Xenoph. de Rep. Laced. ii. 1. 2. Footnote 552: Plat. Lysis. t. i. p. 118. De Legg. iv. t. viii. p. 325. De Rep. iii. t. vi. p. 128. Footnote 553: Poll. iv. 19. Ulp. ad Demosth. de Cor. § 78. Orat. Att. t. x. p. 113. Plat. Lysis. t. i. p. 145. On the character of these governors[554] antiquity appears to have transmitted us more satire than information. If we may credit some writers, it was not merely slaves who were intrusted with the care of boys, but often the meanest and vilest of slaves,—base in mind, depraved in manners,—whose guardianship, when they chanced to be crabbed and morose, could be no other than disgusting to their charges; and, when inclined to indulgence, most pernicious. Nay, were they themselves corrupt, what could be of more evil tendency than their own example? They who take this view of the matter appear to me illogical and inconsistent.[555] Though aware that these men were chosen by the parents to preserve their children from bad example, from the infection of corrupt manners, from the allurements of vicious companions, these writers persuade themselves that they voluntarily gave them as companions and guardians men worse than whom could not be found. It is more reasonable to conclude that when these pædagogues proved unworthy of the trust reposed in them they were sufficient masters of hypocrisy to conceal their vices at home, and only revealed themselves to their young masters gradually as their lessons produced their evil fruits. Thus, it is clear, that the father whom the comic writer Plato, in his Fellow Deceiver,[556] introduced reproaching the pædagogue who had corrupted his son, knew nothing of his evil ways when he delivered the lad to his keeping. “The youth, O wretch, whom I intrusted to thee Thou hast perverted, teaching him vile habits Once stranger to his mind; for now he drinks Even in the morning, which was not his wont.” Footnote 554: Plut. de Lib. Educ. § 7. The Athenians sought to create a high idea of this class of persons by annually offering sacrifice to Connidas, the reputed pædagogue of Theseus.—Plut. Thes. § 4. Footnote 555: Cram. de Educ. Puer. ap. Athen. p. 12. With the greatest reason we may suppose, that of all the domestics in the family the most staid and sober, the most attached, the most faithful, were chosen to fulfil this important duty, such as Plautus describes an honest pædagogue,—