But, farther, tell me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even trust you to that extent?"--"How trust me?" said he.--"Then does some one manage you?"--"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he.--"But he is surely not a slave?"--"Of course he is, our slave," said he.--"Is it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he governs you?"--"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind," he said.--"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern you?"--"To any extent."--"So then your father likes to set over you a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is weaving--does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments used in spinning."--And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched them."--"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done some wrong to your father and mother?"--"By Jove, not I," he said.--"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis, and do nothing that you desire."--"The reason, Socrates," he said, "is, that I am not of age."--Plato, _Lysis_.