The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

none.
    It is an admitted principle, that gymnastic exercises should be
employed in education, and that for children they should be of a
lighter kind, avoiding severe diet or painful toil, lest the growth
of the body be impaired. The evil of excessive training in early
years is strikingly proved by the example of the Olympic victors;
for not more than two or three of them have gained a prize both as
boys and as men; their early training and severe gymnastic
exercises exhausted their constitutions. When boyhood is over,
three years should be spent in other studies; the period of life
which follows may then be devoted to hard exercise and strict diet.
Men ought not to labor at the same time with their minds and with
their bodies; for the two kinds of labor are opposed to one
another; the labor of the body impedes the mind, and the labor of
the mind the body.
V
    Concerning music there are some questions which we have already
raised; these we may now resume and carry further; and our remarks
will serve as a prelude to this or any other discussion of the
subject. It is not easy to determine the nature of music, or why
any one should have a knowledge of it. Shall we say, for the sake
of amusement and relaxation, like sleep or drinking, which are not
good in themselves, but are pleasant, and at the same time ‘care to
cease,’ as Euripides says? And for this end men also appoint music,
and make use of all three alike—sleep, drinking, music—to which
some add dancing. Or shall we argue that music conduces to virtue,
on the ground that it can form our minds and habituate us to true
pleasures as our bodies are made by gymnastic to be of a certain
character? Or shall we say that it contributes to the enjoyment of
leisure and mental cultivation, which is a third alternative? Now
obviously youths are not to be instructed with a view to their
amusement, for learning is no amusement, but is accompanied with
pain. Neither is intellectual enjoyment suitable to boys of that
age, for it is the end, and that which is imperfect cannot attain
the perfect or end. But perhaps it may be said that boys learn
music for the sake of the amusement which they will have when they
are grown up. If so, why should they learn themselves, and not,
like the Persian and Median kings, enjoy the pleasure and
instruction which is derived from hearing others? (for surely
persons who have made music the business and profession of their
lives will be better performers than those who practice only long
enough to learn). If they must learn music, on the same principle
they should learn cookery, which is absurd. And even granting that
music may form the character, the objection still holds: why should
we learn ourselves? Why cannot we attain true pleasure and form a
correct judgment from hearing others, like the Lacedaemonians?—for
they, without learning music, nevertheless can correctly judge, as
they say, of good and bad melodies. Or again, if music should be
used to promote cheerfulness and refined intellectual enjoyment,
the objection still remains—why should we learn ourselves instead
of enjoying the performances of others? We may illustrate what we
are saying by our conception of the Gods; for in the poets Zeus
does not himself sing or play on the lyre. Nay, we call
professional performers vulgar; no freeman would play or sing
unless he were intoxicated or in jest. But these matters may be
left for the present.
    The first question is whether music is or is not to be a part of
education. Of the three things mentioned in our discussion, which
does it produce?—education or amusement or intellectual enjoyment,
for it may be reckoned under all three, and seems to share in the
nature of all of them. Amusement is for the sake of relaxation, and
relaxation is of necessity sweet, for it is the remedy of pain
caused by toil; and intellectual enjoyment is universally
acknowledged to contain an element not only of the noble but of the
pleasant, for happiness is made up of both. All men agree that
music is one of the pleasantest things, whether with or without
songs; as Musaeus says:
Song to mortals of all things the sweetest.
    Hence and with good reason it is introduced into social
gatherings and entertainments, because it makes the hearts of men
glad: so that on this ground alone we may assume that the young
ought to be trained in it. For innocent pleasures are not only in
harmony with the perfect end of life, but they also provide
relaxation. And whereas men