ile the other
made for the platter. And when the Lacedaemonians could not guess what
his meaning was, or with what intent he had produced the puppies, he
said, "These puppies are of the same parents, but by virtue of a
different bringing up the one is pampered, and the other a good hound."
Let so much suffice for habit and modes of life.

Sec. V. The next point to discuss will be nutrition. In my opinion mothers
ought to nurse and suckle their own children. For they will bring them
up with more sympathy and care, if they love them so intimately and, as
the proverb puts it, "from their first growing their nails."[8] Whereas
the affection of wet or dry nurses is spurious and counterfeit, being
merely for pay. And nature itself teaches that mothers ought themselves
to suckle and rear those they have given birth to. And for that purpose
she has supplied every female parent with milk. And providence has
wisely provided women with two breasts, so that if they should bear
twins, they would have a breast for each. And besides this, as is
natural enough, they would feel more affection and love for their
children by suckling them. For this supplying them with food is as it
were a tightener of love, for even the brute creation, if taken away
from their young, pine away, as we constantly see. Mothers must
therefore, as I said, certainly try to suckle their own children: but if
they are unable to do so either through physical weakness (for this
contingency sometimes occurs), or in haste to have other children, they
must select wet and dry nurses with the greatest care, and not introduce
into their houses any kind of women. First and foremost they must be
Greeks in their habits. For just as it is necessary immediately after
birth to shapen the limbs of children, so that they may grow straight
and not crooked, so from the beginning must their habits be carefully
attended to. For infancy is supple and easily moulded, and what
children learn sinks deeply into their souls while they are young and
tender, whereas everything hard is softened only with great difficulty.
For just as seals are impressed on soft wax, so instruction leaves its
permanent mark on the minds of those still young. And divine Plato seems
to me to give excellent advice to nurses not to tell their children any
kind of fables, that their souls may not in the very dawn of existence
be full of folly or corruption.[9] Phocylides the poet also seems to
give admirable advice