all arts is the greatest, by their lives, rather than by their
reading."--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 3.]

Leo, prince of the Phliasians, asking Heraclides Ponticus--[It was not
Heraclides of Pontus who made this answer, but Pythagoras.]--of what art
or science he made profession: "I know," said he, "neither art nor
science, but I am a philosopher." One reproaching Diogenes that, being
ignorant, he should pretend to philosophy; "I therefore," answered he,
"pretend to it with so much the more reason." Hegesias entreated that he
would read a certain book to him: "You are pleasant," said he; "you
choose those figs that are true and natural, and not those that are
painted; why do you not also choose exercises which are naturally true,
rather than those written?"

The lad will not so much get his lesson by heart as he will practise it:
he will repeat it in his actions. We shall discover if there be prudence
in his exercises, if there be sincerity and justice in his deportment, if
there be grace and judgment in his speaking; if there be constancy in his
sickness; if there be modesty in his mirth, temperance in his pleasures,
order in his domestic economy, indifference in palate, whether what he
eats or drinks be flesh or fish, wine or water:

"Qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae
putet: quique obtemperet ipse sibi, et decretis pareat."

["Who considers his own discipline, not as a vain ostentation of
science, but as a law and rule of life; and who obeys his own
decrees, and the laws he has prescribed for himself."
--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 4.]