Nothing could be farther from Aristotle’s thought than that education should become a separate interest or pursuit of a knowledge that has nothing to do with the kind of life a man leads. To his mind the central question for education is, what sort of man is it most desirable that one should become. Moderns may justly criticise him because he omits any reference to work, other than to say that it is debasing. His philosophy of education is that of a leisure class. And since work makes up the greater portion of most men’s experience in life, it may be said that Aristotle would train men to possess the subjective qualities of virtue only, and without reference to their tasks and duties. It cannot be denied that his theory of education has often been so employed. I have already discussed at some length the relation of education to work. While Aristotle, like others of his time, looks down upon labor, it does not follow that a man is necessarily shut off from the good life as Aristotle depicts it merely because he earns his own bread. Let us say that Aristotle is in error when he says that work is debasing. We may still hold that if his “good life” is good at all, it is good for the man who works for his living. My point is that this philosophy of education is not unrelated to the ordinary affairs of life, but that it points out those habits which best enable one to turn such affairs to value and to happy use. Aristotle has set forth his idea of the good man in no uncertain terms. The good is not Plato’s absolute or ideal good--good in general; it is _happiness_. It is to be attained not merely by philosophical speculation, but by “an energy of the soul according to reason,” by well-considered habits of choosing. Happiness is the aim of all knowledge and of every act. But the educated do not agree with the vulgar as to what it is. The latter believe it to be the accident of good fortune. The former hold that it is the result of virtue. Virtues are praiseworthy habits. “Virtue” therefore is a habit accompanied with deliberate preference, in the relative mean defined by reason, and as the prudent man would define it, “It is the mean state between two vices, one in excess, the other in defect. Temperance and courage are destroyed both by the excess and the defect, but are preserved by the mean. Virtues are neither passions nor capacities.” They are not mere moral enthusiasms nor any subjective state of mind. Wisdom and deliberation are required for virtue. _The good man is the educated man._