Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/178

 The Two Methods of Education Combined by Moses

All schemes of education and moral training fall into two categories; instruction is imparted in the one case by precept, in the other by practical exercising of the character. All other legislators, following their divergent opinions, selected the particular method which each preferred and neglected the other. Thus the Lacedæmonians and Cretans employed practical, not verbal, training; whereas the Athenians and nearly all the rest of the Greeks made laws enjoining what actions might or might not be performed, but neglected to familiarize the people with them by putting them into practice.

Our legislator, on the other hand, took great care to combine both systems. He did not leave practical training in morals without a written code; nor did he permit the letter of the law to remain inoperative. Starting from the very beginning with the food of which we partake from infancy and the private life of the home, he left nothing, however insignificant, to the discretion and caprice of the individual. What meats a man should abstain from, and what he may enjoy; with what persons he should associate; what period should be devoted respectively to strenuous labour and to rest; —for all this our leader made the law the standard and rule, that we might live under it as under a father and master and be guilty of no sin through wilfulness or ignorance.

All Jews Know their Law, which is Read Every Week

For ignorance he left no pretext. He proved the Law to be the most excellent and necessary form of