MENO
Page: 51

which they had never learned themselves?

ANYTUS: I imagine that they learned of the previous generation of
gentlemen. Have there not been many good men in this city?

SOCRATES: Yes, certainly, Anytus; and many good statesmen also there
always have been and there are still, in the city of Athens. But the
question is whether they were also good teachers of their own virtue;--not
whether there are, or have been, good men in this part of the world, but
whether virtue can be taught, is the question which we have been
discussing. Now, do we mean to say that the good men of our own and of
other times knew how to impart to others that virtue which they had
themselves; or is virtue a thing incapable of being communicated or
imparted by one man to another? That is the question which I and Meno have
been arguing. Look at the matter in your own way: Would you not admit
that Themistocles was a good man?

ANYTUS: Certainly; no man better.

SOCRATES: And must not he then have been a good teacher, if any man ever
was a good teacher, of his own virtue?

ANYTUS: Yes certainly,--if he wanted to be so.

SOCRATES: But would he not have wanted? He would, at any rate, have
desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not have
been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from imparting to him
his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son Cleophantus a
famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on horseback and hurl
a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things; and in anything which
could be learned from a master he was well trained? Have you not heard
from our elders of him?

ANYTUS: I have.

SOCRATES: Then no one could say that his son showed any want of capacity?

ANYTUS: Very likely not.

SOCRATES: But did any one, old or young, ever say in your hearing that
Cleophantus, son of Themistocles, was a wise or good man, as his father
was?

ANYTUS: I have certainly never heard any one say so.

SOCRATES: And if virtue could have been taught, would his father
Themistocles have sought to train him in these minor accomplishments, and