In trying to answer the question, By what means shall these classes be sundered? Plato calmly assumes that his scheme is already in full operation among grown people, so that the only difficulty remaining is with regard to the children. And this is completely met by his scheme of education. The State or, let us say at once, the philosophic class, having abolished the family, and assumed its functions, determines what number and kind of children it requires at any given time, and provides for them as it would for sheep or kine. It brings together at festivals the vigorous males and females, and allows them to choose their mates for the occasion. As soon as the children are born, they are removed from their mothers and taken charge of in State institutions, where the feeble and deformed are at once destroyed. Any children begotten without the authority of the State share the same fate, either before or after birth. Those whose birth is authorized, and who prove vigorous, are reared by the State, none of them knowing, or being known by, their parents. But they by no means suffer any diminution of parentage on that account; for every mature man regards himself as the father, and every mature woman regards herself as the mother, of all the children born within a certain time, so that every child has thousands of fathers and mothers, all interested in his welfare; and the mothers, being relieved from nearly all the duties of maternity, share equally with the men in all the functions of the State.