_Theages_[147] literature and lyre-playing and athletics are mentioned as the ordinary education of a gentleman. In fiercely democratic Athens every parent was eager to bring up his sons as gentlemen, and no doubt sent them through the whole course if he could possibly afford it. But the State attitude towards education, as distinct from the voluntary customs of the citizens, may be summarised in the words of Sokrates to Alkibiades: “No one, so to speak, cares a straw how you or any other Athenian is brought up.”[148] The schoolmasters opened their schools as private enterprises, fixing for themselves the fees and the subjects taught. The parents chose what they thought a suitable school, according to their means and the subjects which they wished their sons to learn. Thus Sokrates says to his eldest son, Lamprokles,[149] “When boys seem old enough to learn anything, their parents teach them whatever they themselves know that is likely to be useful to them; subjects which they think others better qualified to teach they send them to school to learn, spending money upon this object.” This suggests that the poor may frequently have passed on their own knowledge of letters to their sons without the expense of a school. But all this was a private transaction between parent and teacher. The State interfered with the matter only so far as to impose certain moral regulations on the schools and the gymnasia, to fix the hours of opening and closing, and so forth, and to suggest that every boy should be taught his letters. The teaching of the elementary stages of Letters, that is, the three R’s, was, as will be shown later on, cheaply obtained, and was within the reach of the poorest. Music and athletics would naturally be more expensive, for they required much greater study and talents upon the part of their teachers. The State did take some steps to make these branches of education cheaper, and so throw them open to a larger number.