Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Now I mean by education that training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in children;”
- Source
- Laws
- Date
- 4th century BCE
- Local voice
- Dialogue speaker · Athenian Stranger
- English wording
- Benjamin Jowett — Translator · from Ancient Greek
Meaning of “Now I mean by education that training which…”
In this account, education forms early habits of feeling and response so that they can later accord with reason. It is an account of moral formation within the dialogue, not an empirical generalization about childhood.
Where does it come from?
Laws, Book II, Benjamin Jowett English translation. The Athenian Stranger opens a longer definition linking early instincts and pleasure or pain with later rational understanding; this quotation preserves the opening clause and its original semicolon.
Why the local voice matters
Laws, Book II; opening clause of a longer definition linking early training with the later judgment of reason.
