Those ancient writers, who have depicted ideal commonwealths, and have imagined the upbringing of such paragons as should be fitted for a place in them, before asking when their youth should begin to learn, have commonly laid down the conditions of their training from a very early stage. They begin by considering how to deal with the infant while he is still under his nurse, discussing whether he should be nursed by a stranger or by his mother, what playfellows should be chosen for him while he is still in the nursery, and what exquisite public or private training can be devised for him afterwards. These and other considerations they fall into, which do well beseem the bringing up of such an one as may indeed be wished, though scarcely hoped for, but can by no means be applied to our youth and our education, wherein we wish for no more than we can hope to have. Nay, these writers go further, as mere wishers may, and appoint the parents of this so perfect a child, to be so wise and learned that they may indeed fit into an ideal scheme, but too far surpass the model that I can have in view. Wherefore leaving on one side these ideal measures and people, I mean to proceed from such principles as our parents do actually build on, and as our children do rise by to that mediocrity which furnisheth out this world, and not to that excellence which is fashioned for another. And yet there is a value in these fine pictures, which by pointing out the ideal let us behold wherein the best consisteth, what colours it is known by, what state it keepeth, and by what means we may best approach it. It may perhaps be said that despair of obtaining the very best is apt to discourage all hope, for by missing any one of these rare conditions--and our frailty will fail either in all or in most--we mar the whole mould. Howbeit we are much bound to the excellent wits of those divine writers who, by their singular knowledge approaching near to the truest and best, could most truly and best discern what constitution they were of, and being anxious to serve their race thought it their part to communicate what they had seen, if only for this, that while we might despair of hitting the highest, yet by seeing where it lodged we might with great praise draw near unto it.