Plato gave immense importance to education.

In his treatise ”The republic”, Plato has dealt

According to Plato- Education the initial acquisition of virtue by the child, when the feelings
of pleasure and affection, pain and hatred, that well up in his soul are channelled in the right
courses before he can understand the reason why… education, then is a matter of correctly
disciplined feelings of pleasure and pain .

Apart from this definition, Plato sees education as “… to ensure that the habit and aspirations
of the old generation are transmitted to the younger- and then presumably to the next one
after that”.

3 phases of education

Elementary Education (upto age of 20 years)

Plato believed that education began from the age of seven. Plato was of the opinion that for the first
10 years, there should be predominantly physical education in order to develop the physique and
health of children and make them resistant to any disease.

Higher Education( 20 to 35 years)

Practical Training(35 to 50 Years)

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Plato believed that an educated state could lead to the perfect state. And this is what led to an
educational system similar to the one we see in most countries today. While some parts of his
theories on education can be disagreed upon given the current state of moral values, his philosophy
proved that it was possible for people to continuously learn and not just limit education to youths.

SHORT NOTE
Plato’s theory of education is an attempt to touch the evil at its very source. It is an attempt to
cure a mental malady by a mental medicine. Barker rightly says that Plato’s scheme of
education brings the soul into that environment which in each stage of its growth is best
suited for its development. Plato’s theory of education is important in his political theory.

It is important in so far as it ‘provides a basis for the ideal state designed to achieve justice.
Following his teacher, Socrates, Plato had a belief in the dictum that Virtue is knowledge and
for making people virtuous, he made education a very powerful instrument. Plato also
believed that education builds man’s character and it is, therefore, a necessary condition for
extracting man’s natural faculties in order to develop his personalities.

Education is not a private enterprise for Plato; it is public in so far it provides a moral
diagnosis to the social ailments. Barker, speaking for Plato, says that education is a path of
social righteousness, and not of social success; it is a way to reach the truth. Education, Plato
emphasised, was necessary for all the classes in society, especially for those who govern the
people. The rulers, for Plato, are supreme because they are educated by philosophers, for the
rule of the philosophers, as Barker explains, is the result of the education they receive.

Plato, in his proposed scheme of education, accepts certain assumptions; (i) soul, being
initiative and active, throws up, through education, the best things that are latent in it; (ii)
education moulds the character of the growing young; it does not provide eyes to the blind,
but it does give vision to men with eyes; it brings soul to the realms of light; it activates and
reactivates the individual; (iii) each level of education has a pre-assigned function: the
elementary education helps individuals give direction to their powers; middle level education
helps individuals understand their surroundings; and higher education helps individuals
prepare, determine and decide their course of education; and (iv) education helps people earn
a living and also helps them to become better human beings. Plato does not want to make
education a commercial enterprise.

He wants, as Sabine tells us, that education must itself provide the needed means, must see
that citizens actually get the training they require, and must be sure that the education
supplied is consonant with the harmony and well-being of the state. “Plato’s plan, Sabine
states, “is therefore, for a state-controlled system of compulsory education.

His educational scheme falls naturally into parts, the elementary education, which includes
the training of the young person’s up to about the age of twenty and culminating in the
beginning of military service, and the higher education, intended for those selected persons of
both sexes who are to be members of the two ruling classes and extending from the age of
twenty to thirty-five”.

Plato’s scheme of education had both the Athenian and the Spartan influence. Sabine writes:
“It’s must genuinely Spartan feature was the dedication of education exclusively to civic
training. Its content was typically Athenian, and its purpose was dominated by the end of
moral and intellectual cultivation.”

The curriculum of the elementary education was divided into two parts, gymnastics for
training the body, and music for training the mind. The elementary education was to be
imparted to all the three classes. But after the age of twenty, those selected for higher
education were those who were to hold the highest positions in the guardian class between
twenty and thirty-five. The guardians were to be constituted of the auxiliary class, and the
ruling class.

These two classes were to have a higher doze of gymnasium and music, greater doze of
gymnastics for the auxiliaries, and greater doze of music for the rulers. The higher education
of the two classes was, in purpose, professional, and for his curriculum Plato chose the only
scientific studies mathematics, astronomy and logic. Before the two classes could get on to
their jobs, Plato suggested a further education till the age of about fifty, mostly practical in
nature.