The history of Greece offers a more notable instance. If we ask where in Greece the home enjoyed the greatest honor and sanctity, where the house-mother stood highest in reverence and social importance, and where violations of fidelity were rarest, no one would hesitate to answer, At Sparta. Yet at Sparta all the sentiment, all the delicacy, of the marriage-tie was sacrificed to the duty of producing healthy children for the State. Plutarch tells us of a state of things which modern people would think wholly subversive of all purity--of old men ceding their rights of temporary unions and exchanges for the sake of desirable offspring. The Spartan men and women were not wanting in sentiment about marriage, in advocating the honor and sanctity of the marriage-tie; but their sentiment led them to regard a fine offspring as the noblest outcome of marriage, and one to which all other considerations were secondary. Hence it was in accordance with their sentiment that they adopted the same kind of precautions as regards physical perfection which a later and wiser age may adopt as regards intellectual and moral perfection. This possibility of improving intellect by careful selection was beyond Plato’s vision; he only thought of physical qualities in the arrangement of his unions. But it is one of the most remarkable points in his exclusive and aristocratic society that he makes provision for the adopting of any particularly bright child of the operative class among his guardians, so that they might benefit by the accident. The degradation of poor or unhealthy children of the higher class is also contemplated. His arrangement of the years of education is as follows: It is divided into three parts. Beginning with the learning of proper myths and tales, it proceeds to easy gymnastic, followed by music and poetry, with reading, writing, arithmetic, and some elementary mathematics, all of which occupy from the seventh to the eighteenth year, and thus correspond to our schooling. Then comes military training up to the twentieth year--a division to which we, who have no conscription, have no analogy, as the Germans have. Next follows the second division of higher studies in pure and applied mathematics for ten years, and the third in metaphysic for five years. These are, of course, quite wide of any practical scheme, and are intended to form those philosophic rulers who will regard their whole life here as a preparation for a higher sphere. § 66. His views on the details of music and gymnastic were not materially different from those of the practical educators which we have discussed, save that he proposes to train his guardian class with more detail and circumstance than were possible for any ordinary public.