Children come first.

An aspect of the educational program in Plato's Laws.

The Laws shows how the legislator proceeds in relation with the formulation and promulgation of the laws which are directed to a special kind of citizens: "the un-(educated) paideia". This text holds that the function itself that in his last text Plato grants the figure of the legislator is the one of a fair State-maker. Plato does not hesitate: the general aim of education is the virtue and the duty to become a good citizen.

Let's state explicitly the Platonic reasoning regarding this: the aim is to found a community inhabited by happy citizens. The tool to accomplish that is the law. The one who performs this task is the legislator. Now, this assumes that the citizens are not happy and, if the ones who lack education are those on whom the law is to be applied (and it is), then the ignorant ones are the unhappy ones. The obedience to the law, by persuasion or coercion, will educate them, this is, will make them happy. Plato's intent to achieve the basis for a happy State lies, thus, in the possibility of achieving turning the uneducated souls into educated ones. Happiness lies, inexorably, in the paideia. Thus, the uneducated soul's destiny lies in the impossibility of being happy, as the beasts don't achieve neither virtue nor happiness.

In the IX book[i], we read that the law-less men would be the wildest animal, in the VI[ii], that the man is an unfriendly animal and in the VII[iii], that is the most difficult beast to deal with. We have to admit that, according to Plato, most of men are unfriendly and bestial by nature since the man is an beast on itself, although in case of receiving a correct education can become the most gentle and docile, but if he's not educated enough or not well educated he is the wildest among all the ones engendered by the Earth.[iv]

When Plato refers to the "law-less man" he is talking about the "non-educated man"; when he says that the man is an unfriendly animal he is referring in that passage to those men who haven't been "well educated" since they were born, that is, taking into account the Platonic ideal of education, almost all men in the world; and when he talks about children, he also refers to the ones who haven't been well educated since they were newly born, if we consider that it is from this moment that "all the character is developed in all of us and with all it's authority trough the habit"[v] and that the habits acquisition in an essential part in the basic education.

It's true, thus, and Plato admits it, that his pedagogic proposal assumes an absolute reform of the State. It is enough example that in books VI[vi] and VII[vii] he widely declares himself in favor of the public education: it's necessary -we read- the existence of public teachers who receive a salary from the city.[viii] In fact, the platonic pedagogic project  highlights the hope based on the possibility of salvation of "all-the-souls-all" from an unhappy life through the most commendable element: the paideia.

In this sense, every inhabitant of the polis has the right to be happy. So, specifically in Laws 743 a-b Plato expresses clearly that the aim of the regulations of the city is to achieve a community inhabited by happy citizens.

The pedagogic program proposed by Plato is an extended and detailed prescription, it's a law like any other if we consider it's formulation though it sets up the law which draws up the basis of the new State that Plato pretends to found.

This program begins with the childhood and puts on it the wish of achieving a virtuous polis, that is, inhabited first and foremost, by children.

Children should be treated in a special way, without excessive toughness and without excessive condescendence since the first thing makes children irritable and the second one keeps them away from the mildness.

Since they are three years old and until six, it is necessary to correct them, although no inappropriate punishment is to be imposed, this is: fair punishment.

Platonic pedagogy aimed to children considers the dance, the martial arts, the music and, above all, reading and writing since this is through the word (lógos) that the man shall become part of the polis as a good citizen.

Gymnastics, with it's two parts, dance and martial arts, and music are the two exercises prescribed for children's education.

The choirs and the dances are exclusive jurisdiction of the public educators who decide about their goodness and convenience according to the way they honor the memory of the citizens, men and women, who knew how to live praiseworthy due to their beautiful and difficult acts. Plato understands that educating is educating the character, that is why the disrupted tempers, fear for example, can only be pacified with the harmonious movement and the rhythm of music, according to what we read in Laws VII, since this way the calm and peace are reborn.

The teaching of the liberal arts shall be compulsory for everybody, whether they like it or not, it shall start at the age of ten and it shall last a minimum of ten years. Children have to devote to the liberal arts for as much time as it takes to learn to read and write. Regarding the ones who, due to their natural conditions, haven't been able to read and write properly and fluently at the age of ten, they shall not be pushed in this learning process since Plato highlights the capital importance of reading and writing since the polis does not admit illiterate citizens.[ix]

The fact that this kind of education is compulsory is expressed by Plato in the shape of a law that the legislator has to oversee is accomplished: "Every child has to sing and dance". This law, like any other one, has to be obeyed and the legislator's task is to convince the parents of doing so, persuading them that this is the best since children are, first of all, sons of the community and not of their parents. Parents shall neither have the freedom not to send their children to these teachers nor be able to abandon their education, but it is indispensable, as it has already been pointed out, that everybody, boys and girls, devote themselves to these duties, owing to the simple reason that they belong, more that to their parents, to the polis. However, a father can repudiate a child if they proceed according to the following law:

"He who in the sad disorder of his soul has a mind, justly or unjustly, to expel from his family a son whom he has begotten and brought up, shall not lightly or at once execute his purpose; but first of all he shall collect together his own kinsmen extending to cousins, and in like manner his son's kinsmen by the mother's side, and in their presence he shall accuse his son, setting forth that he deserves at the hands of them all to be dismissed from the family; and the son shall be allowed to address them in a similar manner, and show that he does not deserve to suffer any of these things. And if the father persuades them, and obtains the suffrages of more than half of his kindred, exclusive of the father and mother and the offender himself-I say, if he obtains more than half the suffrages of all the other grown-up members of the family, of both sexes, the father shall be permitted to put away his son, but not otherwise. And if any other citizen is willing to adopt the son who is put away, no law shall hinder him; for the characters of young men are subject to many changes in the course of their lives. And if he has been put away, and in a period of ten years no one is willing to adopt him, let those who have the care of the superabundant population which is sent out into colonies, see to him, in order that he may be suitably provided for in the colony."[x]

The important thing is that children's education always has to be handled by adults, say parents, tutors or people in charge for this purpose, and they all have to practice alike, i.e. according to the program's prescription, the educational task. As education is something indispensable, the legislator shall pay special attention to the issue, choosing the supervisor with utmost care, who shall be the best citizen in all aspects, among good citizens, since he is the one who shall guide the labor of the parents, tutors or people in charge of the arduous task of educating children.

But what does, to tell the truth, educating children mean? In Law 643 a-d, Plato makes clear that educating children is educating them for the virtue, with the following words which introduce the novel conception of the game as a methodology to achieve the success of the pedagogic program.

First of all, - says the Athenian- let's define what education is. I hold that the man who is to be good in any thing has to exercise it directly since childhood, playing and acting seriously in every thing. For example, the one who is to be a good farmer or a good architect: one has to play building some of the houses that the children make, the other one, as far as he is concerned, has to play to farm. The one who brings them up has to provide each one of them with little tools which resemble the real ones. And, specially, they have to learn all the necessary previous knowledge as, for example, in the case of the carpenter, to measure and calculate and in the case of the warrior, to ride a horse, playing. And he has to try to lead children's pleasures and wishes towards the aim that they will accomplish by themselves once they have matured. To sum up, we say that education is the correct upbringing which shall lead the soul of the one who plays to the love of that in which, once become a man, he himself will have to be virtuous in what he does.[xi]

Plato strongly believes that the uneducated souls are, among others, children's souls, but this souls are precisely the ones which occupy a central position in the Platonic thought. Since, in the first place, they are the ones to whom the polis shall give the paideia with the purpose of changing their fate.

The man, that is the wildest animal on Earth, can become the mildest and most divine one if is well educated. It is abouts turning the bestial[xii] nature into divine[xiii] nature, therefore children's upbringing is the educational task par excellence.

Phd. Sandra Maceri.

UBA/CONICET,

Argentina.

Bibliografía.

AST, F., Platonis Leges et Epinomis. Ad optimorum librorum fidem emendavit et perpetua adnotatione illustrative D.F.A., Lipsiae 1824.

BANCHIO, L., M., "La educación según Platón", Academia de Ciencias Luventicus, Rosario, ©2004-2006

ENGLAND, E. B., The Laws of Plato. The text edited with introduction, notes, Manchester 1921 (rep. N. York, 1976)

GERNET, L., "Les Lois et le droit positif", PLATON, Œuvres complètes, XI 1: Les Lois. Texte établi et traduit par É. Des Places. Introduction de A.Diès, L.G. et E.Des Places, París 1951, XCIV-CCVI.

LISI, F., Leyes, introducción, traducción y notas por ----------, en Platón. Diálogos, VIII-IX, Madrid 1999.

PABÓN, J., M., Fernández Galiano, F., Platón Las Leyes, edición bilingüe, traducción y notas por--------------, Madrid, 1960.

STALLBAUM, G., Platonis Opera omnia. Recensuit et commentariis instruxit G. ST., X: Leges et Epinomis, Gothae et Erfordiae 1859-1860.

YON, L., B., "La justicia, de acuerdo a Platón", Eλευθερία, año 2, N° 4, del 21/12/05 al 20/03/06 Disponible en

www.eleutheria.ufm.edu/ArticulosPDF/051201_La_Justicia_de_acuerdo_a_Platon.pdf - WEIL, R., " L' archéologie" de Platon, (Études et commentaires, 32), París, 1959.

[i] 874e - 875a.

[ii] 792 d-e, cfr. 777b.

[iii] 808 d.

[iv] Cfr. III 701c, VI 766 a.

[v] 792d-e, LISI (1999) p.17.

[vi] 764 c, d,  765d

[vii] 801d, 804c-d, 809a, 813e.

[viii] 813e 3-4.

[ix] 809 d-e, 810b.

[x] 929 a-c.

[xi] 643b-d, LISI (1999) p. 227-228.

[xii] Cfr. 808.

[xiii] Cfr. 766 a-b.