It is curious to note in how many
points it coincides with Xenophon's ideal.
points it coincides with Xenophon's ideal.
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals by Thomas Davidson
His range of vision is not confined to Athens, or even to
Greece (though he is very proud of being a Greek), but ranges over the
whole known world in time and space. Unlike Plato, too, who had been
familiar mainly with institutions of the past in Egypt and Greece,
Aristotle is deeply affected by the tendencies of the future, and,
though no one lays greater stress than he upon the necessity of a
knowledge of the past for him who would construct a sound social theory,
he nevertheless declares that the whole of the past is shaped by
something which is in the future, by the ultimate realization. This view
comes out in a paradoxical way in his famous saying that "the State is
prior to the individual," by which he means that it is man's political
nature working in him that makes him an individual, and at the same time
realizes itself in a State. And this brings us to Aristotle's conception
of the State, which we must consider before taking up his theory of
education, for the reason that to him, as to all the ancient world,
education is a function of the State, and is conducted, primarily at
least, for the ends of the State.
Before venturing upon a theory of the State, Aristotle, true to his
inductive principles, wrote the Constitutional Histories of over two
hundred and fifty different states. One of these, the _Constitutional
History of Athens_, has recently been discovered and published (see p.
96). He held that it was only by means of a broad induction, thus
rendered possible, that he could discover the idea of the State, that
is, its self-realizing form. Employing this method, then, he came to the
conclusion that the State is that highest social institution which
secures the highest good or happiness of man. Having, in a previous
treatise, satisfied himself that this good is Worth (? ? ? ? ? ), and worth
being in every case the full exercise of characteristic or
differentiating faculty, he concludes that, since man's distinguishing
faculty is reason, the State is the institution which secures to man the
fullest and freest exercise of this. It follows directly that the State
is, simply and solely, the supreme educational institution, the
university to which all other institutions are but preparatory. And two
more conclusions follow: (1) that states will differ in constitution
with the different educational needs of the peoples among whom they
exist, and (2) that, since all education is but a preparation for some
worthy activity, political education, the life of man as a citizen, is
but a preparation for the highest activity, which, because it is
highest, must necessarily be an end in itself. This activity, Aristotle
argues, can be none other than contemplation, the Vision of the Divine
(? ? ? ? ? ? ).
Results which have moved the world followed logically from this
doctrine. Whereas Plato had made provision for a small and select body
of super-civic men, and so paved the way for religious monasticism and
asceticism, Aristotle maintains that in every civilized man, as such,
there is a super-civic part, in fact, a superhuman and divine part, for
the complete realization of which all the other parts, and the State
wherein they find expression, are but means. Here we have, in embryo,
the whole of Dante's theory of the relation of Church and State, a
theory which lies at the basis of all modern political effort, however
little the fact may be recognized. Here, indeed, we have the whole
framework of the _Divine Comedy_; here too we have the doctrine of the
Beatific Vision, which for ages shaped and, to a large extent, still
shapes, the life of Christendom. Well might Dante claim Aristotle as his
master (see p. 153)! Well might the great doctors of the Church speak of
him as "_The_ Philosopher," and as the "Forerunner of Christ in Things
Natural. " In vain did Peter Ramus and Luther and Bruno and Bacon
depreciate or anathematize him! He is more powerful to-day in thought
and life than at any time for the last twenty-two centuries.
It may be asked how far, and in what form, Aristotle conceives the
divine life to be possible for man on earth. He answers that, though it
cannot be perfectly or continuously realized here, it is in some degree
and for certain times attainable (see p. 161). In so far as it is a
social life, it is the life of friendship or spiritual love (? ? ? ? ? ), to
which he has devoted almost two books of his _Ethics_, books which give
us a loftier idea of his personal purity and worth than any other of his
extant writings. He insists that friendship is the supreme blessing (see
p. 166), and that "whatever a man's being is, or whatever he chooses to
live for, in that he wishes to spend his life in the company of his
friends. " It is even said that Aristotle, while teaching in the Lyceum,
gathered about him a knot of noble youths and earnest students, and
formed them into a kind of community, with a view to leading a truly
spiritual social life.
CHAPTER IV
ARISTOTLE'S PEDAGOGICAL STATE
Nature is the beginning of everything. --Aristotle.
Life is more than meat, and the body than raiment. --Jesus.
The forces of the human passions in us, when completely repressed,
become more vehement; but when they are called into action for short
time and in the right degree, they enjoy a measured delight, are
soothed, and, thence being purged away, cease in a kindly, instead
of a violent, way. For this reason, in tragedy and comedy, through
being spectators of the passions of others, we still our own
passions, render them more moderate, and purge them away; and so,
likewise, in the temples, by seeing and hearing base things, we are
freed from the injury that would come from the actual practice of
them. --Jamblichus.
Care for the body must precede care for the soul; next to care for
the body must come care for the appetites; and, last of all, care
for the intelligence. We train the appetites for the sake of the
intelligence, and the body for the sake of the soul. --Aristotle.
The practice of abortion was one to which few persons in antiquity
attached any deep feeling of condemnation. . . . The physiological
theory that the foetus did not become a living creature till the hour
of birth had some influence on the judgments passed upon this
practice. The death of an unborn child does not appeal very
powerfully to the feeling of compassion, and men who had not yet
attained any strong sense of the sanctity of human life, who
believed that they might regulate their conduct on these matters by
utilitarian views, according to the general interest of the
community, might very readily conclude that prevention of birth was
in many cases an act of mercy. In Greece, Aristotle not only
countenanced the practice, but even desired that it should be
enforced by law, when population had exceeded certain assigned
limits. No law in Greece, or in the Roman Republic, or during the
greater part of the Empire, condemned it. . . . The language of the
Christians from the very beginning was very different. With
unwavering consistency and with the strongest emphasis, they
denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman, but as definitely
murder. --Lecky, _European Morals_.
Aristotle clearly saw that the strong tendency of the human race to
increase, unless corrected by strict and positive laws, was
absolutely fatal to every system founded on equality of property;
and there cannot surely be a stronger argument against any system of
this kind than the necessity of such laws as Aristotle himself
proposes. . . . He seems to be fully aware that to encourage the birth
of children, without providing properly for their support, is to
obtain a very small accession to the population of a country, at the
expense of a very great accession of misery. --Malthus, _Essay on
Population_.
Considering Aristotle's views with regard to man, his end, and the
function of the State, we can have little difficulty in divining the
character and method of his educational system. Man is a being endowed
with reason; his end is the full realization of this, his sovereign and
distinguishing faculty; the State is the means whereby this is
accomplished.
Readers of Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_ will remember the description, in
the second part, of the Pedagogical Province. Now, Aristotle's State
might with entire propriety be called a Pedagogical Province. In trying
to describe this State, and the manner in which it discharges its
function, it is difficult to know where to begin, for the reason that,
taken as a whole, the State is both teacher and pupil. It arranges the
whole scheme of education, and is therefore related to it as cause; it
is built up by this scheme, and is therefore related to it as effect. It
comes, accordingly, both at the beginning and at the end. It is a
university which arranges the entire scheme of education, and is itself
its highest grade. I shall try to surmount this difficulty by
distinguishing what the State is from what it does, beginning with the
former, and ending with the latter.
With regard to what the State is, we have to consider (1) its natural,
(2) its social, conditions. The former are climate, and extent, nature,
and situation of territory; the latter, number and character of
inhabitants, property regulations, distinction of classes, city
architecture, mode of life, government, and relations to other states.
Aristotle demands for his State a temperate climate, on the ground that
a cold one renders men strong and bold, but dull and stupid, while a hot
one renders them intellectual but effeminate. The best climate is one
that makes them at once brave and intelligent. The territory must be
extensive enough, and fertile enough, to supply its inhabitants with all
the material conditions of life in answer to labor which shall rouse,
without exhausting, their energies. It must face east or south, and be
healthy, well-watered, accessible from land and sea, and easily
defensible.
As to the social conditions, Aristotle finds the most important to be
the number of citizens. And here two things must be carefully borne in
mind. (1) He means by "State" a city with a small territory. This is
not, as has been erroneously supposed, his highest social unity. He
recognizes clearly the nation (? ? ? ? ? ) and the confederacy (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? );
but he holds that they exist merely for material ends, whereas the end
of the State is spiritual. (2) He means by "citizen" a politician. A man
is a citizen, not because he is born or domiciled in a State, but
because he is a sharer in its functions. A State made up of mechanics,
no matter how great their number, would be a small State, and one
composed of slaves would be no State at all. Thus, in estimating the
size of a State, we are to consider the character of its inhabitants,
their fitness for political functions, rather than their number. Little
Athens was a much larger State than gigantic Persia on the field of
Marathon. Aristotle lays down that the number of citizens must be large
enough to insure independence, this being essential to a Culture-State,
and not too large to be manageable. Besides the citizens, there will
necessarily be in the State a very large number of other human beings,
slaves, agriculturists, mechanics, sailors--for all these he excludes
from citizenship on the ground that they do not make virtue, that is,
the realization of reason, the end of their lives. Women, in a sense,
are citizens, if they belong to the families of citizens; but their
sphere is the family.
With regard to property, Aristotle begins by considering what things it
is necessary for. These he finds to be six, three private and three
public. The former are food (including clothing and shelter),
instruments of production, and arms; the latter are public enterprises
(civil and military), religion, and law. These are the "necessaries"
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) of a State, for which it must duly provide. The most
important of all is religion, on which he everywhere lays great stress.
As to the distribution of property, he propounds a scheme which is half
socialistic. All the land is to belong to the State, that is, to the
body of the free citizens. It is to be divided into two equal portions,
and one set apart for public, the other for private, uses. The revenue
from the public part is to go for the support of religion (and law? ) and
of the public tables, from which no citizen is excluded by poverty. The
private part is to be so divided that each citizen shall have one lot
near the city, and one near the frontier. This will give him an interest
in defending the whole territory. Both parts are to be cultivated by
serfs or slaves, part of whom will necessarily belong to the State, and
part to private individuals. Land-owning is to be a condition of
citizenship, and all citizens are to be forbidden to exercise any form
of productive industry. This last rule, it is hoped, will prevent
grievous inequalities of wealth, and the evils that flow from them. A
modest competency, derived from his estate, is all that any citizen
should aim at. Only degraded people, incapable of virtue, will crave for
more.
Upon the distinction of classes some light has been already thrown. They
are two; the ruling and the ruled. Aristotle holds that this distinction
runs through the whole of nature and spirit, that it is fundamental in
being itself. It holds between God and the universe, form and matter,
soul and body, object and subject, husband and wife, parent and child,
master and slave, etc. , etc. The ruling class again is sub-divided into
two parts, one that thinks and determines (legislators and judges), and
one that executes (officials, officers, soldiers); while the ruled is
sub-divided into husbandmen, mechanics, and seamen (sailors, fishermen,
etc. ). All the members of the ruled class are serfs or public slaves,
working, not for themselves, but for their masters. Aristotle holds that
they ought to be barbarians of different races, and not Greeks.
The architecture of the city will in some degree correspond to this
social division. It will naturally fall into three divisions, military,
religious, and civil. First of all, a city must have walls. These should
have towers and bastions at proper distances, and be made as attractive
as possible. The temples of the gods and the offices of the chief
magistrates should, if possible, stand together on a fortified citadel,
conspicuously dominating the entire city. Adjoining this ought to be the
Freemen's Square, reserved entirely for the ruling class, and
unencumbered by business or wares of any sort. Here ought to stand the
gymnasium for the older citizens, who will thus be brought into contact
with the magistrates and inspired with "true reverence and freemen's
fear. " The market-square must be placed so as to be convenient for the
reception of goods both from sea and land. This comprehends all the
civil architecture except the mess-halls, of which we shall better speak
in the next paragraph.
The mode of life of the ruling class will necessarily differ widely from
that of the ruled. About the latter Aristotle has nothing to say. He
hopes for little from that class beyond the possibility of being held in
contented subordination. As it has no political life, all that is left
to it is the life of the family. The ruling class, on the contrary,
live to a large extent in public, and on public funds. They exercise in
public gymnasia and eat at public tables. The chief magistrates have
their mess-hall in the citadel; the priests have theirs close to the
temples; the magistrates, who preside over business matters, streets,
and markets, have theirs near the market-square, while those who attend
to the defences of the city have tables in the towers. When not engaged
in public business, the citizens may meet in the Freemen's Square and
enjoy an open-air _conversazione_, with music, poetry, and philosophy,
in a word, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , for which our language has no even approximate
equivalent (see p. 33). In proportion as they advance in years, the
citizens enjoy more and more ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , which, indeed, is regarded as the
end of life, here and hereafter.
The government is entirely in the hands of the free citizens, the
legislative and deliberative power being in those of the elders; the
executive power, civil and military, in those of the younger portion. It
is curious that, though Aristotle regards this as the best possible
arrangement under ordinary circumstances, he nevertheless believes that
the happiest condition for a State would be to be governed by some
divine or heroic man, far superior to all the others in wisdom and
goodness. He plainly considers Pisistratus to have been one such man,
and he perhaps hoped that Alexander might be another.
The relations of the pedagogical State to other States are, as far as
possible, to be peaceful. Just as all labor is for the sake of rest and
? ? ? ? ? ? ? , so all war is for the sake of peace; and that State is to be
envied which can maintain an honorable independence without war. A
cultured State will eschew all attempts at conquest, and be as unwilling
to tyrannize over another State as to be tyrannized over by one. At the
same time, it will always be prepared for war, possessing an army of
well-trained, well-armed soldiers, and a well-manned, well-equipped
fleet.
Such are the chief features of Aristotle's ideal State, based, as he
believes, on man's political nature and the history of the past. Like
all social ideals, like heaven itself, as ordinarily conceived, it is a
static condition. Its institutions are fixed once for all, and every
effort is made to preserve them.
It is curious to note in how many
points it coincides with Xenophon's ideal.
The purpose of the State is to educate its citizens, to make them
virtuous. Virtue is the very life-principle of the State, and it does
not depend, as other conditions do, upon nature or chance, but upon free
will. The ideal State, like every other, must educate with a view to its
own institutions, since only in this way can these be preserved. "And,
since the State, as a whole, has but one aim, it is evident that the
political education of all the citizens ought to be the same, and that
this is a matter for the State to attend to, and not one to be left to
individual caprice, as is now almost universally done, when every parent
attends to the education of his own children, and gives them whatever
schooling suits his own fancy. " For the education of those members of
the State who are not citizens the State makes no provision. They learn
their practical duties by performing them, and are completely under the
control of the citizens. Aristotle makes the most vigorous efforts to
prove that slavery has its justification in nature, which has
established between Greek and barbarian the relation of master and slave
(see p. 12). As woman belongs to the family, and is only indirectly a
citizen of the State, her education is entrusted to the former
institution. The daughter is to be educated by the parents, and the wife
by the husband, exactly as recommended by Xenophon.
Having concluded that education ought to be a matter of State
legislation, and the same for all the citizens, he continues: "It
remains to inquire what shall be the nature of the education, and the
method of imparting it. . . . The present state of education leaves this
question in a perfect muddle, no one seeming to know whether we ought to
teach those subjects which enable people to make a living, or those
which foster worth, or, finally, accomplishments. All have had their
advocates. In regard to those studies which have worth for their aim,
there is no general agreement, owing to the fact that different people
have different views as to what kinds of worth are admirable, and
consequently differ in regard to the means to be employed for the
cultivation of them. One point, however, is perfectly clear, viz. that
those useful things which are necessary ought to be taught. But it is
equally clear that a distinction ought to be made between liberal and
illiberal studies, and that only those useful subjects ought to be
taught which do not turn those learning them into craftsmen. We ought
to look upon every employment, art, or study which contributes to render
the bodies, souls, or intellects of free men unfit for the uses and
practices of virtue, as a craft. For this reason it is that we call all
those arts which lower the condition of the body crafts, and extend the
term to the money-making trades, because they preoccupy and degrade the
intelligence. As to the liberal arts, to cultivate an acquaintance with
them up to a certain point is not illiberal; but any over-devotion to
them, with a view to attaining professional skill, is liable to the
objections mentioned. It also makes a great difference for what purpose
we do or learn a thing. If a man does a thing for his own, for his
friends', or for worth's sake, it is not illiberal, whereas if he does
it often for the sake of anybody else, he will be held to be doing
something mercenary or slavish. "
The next and all-important question is, For what end shall the State
educate,--for business or for leisure? In answering this, Aristotle
breaks entirely away from the old Greek traditions, as well as from
Plato, and maintains that, while it must educate for both, yet education
for leisure is far more important than education for business, and cites
Nature as his authority. "Nature itself demands," he says, "not only
that we should pursue business properly, but that we should be able to
employ our leisure elegantly. If we must have both, we must; but leisure
is preferable to business, and our final inquiry must be, in what sort
of employment we shall spend our leisure. It is useless to say that we
are to spend it in play, and that play is the end and aim of our life.
If this is impossible, and the truth is that the proper place for play
is in the midst of business (it is the man who is toiling that requires
recreation, which is the aim of play, business being accompanied with
exertion and tension), then, in having recourse to play, we must select
the proper seasons for administering it, just as if it were a medicine.
Indeed, all such movement of the soul is relaxation, and becomes
recreation on account of the pleasure which it affords. Leisure, on the
contrary, is considered, in and by itself, to involve pleasure,
happiness, and a blessed life. These fall to the lot of those who have
leisure, not of those who are engaged in business. Those who engage in
business do so for some ulterior end not realized in it, whereas
happiness is itself an end and, according to universal belief, brings,
not pain but pleasure. Of course, as to the nature of this pleasure,
there is at present a variety of opinions, every one having his own
preferences due to his character and habits, and the highest type of man
preferring the highest type of pleasure and that which arises from the
noblest things. We need no further argument to show that we should
receive instruction and education in certain things with a view to
_otium cum dignitate_ (or cultured leisure), and that these should be
ends in themselves, in contradistinction to the instruction given for
business, which is necessary and has an ulterior aim. "
Three principles Aristotle lays down as valid for all education: (1)
that the training of the body ought to take precedence in time over that
of the mind; (2) that pupils should be taught to do things before they
are taught the reasons and principles of them; (3) that learning is
never playing, or for the sake of playing.
The periods of education distinguished by Aristotle are: (1) Childhood,
extending from birth to the end of the seventh year, and spent in
healthy growing and, latterly, in preparation for discipline; (2)
Boyhood, from the beginning of the eighth year to the advent of puberty,
devoted to the lighter forms of discipline, bodily and mental; (3)
Youth, from the age of puberty to the end of the twenty-first year,
occupied with the severer forms of discipline; (4) Manhood, devoted to
State duties. All these are but preparations for the divine life of the
soul. We shall treat these in order, including the second and third
under one head.
CHAPTER V
EDUCATION DURING THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS
Suffer no lewdness or indecent speech
The apartment of tender youth to reach. --Juvenal.
Le coeur d'un homme vierge est un vase profond--
Lorsque la premiere eau qu'on y verse est impure,
La mer y passerait sans laver la souillure;
Car l'abime est immense, et la tache est au fond.
--Alfred de Musset.
The State must begin the education of children before their birth;
indeed, before the marriage of their parents. It must see that only
persons of robust constitutions marry. Athletes are not suited for
marriage, neither are weaklings. The best age for marriage is
thirty-seven for a man, and eighteen for a woman. During their pregnancy
women must take special care of their health, living on light food, and
taking short walks. The State should make a law that they visit the
temples of certain gods every day, and offer up a prayer of thanksgiving
for the honor conferred upon them. They must carefully avoid all forms
of emotional excitement. When defective children are born, they must be
exposed or destroyed. The State must determine what number of children
each married couple may have, and, if more than this number are
begotten, they must be destroyed either before or after birth. "As soon
as children are born, it ought to be remembered that their future
strength will depend greatly upon the nourishment supplied to them. " A
milk diet is best, and wine must be avoided. "It is likewise of great
importance that children should make those motions that are appropriate
to their stage of development. . . . Whatever it is possible to inure
children to, they ought to be subjected to from the very outset, and
gradual progress to be made. Children, on account of their high natural
warmth, are the proper subjects for inurement to cold. These and other
points of the same nature are what ought to be attended to in the first
years of the child's life. In the following years, up to the age of
five, while children ought not to be subjected to any instruction or
severe discipline, for fear of impeding their growth, they ought to take
such exercises as shall guard their bodies from sluggishness. This may
be secured by other forms of activity as well as by play. Care must be
taken that their games shall be neither unrefined, laborious, nor
languid. As to the conversation and stories which children are to hear,
that is a matter for the attention of those officers called Guardians of
Public Instruction. It ought to be seen to that all such things tend to
pave the way for future avocations. Hence all games ought to be types of
future studies. As to the screaming and crying of children, they are
things that ought not to be prohibited, as they are in some places. They
contribute to the growth of the body, by acting as a sort of gymnastics.
Just as persons engaged in hard work increase their strength by holding
their breath, so children increase theirs by screaming. It is the
business of the Guardians of Public Instruction to provide for their
amusement generally, as well as to see that these bring them as little
as possible in contact with slaves. It is, of course, natural that at
this age they should learn improprieties of speech and manner from what
they hear and see. As to foul language, it ought, of course, like
everything else that is foul, to be prohibited in all society (for
frivolous impurity of talk easily leads to impurity of action), but
above all, in the society of the young, so that they may neither hear
nor utter any such thing. If any child be caught uttering or doing
anything that is forbidden, if he be freeborn and under the age when
children are allowed to come to the public table, he ought to be
disgraced and subjected to corporal punishment; if he be older, it will
be sufficient to punish him with disgrace, like a slave, for having
behaved like one. And if we thus prohibit all mention of improper
things, with stronger reason shall we prohibit all looking at improper
pictures and listening to improper narratives. It ought to be made the
business of the Guardians of Public Instruction to see that there does
not exist a statue or a picture representing any such thing anywhere in
the State, except in the temples of those gods to whom ordinary belief
ascribes a certain wantonness. . . . There ought to be a regulation
forbidding young persons to be present at lampoons or comedies before
they reach the age when they are allowed to come to the public table and
partake of wine, and when education has fortified them against all
possible danger from them. . . . We all have a preference for what we first
know; for this reason everything that savors of meanness or ignobility
ought to be made alien to children. From the completion of their fifth
year to that of their seventh, children ought to be present at the
giving of the various kinds of instruction which they will afterwards
have to acquire. "
In this brief sketch of primary education we see that Aristotle does not
depart far from the notions of Plato. It contains even the revolting
features of his scheme. It assumes that the citizens--men, women, and,
after a certain age, children--eat at public tables, and that education
is entirely managed by the State,--the family, in this respect, being
merely its agent. Some of its features, including the Guardians of
Public Instruction (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , child-herds) are plainly borrowed from
Sparta.
CHAPTER VI
THE YEARS FROM SEVEN TO TWENTY-ONE
The natures that give evidence of being the noblest are just those
that most require education. --Socrates.
We found ourselves beneath a noble castle
Encompassed seven times with lofty walls,
Defended round by a fair rivulet.
O'er this we passed as upon solid earth:
Through seven gates I entered with these sages.
We came upon a meadow of fresh green. --Dante.
For this period, which Aristotle divides into two (see p. 183) by the
advent of puberty, he, in the main, accepts the course of study
customary in his time. It consists, he says, of four
branches,--"Letters, Gymnastics, Music, and Drawing, the last not being
universal. Letters and Drawing are taught because they are useful in the
ordinary business of life and for a variety of purposes, and Gymnastics
because they foster manliness, whereas the purpose of Music is
doubtful. "
Of LETTERS Aristotle has not much to say, beyond the fact that they are
necessary in the common affairs of life. He champions Homer against
Plato, and goes into a long discussion to show the value of the drama.
Instead of believing, with Plato, that children should see and hear
nothing that would excite their emotions, he maintains that it is only
by being properly excited and "purged" that these can be trained and
made subordinate to the reason. Among the passions that obstruct the
exercise of reason are fear and pity. Tragedy rouses these and then
drains them off in a pleasant and harmless way. Comedy does the same
thing for pleasure and laughter. In fact, he maintains that the special
function of the fine arts is to act as cathartics for the different
passions. Art is ideal experience. Aristotle has left us a work on
tragedy that holds the place of honor in the literature of that subject
even at the present day.
DRAWING Aristotle recommends as a branch of study which develops taste
and judgment in regard to the products of industrial art; but he says it
should not be studied merely for its use in enabling us to choose these,
or even works of fine art, correctly, but rather because it enables us
to appreciate beauty of form. He adds: "The perpetual demand for what is
merely useful is anything but a mark of breadth or liberality. "
After thus briefly dismissing Letters and Drawing, Aristotle passes on
to Gymnastics and Music, and devotes considerable space to each.
Alongside GYMNASTICS, but distinguished from them, he names PHYSICAL
CULTURE (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), saying that, while the former gives character to
the acts of the body, the latter gives character to the body itself. The
aim of gymnastic training should be neither athleticism nor ferocity,
such as the Lacedaemonians cultivate in their children in the hope of
making them courageous. The former is detrimental to the beauty and
growth of the body; the latter misses its aim (see p. 41). "Hence
nobility, and not ferocity, ought to play the principal part among our
aims in physical education. For neither a wolf nor any other wild beast
ever braved a noble danger. To do that takes a noble man; and those who
allow their children to go too deep into such wild exercises, and so
leave them uninstructed in the necessary branches, make them, in point
of fact, mere professionals, useful for the ends of the State only in a
single requisite, and, as we have shown, inferior to others even in
that.
"There is a general agreement, then, as to the utility of Gymnastics and
to the manner in which they ought to be conducted. Up to the age of
puberty, children ought to be subjected only to the lighter exercises,
and all forced dieting and violent exertions eschewed, so that no
obstacle may be put to the growth of the body. It is no slight evidence
of the fact that violent exercise impedes growth, that there are not
more than two or three examples on record of persons' having been
victorious at the Olympic games both as boys and men. The explanation of
this is, that the others were robbed of their strength in their boyhood
by the training they had to undergo. " After the advent of puberty, for a
period of three years, the young men are apparently to have very little
gymnastics, and to devote themselves assiduously to letters, music, and
drawing. The period following this is to be devoted to severe exercise
and strict dieting, mental exertion being reduced to a minimum; "for the
two kinds of exertion naturally work against each other, bodily exertion
impeding the intellect, and intellectual exertion the body. "
On MUSIC, as a branch of study, we have almost a disquisition from the
pen of Aristotle. The question that first occupies him is, What is the
use of music? Is it a recreation, an occupation for cultured leisure, or
a gymnastic for the soul? It is all three, he replies, and would deserve
study for the sake of any one of them. At the same time, its chief value
in education lies in its third use. Music imparts a mental habit; about
that there can be no doubt. For example, the songs of Olympus "render
the soul enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is an affection of the soul's
habit. " Aristotle reasons in this way: Music is capable of affecting us
with all kinds of pleasures and pains. But moral worth at bottom
consists in finding pleasure in what is noble, and pain in what is
ignoble, that is, in a correct distribution of affection. But in good
music the strains that give pleasure are attached to the ideas that are
noble, and the strains that give pain to the ideas that are ignoble;
hence, by a natural association, the pleasures and pains which we find
in the music attach themselves to the ideas which it accompanies. "There
is nothing that we ought to learn and practice so assiduously as the art
of judging correctly and of taking delight in gentlemanly bearing and
noble deeds. And apart from the natural manifestations of the passions
themselves, there is nothing in which we can find anger, gentleness,
courage, self-control, and their opposites, as well as the other moods,
so well represented as in rhythms and songs. This we all know by
experience; for the moods of our souls change when we listen to such
strains. But the practice which we thus receive from rhythms and songs,
in rejoicing and suffering properly, brings us very near being affected
in the same way by the realities themselves. " Here Aristotle draws a
distinction between music, which appeals to the ear, and the arts that
appeal to the other senses, or rather to sight; for no art appeals to
touch, taste, or smell. In the objects of art that appeal to the eye, we
have expressions of passions only in so far as they affect the body,
whereas in music we have their direct expression passing from soul to
soul. Yet persons are deeply moved by statuary and painting, so much so
that young people ought not to be allowed to see such works as those of
Pauson. How much more then must they be moved by music! "That they are
so is quite plain; for there is such an obvious difference of nature
between harmonies that the listeners are affected in entirely different
ways by them. By some they are thrown into a kind of mournful or grave
mood, _e. g. _, by what is known as the mixed Lydian; by others a
sentimental turn is given to their thoughts, for example, by languid
harmonies; while there is another kind that especially produces balance
of feeling and collectedness. This effect is confined to the Doric
harmonies. The Phrygian harmonies rouse enthusiasm. These are correct
results arrived at by those thinkers who have devoted their attention to
this branch of education,--results based upon actual experience. What is
true of harmonies is true also of rhythms. Some of these have a steady,
others a mobile, character; of the latter, again, some have coarse,
others refined, movements. From all these considerations, it is obvious
that music is calculated to impart a certain character to the habit of
the soul, whence it follows that it ought to be brought to bear upon
children, and instruction given them in it. Musical instruction, indeed,
is admirably adapted to their stage of development; for young people,
just because they are young, are not fond of persisting in anything that
does not give them pleasure, and music is one of the pleasant things.
There seems even to be a certain kinship between harmonies and rhythms
[and the soul]; whence many philosophers hold that the soul is a
harmony, or that it has harmony. "
Aristotle, having thus shown that music is a proper subject of
instruction, goes on to inquire "whether children ought, or ought not,
to be taught music, by being taught to sing and play themselves? " His
answer is well worth quoting at full length. "It is quite evident," he
says, "that music will have a very much greater effect in moulding
people, if they take part in the performance themselves. Indeed, it is
difficult, or even impossible, for those who do not learn to do things
themselves to be good judges of them when they are done. At the same
time, children must have some amusement, and we may look upon Archytas'
rattle, which they give to children to spend their energies upon, and to
prevent them from breaking things about the house, as a good invention.
It is useless to try to keep a young creature quiet, and, just as the
rattle is the proper thing for babies, so musical instruction is the
proper rattle for older children. It follows that children ought to be
taught music by being made to produce it themselves, and it is not
difficult to determine either what is suitable and unsuitable for
different ages, or to answer those people who pretend that the study of
music is something ungentlemanly. In the first place, since people must,
to some extent, learn things themselves, in order to form a correct
judgment about them, they ought to learn the practice of them while they
are young, so that, when they grow up, they may be able to dispense with
it, and yet, through their early studies, be able to judge of them
correctly and take the proper delight in them. To the objections which
some people raise, that music turns people into craftsmen, it is not
hard to find an answer, if we consider to what extent the practice of
music ought to be required of children who are being reared in the civic
virtues, what songs and rhythms they ought to learn, and what
instruments they ought to use--for this makes a difference. Herein lies
the solution of the difficulty. The fact is, there is nothing to prevent
certain kinds of music from accomplishing the end proposed.
"It is, of course, obvious that the acquisition of music ought not to be
allowed to interfere with future usefulness, to impart an ignoble habit
to the body, or render it unfit for civic duties,--either for the
immediate learning, or the subsequent exercise, of them. All the
beneficial results of musical education would be attained, if, instead
of going into a laborious practice, such as is required to prepare
people for public exhibitions, if instead of trying to perform those
marvellous feats and _tours de force_ which have lately become popular
at public exhibitions, and passed from them into education, the children
were to learn just enough to enable them to take delight in noble songs
and rhythms, instead of finding a mere undiscriminating pleasure in
anything that calls itself music, as some of the lower animals and the
bulk of slaves and children do. If so much be admitted, we need be in no
doubt respecting our choice of instruments. " Aristotle specially
condemns the flute, and tells how it came into use, and how it was
afterwards discarded, as exerting an immoral influence. "In the same way
were condemned many of the older instruments, as the pectis, the
barbitus, and those which tended to produce sensual pleasure in the
hearers--also the septangle, the triangle, the sambuca, and all those
requiring scientific manipulation. " . . . "We would, then, condemn all
professional instruction in the nature and use of these instruments.
'Professional' we call all instruction that looks toward public
exhibitions. The person who receives this pursues his art, not with a
view to his own culture, but to afford a pleasure, and that a vulgar
one, to other people.
Greece (though he is very proud of being a Greek), but ranges over the
whole known world in time and space. Unlike Plato, too, who had been
familiar mainly with institutions of the past in Egypt and Greece,
Aristotle is deeply affected by the tendencies of the future, and,
though no one lays greater stress than he upon the necessity of a
knowledge of the past for him who would construct a sound social theory,
he nevertheless declares that the whole of the past is shaped by
something which is in the future, by the ultimate realization. This view
comes out in a paradoxical way in his famous saying that "the State is
prior to the individual," by which he means that it is man's political
nature working in him that makes him an individual, and at the same time
realizes itself in a State. And this brings us to Aristotle's conception
of the State, which we must consider before taking up his theory of
education, for the reason that to him, as to all the ancient world,
education is a function of the State, and is conducted, primarily at
least, for the ends of the State.
Before venturing upon a theory of the State, Aristotle, true to his
inductive principles, wrote the Constitutional Histories of over two
hundred and fifty different states. One of these, the _Constitutional
History of Athens_, has recently been discovered and published (see p.
96). He held that it was only by means of a broad induction, thus
rendered possible, that he could discover the idea of the State, that
is, its self-realizing form. Employing this method, then, he came to the
conclusion that the State is that highest social institution which
secures the highest good or happiness of man. Having, in a previous
treatise, satisfied himself that this good is Worth (? ? ? ? ? ), and worth
being in every case the full exercise of characteristic or
differentiating faculty, he concludes that, since man's distinguishing
faculty is reason, the State is the institution which secures to man the
fullest and freest exercise of this. It follows directly that the State
is, simply and solely, the supreme educational institution, the
university to which all other institutions are but preparatory. And two
more conclusions follow: (1) that states will differ in constitution
with the different educational needs of the peoples among whom they
exist, and (2) that, since all education is but a preparation for some
worthy activity, political education, the life of man as a citizen, is
but a preparation for the highest activity, which, because it is
highest, must necessarily be an end in itself. This activity, Aristotle
argues, can be none other than contemplation, the Vision of the Divine
(? ? ? ? ? ? ).
Results which have moved the world followed logically from this
doctrine. Whereas Plato had made provision for a small and select body
of super-civic men, and so paved the way for religious monasticism and
asceticism, Aristotle maintains that in every civilized man, as such,
there is a super-civic part, in fact, a superhuman and divine part, for
the complete realization of which all the other parts, and the State
wherein they find expression, are but means. Here we have, in embryo,
the whole of Dante's theory of the relation of Church and State, a
theory which lies at the basis of all modern political effort, however
little the fact may be recognized. Here, indeed, we have the whole
framework of the _Divine Comedy_; here too we have the doctrine of the
Beatific Vision, which for ages shaped and, to a large extent, still
shapes, the life of Christendom. Well might Dante claim Aristotle as his
master (see p. 153)! Well might the great doctors of the Church speak of
him as "_The_ Philosopher," and as the "Forerunner of Christ in Things
Natural. " In vain did Peter Ramus and Luther and Bruno and Bacon
depreciate or anathematize him! He is more powerful to-day in thought
and life than at any time for the last twenty-two centuries.
It may be asked how far, and in what form, Aristotle conceives the
divine life to be possible for man on earth. He answers that, though it
cannot be perfectly or continuously realized here, it is in some degree
and for certain times attainable (see p. 161). In so far as it is a
social life, it is the life of friendship or spiritual love (? ? ? ? ? ), to
which he has devoted almost two books of his _Ethics_, books which give
us a loftier idea of his personal purity and worth than any other of his
extant writings. He insists that friendship is the supreme blessing (see
p. 166), and that "whatever a man's being is, or whatever he chooses to
live for, in that he wishes to spend his life in the company of his
friends. " It is even said that Aristotle, while teaching in the Lyceum,
gathered about him a knot of noble youths and earnest students, and
formed them into a kind of community, with a view to leading a truly
spiritual social life.
CHAPTER IV
ARISTOTLE'S PEDAGOGICAL STATE
Nature is the beginning of everything. --Aristotle.
Life is more than meat, and the body than raiment. --Jesus.
The forces of the human passions in us, when completely repressed,
become more vehement; but when they are called into action for short
time and in the right degree, they enjoy a measured delight, are
soothed, and, thence being purged away, cease in a kindly, instead
of a violent, way. For this reason, in tragedy and comedy, through
being spectators of the passions of others, we still our own
passions, render them more moderate, and purge them away; and so,
likewise, in the temples, by seeing and hearing base things, we are
freed from the injury that would come from the actual practice of
them. --Jamblichus.
Care for the body must precede care for the soul; next to care for
the body must come care for the appetites; and, last of all, care
for the intelligence. We train the appetites for the sake of the
intelligence, and the body for the sake of the soul. --Aristotle.
The practice of abortion was one to which few persons in antiquity
attached any deep feeling of condemnation. . . . The physiological
theory that the foetus did not become a living creature till the hour
of birth had some influence on the judgments passed upon this
practice. The death of an unborn child does not appeal very
powerfully to the feeling of compassion, and men who had not yet
attained any strong sense of the sanctity of human life, who
believed that they might regulate their conduct on these matters by
utilitarian views, according to the general interest of the
community, might very readily conclude that prevention of birth was
in many cases an act of mercy. In Greece, Aristotle not only
countenanced the practice, but even desired that it should be
enforced by law, when population had exceeded certain assigned
limits. No law in Greece, or in the Roman Republic, or during the
greater part of the Empire, condemned it. . . . The language of the
Christians from the very beginning was very different. With
unwavering consistency and with the strongest emphasis, they
denounced the practice, not simply as inhuman, but as definitely
murder. --Lecky, _European Morals_.
Aristotle clearly saw that the strong tendency of the human race to
increase, unless corrected by strict and positive laws, was
absolutely fatal to every system founded on equality of property;
and there cannot surely be a stronger argument against any system of
this kind than the necessity of such laws as Aristotle himself
proposes. . . . He seems to be fully aware that to encourage the birth
of children, without providing properly for their support, is to
obtain a very small accession to the population of a country, at the
expense of a very great accession of misery. --Malthus, _Essay on
Population_.
Considering Aristotle's views with regard to man, his end, and the
function of the State, we can have little difficulty in divining the
character and method of his educational system. Man is a being endowed
with reason; his end is the full realization of this, his sovereign and
distinguishing faculty; the State is the means whereby this is
accomplished.
Readers of Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_ will remember the description, in
the second part, of the Pedagogical Province. Now, Aristotle's State
might with entire propriety be called a Pedagogical Province. In trying
to describe this State, and the manner in which it discharges its
function, it is difficult to know where to begin, for the reason that,
taken as a whole, the State is both teacher and pupil. It arranges the
whole scheme of education, and is therefore related to it as cause; it
is built up by this scheme, and is therefore related to it as effect. It
comes, accordingly, both at the beginning and at the end. It is a
university which arranges the entire scheme of education, and is itself
its highest grade. I shall try to surmount this difficulty by
distinguishing what the State is from what it does, beginning with the
former, and ending with the latter.
With regard to what the State is, we have to consider (1) its natural,
(2) its social, conditions. The former are climate, and extent, nature,
and situation of territory; the latter, number and character of
inhabitants, property regulations, distinction of classes, city
architecture, mode of life, government, and relations to other states.
Aristotle demands for his State a temperate climate, on the ground that
a cold one renders men strong and bold, but dull and stupid, while a hot
one renders them intellectual but effeminate. The best climate is one
that makes them at once brave and intelligent. The territory must be
extensive enough, and fertile enough, to supply its inhabitants with all
the material conditions of life in answer to labor which shall rouse,
without exhausting, their energies. It must face east or south, and be
healthy, well-watered, accessible from land and sea, and easily
defensible.
As to the social conditions, Aristotle finds the most important to be
the number of citizens. And here two things must be carefully borne in
mind. (1) He means by "State" a city with a small territory. This is
not, as has been erroneously supposed, his highest social unity. He
recognizes clearly the nation (? ? ? ? ? ) and the confederacy (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? );
but he holds that they exist merely for material ends, whereas the end
of the State is spiritual. (2) He means by "citizen" a politician. A man
is a citizen, not because he is born or domiciled in a State, but
because he is a sharer in its functions. A State made up of mechanics,
no matter how great their number, would be a small State, and one
composed of slaves would be no State at all. Thus, in estimating the
size of a State, we are to consider the character of its inhabitants,
their fitness for political functions, rather than their number. Little
Athens was a much larger State than gigantic Persia on the field of
Marathon. Aristotle lays down that the number of citizens must be large
enough to insure independence, this being essential to a Culture-State,
and not too large to be manageable. Besides the citizens, there will
necessarily be in the State a very large number of other human beings,
slaves, agriculturists, mechanics, sailors--for all these he excludes
from citizenship on the ground that they do not make virtue, that is,
the realization of reason, the end of their lives. Women, in a sense,
are citizens, if they belong to the families of citizens; but their
sphere is the family.
With regard to property, Aristotle begins by considering what things it
is necessary for. These he finds to be six, three private and three
public. The former are food (including clothing and shelter),
instruments of production, and arms; the latter are public enterprises
(civil and military), religion, and law. These are the "necessaries"
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) of a State, for which it must duly provide. The most
important of all is religion, on which he everywhere lays great stress.
As to the distribution of property, he propounds a scheme which is half
socialistic. All the land is to belong to the State, that is, to the
body of the free citizens. It is to be divided into two equal portions,
and one set apart for public, the other for private, uses. The revenue
from the public part is to go for the support of religion (and law? ) and
of the public tables, from which no citizen is excluded by poverty. The
private part is to be so divided that each citizen shall have one lot
near the city, and one near the frontier. This will give him an interest
in defending the whole territory. Both parts are to be cultivated by
serfs or slaves, part of whom will necessarily belong to the State, and
part to private individuals. Land-owning is to be a condition of
citizenship, and all citizens are to be forbidden to exercise any form
of productive industry. This last rule, it is hoped, will prevent
grievous inequalities of wealth, and the evils that flow from them. A
modest competency, derived from his estate, is all that any citizen
should aim at. Only degraded people, incapable of virtue, will crave for
more.
Upon the distinction of classes some light has been already thrown. They
are two; the ruling and the ruled. Aristotle holds that this distinction
runs through the whole of nature and spirit, that it is fundamental in
being itself. It holds between God and the universe, form and matter,
soul and body, object and subject, husband and wife, parent and child,
master and slave, etc. , etc. The ruling class again is sub-divided into
two parts, one that thinks and determines (legislators and judges), and
one that executes (officials, officers, soldiers); while the ruled is
sub-divided into husbandmen, mechanics, and seamen (sailors, fishermen,
etc. ). All the members of the ruled class are serfs or public slaves,
working, not for themselves, but for their masters. Aristotle holds that
they ought to be barbarians of different races, and not Greeks.
The architecture of the city will in some degree correspond to this
social division. It will naturally fall into three divisions, military,
religious, and civil. First of all, a city must have walls. These should
have towers and bastions at proper distances, and be made as attractive
as possible. The temples of the gods and the offices of the chief
magistrates should, if possible, stand together on a fortified citadel,
conspicuously dominating the entire city. Adjoining this ought to be the
Freemen's Square, reserved entirely for the ruling class, and
unencumbered by business or wares of any sort. Here ought to stand the
gymnasium for the older citizens, who will thus be brought into contact
with the magistrates and inspired with "true reverence and freemen's
fear. " The market-square must be placed so as to be convenient for the
reception of goods both from sea and land. This comprehends all the
civil architecture except the mess-halls, of which we shall better speak
in the next paragraph.
The mode of life of the ruling class will necessarily differ widely from
that of the ruled. About the latter Aristotle has nothing to say. He
hopes for little from that class beyond the possibility of being held in
contented subordination. As it has no political life, all that is left
to it is the life of the family. The ruling class, on the contrary,
live to a large extent in public, and on public funds. They exercise in
public gymnasia and eat at public tables. The chief magistrates have
their mess-hall in the citadel; the priests have theirs close to the
temples; the magistrates, who preside over business matters, streets,
and markets, have theirs near the market-square, while those who attend
to the defences of the city have tables in the towers. When not engaged
in public business, the citizens may meet in the Freemen's Square and
enjoy an open-air _conversazione_, with music, poetry, and philosophy,
in a word, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , for which our language has no even approximate
equivalent (see p. 33). In proportion as they advance in years, the
citizens enjoy more and more ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , which, indeed, is regarded as the
end of life, here and hereafter.
The government is entirely in the hands of the free citizens, the
legislative and deliberative power being in those of the elders; the
executive power, civil and military, in those of the younger portion. It
is curious that, though Aristotle regards this as the best possible
arrangement under ordinary circumstances, he nevertheless believes that
the happiest condition for a State would be to be governed by some
divine or heroic man, far superior to all the others in wisdom and
goodness. He plainly considers Pisistratus to have been one such man,
and he perhaps hoped that Alexander might be another.
The relations of the pedagogical State to other States are, as far as
possible, to be peaceful. Just as all labor is for the sake of rest and
? ? ? ? ? ? ? , so all war is for the sake of peace; and that State is to be
envied which can maintain an honorable independence without war. A
cultured State will eschew all attempts at conquest, and be as unwilling
to tyrannize over another State as to be tyrannized over by one. At the
same time, it will always be prepared for war, possessing an army of
well-trained, well-armed soldiers, and a well-manned, well-equipped
fleet.
Such are the chief features of Aristotle's ideal State, based, as he
believes, on man's political nature and the history of the past. Like
all social ideals, like heaven itself, as ordinarily conceived, it is a
static condition. Its institutions are fixed once for all, and every
effort is made to preserve them.
It is curious to note in how many
points it coincides with Xenophon's ideal.
The purpose of the State is to educate its citizens, to make them
virtuous. Virtue is the very life-principle of the State, and it does
not depend, as other conditions do, upon nature or chance, but upon free
will. The ideal State, like every other, must educate with a view to its
own institutions, since only in this way can these be preserved. "And,
since the State, as a whole, has but one aim, it is evident that the
political education of all the citizens ought to be the same, and that
this is a matter for the State to attend to, and not one to be left to
individual caprice, as is now almost universally done, when every parent
attends to the education of his own children, and gives them whatever
schooling suits his own fancy. " For the education of those members of
the State who are not citizens the State makes no provision. They learn
their practical duties by performing them, and are completely under the
control of the citizens. Aristotle makes the most vigorous efforts to
prove that slavery has its justification in nature, which has
established between Greek and barbarian the relation of master and slave
(see p. 12). As woman belongs to the family, and is only indirectly a
citizen of the State, her education is entrusted to the former
institution. The daughter is to be educated by the parents, and the wife
by the husband, exactly as recommended by Xenophon.
Having concluded that education ought to be a matter of State
legislation, and the same for all the citizens, he continues: "It
remains to inquire what shall be the nature of the education, and the
method of imparting it. . . . The present state of education leaves this
question in a perfect muddle, no one seeming to know whether we ought to
teach those subjects which enable people to make a living, or those
which foster worth, or, finally, accomplishments. All have had their
advocates. In regard to those studies which have worth for their aim,
there is no general agreement, owing to the fact that different people
have different views as to what kinds of worth are admirable, and
consequently differ in regard to the means to be employed for the
cultivation of them. One point, however, is perfectly clear, viz. that
those useful things which are necessary ought to be taught. But it is
equally clear that a distinction ought to be made between liberal and
illiberal studies, and that only those useful subjects ought to be
taught which do not turn those learning them into craftsmen. We ought
to look upon every employment, art, or study which contributes to render
the bodies, souls, or intellects of free men unfit for the uses and
practices of virtue, as a craft. For this reason it is that we call all
those arts which lower the condition of the body crafts, and extend the
term to the money-making trades, because they preoccupy and degrade the
intelligence. As to the liberal arts, to cultivate an acquaintance with
them up to a certain point is not illiberal; but any over-devotion to
them, with a view to attaining professional skill, is liable to the
objections mentioned. It also makes a great difference for what purpose
we do or learn a thing. If a man does a thing for his own, for his
friends', or for worth's sake, it is not illiberal, whereas if he does
it often for the sake of anybody else, he will be held to be doing
something mercenary or slavish. "
The next and all-important question is, For what end shall the State
educate,--for business or for leisure? In answering this, Aristotle
breaks entirely away from the old Greek traditions, as well as from
Plato, and maintains that, while it must educate for both, yet education
for leisure is far more important than education for business, and cites
Nature as his authority. "Nature itself demands," he says, "not only
that we should pursue business properly, but that we should be able to
employ our leisure elegantly. If we must have both, we must; but leisure
is preferable to business, and our final inquiry must be, in what sort
of employment we shall spend our leisure. It is useless to say that we
are to spend it in play, and that play is the end and aim of our life.
If this is impossible, and the truth is that the proper place for play
is in the midst of business (it is the man who is toiling that requires
recreation, which is the aim of play, business being accompanied with
exertion and tension), then, in having recourse to play, we must select
the proper seasons for administering it, just as if it were a medicine.
Indeed, all such movement of the soul is relaxation, and becomes
recreation on account of the pleasure which it affords. Leisure, on the
contrary, is considered, in and by itself, to involve pleasure,
happiness, and a blessed life. These fall to the lot of those who have
leisure, not of those who are engaged in business. Those who engage in
business do so for some ulterior end not realized in it, whereas
happiness is itself an end and, according to universal belief, brings,
not pain but pleasure. Of course, as to the nature of this pleasure,
there is at present a variety of opinions, every one having his own
preferences due to his character and habits, and the highest type of man
preferring the highest type of pleasure and that which arises from the
noblest things. We need no further argument to show that we should
receive instruction and education in certain things with a view to
_otium cum dignitate_ (or cultured leisure), and that these should be
ends in themselves, in contradistinction to the instruction given for
business, which is necessary and has an ulterior aim. "
Three principles Aristotle lays down as valid for all education: (1)
that the training of the body ought to take precedence in time over that
of the mind; (2) that pupils should be taught to do things before they
are taught the reasons and principles of them; (3) that learning is
never playing, or for the sake of playing.
The periods of education distinguished by Aristotle are: (1) Childhood,
extending from birth to the end of the seventh year, and spent in
healthy growing and, latterly, in preparation for discipline; (2)
Boyhood, from the beginning of the eighth year to the advent of puberty,
devoted to the lighter forms of discipline, bodily and mental; (3)
Youth, from the age of puberty to the end of the twenty-first year,
occupied with the severer forms of discipline; (4) Manhood, devoted to
State duties. All these are but preparations for the divine life of the
soul. We shall treat these in order, including the second and third
under one head.
CHAPTER V
EDUCATION DURING THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS
Suffer no lewdness or indecent speech
The apartment of tender youth to reach. --Juvenal.
Le coeur d'un homme vierge est un vase profond--
Lorsque la premiere eau qu'on y verse est impure,
La mer y passerait sans laver la souillure;
Car l'abime est immense, et la tache est au fond.
--Alfred de Musset.
The State must begin the education of children before their birth;
indeed, before the marriage of their parents. It must see that only
persons of robust constitutions marry. Athletes are not suited for
marriage, neither are weaklings. The best age for marriage is
thirty-seven for a man, and eighteen for a woman. During their pregnancy
women must take special care of their health, living on light food, and
taking short walks. The State should make a law that they visit the
temples of certain gods every day, and offer up a prayer of thanksgiving
for the honor conferred upon them. They must carefully avoid all forms
of emotional excitement. When defective children are born, they must be
exposed or destroyed. The State must determine what number of children
each married couple may have, and, if more than this number are
begotten, they must be destroyed either before or after birth. "As soon
as children are born, it ought to be remembered that their future
strength will depend greatly upon the nourishment supplied to them. " A
milk diet is best, and wine must be avoided. "It is likewise of great
importance that children should make those motions that are appropriate
to their stage of development. . . . Whatever it is possible to inure
children to, they ought to be subjected to from the very outset, and
gradual progress to be made. Children, on account of their high natural
warmth, are the proper subjects for inurement to cold. These and other
points of the same nature are what ought to be attended to in the first
years of the child's life. In the following years, up to the age of
five, while children ought not to be subjected to any instruction or
severe discipline, for fear of impeding their growth, they ought to take
such exercises as shall guard their bodies from sluggishness. This may
be secured by other forms of activity as well as by play. Care must be
taken that their games shall be neither unrefined, laborious, nor
languid. As to the conversation and stories which children are to hear,
that is a matter for the attention of those officers called Guardians of
Public Instruction. It ought to be seen to that all such things tend to
pave the way for future avocations. Hence all games ought to be types of
future studies. As to the screaming and crying of children, they are
things that ought not to be prohibited, as they are in some places. They
contribute to the growth of the body, by acting as a sort of gymnastics.
Just as persons engaged in hard work increase their strength by holding
their breath, so children increase theirs by screaming. It is the
business of the Guardians of Public Instruction to provide for their
amusement generally, as well as to see that these bring them as little
as possible in contact with slaves. It is, of course, natural that at
this age they should learn improprieties of speech and manner from what
they hear and see. As to foul language, it ought, of course, like
everything else that is foul, to be prohibited in all society (for
frivolous impurity of talk easily leads to impurity of action), but
above all, in the society of the young, so that they may neither hear
nor utter any such thing. If any child be caught uttering or doing
anything that is forbidden, if he be freeborn and under the age when
children are allowed to come to the public table, he ought to be
disgraced and subjected to corporal punishment; if he be older, it will
be sufficient to punish him with disgrace, like a slave, for having
behaved like one. And if we thus prohibit all mention of improper
things, with stronger reason shall we prohibit all looking at improper
pictures and listening to improper narratives. It ought to be made the
business of the Guardians of Public Instruction to see that there does
not exist a statue or a picture representing any such thing anywhere in
the State, except in the temples of those gods to whom ordinary belief
ascribes a certain wantonness. . . . There ought to be a regulation
forbidding young persons to be present at lampoons or comedies before
they reach the age when they are allowed to come to the public table and
partake of wine, and when education has fortified them against all
possible danger from them. . . . We all have a preference for what we first
know; for this reason everything that savors of meanness or ignobility
ought to be made alien to children. From the completion of their fifth
year to that of their seventh, children ought to be present at the
giving of the various kinds of instruction which they will afterwards
have to acquire. "
In this brief sketch of primary education we see that Aristotle does not
depart far from the notions of Plato. It contains even the revolting
features of his scheme. It assumes that the citizens--men, women, and,
after a certain age, children--eat at public tables, and that education
is entirely managed by the State,--the family, in this respect, being
merely its agent. Some of its features, including the Guardians of
Public Instruction (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , child-herds) are plainly borrowed from
Sparta.
CHAPTER VI
THE YEARS FROM SEVEN TO TWENTY-ONE
The natures that give evidence of being the noblest are just those
that most require education. --Socrates.
We found ourselves beneath a noble castle
Encompassed seven times with lofty walls,
Defended round by a fair rivulet.
O'er this we passed as upon solid earth:
Through seven gates I entered with these sages.
We came upon a meadow of fresh green. --Dante.
For this period, which Aristotle divides into two (see p. 183) by the
advent of puberty, he, in the main, accepts the course of study
customary in his time. It consists, he says, of four
branches,--"Letters, Gymnastics, Music, and Drawing, the last not being
universal. Letters and Drawing are taught because they are useful in the
ordinary business of life and for a variety of purposes, and Gymnastics
because they foster manliness, whereas the purpose of Music is
doubtful. "
Of LETTERS Aristotle has not much to say, beyond the fact that they are
necessary in the common affairs of life. He champions Homer against
Plato, and goes into a long discussion to show the value of the drama.
Instead of believing, with Plato, that children should see and hear
nothing that would excite their emotions, he maintains that it is only
by being properly excited and "purged" that these can be trained and
made subordinate to the reason. Among the passions that obstruct the
exercise of reason are fear and pity. Tragedy rouses these and then
drains them off in a pleasant and harmless way. Comedy does the same
thing for pleasure and laughter. In fact, he maintains that the special
function of the fine arts is to act as cathartics for the different
passions. Art is ideal experience. Aristotle has left us a work on
tragedy that holds the place of honor in the literature of that subject
even at the present day.
DRAWING Aristotle recommends as a branch of study which develops taste
and judgment in regard to the products of industrial art; but he says it
should not be studied merely for its use in enabling us to choose these,
or even works of fine art, correctly, but rather because it enables us
to appreciate beauty of form. He adds: "The perpetual demand for what is
merely useful is anything but a mark of breadth or liberality. "
After thus briefly dismissing Letters and Drawing, Aristotle passes on
to Gymnastics and Music, and devotes considerable space to each.
Alongside GYMNASTICS, but distinguished from them, he names PHYSICAL
CULTURE (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), saying that, while the former gives character to
the acts of the body, the latter gives character to the body itself. The
aim of gymnastic training should be neither athleticism nor ferocity,
such as the Lacedaemonians cultivate in their children in the hope of
making them courageous. The former is detrimental to the beauty and
growth of the body; the latter misses its aim (see p. 41). "Hence
nobility, and not ferocity, ought to play the principal part among our
aims in physical education. For neither a wolf nor any other wild beast
ever braved a noble danger. To do that takes a noble man; and those who
allow their children to go too deep into such wild exercises, and so
leave them uninstructed in the necessary branches, make them, in point
of fact, mere professionals, useful for the ends of the State only in a
single requisite, and, as we have shown, inferior to others even in
that.
"There is a general agreement, then, as to the utility of Gymnastics and
to the manner in which they ought to be conducted. Up to the age of
puberty, children ought to be subjected only to the lighter exercises,
and all forced dieting and violent exertions eschewed, so that no
obstacle may be put to the growth of the body. It is no slight evidence
of the fact that violent exercise impedes growth, that there are not
more than two or three examples on record of persons' having been
victorious at the Olympic games both as boys and men. The explanation of
this is, that the others were robbed of their strength in their boyhood
by the training they had to undergo. " After the advent of puberty, for a
period of three years, the young men are apparently to have very little
gymnastics, and to devote themselves assiduously to letters, music, and
drawing. The period following this is to be devoted to severe exercise
and strict dieting, mental exertion being reduced to a minimum; "for the
two kinds of exertion naturally work against each other, bodily exertion
impeding the intellect, and intellectual exertion the body. "
On MUSIC, as a branch of study, we have almost a disquisition from the
pen of Aristotle. The question that first occupies him is, What is the
use of music? Is it a recreation, an occupation for cultured leisure, or
a gymnastic for the soul? It is all three, he replies, and would deserve
study for the sake of any one of them. At the same time, its chief value
in education lies in its third use. Music imparts a mental habit; about
that there can be no doubt. For example, the songs of Olympus "render
the soul enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is an affection of the soul's
habit. " Aristotle reasons in this way: Music is capable of affecting us
with all kinds of pleasures and pains. But moral worth at bottom
consists in finding pleasure in what is noble, and pain in what is
ignoble, that is, in a correct distribution of affection. But in good
music the strains that give pleasure are attached to the ideas that are
noble, and the strains that give pain to the ideas that are ignoble;
hence, by a natural association, the pleasures and pains which we find
in the music attach themselves to the ideas which it accompanies. "There
is nothing that we ought to learn and practice so assiduously as the art
of judging correctly and of taking delight in gentlemanly bearing and
noble deeds. And apart from the natural manifestations of the passions
themselves, there is nothing in which we can find anger, gentleness,
courage, self-control, and their opposites, as well as the other moods,
so well represented as in rhythms and songs. This we all know by
experience; for the moods of our souls change when we listen to such
strains. But the practice which we thus receive from rhythms and songs,
in rejoicing and suffering properly, brings us very near being affected
in the same way by the realities themselves. " Here Aristotle draws a
distinction between music, which appeals to the ear, and the arts that
appeal to the other senses, or rather to sight; for no art appeals to
touch, taste, or smell. In the objects of art that appeal to the eye, we
have expressions of passions only in so far as they affect the body,
whereas in music we have their direct expression passing from soul to
soul. Yet persons are deeply moved by statuary and painting, so much so
that young people ought not to be allowed to see such works as those of
Pauson. How much more then must they be moved by music! "That they are
so is quite plain; for there is such an obvious difference of nature
between harmonies that the listeners are affected in entirely different
ways by them. By some they are thrown into a kind of mournful or grave
mood, _e. g. _, by what is known as the mixed Lydian; by others a
sentimental turn is given to their thoughts, for example, by languid
harmonies; while there is another kind that especially produces balance
of feeling and collectedness. This effect is confined to the Doric
harmonies. The Phrygian harmonies rouse enthusiasm. These are correct
results arrived at by those thinkers who have devoted their attention to
this branch of education,--results based upon actual experience. What is
true of harmonies is true also of rhythms. Some of these have a steady,
others a mobile, character; of the latter, again, some have coarse,
others refined, movements. From all these considerations, it is obvious
that music is calculated to impart a certain character to the habit of
the soul, whence it follows that it ought to be brought to bear upon
children, and instruction given them in it. Musical instruction, indeed,
is admirably adapted to their stage of development; for young people,
just because they are young, are not fond of persisting in anything that
does not give them pleasure, and music is one of the pleasant things.
There seems even to be a certain kinship between harmonies and rhythms
[and the soul]; whence many philosophers hold that the soul is a
harmony, or that it has harmony. "
Aristotle, having thus shown that music is a proper subject of
instruction, goes on to inquire "whether children ought, or ought not,
to be taught music, by being taught to sing and play themselves? " His
answer is well worth quoting at full length. "It is quite evident," he
says, "that music will have a very much greater effect in moulding
people, if they take part in the performance themselves. Indeed, it is
difficult, or even impossible, for those who do not learn to do things
themselves to be good judges of them when they are done. At the same
time, children must have some amusement, and we may look upon Archytas'
rattle, which they give to children to spend their energies upon, and to
prevent them from breaking things about the house, as a good invention.
It is useless to try to keep a young creature quiet, and, just as the
rattle is the proper thing for babies, so musical instruction is the
proper rattle for older children. It follows that children ought to be
taught music by being made to produce it themselves, and it is not
difficult to determine either what is suitable and unsuitable for
different ages, or to answer those people who pretend that the study of
music is something ungentlemanly. In the first place, since people must,
to some extent, learn things themselves, in order to form a correct
judgment about them, they ought to learn the practice of them while they
are young, so that, when they grow up, they may be able to dispense with
it, and yet, through their early studies, be able to judge of them
correctly and take the proper delight in them. To the objections which
some people raise, that music turns people into craftsmen, it is not
hard to find an answer, if we consider to what extent the practice of
music ought to be required of children who are being reared in the civic
virtues, what songs and rhythms they ought to learn, and what
instruments they ought to use--for this makes a difference. Herein lies
the solution of the difficulty. The fact is, there is nothing to prevent
certain kinds of music from accomplishing the end proposed.
"It is, of course, obvious that the acquisition of music ought not to be
allowed to interfere with future usefulness, to impart an ignoble habit
to the body, or render it unfit for civic duties,--either for the
immediate learning, or the subsequent exercise, of them. All the
beneficial results of musical education would be attained, if, instead
of going into a laborious practice, such as is required to prepare
people for public exhibitions, if instead of trying to perform those
marvellous feats and _tours de force_ which have lately become popular
at public exhibitions, and passed from them into education, the children
were to learn just enough to enable them to take delight in noble songs
and rhythms, instead of finding a mere undiscriminating pleasure in
anything that calls itself music, as some of the lower animals and the
bulk of slaves and children do. If so much be admitted, we need be in no
doubt respecting our choice of instruments. " Aristotle specially
condemns the flute, and tells how it came into use, and how it was
afterwards discarded, as exerting an immoral influence. "In the same way
were condemned many of the older instruments, as the pectis, the
barbitus, and those which tended to produce sensual pleasure in the
hearers--also the septangle, the triangle, the sambuca, and all those
requiring scientific manipulation. " . . . "We would, then, condemn all
professional instruction in the nature and use of these instruments.
'Professional' we call all instruction that looks toward public
exhibitions. The person who receives this pursues his art, not with a
view to his own culture, but to afford a pleasure, and that a vulgar
one, to other people.
