Book 8: Chapter 1, Education and Leisure Summary and Analysis

This book is shorter than many of the others. Scholars have ascertained that it is incomplete and the translators have graciously and properly provided us with this information. Nevertheless, what has been preserved is shared in as coherent a form as possible.

The philosopher delves even more deeply into the nature of education within the city-state.He asserts in the simplest of terms that the formative educational years are of great importance not only to the formation of the individual child, but in the interests of the common good and their relevance to the individual character that is most desirable for a given state. The curriculum selected is intentionally designed to enhance the state. This enculturation is needed to maintain the state through psychological and behavioral means. This does include certain forms of...