most adequate, but also the most suitable for the ears of the young. Nowhere, I think, could I find a better pattern than this to put before the Law-warden who is educator, that he may charge the teachers to teach the children these discourses of ours, and such as resemble and accord with these; and if it should be that in his search he should light on poems of composers, or prose-writings, or merely verbal and unwritten discourses, akin to these of ours, he must in no wise let them go, but get them written down.
812
Ath. In the first place, he must compel the teachers themselves to learn these discourses, and to praise them, and if any of the teachers fail to approve of them, he must not employ them as colleagues; only those who agree with his praise of the discourses should he employ, and entrust to them the teaching and training of the youth. Here and herewith let me end my homily concerning writing-masters and writings.
812
Clin. Judged by our original intention, Stranger, I certainly do not think that we have diverged from the line of argument we intended; but about the matter as a whole it is hard, no doubt, to be sure whether or not we are right.
