Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 62. where he describes the Egyptian method of teaching arithmetic by rewards and allurements. Locke, however, condemned the practice. “He that will give to his son apples or sugar-plums, or what else of this kind he is most delighted with, to make him learn his book, does but authorise his love of pleasure, and cocker up that dangerous propensity, which he ought by all means to subdue and stifle in him.” Education § 52. Vid. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 340. seq. Muret. Orat. iv. 43. Sir Josiah Child has some good remarks on the value of arithmetic as a branch of education: “It hath been observed in the nature of arithmetic, that, like other parts of the mathematics, it doth not only improve the natural faculties, but it inclines those that are expert in it to thriftiness and good husbandry, and prevents both husbands and wives in some measure from running out of their estates, when they have it always ready in their heads what their expenses do amount to, and how soon by that course their ruin must overtake them.”—Discourse of Trade, p. 5. Footnote 601: Plat. de Rep. vii. t. vi. p. 340. sqq. Footnote 602: Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 349. seq. De Legg. t. viii. p. 371. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 180. Cf. Cicero de Orat. iii. 32. t. ii. 319. ed. Lallemand. Footnote 603: See in Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 181. an anecdote of Thales cutting a new channel for the river Halys. In the study of astronomy[604] itself a coarse and obvious utility was almost of necessity the first thing aimed at, and even in the age of Socrates, when philosophical wants were keenly felt in addition to those of the animal and civil life, there were evidently teachers who considered it necessary to justify such pursuits, by showing their bearing on the system of loss and profit. For when Socrates comes in his ideal scheme of education to touch on this science, Glaucon, the practical man, at once recognises its usefulness, not only in husbandry and navigation, but in affairs military. Nor are such fruits of it to be despised. But philosophy proposes a higher aim, insisting, in opposition to popular belief, that by means of such pursuits the soul may be purified, and its powers of discovering truth, overlaid and nearly extinguished by other studies, rekindled and fanned into activity like a flame. Footnote 604: Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 357. seq.; de Legg. t. viii. p. 370. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 860. 208.