[172] For Athens is so large and the multitude of people living here is so great, that the city does not present to the mind an image easily grasped or sharply defined, but, like a turbid flood, whatever it catches up in its course, whether men or things, in each case it sweeps them along pell-mell, and in some cases it imbues them with a reputation which is the opposite of the true; and exactly that has been the fortune of this system of education.