impregnated but what has come through the medium of observations, or at
any rate been verified by them. A child would have fewer ideas, but they
would be well-grounded and correct. It would learn to measure things
according to its own standard and not according to another's. It would
then never acquire a thousand whims and prejudices which must be
eradicated by the greater part of subsequent experience and education.
Its mind would henceforth be accustomed to thoroughness and clearness;
the child would rely on its own judgment, and be free from prejudices.
And, in general, children should not get to know life, in any aspect
whatever, from the copy before they have learnt it from the original.
Instead, therefore, of hastening to place mere books in their hands, one
should make them gradually acquainted with things and the circumstances
of human life, and above everything one should take care to guide them
to a clear grasp of reality, and to teach them to obtain their ideas
directly from the real world, and to form them in keeping with it--but
not to get them from elsewhere, as from books, fables, or what others
have said--and then later to make use of such ready-made ideas in real
life. The result will be that their heads are full of chimeras and that
some will have a wrong comprehension of things, and others will
fruitlessly endeavour to remodel the world according to those chimeras,
and so get on to wrong paths both in theory and practice. For it is
incredible how much harm is done by false notions which have been
implanted early in life, only to develop later on into prejudices; the
later education which we get from the world and real life must be
employed in eradicating these early ideas. And this is why, as is
related by Diogenes Laertius, Antisthenes gave the following answer:
έρωτηθεις τι των μαθηματων ἀναγκαιοτατον, έφη, "το κακα ἀπομαθειν."
(_Interrogatus quaenam esset disciplina maxime necessaria, Mala, inquit,
dediscere_.)