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On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philosophers

and theologians when he teaches that education is to be continued

through life and will begin again in another. He would never

allow education of some kind to cease; although he was aware that

the proverbial saying of Solon, 'I grow old learning many

things,' cannot be applied literally. Himself ravished with the

contemplation of the idea of good, and delighting in solid

geometry (Rep.), he has no difficulty in imagining that a

lifetime might be passed happily in such pursuits. We who know

how many more men of business there are in the world than real

students or thinkers, are not equally sanguine. The education

which he proposes for his citizens is really the ideal life of

the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a

time, by practical duties,-a life not for the many, but for the

few.