ABSTRACT
Socrates horrified the already overwrought, anxious Aristarchus by suggesting the simple expedient of setting these free-born relations to work on baking and sewing and dressmaking. After some objection on the score of the indignity of work for well-born ladies, Socrates' plan was tried, and with great success. The prospect of Aristarchus' home brightened, and he was relieved of the worry and anxiety of a very delicate and difficult situation. Socrates had genius enough to see that the common life about him was of as much use to philosophy and as closely and essentially related to its aims and objects and conclusions as any department of human activity. Socrates saw deeper than Plato. Socrates, it was, in Athens, who saw clearly the "perennial sacredness of work." Not every man who is not engaged in what is popularly or conventionally called "work" is an idler. There are some who called Socrates a meddlesome fellow who lounged about doing anything but useful work.
