Library Eusebius of Caesarea Preparation for the Gospel
Book 12, Chapter 17
[PLATO] [45] 'I TELL you then; and I affirm that the man who is to excel in anything must practise that very thing from his earliest youth, both in sport and in earnest, in every particular pertaining to the subject. Take for instance, the man who is to be a good husbandman or a builder of some kind; the one must play at building children's houses, and the other at tilling the ground, and be who brings up either of them must provide small copies of the real tools for him; and whatever branches of knowledge must be learnt beforehand they must begin to learn; the carpenter for instance must learn to measure by rule or line, and the soldier to play at riding or some other such exercise; and by their sports the teacher must try to turn the children's pleasures and desires to the point which they must reach to attain their end in life.
'The chief point then in education, we say, is the right "training in the nursery," which will best lead the soul of the child in his play to the love of that, in which, when he has become a man, he will need to be perfect in the excellence of his work.'
English translation by E. H. Gifford, Eusebii Pamphili Evangelicae Praeparationis Libri XV (Oxford, 1903). Public domain. Digital text via Roger Pearse / tertullian.org.