en together daily. After the death of Socrates, Plato lived
for forty-six years, just to keep alive the name and fame of the great
philosopher.

Socrates comes to us through Plato. Various other contemporaries mention
Socrates and quote him, some to his disadvantage, but it was left for
Plato to give us the heart of his philosophy, and limn his character for
all time in unforgetable outline.

Plato is called the "Pride of Greece." His contribution to the wealth of
the world consists in the fact that he taught the joys of the
intellect--the supreme satisfaction that comes through thinking. This is
the pure Platonic philosophy: to find our gratifications in exalted
thought and not in bodily indulgence. Plato's theory that five years
should be given in early manhood to abstract thought, abstaining from
all practical affairs, so as to acquire a love for learning, has been
grafted upon a theological stalk and comes down to our present time. It
has, however, now been discarded by the world's best thinkers as a
fallacy. The unit of man's life is the day, not the month or year, much
less a period of five years. Each day we must exercise the mind, just as
each day we must exercise the body. We can not store up health and draw
upon it at will over long-deferred periods. The account must be kept
active. To keep physical energy we must expend physical energy every
day. The opinion of Herbert Spencer that thought is a physical
function--a vibration set up in a certain area of brain-cells--is an
idea never preached by Plato. The brain, being an organ, must be used,
not merely in one part for five years to the exclusion of all other
parts, but all parts should be used daily. To this end the practical
things of life should daily engage our attention, no less than the
contemplation of beauty as manifest in music, poetry, art or dialectics.
The thought that every day we should look upon a beautiful picture, read
a beautiful poem, or listen for a little while to beautiful music, is
highly scientific, for this contemplation and appreciation of harmony is
a physical exercise as well as a spiritual one, and through it we grow,
develop, evolve.

That we could not devote five years of our time to purely esthetic
exercises, to the exclusion of practical things, without very great
risk, is now well known. And when I refer to practical affairs, I mean
the effort which Nature demands we should put forth to get a living.
Every man should live li