The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

those kinds
of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed
necessary, and exist for the sake of other things. And therefore
our fathers admitted music into education, not on the ground either
of its necessity or utility, for it is not necessary, nor indeed
useful in the same manner as reading and writing, which are useful
in money-making, in the management of a household, in the
acquisition of knowledge and in political life, nor like drawing,
useful for a more correct judgment of the works of artists, nor
again like gymnastic, which gives health and strength; for neither
of these is to be gained from music. There remains, then, the use
of music for intellectual enjoyment in leisure; which is in fact
evidently the reason of its introduction, this being one of the
ways in which it is thought that a freeman should pass his leisure;
as Homer says,
But he who alone should be called to the pleasant feast,
    and afterwards he speaks of others whom he describes as
inviting
The bard who would delight them all.
    And in another place Odysseus says there is no better way of
passing life than when men’s hearts are merry and
    The banqueters in the hall, sitting in order, hear the voice of
the minstrel.
    It is evident, then, that there is a sort of education in which
parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary,
but because it is liberal or noble. Whether this is of one kind
only, or of more than one, and if so, what they are, and how they
are to be imparted, must hereafter be determined. Thus much we are
now in a position to say, that the ancients witness to us; for
their opinion may be gathered from the fact that music is one of
the received and traditional branches of education. Further, it is
clear that children should be instructed in some useful things—for
example, in reading and writing—not only for their usefulness, but
also because many other sorts of knowledge are acquired through
them. With a like view they may be taught drawing, not to prevent
their making mistakes in their own purchases, or in order that they
may not be imposed upon in the buying or selling of articles, but
perhaps rather because it makes them judges of the beauty of the
human form. To be always seeking after the useful does not become
free and exalted souls. Now it is clear that in education practice
must be used before theory, and the body be trained before the
mind; and therefore boys should be handed over to the trainer, who
creates in them the roper habit of body, and to the
wrestling-master, who teaches them their exercises.
IV
    Of those states which in our own day seem to take the greatest
care of children, some aim at producing in them an athletic habit,
but they only injure their forms and stunt their growth. Although
the Lacedaemonians have not fallen into this mistake, yet they
brutalize their children by laborious exercises which they think
will make them courageous. But in truth, as we have often repeated,
education should not be exclusively, or principally, directed to
this end. And even if we suppose the Lacedaemonians to be right in
their end, they do not attain it. For among barbarians and among
animals courage is found associated, not with the greatest
ferocity, but with a gentle and lion like temper. There are many
races who are ready enough to kill and eat men, such as the
Achaeans and Heniochi, who both live about the Black Sea; and there
are other mainland tribes, as bad or worse, who all live by
plunder, but have no courage. It is notorious that the
Lacedaemonians themselves, while they alone were assiduous in their
laborious drill, were superior to others, but now they are beaten
both in war and gymnastic exercises. For their ancient superiority
did not depend on their mode of training their youth, but only on
the circumstance that they trained them when their only rivals did
not. Hence we may infer that what is noble, not what is brutal,
should have the first place; no wolf or other wild animal will face
a really noble danger; such dangers are for the brave man. And
parents who devote their children to gymnastics while they neglect
their necessary education, in reality vulgarize them; for they make
them useful to the art of statesmanship in one quality only, and
even in this the argument proves them to be inferior to others. We
should judge the Lacedaemonians not from what they have been, but
from what they are; for now they have rivals who compete with their
education; formerly they had