There are other passages, especially in the Laws, in reading which one is struck by a certain reverence for childhood, as that interesting one where caution is given against disturbing the uniformity of children’s plays on account of their connection with the life of the state. The modern theories of the Kindergarten find a notable support in Plato’s reasoning: “I say that in states generally no one has observed that the plays of childhood have a great deal to do with the permanence or want of permanence in legislation. For when plays are ordered with a view to children having the same plays and amusing themselves after the same manner and finding delight in the same playthings, the more solemn institutions of the state are allowed to remain undisturbed. Whereas, if sports are disturbed and innovations are made in them, and they constantly change, and the young never speak of their having the same likings or the same established notions of good and bad taste, either in the bearing of their bodies or in their dress, but he who devises something new and out of the way in figures and colors and the like is held in special honor, we may truly say that no greater evil can happen in a state; for he who changes the sports is secretly changing the manners of the young, and making the old to be dishonored among them, and the new to be honored. And I affirm that there is nothing which is a greater injury to all states than saying or thinking thus.”[9] It is, however, most germane to our purpose to cite a striking passage from the Laws, in which Plato most distinctly recognizes the power resident in childhood to assimilate the purest expression of truth. The Athenian, in the dialogue, is speaking, and says: “The next suggestion which I have to offer is that all our three choruses [that is, choruses representing the three epochs of life] shall sing to the young and tender souls of children, reciting in their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have already spoken, or are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be that the life which is by the gods deemed to be the happiest is the holiest, and we shall affirm this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of our young disciples will be more likely to receive these words of ours than any others which we might address to them.... “First will enter, in their natural order, the sacred choir, composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to the whole city. Next will follow the chorus of young men under the age of thirty, who will call upon the God Pæan to testify to the truth of their words, and will pray to him to be gracious to the youth and to turn their hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to sixty years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old to sing, and they will tell stories illustrating the same virtues, as with the voice of an oracle.”[10]