It was assumed that every well-born and -bred young male must have an older man as his mentor and to be without one was, to some degree, regarded as discreditable. Thus juniors sometimes came to vie with each other in their efforts to win the regard of their seniors, especially if they were prominent; while the latter, in turn, felt that it was a part of their duty to the community and to the state to respond to such advances, even to make them. These friendships between ephebics and sages were, at their best, highly advantageous to both. The man embodied the boy’s ideal at that stage of life when he realized that all excellencies were not embodied in his father and when home relations were merging into those of citizenship. To win the personal attention and interest of a great man who would occasionally exercise the function of teacher, foster parent, guardian, godfather, adviser, or patron, brought not only advantage but distinction if the youth was noble and beautiful. On the other hand, Plato thought no man would wish to do or say a discreditable thing in the presence of a youth who admired him but would wish to be a pattern or inspirer of virtue. He seems to have been the first to realize that there is really nothing in the world quite so worthy of love, reverence, and service, as ingenuous youth fired with the right ambitions and smitten with a passion to both know and be the best possible. The period between the dawn of sex and complete nubility has always been the chief opportunity of the true teacher or initiator of its apprentice into life. Here we must recall the very pregnant sense in which, as I have tried in my _Adolescence_ to set forth at greater length, education in its various implications began in the initiations of youth by their elders into the pubertal stage of life and slowly extended upward toward the university, and downward toward the kindergarten, as civilization advanced. The world has always felt that these pre-marital years, when the young have such peculiar needs and are subjected to so many dangers, are the great opportunity for the transmission of knowledge and influence from the older to the younger generation.