‘As it is,’ I answered, ‘they do not love the Greeks, and do not think a knowledge of Greece anything but a strange superfluity. They do not consider it a necessity at all.’ ‘Then we will not allow such people to teach in our ideal America,’ exclaimed Lysis, hotly. ‘Indeed no,’ I said, ‘for in our college we will have no necessity for a large staff, and so we will not have any of these sham teachers lowering the dignity of learning.’ ‘That will be a great gain.’ ‘There are already some small colleges in America which can help us.’ ‘How so?’ ‘Why, they are colleges that deliberately limit their numbers. Often they refuse to train more than five hundred students at a time.’ ‘Five hundred students!’ echoed Lysis――‘you call that a small number.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘but the Americans do, and if you had been among them you would realize that it is indeed a heroic sacrifice that they make in opposing the common tendency and remaining small.’ ‘And how are they to help us?’ ‘Why, in the first place we shall find, I think, the best material for our guardians among the pupils there, and secondly we can use these colleges as nurseries and training grounds for assistants for our guardians. Or do you not think they will need assistants in their task of giving a changed outlook to the Americans?’ ‘Indeed, yes, Socrates.’ ‘And another thing we will altogether change is the great variety of the instruction. For that the Americans have no idea of the purpose of education is seen in the way they provide courses of instruction in everything, even in the things that will only fit a man for low and base employments. The student hurries from course to course and becomes acquainted with the preliminaries of many studies but is advanced in none.’ ‘We will keep our guardians to a few studies,’ said Lysis. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and they will have to be very different studies.’ ‘What will be the first great change?’ he asked. ‘Why,’ I answered, ‘as it seems to me, the first thing to destroy is their superstitious reverence for what they call facts and their contempt for ideas. For they will often talk as if ideas were less real than facts, instead of more real.’ ‘What are these facts?’ ‘They may be anything. Lists of names, and long technical words are accepted as facts. The biggest fact is the Divine Fact, Progress, which they worship.’ ‘Might not that be called an idea?’ ‘You might say so, Lysis,’ I answered, ‘but I would advise you not to do so, for the Americans dearly love Progress and will not tolerate your insults.’ ‘Is not evolution another favourite fact?’ asked Agathon. ‘Why,’ I said, ‘some cherish it as much as Progress, of which they say that it is the explanation. But others say that Progress presides over the Americans by the special wish of the divine powers, as a reward for their virtues. And these say evolution is a lie. But neither party will be content to say it is a theory.’