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I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose

concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and

acknowledge that we must go to the bottom of another question:

What is to be the education of our guardians? It was agreed that

they were to be lovers of their country, and were to be tested in

the refiner's fire of pleasures and pains, and those who came

forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have

honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point,

the argument put on her veil and turned into another path. I

hesitated to make the assertion which I now hazard,-that our

guardians must be philosophers. You remember all the

contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher-how

difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and

spirit are not often combined with steadiness; the stolid,

fearless, nature is averse to intellectual toil.