Saggi scelti di Plutarco, vol. I

of view, while others fixed their attention more decidedly, and often perhaps too exclusively, upon the inward and spiritual grace. There were also considerable differences between the Greek and Roman conceptions of a gentleman. But in the main this end was universally avowed—to turn the raw material of the boy into a man both capable and clubbable, whether from a public or a private standpoint. The things to be sought were the right accomplishments, the right morals, and the right manners. The accomplishments included, beyond all else, literary information and culture, argumentative dexterity, and a capacity for speech. The right morals were based mainly upon reasoned self-command. The right manners were chiefly those of urbanity, dignity, and that care of the person, the voice, the dress, and the deportment upon which all ages have insisted according to their several lights or tastes. It might be that the teaching ‘philosopher’, whose concern was with the soundness of the morals, had his quarrel with the teaching ‘sophist’, whose business was with the rhetoric and its excellence for exhibition purposes or for the gaining of various forms of influence. The philosopher might think the sophist superficial, showy, and often actually pernicious, while the sophist might look upon the philosopher as visionary, pedantic, and often a positive clog upon practical efficiency. Nevertheless no typically cultured person of the day would have questioned that, in order to be complete—or, as Coleridge calls it, ‘orbicular’—education must include its due measure of both forms of teaching.…