SOCRATES: O Meno, think that Anytus is in a rage. And he may well be in a rage, for he thinks, in the first place, that I am defaming these gentlemen; and in the second place, he is of opinion that he is one of them himself. But some day he will know what is the meaning of defamation, and if he ever does, he will forgive me. Meanwhile I will return to you, Meno; for I suppose that there are gentlemen in your region too? MENO: Certainly there are. SOCRATES: And are they willing to teach the young? and do they profess to be teachers? and do they agree that virtue is taught? MENO: No indeed, Socrates, they are anything but agreed; you may hear them saying at one time that virtue can be taught, and then again the reverse. SOCRATES: Can we call those teachers who do not acknowledge the possibility of their own vocation? MENO: I think not, Socrates. SOCRATES: And what do you think of these Sophists, who are the only professors? Do they seem to you to be teachers of virtue? MENO: I often wonder, Socrates, that Gorgias is never heard promising to teach virtue: and when he hears others promising he only laughs at them; but he thinks that men should be taught to speak. SOCRATES: Then do you not think that the Sophists are teachers? MENO: I cannot tell you, Socrates; like the rest of the world, I am in doubt, and sometimes I think that they are teachers and sometimes not. SOCRATES: And are you aware that not you only and other politicians have doubts whether virtue can be taught or not, but that Theognis the poet says the very same thing? MENO: Where does he say so? SOCRATES: In these elegiac verses (Theog.): 'Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.' Do you observe that here he seems to imply that virtue can be taught? MENO: Clearly. SOCRATES: But in some other verses he shifts about and says (Theog.): 'If understanding could be created and put into a man, then they' (who were able to perform this feat) 'would have obtained great rewards.' And again:-- 'Never would a bad son have sprung from a good sire, for he would have heard the voice of instruction; but not by teaching will you ever make a bad man into a good one.' And this, as you may remark, is a contradiction of the other. MENO: Clearly. SOCRATES: And is there anything else of which the professors are affirmed not only not to be teachers of others, but to be ignorant themselves, and bad at the knowledge of that which they are professing to teach? or is there anything about which even the acknowledged 'gentlemen' are sometimes saying that 'this thing can be taught,' and sometimes the opposite? Can you say that they are teachers in any true sense whose ideas are in such confusion? MENO: I should say, certainly not.