-
The Technology of Child Production: Eugenics and Eulogics in the de Liberis Educandis
- Arethusa
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 39, Number 1, Winter 2006
- pp. 71-99
- 10.1353/are.2006.0002
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
The de Liberis Educandis, emanating from the circle of Plutarch, provides directives for fathers in the education of sons. The argument for the intervention of fathers is expressed and even conceived in rhetorical forms. Excellence in speaking is understood as the result and the proof of free birth, a test of legitimacy. The speech of wives, concubines, nurses, slaves, freedmen, flatterers, and the vile constitute threats to the ideal education and ideal man. The author's prescriptions are more concerned with creating ideal relationships among men—father, teacher, and young student—than with particulars of curriculum.