Such, in its outlines, is Plato's theory of education, as set forth in the _Republic_. It is easy to point out its defects and its errors, which are neither small nor few, but fundamental and all-pervasive. But it is equally easy to see how it came to have these defects and errors, since they are simply those of every æsthetic social scheme which ignores the nature of the material with which it presumes to deal, and takes no account of the actual history of social institutions or of the forces by which they are evolved. It is emphatically the product of a youthful intellect, carried away by an artistic ideal. It was, however, the intellect of a Plato, who, when he became more mature, saw, without "irreverence for the dreams of youth," the feebleness of ideas for the conflict with human frailties, and strove to correct his exaggerated estimate of their power. This he did in the _Laws_, whose very title suggests, in a way almost obtrusive, the change of attitude and allegiance. While in the _Republic_ the State is governed by sages, almost entirely without laws, in the later work, the sages almost disappear and the laws assume an all-important place. In writing the _Laws_, moreover, he exchanges allegiance to Socrates and ideas for allegiance to Pythagoras and the gods. In saying this, I have marked the fundamental difference between the _Republic_ and the _Laws_. While in the former Plato finds the moral sanctions, in the last resort, in the ideas of the pure intellect, trained in mathematics, astronomy, and dialectics, in the latter he derives them from the content of the popular consciousness, with its gods, its ethical notions, its traditions. In these, as embodied in institutions, he finds the most serviceable, if not the most exalted, revelation of divine truth. Trusting to this, he no longer seeks to abolish the family and private property, but merely to have them regulated; he no longer banishes strangers and poets from his State, but merely subjects them to State supervision; he no longer demands a philosophical training for the rulers, but only practical insight; he no longer divides his citizens into sages, soldiers, and wealth-producers, but into freemen (corresponding to his previous military class) and slaves. His government is no longer an aristocracy of intellect, but a compound of aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy, representing, respectively, worth, wealth, and will. His plan of education is modified to suit these altered conditions. The children, as in Sparta, do not begin the State course of education until about their seventh year, after which their training is very much the same as that demanded in the _Republic_, with the omission, of course, of dialectics. Though women are no longer to be relieved of their home duties, they are still to share in the education and occupations of men, an arrangement which is facilitated by the law ordaining that both men and women shall eat at public tables.