Cleinias:  Certainly.

Athenian:  And I do not faint; I say, indeed, that we have a great many poets writing in hexameter, trimeter, and all sorts of measures—­some who are serious, others who aim only at raising a laugh—­and all mankind declare that the youth who are rightly educated should be brought up in them and saturated with them; some insist that they should be constantly hearing them read aloud, and always learning them, so as to get by heart entire poets; while others select choice passages and long speeches, and make compendiums of them, saying that these ought to be committed to memory, if a man is to be made good and wise by experience and learning of many things.  And you want me now to tell them plainly in what they are right and in what they are wrong.

Cleinias:  Yes, I do.

Athenian:  But how can I in one word rightly comprehend all of them?  I am of opinion, and, if I am not mistaken, there is a general agreement, that every one of these poets has said many things well and many things the reverse of well; and if this be true, then I do affirm that much learning is dangerous to youth.

Cleinias:  How would you advise the guardian of the law to act?

Athenian:  In what respect?

Cleinias:  I mean to what pattern should he look as his guide in permitting the young to learn some things and forbidding them to learn others.  Do not shrink from answering.

Athenian:  My good Cleinias, I rather think that I am fortunate.

Cleinias:  How so?

Athenian:  I think that I am not wholly in want of a pattern, for when I consider the words which we have spoken from early dawn until now, and which, as I believe, have been inspired by Heaven, they appear to me to be quite like a poem.  When I reflected upon all these words of ours, I naturally felt pleasure, for of all the discourses which I have ever learnt or heard, either in poetry or prose, this seemed to me to be the justest, and most suitable for young men to hear; I cannot imagine any better pattern than this which the guardian of the law who is also the director of education can have.  He cannot do better than advise the teachers to teach the young these words and any which are of a like nature, if he should happen to find them, either in poetry or prose, or if he come across unwritten discourses akin to ours, he should certainly preserve them, and commit them to writing.  And, first of all, he shall constrain the teachers themselves to learn and approve them, and any of them who will not, shall not be employed by him, but those whom he finds agreeing in his judgment, he shall make use of and shall commit to them the instruction and education of youth.  And here and on this wise let my fanciful tale about letters and teachers of letters come to an end.

Cleinias:  I do not think, Stranger, that we have wandered out of the proposed limits of the argument; but whether we are right or not in our whole conception, I cannot be very certain.