as a deserter of
his country."

The Archon, being the greatest captain of his own, if not of any age,
added much to the glory of this commonwealth, by interweaving the
militia with more art and lustre than any legislator from or before the
time of Servius Tullius, who constituted the Roman militia. But as the
bones or skeleton of a man, though the greatest part of his beauty be
contained in their proportion or symmetry, yet shown without flesh are a
spectacle that is rather horrid than entertaining, so without discourses
are the orders of a commonwealth; which, if she goes forth in that
manner, may complain of her friends that they stand mute and staring
upon her. Wherefore this order was thus fleshed by the Lord Archon:

"MY LORDS:

"Diogenes seeing a young fellow drunk, told him that his father was
drunk when he begot him. For this, in natural generation, I must confess
I see no reason; but in the political it is right. The vices of the
people are from their governors; those of their governors from
their laws or orders; and those of their laws or orders from their
legislators. Whatever was in the womb imperfect, as to her proper work,
comes very rarely or never at all to perfection afterward; and the
formation of a citizen in the womb of the commonwealth is his education.

"Education by the first of the foregoing orders is of six kinds: at the
school, in the mechanics, at the universities, at the inns of court or
chancery, in travels, and in military discipline, some of which I shall
but touch, and some I shall handle more at large.

"That which is proposed for the erecting and endowing of schools
throughout the tribes, capable of all the children of the same, and able
to give to the poor the education of theirs gratis, is only matter of
direction in case of very great charity, as easing the needy of the
charge of their children from the ninth to the fifteenth year of their
age, during which time their work cannot be profitable; and restoring
them when they may be of use, furnished with tools whereof there are
advantages to be made in every work, seeing he that can read and use his
pen has some convenience by it in the meanest vocation. And it cannot
be conceived but that which comes, though in small parcels, to the
advantage of every man in his vocation, must amount to the advantage of
every vocation, and so to that of the whole commonwealth. Wherefore this
is commended to the charity of every wise-hearted and