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.

SOCRATES: But if neither the Sophists nor the gentlemen are teachers,
clearly there can be no other teachers?

MENO: No.

SOCRATES: And if there are no teachers, neither are there disciples?

MENO: Agreed.

SOCRATES: And we have admitted that a thing cannot be taught of which
there are neither teachers nor disciples?

MENO: We have.

SOCRATES: And there are no teachers of virtue to be found anywhere?

MENO: There are not.

SOCRATES: And if there are no teachers, neither are there scholars?

MENO: That, I think, is true.

SOCRATES: Then virtue cannot be taught?

MENO: Not if we are right in our view. But I cannot believe, Socrates,
that there are no good men: And if there are, how did they come into
existence?

SOC