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 3. Parents, therefore, will not fully perform their duty, if they merely teach their offspring to eat, to drink, to walk about, to talk, and to be adorned with clothing; for these things are merely subservient to the body, which is not the man, but his tabernacle only; the guest (the rational soul) dwells within, and rightly claims greater care than its outward tenement. Plutarch has rightly derided such parents as desire beauty, riches, and honors for their children, and endeavor to promote them in these respects, regarding very little the adornment of the soul with piety and virtue, saying: “That those persons valued the shoe more than the foot.” And Crates the Theban, a Gentile philosopher, vehemently complaining of the madness of such parents, declared, as the poet relates:—

4. The first care, therefore, ought to be of the soul, which is the principal part of the man, so that it may become, in the highest degree possible, beautifully adorned. The next care is for the body, that it may be made a habitation fit and worthy of an immortal soul. Regard the mind as