 The educational program of Magnesia begins with music and gymnastics, and Plato emphasizes the deep importance of this part of the educational program in various parts of the  Laws.[40]  The right nurture of children begins in the womb, and is described as “pre-natal gymnastics”: pregnant women are to walk, and, later, nurses are to carry the children, so as to, as much as possible, have the children moved as though they were being constantly rocked by the sea (Laws 789B–790C). From the ages of three to six children are to play at prescribed games (Laws 797B; but see also the claim, at 794A, that the games arise from natural instinct). Plato in fact insists that childrens’ games are of decisive importance for legislation, as a change in the games will, he thinks, lead to a change in the childrens’ standards for propriety and impropriety; this will, in turn, lead to a change in their characters and in the laws they desire to be governed  by.[41]  At the age of six the sexes are to be divided and lessons in music and gymnastics begun. Both music and gymnastics include imitations of virtuous people engaged in virtuous activities or exhibiting virtuous traits, such as fighting courageously or feeling moderate pleasures (see e.g. Laws 655A–655E, 660A, 795E–796C, and 814E–816B); what it is to be well-educated in choristry is to delight in and to hate the imitations that one ought, more so than to be able to execute certain songs and dances skillfully (Laws 654C–D). This education in music and gymnastics is a lifelong process: citizens of Magnesia are meant to sing and dance in age-specific choruses for the rest of their lives, and are told that it is their duty to constantly encourage in themselves an appetite for ethically improving songs (Laws 665C). The oldest chorus members participate in symposia in addition to singing, at least in part with the goal of making their souls soft and youthful, and thus once again capable of being molded by the legislator (Laws 671C–D).