The Athenian’s conception of the perfect citizen was much wider and much more difficult of attainment. Pluck and harmony of physical development did not satisfy him: there must be equal training of mind and imagination, without any sacrifice of bodily health. He demanded of the ideal citizen perfection of body, extensive mental activity and culture, and irreproachable taste. “We love and pursue wisdom, yet avoid bodily sloth; we love and pursue beauty, yet avoid bad taste and extravagance,” proclaims Perikles in his summary of Athenian ideals. Consequently Athenian education was triple in its aims; its activities were divided between body, mind, and taste. The body of the young Athenian was symmetrically developed by the scientifically designed exercises of the palaistra. At eighteen the State imposed upon him two years of physical training at public cost. In after life he could exercise himself in the public gymnasia without any payment; there was no actual compulsion, except the perpetual imminence of military service, which, however, almost amounted to compulsion. As to mental instruction, every boy had to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and gain such acquaintance with the national literature as these studies involved. The other branch of primary education, playing and singing, intended to develop the musical ear and taste, was optional, but rarely neglected. The secondary education given by the Sophists, rhetors, and philosophers was only intended for the comparatively few who had wealth and leisure. Taste and imagination were cultivated in the music- and art-schools, but the influences of the theatre, the Akropolis, the temples and public monuments, and the dances which accompanied every festival and religious occasion, were still more potent, and were exercised upon all alike. This æsthetic aspect of education was regarded as particularly important in Hellas owing to the prevalent idea that art and music had a strong influence over character. For the training of character was before all things the object of Hellenic education; it was this which Hellenic parents particularly demanded of the schoolmaster. So strongly did they believe that virtue could be taught, that they held the teacher responsible for any subsequent misdemeanour of his pupils. Alkibiades and Kritias had ruined Athens: they were Sokrates’ pupils: therefore execute Sokrates; this seemed perfectly logical to an Athenian. If a Sophist sued a defaulting pupil for an unpaid bill, he was regarded as ridiculous, for it was his business to teach justice, and if those who had learned under him behaved unjustly, it was clearly because his teaching had been worthless.