4.4. 4. Difference between the Effects of Ancient and Modern Education.
Most of the ancients lived under governments that had virtue for
their principle; and when this was in full vigour they performed actions
unusual in our times, and at which our narrow minds are astonished.
Another advantage their education possessed over ours was that it
never could be effaced by contrary impressions. Epaminondas, the last
year of his life, said, heard, beheld, and performed the very same
things as at the age in which he received the first principles of his
education.
In our days we receive three different or contrary educations,
namely, of our parents, of our masters, and of the world. What we learn
in the latter effaces all the ideas of the former. This, in some
measure, arises from the contrast we experience between our religious
and worldly engagements, a thing unknown to the ancients.
