Kitap 8
1340b
We ought now to decide the question raised earlier, whether theyoung ought to learn music by singing and playing themselves or not. It is not difficult to see that it makes a great difference in the process of acquiring a certain quality whether one takes a part in the actions that impart it oneself; for it is a thing that is impossible, or difficult, to become a good judge of performances if one has not taken part in them. At the same time also boys must have some occupation, and one must think Archytas’s rattleArchytas a Pythagorean philosopher, mathematician, statesman, and general of Tarentum, contemporary with Plato. He was interested in mechanics; but one tradition ascribes the toy in question to a carpenter of the same name. a good invention, which people give to children in order that while occupied with this they may not break any of the furniture; for young things cannot keep still. Whereas then a rattle is a suitable occupation for infant children, education serves as a rattle for young people when older. Such considerations therefore prove that children should be trained in music so as actually to take part in its performance; and it is not difficult to distinguish what is suitable and unsuitable for various ages, and to refute those who assert that the practice of music is vulgar. For first, inasmuch as it is necessary to take part in the performances for the sake of judging them, it is therefore proper for the pupils when young actually to engage in the performances, though when they get older they should be released from performing, but be able to judge what is beautiful and enjoy it rightly because of the study in which they engaged in their youth. Then as to the objection raised by some people that music makes peoplevulgar, it is not difficult to solve it by considering how far pupils who are being educated with a view to civic virtue should take part in the actual performance of music,
