 One striking feature of the educational program in the Laws is its emphasis on music and gymnastics, from the very beginning up to the very end of a life. What sort of impact does this type of education have on the soul and how can we explain why it is so central to the educational program? In considering these questions, it is worth thinking about the educational program in the Republic as a contrast case: there the musical education given to the auxiliaries is said to be an education through habits which cannot produce genuine virtue (Rep 522A4–B1, cf. 484C3–D10 and  516E8–517E2).[43]  If we think that Plato wants the educational program of Magnesia to produce something approaching genuine virtue in the citizens, then we’ll need to give an account of how music and dance can do more than produce good habits in the citizens. (This is not to say that habituation does not or cannot play an important role in the educational program: see e.g. Laws 656B.)