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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: neither discoverer nor student is he of anything of the kind. But you,
Laches and Nicias, should each of you tell us who is the most skilful
educator whom you have ever known; and whether you invented the art
yourselves, or learned of another; and if you learned, who were your
respective teachers, and who were their brothers in the art; and then, if
you are too much occupied in politics to teach us yourselves, let us go to
them, and present them with gifts, or make interest with them, or both, in
the hope that they may be induced to take charge of our children and of
yours; and then they will not grow up inferior, and disgrace their
ancestors. But if you are yourselves original discoverers in that field,
give us some proof of your skill. Who are they who, having been inferior
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