Schooling and the letter-master

Use in the book

Socrates tests Charmides' first definition by returning him to familiar educational activities. At the letter-master's, is it finer to write equivalent letters quickly or quietly? What of reading, lyre-playing, wrestling, and the other bodily exercises? He then turns from outward performance to learning, teaching, and understanding what is said at the letter-master's and lyre-master's. The examples assume shared experiences rather than introduce an unfamiliar professional syllabus.

Their argumentative role is narrow. If temperance is fine, but many fine performances are quick, quietness cannot simply be its defining character. The examples do not demonstrate that haste is always educationally best. The change from calm conduct in streets and conversation to speed in skilled performance is precisely a point a reader should inspect.

Schooling returns in the test of doing one's own business. A teacher writes, reads, and teaches names other than his own; boys write the names of enemies as well as friends. The classroom makes the literalized restriction to one's own things impossible to maintain without condemning an innocent ordinary exercise. That is a semantic counterexample, not an argument that civic education ought to privilege enemies.

The sequence lets familiar education become an object of philosophical scrutiny. A young person who has practiced the skills can evaluate examples, but possessing those accomplishments does not yet answer what makes a life temperate or happy.

Places to read

1. 159c–160a2Literacy and music instruction provide examples in the first refutation
2. 161d–eWriting and reading other people’s names test the formula about one’s own affairs

Translation in this edition

“Writing-master” renders grammatistēs, but the teacher also teaches reading. “Grammar teacher” in its modern sense would be too narrow or misleading. The edition's note compares the curriculum described in Protagoras; that comparison does not mean the noun paideia is attested here.

γραμματιστής

Attested: γραμματιστοῦ / γραμματιστὴν / γραμματιστὴς (grammatistou / grammatistēn / grammatistēs). The elementary teacher of letters; his lessons illustrate quick performance and understanding, while writing other people’s names tests the literal interpretation of doing only one’s own things. References: 159c, 160a, 161d. Lexical identification: lemma: γραμματιστής. See Schooling and the letter-master.