repented of their speaking. And what has not been said is easy to say, while what has been once said can never be recalled. I have heard of myriads who have fallen into the greatest misfortunes through inability to govern their tongues. Our boys must also be taught to speak the truth as a most sacred duty; for to lie is servile, and most hateful in all men, hardly to be pardoned even in poor slaves.

I2. And now, as I have spoken about the good and decent behavior of boys, I shall change my subject and speak a little about youths. For I have often censured the introducers of bad habits, who have set over boys pedagogues and preceptors, but have given to youths full liberty, when they ought, on the contrary, to have watched and guarded them more than boys. For who does not know that the offenses of boys are petty and easily cured, and proceed from the carelessness of tutors or want of obedience to preceptors; but the faults of young men are often grave and serious, as gluttony, and robbing their fathers, and dice, and revelings, and drinking-bouts, and licentiousness. Such outbreaks ought to be carefully checked and curbed. For that prime of life is prodigal in pleasure, and frisky, and needs a bridle, so that those parents who do not strongly check that period, are foolishly, if unawares, giving their youths license for vice. Sensible parents, therefore, ought during all that period to guard and watch and restrain their youths, by precepts, by threats, by entreaties, by advice, by promises, by citing examples, on the one hand of those who have come to ruin by being too fond of pleasure, on the other hand, of those who by their self-control have attained to praise and good report. For these are, as it were, the two elements of virtue, hope of honor, and fear of punishment; the former inciting to good practices, the latter deterring from bad.

13. We ought, at all hazards, to keep our boys also

from association with bad men, for they will catch some of their villainy. This was the meaning of Pythagoras' enigmatical precepts, which I shall quote and explain, as they give no slight momentum towards the acquisition of virtue: as, Do not touch black tails: that is, do not associate with bad men. Do not go beyond the balance: that is, we must pay the greatest attention to justice and not go beyond it. Do not sit on a measure: that is, do not be lazy, but earn to-morrow's bread as well as to-day's. Do not give every one your right hand: that is, do not be too ready to strike up a friendship. Do not wear a tight ring: that is, let your life be free, do not bind yourself by a chain. Do not poke the fire with a sword: that is, do not provoke an angry person, but yield to such. Do not eat the heart: do not wear away the heart by anxiety. Abstain from beans: that is, do not meddle in state affairs, for the voting for offices was formerly taken by beans. Do not put your food in the mire: that is, do not throw your pearls before swine, for words are the food of the mind, and the villainy of men twist them to a corrupt meaning. When you have come to the end of a journey do not look back: that is, when people are going to die and see that their end is near, they ought to take it easily and not be dejected. But I will return from my digression. We must keep our boys, as I said, from association with all bad men, but especially from flatterers. For, as I have often said to parents, and still say, and will constantly affirm, there is no race more pestilential, nor more sure to ruin youths swiftly, than the race of flatterers, who destroy both parents and sons root and branch, making the old age of the one and the youth of the other miserable, holding out pleasure as a sure bait. The sons of the rich are by their fathers urged to be sober, but by them to be drunk; by their fathers to be chaste, by them to wax wanton; by their fathers to save, by them to spend; by their fathers

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to be industrious, by them to be lazy. For they say, Our life's but a span'; we can only live once; why should you heed your father's threats? he's an old twaddler, he has one foot in the grave; we shall soon hoist him up and carry him off to burial."

14. What I have said hitherto is apropos to my subject: I will now speak a word to the men. Parents must not be over harsh and rough in their natures, but must often forgive their sons' offenses, remembering that they themselves were once young. And just as doctors by infusing a sweet flavor into their bitter potions find delight a passage to benefit, so fathers must temper the severity of their censure by mildness; and sometimes relax and slacken the reins of their sons' desires, and again tighten them; and must be especially easy in respect to their faults, or if they are angry must soon cool down. For it is better for a father to be hot-tempered than sullen, for to continue hostile and irreconcilable looks like hating one's son. And it is good to seem not to notice some faults, but to extend to them the weak sight and deafness of old age, so as seeing not to see, and hearing not to hear, their doings. We tolerate the faults of our friends; why should we not that of our sons? Often even our slaves' drunken debauches we do not expose. Have you been rather near? Spend more freely. Have you been vexed? Let the matter pass. Has your son deceived you by the help of a slave? Do not be angry. Did he take a yoke of oxen from the field, did he come home smelling of yesterday's debauch? Wink at it. Is he scented like a perfume shop? Say nothing. Thus frisky youth gets broken in.

15. Those of our sons who are given to pleasure and pay little heed to rebuke, we must endeavor to marry, for marriage is the surest restraint upon youth. And we must marry our sons to wives not much richer or better born, for

the proverb is a sound one, "Marry in your own walk of life." For those who marry wives superior to themselves in rank are not so much the husbands of their wives as unawares slaves to their dowries.

16. I shall add a few remarks, and then bring my subject to a close. Before all things fathers must, by a good behavior, set a good example to their sons, that, looking at their lives as a mirror, they may turn away from bad deeds and words. For those fathers who censure their sons' faults while they themselves commit the same, are really their own accusers, if they know it not, under their. sons' name; and those who live a depraved life have no right to censure their slaves, far less their sons. And besides this they will become counselors and teachers of their sons in wrongdoing; for where old men are shameless, youths will of a certainty have no modesty. We must therefore take all pains to teach our sons self-control, emulating the conduct of Eurydice, who, though an Illyrian and more than a barbarian, to teach her sons educated herself though late in life, and her love to them is well depicted in the inscription which she offered to the Muses: "Eurydice of Hierapolis made this offering to the Muses, having conceived a vast love for knowledge. For when a mother with sons full-grown she learnt letters, the preservers of knowledge."

To carry out all these precepts would be perhaps a visionary scheme; but to attain to many, though it would need a happy disposition and much care, is a thing possible to human nature.

VIII. JEROME.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Jerome, who was born at Stridon on the border-line between Dalmatia and Pannonia about 340 A. D., is regarded as the most learned of the Latin Fathers. After receiving an elementary education under his father, who was a Christian, he studied rhetoric and philosophy at Rome, where in 360 he was also admitted to the Church by baptism. A few years later a serious illness at Antioch deepened his religious fervor and he withdrew into the desert to lead a life of asceticism. After four years of ascetic life he returned to Antioch, where in 379 he was ordained a presbyter. He afterwards studied under Gregory Nazianzen at Constantinople, and later sojourned in Rome till the year 385. Here he worked on his famous translation of the Bible, now known as the Vulgate, and at the same time attained to great popularity by his sanctity and eloquence. He gathered a company of Christian women about him for religious instruction, among whom were the lady Paula and her daughter Eustochium. He was accompanied by them on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and when Paula had founded several convents at Bethlehem for nuns and monks, he fixed his permanent residence there. It was in monastic retirement in the town of the nativity that Jerome completed the great literary labors of his life, and wrote the important letters and controversial treatises that compose so large a part of his published works.

The following extract is his famous letter to Laeta about