Most of the ancient peoples lived under governments which have virtue as their principle ; and when it was vigorous, they accomplished things we no longer see today, at which our small minds wonder.

Their education had another advantage over ours, in that it was never belied. Epaminondas, in the last year of his life, said, heard, saw, and did the same things he had at the age when he had begun to learn.

Today we receive three different or contrary educations : from our fathers, from our masters, and from the world. What we are told in the last of these overturns all the thoughts of the first two. That is in part because of the contrast for us between our obligations to religion and to the world, something which was foreign to the Ancients.