It is the best form under which we can conceive the whole of life.

Nevertheless the idea of Plato is not easily put into practice.
For the education of after life is necessarily the education which each one gives himself.

Men and women cannot be brought together in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of age; and if they could the result would be disappointing.

The destination of most men is what Plato would call 'the Den' for the whole of life, and with that they are content.
Neither have they teachers or advisers with whom they can take counsel in riper years.

There is no 'schoolmaster abroad' who will tell them of their faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty, or with the ambition of a true success in life; no Socrates who will convict them of ignorance; no Christ, or follower of Christ, who will reprove them of sin.