We find, indeed, that Achilles and Paris are
proficients
in music; but
such cases seem exceptional.
such cases seem exceptional.
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals by Thomas Davidson
for thy beauty's sake
It is an envied lot in Hellas even to die,
And suffer toils devouring, unassuaged--
So well dost thou direct the spirit
To fruit immortal, better than gold
And parents and soft-eyed sleep.
For thy cause Jove-born Hercules and Leda's sons
Much underwent, by deeds
Thy power proclaiming.
For love of thee Achilles and Ajax to Hades' halls went down.
For thy dear beauty's sake Atarneus' nursling too widowed the glances
of the sun.
Therefore, as one renowned for deeds and deathless, him the Muses
shall exalt,
The daughters of Memory, exalting so the glory of Stranger-guarding
Jove, and the honor of friendship firm.
With regard to this ideal, four things are especially noteworthy;
_first_, that it took an exhaustive survey of man's nature and
relations; _second_, that it called for strong, persistent, heroic
effort; _third_, that it tended to sink the individual in the social
whole and the universal order; _fourth_, that its aim was, on the whole,
a static perfection. The first two were merits; the second two,
demerits. The first merit prevented the Greeks from pursuing one-sided
systems of education; the second, from trying to turn education into a
means of amusement. Aristotle says distinctly, "Education ought
certainly not to be turned into a means of amusement; for young people
are not playing when they are learning, since all learning is
accompanied with pain. " The first demerit was prejudicial to individual
liberty, and therefore obstructive of the highest human development; the
second encouraged Utopian dreams, which, being always of static
conditions, undisturbed by the toils and throes essential to progress,
tend to produce impatience of that slow advance whereby alone man
arrives at enduring results. To this tendency we owe such works as
Plato's _Republic_ and Xenophon's _Education of Cyrus_.
CHAPTER II
BRANCHES OF GREEK EDUCATION
With thee the aged car-borne Peleus sent me on the day whereon from
Phthia to Agamemnon he sent thee, a mere boy, not yet acquainted
with mutual war or councils, in which men rise to distinction--for
this end he sent me forth to teach thee all these things, to be a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds. --(_Phoenix in_) Homer.
Above all and by every means we provide that our citizens shall have
good souls and strong bodies. --Lucian.
Life is the original school--life, domestic and social. All other
schools merely exercise functions delegated by the family and by
society, and it is not until the latter has reached such a state of
complication as to necessitate a division of labor that special schools
exist. Among the Homeric Greeks we find no mention of schools, and the
only person recorded as having had a tutor is Achilles, who was sent
away from home so early in life as to be deprived of that education
which he would naturally have received from his father. In what that
education consisted, we learn from the first quotation at the head of
this chapter. It consisted in such training as would make the pupil "a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds"--a man eloquent and persuasive in
council, and brave and resolute on the field of battle. For these ends
he required, as Lucian says, a good soul and a strong body.
These expressions mark the two great divisions into which Greek
education at all periods fell--MENTAL EDUCATION and PHYSICAL
EDUCATION--as well as their original aims, viz. goodness (that is,
bravery) of soul and strength of body. As time went on, these aims
underwent considerable changes, and consequently the means for attaining
them considerable modifications and extensions. Physical education aimed
more and more at beauty and grace, instead of strength, while mental
education, in its effort to extend itself to all the powers of the mind,
divided itself into literary and musical education.
As we have seen, the Greeks aimed at developing all the powers of the
human being in due proportion and harmony. But, in course of time, they
discovered that the human creature comes into the world with his powers,
not only undeveloped, but already disordered and inharmonious; that not
only do the germs of manhood require to be carefully watched and tended,
but also that the ground in which they are to grow must be cleared from
an overgrowth of choking weeds, before education can be undertaken with
any hope of success. This clearing process was called by the later
Greeks _Katharsis_, or Purgation, and played an ever-increasing part in
their pedagogical systems. It was supposed to do for man's emotional
nature what Medicine undertook to do for his body. The means employed
were mainly music and the kindred arts, which the ancients believed to
exert what we should now call a daemonic effect upon the soul, drawing
off the exciting causes of disturbing passion, and leaving it in
complete possession of itself. It would hardly be too much to say that
the power to exert this purgative influence on the soul was regarded by
the ancients as the chief function and end of the Fine Arts. Such was
certainly Aristotle's opinion.
When purgation and the twofold education of body and mind had produced
their perfect work, the result was what the Greeks called _Kalokagathia_
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) that is, Fair-and-Goodness. Either half of this ideal was
named ? ? ? ? ? (_arete_), Worth or Excellence. We are expressly told by
Aristotle (_Categories_, chap. viii. ) that the adjective to ? ? ? ? ? is
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (_spoudaios_), a word which we usually render into English by
"earnest. " And we do so with reason; for to the Greek, Excellence or
Worth meant, above all, earnestness, genuineness, truthfulness,
thoroughness, absence of frivolity.
CHAPTER III
CONDITIONS OF EDUCATION
Some hold that men become good by nature, others by training, others
by instruction. The part that is due to nature obviously does not
depend upon us, but is imparted through certain divine causes to the
truly fortunate. --Aristotle.
It is not merely begetting that makes the father, but also the
imparting of a noble education. --John Chrysostom.
There are two sorts of education, the one divine, the other human.
The divine is great and strong and easy; the human small and weak
and beset with many dangers and delusions. Nevertheless, the latter
must be added to the former, if a right result is to be
reached. --Dion Chrysostom.
The same thing that we are wont to assert regarding the arts and
sciences, may be asserted regarding moral worth, viz. that the
production of a completely just character demands three
conditions--nature, reason, and habit. By "reason" I mean
instruction, by "habit," training. . . . Nature without instruction is
blind; instruction without nature, helpless; exercise (training)
without both, aimless. --Plutarch.
To the realization of their ideal in any individual the Greeks conceived
three conditions to be necessary, (1) a noble nature, (2) persistent
exercise or training in right action, (3) careful instruction. If any
one of these was lacking, the highest result could not be attained.
(1) To be well or nobly born was regarded by the Greeks as one of the
best gifts of the gods. Aristotle defines noble birth as "ancient wealth
and worth," and this fairly enough expresses the Greek view generally.
Naturally enough, therefore, the Greek in marrying looked above all
things to the chances of a worthy offspring. Indeed, it may be fairly
said that the purpose of the Greek in marriage was, not so much to
secure a helpmeet for himself as to find a worthy mother for his
children. In Greece, as everywhere else in the ancient world, marriage
was looked upon solely as an arrangement for the procreation and rearing
of offspring. The romantic, pathological love-element, which plays so
important a part in modern match-making, was almost entirely absent
among the Greeks. What love there was, assumed either the noble form of
enthusiastic friendship or the base one of free lust. In spite of this,
and of the fact that woman was regarded as a means and not as an end,
the relations between Greek husbands and wives were very often such as
to render the family a school of virtue for the children. They were
noble, sweet, and strong,--all the more so, it should seem, that they
were based, not upon a delusive sentimentality, but upon reason and a
sense of reciprocal duty.
(2) The value of exercise, practice, habituation, seems to have been far
better understood by the ancients than by the moderns. Whatever a man
has to do, be it speaking, swimming, playing, or fighting, he can learn
only by doing it; this was a universally accepted maxim. The modern
habit of trying to teach languages and virtues by rules, not preceded by
extensive practice, would have seemed to the ancients as absurd as the
notion that a man could learn to swim before going into the water.
Practice first; theory afterwards: do the deed, and ye shall know of
the doctrine--so said ancient Wisdom, to which the notion that children
should not be called upon to perform any act, or submit to any
restriction, without having the grounds thereof explained to them, would
have seemed the complete inversion of all scientific method. It was by
insisting upon a certain practice in children, on the ground of simple
authority, that the ancients sought to inculcate the virtues of
reverence for experience and worth, and respect for law.
(3) The work begun by nature, and continued by habit or exercise, was
completed and crowned by instruction. This had, according to the Greek,
two functions, (_a_) to make action free, by making it rational, (_b_)
to make possible an advance to original action. Nature and habit left
men thralls, governed by instincts and prescriptions; instruction,
revelation of the grounds of action, set them free. Such freedom, based
on insight, was to the thinkers of Greece the realization of manhood, or
rather, of the divine in man. "The truth shall make you free"--no one
understood this better than they. Hence, with all their steady
insistence upon practice in education, they never regarded it as the
ultimate end, or as any end at all, except when guided by insight, the
fruit of instruction. A practicality leading to no widening of the
spiritual horizon, to no freeing insight, was to them illiberal,
slavish, paltry--"banausic," they said,--degrading both to body and
soul.
CHAPTER IV
SUBJECTS FOR EDUCATION
It is right that Greeks should rule over barbarians, but not
barbarians over Greeks; for those are slaves, but these are free
men. --Euripides.
Barbarian and slave are by nature the same. --Aristotle.
Nature endeavors to make the bodies of freemen and slaves different;
the latter strong for necessary use, the former erect and useless
for such operations, but useful for political life. . . . It is
evident, then, that by nature some men are free, others slaves, and
that, in the case of the latter, slavery is both beneficial and
just. --_Id. _
Instruction, though it plainly has power to direct and stimulate the
generous among the young . . . is as plainly powerless to turn the
mass of men to nobility and goodness (_Kalokagathia_). For it is not
in their nature to be guided by reverence, but by fear, nor to
abstain from low things because they are disgraceful, but (only)
because they entail punishment. --_Id. _
In thinking of Greek education as furnishing a possible model for us
moderns, there is one point which it is important to bear in mind: Greek
education was intended only for the few, for the wealthy and well-born.
Upon all others, upon slaves, barbarians, the working and trading
classes, and generally upon all persons spending their lives in pursuit
of wealth or any private ends whatsoever, it would have seemed to be
thrown away. Even well-born women were generally excluded from most of
its benefits. The subjects of education were the sons of full citizens,
themselves preparing to be full citizens, and to exercise all the
functions of such. The duties of such persons were completely summed up
under two heads, duties to the family and duties to the State, or, as
the Greeks said, oeconomic and political duties. The free citizen not
only acknowledged no other duties besides these, but he looked down upon
persons who sought occupation in any other sphere. OEconomy and Politics,
however, were very comprehensive terms. The former included the three
relations of husband to wife, father to children, and master to slaves
and property; the latter, three public functions, legislative,
administrative, and judiciary. All occupations not included under these
six heads the free citizen left to slaves or resident foreigners.
Money-making, in the modern sense, he despised, and, if he devoted
himself to art or philosophy, he did so only for the benefit of the
State. If he improved the patrimony which was the condition of his free
citizenship, he did so, not by chaffering or money-lending, but by
judicious management, and by kindly, but firm, treatment of his slaves.
If he performed any great artistic service to the State--for example, if
he wrote a tragedy for a State religious festival (and plays were never
written for any other purpose)--the only reward he looked forward to was
a crown of olive or laurel and the respect of his fellow-citizens.
The Greeks divided mankind, in all the relations of life, into two
distinct classes, a governing and a governed, and considered the former
alone as the subject of education; the latter being a mere instrument in
its hands. The governing class required education in order that it
might govern itself and the other class, in accordance with reason and
justice; that other, receiving its guidance from the governing class,
required no education, or only such as would enable it to obey. It
followed that the duty of the governing class was to govern; of the
governed, to obey. Only in this correlation of duties did each class
find its usefulness and satisfaction. Any attempt to disturb or invert
this correlation was a wilful running in the teeth of the laws of
nature, a rebellion against the divine order of things.
As husband, father, master in the family, and as legislator, officer,
judge in the State, each member of the governing class found his proper
range of activities; and he did wrong, degrading himself to the level of
the serving class, if he sought any other. This view, in a more or less
conscious form, pervades the whole ancient world, conditioning all its
notions and theories of education; and Paul the Apostle only echoed it
when he said to wives: "Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands as
to the Lord"; to children: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for
this is right"; and to slaves: "Slaves, be obedient unto them that
according to the flesh are your masters with fear and trembling, in
singleness of heart, as unto Christ. "
CHAPTER V
EDUCATION AS INFLUENCED BY TIME, PLACE, AND CIRCUMSTANCES
The peculiar character of each form of government is what
establishes it at the beginning and what usually preserves it. . . .
Since the whole State has but one end, it is plainly necessary that
there should be one education for all the citizens. --Aristotle.
Education among the Greeks, as among every other progressive people,
varied with times and circumstances. The education of the Homeric Greeks
was not that of the Athenians in the days of Aristotle, nor the latter
the same as the education of the contemporary Spartans or Thebans.
Moreover, the education actually imparted was not the same as that
demanded or recommended by philosophers and writers on pedagogics. It is
true that the aim was always the same; Worth, Excellence,
Fair-and-Goodness (? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ); but this was differently
conceived and differently striven after at different times and in
different places.
Among the Homeric Greeks, as we have seen, education, being purely
practical, aiming only at making its subject "a speaker of words and a
doer of deeds," was acquired in the actual intercourse and struggles of
life. The simple conditions of their existence demanded no other
education and, consequently, no special educational institutions. These
conditions, as described by Homer, though by no means barbarous, are
primitive. Nomadism has long been left behind and the later
village-communities have been mostly merged in walled towns, generally
situated at some distance from the shore, on or near a hill, whose
summit forms a citadel for refuge in cases of danger. Even in the most
advanced of these towns, however, the type of civilization is still
largely patriarchal. The government is in the hands of chiefs or kings
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) claiming to be born and bred of Jove, as, indeed, in a sense,
they were, since they ruled quite as much by right of personal worth,
which more than anything is due to the grace of God, as by hereditary
title. Worth in those days consisted in physical strength, courage,
beauty, judgment, and power to address an assembly, and any king proving
deficient in these qualities would soon have found his position
insecure, or been compelled to fortify it by lawless tyranny. The
functions devolving upon the king were mainly three, those of judge,
military commander, and priest. The first required judgment and ready
speech; the second, strength and intelligent courage; the third,
personal beauty and dignity. Though the kings were allowed to exercise
great power, this was not irresponsible or arbitrary. On the contrary,
it was compatible with great public freedom in speech and action.
Slavery existed only to a limited extent and in a mild form. All free
heads of families, however poor, had a right to attend the popular
assembly, which the king consulted on all important matters, and at
which the freest discussion was allowed. When the kings exercised
judicial power, they did so in accordance with certain _themistes_ or
laws, held to have originated with Zeus, and not according to their own
caprice. As there was little commerce in those days, the inhabitants of
the ancient cities, when not engaged in warfare, devoted themselves
chiefly to agriculture, cattle-raising, and the useful arts. In these
even the kings thought it no shame to engage. We find Paris helping to
build his own palace, Odysseus constructing his own bed, Lycaon cutting
wood to make chariot-rails, and so on. Similarly, we find Helen and
other princesses spinning and weaving, while Nausicaa, the daughter of
the Phaeacian king, washes the clothes of the family.
In such a primitive society, unacquainted with letters, the higher
education found but few aspirants. The only persons of scientific
pretensions mentioned by Homer are the physicians (who are likewise
surgeons) and the soothsayers. The former are highly appreciated, and
are always chiefs. The soothsayers are the exponents of divine omens to
the community, and occupy a kind of official position, like the Hebrew
prophets. No artists, strictly speaking, are mentioned by Homer, except
the bard, and he is much honored, as historian, teacher, and inspirer.
We find, indeed, that Achilles and Paris are proficients in music; but
such cases seem exceptional. Of artisans, several are mentioned--the
worker in wood, the worker in horn and ivory, the potter (who uses the
wheel), and so on. The existence of others is implied--the weaver, the
mason, the metal-worker, etc.
If there were no special schools in the heroic age, life was so lived as
to be an excellent school. Then, as at all other times, it was
extremely social, far more so than our modern life. This was due chiefly
to three causes, (1) the smallness of the states, which made it possible
for every citizen to know, and to feel his solidarity with, every other,
(2) the absence of titles and formalities, which had not yet been
introduced from the East, (3) the fact that the people, especially the
men, spent the greater part of the day in the open air,--in the streets
and agora,--and so were continually rubbing against each other. This
sociality had much to do with the shaping of the Greek character, the
salient elements of which are thus enumerated by Zeller, the historian
of Greek philosophy: "A strong sense of freedom, combined with a rare
susceptibility to proportion, form, and order, a keen relish for
companionship in life and action, a social tendency which compelled the
individual to combine with others, to submit to the general will, to
follow the traditions of his family and his community. "
Between the simple social condition described by Homer and that for
which Aristotle wrote, there intervened a period of at least six hundred
years. During that time many great changes took place in the social and
political life of the Greeks, demanding corresponding changes in
education. These changes were due to several causes, (1) the natural
human tendency toward freedom, (2) the influence of foreign nations, (3)
the development of commerce, (4) the introduction of letters, (5) the
rise of philosophy, (6) the Persian Wars. Though all these are closely
interwoven with each other, there can be no harm in treating them
separately.
(1) The tendency toward freedom, so essentially characteristic of human
nature, was especially so of the nature of the Greeks. Among them it
rapidly manifested itself in an ordered series of political forms,
beginning with patriarchalism, and ending variously in the various
states and races. There is, indeed, hardly a single form of political
life that was not realized among the Greeks at some time or place. It
was this that made it possible for Aristotle to write a work on Politics
which, in the words of a recent political writer, "has remained for two
thousand years one of the purest sources of political wisdom. "
The varied and changeful political life of the Greeks was in itself a
great education. It made them aware of the principles, political and
ethical, upon which society rests, and rendered necessary a faculty of
clear and ready expression, which reacted most favorably upon their
intellectual and aesthetic faculties. It was in the school of practical
politics that the Greeks acquired their rhetoric; and Aristotle, in his
treatise on Poetry, tells us that, while "the older poets made their
characters talk like statesmen, the later ones made theirs talk like
rhetoricians. " Not only, indeed, did political life react upon the
drama, but, in developing rhetoric, it drew attention to language and
led to the sciences of grammar and logic, both of which were thus called
into existence by real social needs (see p. 102).
(2) Greece, lying, as it did, between three continents, and in the
thoroughfare of the ancient nations, could hardly fail to be visited by
many different races, or, considering its beauty and commercial
advantages, to be coveted by them. From this followed two consequences,
(_a_) that the Greeks were a very mixed race, (_b_) that they were, from
the first and at all times, in manifold contact with foreign peoples.
That they were a mixed race, is attested alike by their language, their
mythology, and their legends. That they were in close and continual
communication with foreign peoples, is rendered evident by their
alphabet, their art, and the direct statements of their historians.
Although it is true that the Greeks, especially after the Persian Wars,
regarded themselves as a superior and chosen people, calling all others
"barbarians," and considering them as fit only to be slaves, it is not
the less true that hardly one of all the arts and sciences which they
ultimately carried to a high degree of perfection had its origin in
Greece proper. All appear first in the colonies settled among
"barbarians,"--in Egypt, Asia Minor, Thrace, Crete, Sicily, or Italy.
Architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry--epic, lyric, dramatic--music,
history, politics, philosophy, were all borrowed, transformed, and, with
the exception perhaps of tragedy and painting, carried to a high degree
of excellence in the colonies, before they were transplanted to the
mother-country. It is beyond any doubt that even the Homeric legends are
of "barbarian" origin, though from what people they were borrowed is
uncertain. It was the plasticity and versatility of their character, due
in part to their mixed blood, that, by enabling them to appropriate and
assimilate the arts and sciences of their neighbors, raised the Greeks
to a new plane of civilization and made them the initiators of a new
epoch in history, the epoch of life according to reason. Sir Henry
Sumner Maine says, "Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in
this world which is not Greek in its origin. "
(3) It was chiefly through commerce that the arts and sciences borrowed
by the colonial Greeks found their way into Greece proper. That foreign
art-objects were introduced into it at an early period, is rendered
certain by the recent discoveries at Mycenae, Sparta, and other places,
as well as by statements in the Homeric poems. That these were followed
later by artists, bringing with them foreign art-processes and
appliances, is equally certain. The earliest sculptors whose names are
known to us, Dipoenis and Scyllis, were natives of Crete, settled in
Sicyon; and the earliest poetic guild of which we have any mention is
that of the Homeridae in the island of Chios. But, besides introducing
art and artists into Greece, commerce tended to educate the Greeks in
other ways. It made them acquainted with foreign manners and luxuries,
and forced them to learn the arts of navigation, ship-building and
exchange, which again rendered necessary an acquaintance with arithmetic
and the art of writing. And this leads us to
(4) The Introduction of Letters. This event, the date of which is
uncertain, not only exercised a most furthering influence on the arts
and sciences, but gave rise to a new branch of education. Letters were
probably first used for diplomatic and trade purposes, then for
inscriptions, and last of all for the perpetuation of literary
productions. So much of a change did they effect in Greek education that
even in the best times the whole of the literary and scientific
education was called simply "letters" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). As late as the time of
Plato letters seem to have been considered a part of Music, and to have
been taught by the same teacher as the latter; but Aristotle already
distinguishes the two. It is extremely probable that the introduction of
letters was the immediate cause of the establishment of schools for
youth; for we find no mention of them prior to that event.
(5) The introduction of letters was closely followed by the rise of
Philosophy, or the reflective spirit. Up to about the year 600 B. C. , the
Greeks, like the rest of the world, lived by habit, tradition, and
prescription, handed on, with little or no criticism, from generation to
generation. Their ideal world was shaped by the works of Homer and
Hesiod. "Hesiod is the teacher of most," says Heraclitus. About the date
named, however, society having advanced to a condition of organization
which made possible a leisure class, there begins to appear a new
spirit, destined to revolutionize, not only Greece, but the whole world.
Armed with a _what? _ a _which? _ a _why? _ and a _wherefore_? it no longer
blindly accepts the world of nature and man, but calls upon it to give
an account of itself. Science, philosophy, and art are the result.
At first the new spirit turns to nature with a _what? _; but, gradually
discovering that the answer to this brings no complete explanation of
the world, it propounds its other questions. It thus arrives at a
consciousness of four distinguishable elements in the constitution of
things,--four causes (? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ), as they were termed,--(1) matter,
(2) form, (3) efficiency, (4) end or aim. At the same time, and by the
same process, it is forced to a recognition of the presence of reason
(? ? ? ? ? ) and intelligence (? ? ? ? ) in the world, since form, efficiency,
and aim all presuppose both. It is thus compelled to turn from nature to
man, and man's mind, as the highest known expression of reason and
intelligence, and to devote itself to the consideration of spirit, as
alone promising any true explanation of the world. The process is a slow
and difficult one, and the history of it is the history of Greek
science, philosophy, and art.
Before the rise of philosophy, the teacher of the people had been the
rhapsode, or public reciter; after that event he gradually gives place
to the sophist (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , one who makes wise), or, as he later with more
modesty calls himself, the philosopher (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , lover of wisdom). The
history of Greece for centuries is, on its inner side, a history of the
struggle between what the rhapsode represents and what the philosopher
represents, between popular tradition and common sense on the one hand,
and individual opinion and philosophy on the other. The transition from
the first to the second of these mental conditions was accomplished for
the world, once for all, by the Greeks, and the turning-point in the
process is marked by
(6) The Persian Wars (B. C. 490-479). The victories gained in these at
Marathon, Salamis, and Plataeae, victories the most brilliant that history
records, exerted a most powerful influence upon the thought and life of
the Greeks. The consciousness of having, with their small numbers, over
and over again, both by land and by sea, discomfited and crushed the
countless hosts of an empire which for generations had threatened their
peace and liberty, made them at once feel the superiority of their own
characters and civil institutions to those of the Persians, and draw a
clear line of demarcation between Greek and barbarian. From this point
on, they felt themselves to be a chosen people, a nation destined by the
gods to rule all others. "The soul of Greece had conquered the bulk of
Persia. " Persia was bulk and body; Greece was soul and spirit. This
conviction appears at once in all the departments of Greek life. In the
sphere of art we may instance the _Prometheia_ of AEschylus and the
Parthenon. In the former, what does the conflict between Zeus and
Prometheus mean but the conflict between Greek spirituality, intellect,
and freedom, on the one hand, and barbarian materiality, instinct, and
thraldom or necessity, on the other? And what is the latter but a
matchless paean in stone to Divine Wisdom, as the conqueror of brute
force? In the sphere of thought, we find Parmenides, Anaxagoras and,
above all, Socrates (born ten years after the second Persian War),
turning consciously to the study of spirit. "To be and to think are the
same thing," says the first of these: "All things were confused; then
Mind came and reduced them to order," says the second; "Know thyself" is
the chosen motto of the third. In the political sphere we find the
Athenians trying to make the State an instrument of intelligence and
virtue, and insisting upon education as a means thereto. Other and less
desirable results followed from the Persian Wars; but these can be
better stated and estimated in another connection.
Such were the chief causes that contributed to transform the simple
patriarchal State of the Homeric Greeks, with its purely practical
education at home and in the field, into the free polity of the Greeks
of the days of Miltiades, Themistocles, and AEschylus, with its
complicated institutions and manifold education. It has seemed better to
enumerate these causes than to try to trace the steps of the
transformation itself. Indeed this would have been a hopeless task,
owing to the lack of historical data.
CHAPTER VI
EPOCHS IN GREEK EDUCATION
When they (our ancestors) began to enjoy leisure for thought, as the
result of easy circumstances, and to cherish more exalted ideas with
respect to worth, and especially when, in the period before and
after the Persian Wars, they came to entertain a high opinion of
themselves, on account of their achievements, they pursued all kinds
of education, making no distinction, but beating about
generally. --Aristotle.
In treating of Greek education subsequent to the introduction of letters
and the establishment of schools, we shall be obliged, in the interest
of clearness, to make three distinctions:--
(1) Between the educational systems of different periods.
(2) Between the educational systems of different peoples and states.
(3) Between the education actually imparted in the various states, and
that recommended by theorists or philosophers.
In pursuance of the first, it will be convenient first to distinguish
two main periods, the Hellenic, and the Hellenistic, and then to
subdivide these into minor periods.
I. _The Hellenic Period_ (776-338 B. C. ). This includes, roughly
speaking, the whole historic life of free Greece, from the date of the
first Olympiad to that of the absorption of Greece into the Macedonian
Empire. It naturally subdivides itself into two periods, (_a_) 776-450;
(_b_) 450-338.
(_a_) That of the "Old Education," authoritative and puritanical, whose
aim was the training of good citizens, god-fearing, law-abiding,
patriotic, and brave.
(_b_) That of the "New Education," rationalistic and "liberal," whose
aim was the training of formidable individuals, self-centred,
law-despising, time-serving, and cunning.
It is in the struggle between the two systems, and in the practical
triumph of the latter, that Greece loses her moral fibre; so that her
citizens, weakened through sundering selfishness, fall an easy prey to
the foreign invader.
II. _The Hellenistic Period_ (338 B. C. -313 A. D. ). This extends from the
Battle of Chaeronea, in which Greece lost her independence, to the
definitive triumph of Christianity, which brought a new ideal and a new
spirit into life and education. It naturally subdivides itself into two
periods, (_a_) B. C. 338-146; (_b_) B. C. 146-A. D. 313.
(_a_) The Macedonian Period, during which Macedonian influence
prevailed, and Greek thought and education, absorbing foreign, chiefly
Oriental, elements, tended toward an encyclopaedic cosmopolitanism.
During this period, Alexandria is the centre of Greek influence.
(_b_) The Roman Period, during which, as Horace says, "Captive Greece
took captive her rude conqueror," and Rome became, alongside Alexandria,
a diffusive centre of Greek thought, art, and education.
Between the two great periods, the Hellenic and the Hellenistic, stands
the man who draws up the testament of the former and outlines the
programme of the latter, the Macedonian Greek, Aristotle.
Our second distinction will lead us to treat separately, in the Hellenic
period, the educational system of the three Greek races, (1) the AEolic,
(2) the Doric, (3) the Ionic, the first having its chief centre at
Thebes, the second at Sparta, the third at Athens. For an account of the
education of the first our data are but meagre; with the main features
of Spartan and Athenian education we are well acquainted. In education,
as in everything, Sparta was conservative, socialistic, and
aristocratic, while Athens tended to liberalism, individualism, and
democracy. Hence Sparta clung desperately to the "Old Education," and
almost closed her doors against art, letters, and philosophy, while
Athens, dragged into the "New Education," became the home of all these.
It must always be borne in mind that, in favoring individualism and the
"New Education," Athens was abandoning the Hellenic ideal, and paving
the way for the cosmopolitanism of the Hellenistic period. In this
latter, we shall have to distinguish between the educational systems of
Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.
Our third distinction is that between individual theory and popular
practice. In all epochs of their history the Greek states produced men
who strove to realize in thought and imagination the ideal of their
people, and to exhibit it as an aim, an encouragement, and an
inspiration, in contrast with the imperfect actual. In more than one
case this ideal modified the education of the following periods. Of
course, such theories did not arise until practice was compelled to
defend itself by producing sanctions, either in religion or in reason,
and it may perhaps be affirmed that the aim of them all was to discover
such sanctions for the Greek ideal. Among the many educational theorists
of Greece, there are six who especially deserve to be considered: (1)
Pythagoras, who in Southern Italy sought to graft on the Doric ideal a
half-mystical, half-ethical theology, and a mathematical theory of the
physical world; (2) Xenophon, who sought to secure the same ideal by
connecting it with a monarchical form of government; (3) Plato, who
sought to elevate it, and find a sanction for it in his theory of
super-sensuous ideas; (4) ARISTOTLE, who presented in all its fulness
the Hellenic ideal, and sought to find sanctions for it in history,
social well-being, and the promise of a higher life; (5) Quintilian,
who, in Rome, embodies the rhetorical or worldly education of the
Hellenistic period; and (6) Plotinus, who presents an ideal of
philosophical or other-worldly education, and paves the way for the
triumph of Christian dogma.
BOOK II
THE HELLENIC PERIOD (B. C. 776-338)
PART I
THE "OLD EDUCATION" (B. C. 776-480)
CHAPTER I
EDUCATION FOR WORK AND FOR LEISURE
When we consider the different arts that have been discovered, and
distinguish between those which relate to the necessary conditions
of life and those which contribute to the free enjoyment of it
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), we always consider the man who is acquainted with the
latter wiser than him who is acquainted with the former, for the
reason that the sciences of the latter have no reference to use.
Hence it was only when all the necessary conditions of life had been
attained that those arts were discovered which have no reference
either to pleasure or to the common needs of life; and this took
place first in those countries where men enjoyed
leisure. --Aristotle.
The free life of God is such as are our brief best moments. --_Id. _
It is not fitting that the free enjoyment of life should be
permitted to boys or to young persons; for the crown of perfection
belongs not to the imperfect. --_Id. _
Obviously, the free enjoyment of life demands not only the noble but
also the pleasant; for happiness consists of these too. --_Id. _
Among the Homeric Greeks, whose life was almost entirely devoted to
practical pursuits, education was mainly practical, aiming to produce "a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds. " As civilization advanced, and
higher political forms were evolved, certain classes of men found
themselves blessed with leisure which they were not inclined to devote
to mere play. In order to make a worthy use of this leisure, they
required a certain training in those arts which were regarded as
befitting a free man. Education, accordingly, in some states, widened
its scope, to include those accomplishments, which enable men to fill
their hours of freedom with refined and gracious enjoyment--music and
letters. Music, indeed, had been cultivated long before, not only by
professional bards, but even by princes, like Achilles and Paris; this,
however, was for the sake of amusement and recreation rather than of the
free enjoyment of life. It had been regarded as a means, not as an end.
We must be careful, in our study of Greek life and education, not to
confound play and recreation, which are for the sake of work, with the
free enjoyment of life, which is an end in itself, and to which all work
is but a means. "Enjoyment is the end. " We shall see, as we proceed, to
what momentous results this distinction leads, how it governs not only
all education but all the institutions of life, and how it finally
contributes to break up the whole civilization which it determines. It
may fairly be said that Greece perished because she placed the end of
life in individual aesthetic enjoyment, possible only for a few and
regarding only the few.
It is an envied lot in Hellas even to die,
And suffer toils devouring, unassuaged--
So well dost thou direct the spirit
To fruit immortal, better than gold
And parents and soft-eyed sleep.
For thy cause Jove-born Hercules and Leda's sons
Much underwent, by deeds
Thy power proclaiming.
For love of thee Achilles and Ajax to Hades' halls went down.
For thy dear beauty's sake Atarneus' nursling too widowed the glances
of the sun.
Therefore, as one renowned for deeds and deathless, him the Muses
shall exalt,
The daughters of Memory, exalting so the glory of Stranger-guarding
Jove, and the honor of friendship firm.
With regard to this ideal, four things are especially noteworthy;
_first_, that it took an exhaustive survey of man's nature and
relations; _second_, that it called for strong, persistent, heroic
effort; _third_, that it tended to sink the individual in the social
whole and the universal order; _fourth_, that its aim was, on the whole,
a static perfection. The first two were merits; the second two,
demerits. The first merit prevented the Greeks from pursuing one-sided
systems of education; the second, from trying to turn education into a
means of amusement. Aristotle says distinctly, "Education ought
certainly not to be turned into a means of amusement; for young people
are not playing when they are learning, since all learning is
accompanied with pain. " The first demerit was prejudicial to individual
liberty, and therefore obstructive of the highest human development; the
second encouraged Utopian dreams, which, being always of static
conditions, undisturbed by the toils and throes essential to progress,
tend to produce impatience of that slow advance whereby alone man
arrives at enduring results. To this tendency we owe such works as
Plato's _Republic_ and Xenophon's _Education of Cyrus_.
CHAPTER II
BRANCHES OF GREEK EDUCATION
With thee the aged car-borne Peleus sent me on the day whereon from
Phthia to Agamemnon he sent thee, a mere boy, not yet acquainted
with mutual war or councils, in which men rise to distinction--for
this end he sent me forth to teach thee all these things, to be a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds. --(_Phoenix in_) Homer.
Above all and by every means we provide that our citizens shall have
good souls and strong bodies. --Lucian.
Life is the original school--life, domestic and social. All other
schools merely exercise functions delegated by the family and by
society, and it is not until the latter has reached such a state of
complication as to necessitate a division of labor that special schools
exist. Among the Homeric Greeks we find no mention of schools, and the
only person recorded as having had a tutor is Achilles, who was sent
away from home so early in life as to be deprived of that education
which he would naturally have received from his father. In what that
education consisted, we learn from the first quotation at the head of
this chapter. It consisted in such training as would make the pupil "a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds"--a man eloquent and persuasive in
council, and brave and resolute on the field of battle. For these ends
he required, as Lucian says, a good soul and a strong body.
These expressions mark the two great divisions into which Greek
education at all periods fell--MENTAL EDUCATION and PHYSICAL
EDUCATION--as well as their original aims, viz. goodness (that is,
bravery) of soul and strength of body. As time went on, these aims
underwent considerable changes, and consequently the means for attaining
them considerable modifications and extensions. Physical education aimed
more and more at beauty and grace, instead of strength, while mental
education, in its effort to extend itself to all the powers of the mind,
divided itself into literary and musical education.
As we have seen, the Greeks aimed at developing all the powers of the
human being in due proportion and harmony. But, in course of time, they
discovered that the human creature comes into the world with his powers,
not only undeveloped, but already disordered and inharmonious; that not
only do the germs of manhood require to be carefully watched and tended,
but also that the ground in which they are to grow must be cleared from
an overgrowth of choking weeds, before education can be undertaken with
any hope of success. This clearing process was called by the later
Greeks _Katharsis_, or Purgation, and played an ever-increasing part in
their pedagogical systems. It was supposed to do for man's emotional
nature what Medicine undertook to do for his body. The means employed
were mainly music and the kindred arts, which the ancients believed to
exert what we should now call a daemonic effect upon the soul, drawing
off the exciting causes of disturbing passion, and leaving it in
complete possession of itself. It would hardly be too much to say that
the power to exert this purgative influence on the soul was regarded by
the ancients as the chief function and end of the Fine Arts. Such was
certainly Aristotle's opinion.
When purgation and the twofold education of body and mind had produced
their perfect work, the result was what the Greeks called _Kalokagathia_
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) that is, Fair-and-Goodness. Either half of this ideal was
named ? ? ? ? ? (_arete_), Worth or Excellence. We are expressly told by
Aristotle (_Categories_, chap. viii. ) that the adjective to ? ? ? ? ? is
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (_spoudaios_), a word which we usually render into English by
"earnest. " And we do so with reason; for to the Greek, Excellence or
Worth meant, above all, earnestness, genuineness, truthfulness,
thoroughness, absence of frivolity.
CHAPTER III
CONDITIONS OF EDUCATION
Some hold that men become good by nature, others by training, others
by instruction. The part that is due to nature obviously does not
depend upon us, but is imparted through certain divine causes to the
truly fortunate. --Aristotle.
It is not merely begetting that makes the father, but also the
imparting of a noble education. --John Chrysostom.
There are two sorts of education, the one divine, the other human.
The divine is great and strong and easy; the human small and weak
and beset with many dangers and delusions. Nevertheless, the latter
must be added to the former, if a right result is to be
reached. --Dion Chrysostom.
The same thing that we are wont to assert regarding the arts and
sciences, may be asserted regarding moral worth, viz. that the
production of a completely just character demands three
conditions--nature, reason, and habit. By "reason" I mean
instruction, by "habit," training. . . . Nature without instruction is
blind; instruction without nature, helpless; exercise (training)
without both, aimless. --Plutarch.
To the realization of their ideal in any individual the Greeks conceived
three conditions to be necessary, (1) a noble nature, (2) persistent
exercise or training in right action, (3) careful instruction. If any
one of these was lacking, the highest result could not be attained.
(1) To be well or nobly born was regarded by the Greeks as one of the
best gifts of the gods. Aristotle defines noble birth as "ancient wealth
and worth," and this fairly enough expresses the Greek view generally.
Naturally enough, therefore, the Greek in marrying looked above all
things to the chances of a worthy offspring. Indeed, it may be fairly
said that the purpose of the Greek in marriage was, not so much to
secure a helpmeet for himself as to find a worthy mother for his
children. In Greece, as everywhere else in the ancient world, marriage
was looked upon solely as an arrangement for the procreation and rearing
of offspring. The romantic, pathological love-element, which plays so
important a part in modern match-making, was almost entirely absent
among the Greeks. What love there was, assumed either the noble form of
enthusiastic friendship or the base one of free lust. In spite of this,
and of the fact that woman was regarded as a means and not as an end,
the relations between Greek husbands and wives were very often such as
to render the family a school of virtue for the children. They were
noble, sweet, and strong,--all the more so, it should seem, that they
were based, not upon a delusive sentimentality, but upon reason and a
sense of reciprocal duty.
(2) The value of exercise, practice, habituation, seems to have been far
better understood by the ancients than by the moderns. Whatever a man
has to do, be it speaking, swimming, playing, or fighting, he can learn
only by doing it; this was a universally accepted maxim. The modern
habit of trying to teach languages and virtues by rules, not preceded by
extensive practice, would have seemed to the ancients as absurd as the
notion that a man could learn to swim before going into the water.
Practice first; theory afterwards: do the deed, and ye shall know of
the doctrine--so said ancient Wisdom, to which the notion that children
should not be called upon to perform any act, or submit to any
restriction, without having the grounds thereof explained to them, would
have seemed the complete inversion of all scientific method. It was by
insisting upon a certain practice in children, on the ground of simple
authority, that the ancients sought to inculcate the virtues of
reverence for experience and worth, and respect for law.
(3) The work begun by nature, and continued by habit or exercise, was
completed and crowned by instruction. This had, according to the Greek,
two functions, (_a_) to make action free, by making it rational, (_b_)
to make possible an advance to original action. Nature and habit left
men thralls, governed by instincts and prescriptions; instruction,
revelation of the grounds of action, set them free. Such freedom, based
on insight, was to the thinkers of Greece the realization of manhood, or
rather, of the divine in man. "The truth shall make you free"--no one
understood this better than they. Hence, with all their steady
insistence upon practice in education, they never regarded it as the
ultimate end, or as any end at all, except when guided by insight, the
fruit of instruction. A practicality leading to no widening of the
spiritual horizon, to no freeing insight, was to them illiberal,
slavish, paltry--"banausic," they said,--degrading both to body and
soul.
CHAPTER IV
SUBJECTS FOR EDUCATION
It is right that Greeks should rule over barbarians, but not
barbarians over Greeks; for those are slaves, but these are free
men. --Euripides.
Barbarian and slave are by nature the same. --Aristotle.
Nature endeavors to make the bodies of freemen and slaves different;
the latter strong for necessary use, the former erect and useless
for such operations, but useful for political life. . . . It is
evident, then, that by nature some men are free, others slaves, and
that, in the case of the latter, slavery is both beneficial and
just. --_Id. _
Instruction, though it plainly has power to direct and stimulate the
generous among the young . . . is as plainly powerless to turn the
mass of men to nobility and goodness (_Kalokagathia_). For it is not
in their nature to be guided by reverence, but by fear, nor to
abstain from low things because they are disgraceful, but (only)
because they entail punishment. --_Id. _
In thinking of Greek education as furnishing a possible model for us
moderns, there is one point which it is important to bear in mind: Greek
education was intended only for the few, for the wealthy and well-born.
Upon all others, upon slaves, barbarians, the working and trading
classes, and generally upon all persons spending their lives in pursuit
of wealth or any private ends whatsoever, it would have seemed to be
thrown away. Even well-born women were generally excluded from most of
its benefits. The subjects of education were the sons of full citizens,
themselves preparing to be full citizens, and to exercise all the
functions of such. The duties of such persons were completely summed up
under two heads, duties to the family and duties to the State, or, as
the Greeks said, oeconomic and political duties. The free citizen not
only acknowledged no other duties besides these, but he looked down upon
persons who sought occupation in any other sphere. OEconomy and Politics,
however, were very comprehensive terms. The former included the three
relations of husband to wife, father to children, and master to slaves
and property; the latter, three public functions, legislative,
administrative, and judiciary. All occupations not included under these
six heads the free citizen left to slaves or resident foreigners.
Money-making, in the modern sense, he despised, and, if he devoted
himself to art or philosophy, he did so only for the benefit of the
State. If he improved the patrimony which was the condition of his free
citizenship, he did so, not by chaffering or money-lending, but by
judicious management, and by kindly, but firm, treatment of his slaves.
If he performed any great artistic service to the State--for example, if
he wrote a tragedy for a State religious festival (and plays were never
written for any other purpose)--the only reward he looked forward to was
a crown of olive or laurel and the respect of his fellow-citizens.
The Greeks divided mankind, in all the relations of life, into two
distinct classes, a governing and a governed, and considered the former
alone as the subject of education; the latter being a mere instrument in
its hands. The governing class required education in order that it
might govern itself and the other class, in accordance with reason and
justice; that other, receiving its guidance from the governing class,
required no education, or only such as would enable it to obey. It
followed that the duty of the governing class was to govern; of the
governed, to obey. Only in this correlation of duties did each class
find its usefulness and satisfaction. Any attempt to disturb or invert
this correlation was a wilful running in the teeth of the laws of
nature, a rebellion against the divine order of things.
As husband, father, master in the family, and as legislator, officer,
judge in the State, each member of the governing class found his proper
range of activities; and he did wrong, degrading himself to the level of
the serving class, if he sought any other. This view, in a more or less
conscious form, pervades the whole ancient world, conditioning all its
notions and theories of education; and Paul the Apostle only echoed it
when he said to wives: "Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands as
to the Lord"; to children: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for
this is right"; and to slaves: "Slaves, be obedient unto them that
according to the flesh are your masters with fear and trembling, in
singleness of heart, as unto Christ. "
CHAPTER V
EDUCATION AS INFLUENCED BY TIME, PLACE, AND CIRCUMSTANCES
The peculiar character of each form of government is what
establishes it at the beginning and what usually preserves it. . . .
Since the whole State has but one end, it is plainly necessary that
there should be one education for all the citizens. --Aristotle.
Education among the Greeks, as among every other progressive people,
varied with times and circumstances. The education of the Homeric Greeks
was not that of the Athenians in the days of Aristotle, nor the latter
the same as the education of the contemporary Spartans or Thebans.
Moreover, the education actually imparted was not the same as that
demanded or recommended by philosophers and writers on pedagogics. It is
true that the aim was always the same; Worth, Excellence,
Fair-and-Goodness (? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ); but this was differently
conceived and differently striven after at different times and in
different places.
Among the Homeric Greeks, as we have seen, education, being purely
practical, aiming only at making its subject "a speaker of words and a
doer of deeds," was acquired in the actual intercourse and struggles of
life. The simple conditions of their existence demanded no other
education and, consequently, no special educational institutions. These
conditions, as described by Homer, though by no means barbarous, are
primitive. Nomadism has long been left behind and the later
village-communities have been mostly merged in walled towns, generally
situated at some distance from the shore, on or near a hill, whose
summit forms a citadel for refuge in cases of danger. Even in the most
advanced of these towns, however, the type of civilization is still
largely patriarchal. The government is in the hands of chiefs or kings
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) claiming to be born and bred of Jove, as, indeed, in a sense,
they were, since they ruled quite as much by right of personal worth,
which more than anything is due to the grace of God, as by hereditary
title. Worth in those days consisted in physical strength, courage,
beauty, judgment, and power to address an assembly, and any king proving
deficient in these qualities would soon have found his position
insecure, or been compelled to fortify it by lawless tyranny. The
functions devolving upon the king were mainly three, those of judge,
military commander, and priest. The first required judgment and ready
speech; the second, strength and intelligent courage; the third,
personal beauty and dignity. Though the kings were allowed to exercise
great power, this was not irresponsible or arbitrary. On the contrary,
it was compatible with great public freedom in speech and action.
Slavery existed only to a limited extent and in a mild form. All free
heads of families, however poor, had a right to attend the popular
assembly, which the king consulted on all important matters, and at
which the freest discussion was allowed. When the kings exercised
judicial power, they did so in accordance with certain _themistes_ or
laws, held to have originated with Zeus, and not according to their own
caprice. As there was little commerce in those days, the inhabitants of
the ancient cities, when not engaged in warfare, devoted themselves
chiefly to agriculture, cattle-raising, and the useful arts. In these
even the kings thought it no shame to engage. We find Paris helping to
build his own palace, Odysseus constructing his own bed, Lycaon cutting
wood to make chariot-rails, and so on. Similarly, we find Helen and
other princesses spinning and weaving, while Nausicaa, the daughter of
the Phaeacian king, washes the clothes of the family.
In such a primitive society, unacquainted with letters, the higher
education found but few aspirants. The only persons of scientific
pretensions mentioned by Homer are the physicians (who are likewise
surgeons) and the soothsayers. The former are highly appreciated, and
are always chiefs. The soothsayers are the exponents of divine omens to
the community, and occupy a kind of official position, like the Hebrew
prophets. No artists, strictly speaking, are mentioned by Homer, except
the bard, and he is much honored, as historian, teacher, and inspirer.
We find, indeed, that Achilles and Paris are proficients in music; but
such cases seem exceptional. Of artisans, several are mentioned--the
worker in wood, the worker in horn and ivory, the potter (who uses the
wheel), and so on. The existence of others is implied--the weaver, the
mason, the metal-worker, etc.
If there were no special schools in the heroic age, life was so lived as
to be an excellent school. Then, as at all other times, it was
extremely social, far more so than our modern life. This was due chiefly
to three causes, (1) the smallness of the states, which made it possible
for every citizen to know, and to feel his solidarity with, every other,
(2) the absence of titles and formalities, which had not yet been
introduced from the East, (3) the fact that the people, especially the
men, spent the greater part of the day in the open air,--in the streets
and agora,--and so were continually rubbing against each other. This
sociality had much to do with the shaping of the Greek character, the
salient elements of which are thus enumerated by Zeller, the historian
of Greek philosophy: "A strong sense of freedom, combined with a rare
susceptibility to proportion, form, and order, a keen relish for
companionship in life and action, a social tendency which compelled the
individual to combine with others, to submit to the general will, to
follow the traditions of his family and his community. "
Between the simple social condition described by Homer and that for
which Aristotle wrote, there intervened a period of at least six hundred
years. During that time many great changes took place in the social and
political life of the Greeks, demanding corresponding changes in
education. These changes were due to several causes, (1) the natural
human tendency toward freedom, (2) the influence of foreign nations, (3)
the development of commerce, (4) the introduction of letters, (5) the
rise of philosophy, (6) the Persian Wars. Though all these are closely
interwoven with each other, there can be no harm in treating them
separately.
(1) The tendency toward freedom, so essentially characteristic of human
nature, was especially so of the nature of the Greeks. Among them it
rapidly manifested itself in an ordered series of political forms,
beginning with patriarchalism, and ending variously in the various
states and races. There is, indeed, hardly a single form of political
life that was not realized among the Greeks at some time or place. It
was this that made it possible for Aristotle to write a work on Politics
which, in the words of a recent political writer, "has remained for two
thousand years one of the purest sources of political wisdom. "
The varied and changeful political life of the Greeks was in itself a
great education. It made them aware of the principles, political and
ethical, upon which society rests, and rendered necessary a faculty of
clear and ready expression, which reacted most favorably upon their
intellectual and aesthetic faculties. It was in the school of practical
politics that the Greeks acquired their rhetoric; and Aristotle, in his
treatise on Poetry, tells us that, while "the older poets made their
characters talk like statesmen, the later ones made theirs talk like
rhetoricians. " Not only, indeed, did political life react upon the
drama, but, in developing rhetoric, it drew attention to language and
led to the sciences of grammar and logic, both of which were thus called
into existence by real social needs (see p. 102).
(2) Greece, lying, as it did, between three continents, and in the
thoroughfare of the ancient nations, could hardly fail to be visited by
many different races, or, considering its beauty and commercial
advantages, to be coveted by them. From this followed two consequences,
(_a_) that the Greeks were a very mixed race, (_b_) that they were, from
the first and at all times, in manifold contact with foreign peoples.
That they were a mixed race, is attested alike by their language, their
mythology, and their legends. That they were in close and continual
communication with foreign peoples, is rendered evident by their
alphabet, their art, and the direct statements of their historians.
Although it is true that the Greeks, especially after the Persian Wars,
regarded themselves as a superior and chosen people, calling all others
"barbarians," and considering them as fit only to be slaves, it is not
the less true that hardly one of all the arts and sciences which they
ultimately carried to a high degree of perfection had its origin in
Greece proper. All appear first in the colonies settled among
"barbarians,"--in Egypt, Asia Minor, Thrace, Crete, Sicily, or Italy.
Architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry--epic, lyric, dramatic--music,
history, politics, philosophy, were all borrowed, transformed, and, with
the exception perhaps of tragedy and painting, carried to a high degree
of excellence in the colonies, before they were transplanted to the
mother-country. It is beyond any doubt that even the Homeric legends are
of "barbarian" origin, though from what people they were borrowed is
uncertain. It was the plasticity and versatility of their character, due
in part to their mixed blood, that, by enabling them to appropriate and
assimilate the arts and sciences of their neighbors, raised the Greeks
to a new plane of civilization and made them the initiators of a new
epoch in history, the epoch of life according to reason. Sir Henry
Sumner Maine says, "Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in
this world which is not Greek in its origin. "
(3) It was chiefly through commerce that the arts and sciences borrowed
by the colonial Greeks found their way into Greece proper. That foreign
art-objects were introduced into it at an early period, is rendered
certain by the recent discoveries at Mycenae, Sparta, and other places,
as well as by statements in the Homeric poems. That these were followed
later by artists, bringing with them foreign art-processes and
appliances, is equally certain. The earliest sculptors whose names are
known to us, Dipoenis and Scyllis, were natives of Crete, settled in
Sicyon; and the earliest poetic guild of which we have any mention is
that of the Homeridae in the island of Chios. But, besides introducing
art and artists into Greece, commerce tended to educate the Greeks in
other ways. It made them acquainted with foreign manners and luxuries,
and forced them to learn the arts of navigation, ship-building and
exchange, which again rendered necessary an acquaintance with arithmetic
and the art of writing. And this leads us to
(4) The Introduction of Letters. This event, the date of which is
uncertain, not only exercised a most furthering influence on the arts
and sciences, but gave rise to a new branch of education. Letters were
probably first used for diplomatic and trade purposes, then for
inscriptions, and last of all for the perpetuation of literary
productions. So much of a change did they effect in Greek education that
even in the best times the whole of the literary and scientific
education was called simply "letters" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). As late as the time of
Plato letters seem to have been considered a part of Music, and to have
been taught by the same teacher as the latter; but Aristotle already
distinguishes the two. It is extremely probable that the introduction of
letters was the immediate cause of the establishment of schools for
youth; for we find no mention of them prior to that event.
(5) The introduction of letters was closely followed by the rise of
Philosophy, or the reflective spirit. Up to about the year 600 B. C. , the
Greeks, like the rest of the world, lived by habit, tradition, and
prescription, handed on, with little or no criticism, from generation to
generation. Their ideal world was shaped by the works of Homer and
Hesiod. "Hesiod is the teacher of most," says Heraclitus. About the date
named, however, society having advanced to a condition of organization
which made possible a leisure class, there begins to appear a new
spirit, destined to revolutionize, not only Greece, but the whole world.
Armed with a _what? _ a _which? _ a _why? _ and a _wherefore_? it no longer
blindly accepts the world of nature and man, but calls upon it to give
an account of itself. Science, philosophy, and art are the result.
At first the new spirit turns to nature with a _what? _; but, gradually
discovering that the answer to this brings no complete explanation of
the world, it propounds its other questions. It thus arrives at a
consciousness of four distinguishable elements in the constitution of
things,--four causes (? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ), as they were termed,--(1) matter,
(2) form, (3) efficiency, (4) end or aim. At the same time, and by the
same process, it is forced to a recognition of the presence of reason
(? ? ? ? ? ) and intelligence (? ? ? ? ) in the world, since form, efficiency,
and aim all presuppose both. It is thus compelled to turn from nature to
man, and man's mind, as the highest known expression of reason and
intelligence, and to devote itself to the consideration of spirit, as
alone promising any true explanation of the world. The process is a slow
and difficult one, and the history of it is the history of Greek
science, philosophy, and art.
Before the rise of philosophy, the teacher of the people had been the
rhapsode, or public reciter; after that event he gradually gives place
to the sophist (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , one who makes wise), or, as he later with more
modesty calls himself, the philosopher (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , lover of wisdom). The
history of Greece for centuries is, on its inner side, a history of the
struggle between what the rhapsode represents and what the philosopher
represents, between popular tradition and common sense on the one hand,
and individual opinion and philosophy on the other. The transition from
the first to the second of these mental conditions was accomplished for
the world, once for all, by the Greeks, and the turning-point in the
process is marked by
(6) The Persian Wars (B. C. 490-479). The victories gained in these at
Marathon, Salamis, and Plataeae, victories the most brilliant that history
records, exerted a most powerful influence upon the thought and life of
the Greeks. The consciousness of having, with their small numbers, over
and over again, both by land and by sea, discomfited and crushed the
countless hosts of an empire which for generations had threatened their
peace and liberty, made them at once feel the superiority of their own
characters and civil institutions to those of the Persians, and draw a
clear line of demarcation between Greek and barbarian. From this point
on, they felt themselves to be a chosen people, a nation destined by the
gods to rule all others. "The soul of Greece had conquered the bulk of
Persia. " Persia was bulk and body; Greece was soul and spirit. This
conviction appears at once in all the departments of Greek life. In the
sphere of art we may instance the _Prometheia_ of AEschylus and the
Parthenon. In the former, what does the conflict between Zeus and
Prometheus mean but the conflict between Greek spirituality, intellect,
and freedom, on the one hand, and barbarian materiality, instinct, and
thraldom or necessity, on the other? And what is the latter but a
matchless paean in stone to Divine Wisdom, as the conqueror of brute
force? In the sphere of thought, we find Parmenides, Anaxagoras and,
above all, Socrates (born ten years after the second Persian War),
turning consciously to the study of spirit. "To be and to think are the
same thing," says the first of these: "All things were confused; then
Mind came and reduced them to order," says the second; "Know thyself" is
the chosen motto of the third. In the political sphere we find the
Athenians trying to make the State an instrument of intelligence and
virtue, and insisting upon education as a means thereto. Other and less
desirable results followed from the Persian Wars; but these can be
better stated and estimated in another connection.
Such were the chief causes that contributed to transform the simple
patriarchal State of the Homeric Greeks, with its purely practical
education at home and in the field, into the free polity of the Greeks
of the days of Miltiades, Themistocles, and AEschylus, with its
complicated institutions and manifold education. It has seemed better to
enumerate these causes than to try to trace the steps of the
transformation itself. Indeed this would have been a hopeless task,
owing to the lack of historical data.
CHAPTER VI
EPOCHS IN GREEK EDUCATION
When they (our ancestors) began to enjoy leisure for thought, as the
result of easy circumstances, and to cherish more exalted ideas with
respect to worth, and especially when, in the period before and
after the Persian Wars, they came to entertain a high opinion of
themselves, on account of their achievements, they pursued all kinds
of education, making no distinction, but beating about
generally. --Aristotle.
In treating of Greek education subsequent to the introduction of letters
and the establishment of schools, we shall be obliged, in the interest
of clearness, to make three distinctions:--
(1) Between the educational systems of different periods.
(2) Between the educational systems of different peoples and states.
(3) Between the education actually imparted in the various states, and
that recommended by theorists or philosophers.
In pursuance of the first, it will be convenient first to distinguish
two main periods, the Hellenic, and the Hellenistic, and then to
subdivide these into minor periods.
I. _The Hellenic Period_ (776-338 B. C. ). This includes, roughly
speaking, the whole historic life of free Greece, from the date of the
first Olympiad to that of the absorption of Greece into the Macedonian
Empire. It naturally subdivides itself into two periods, (_a_) 776-450;
(_b_) 450-338.
(_a_) That of the "Old Education," authoritative and puritanical, whose
aim was the training of good citizens, god-fearing, law-abiding,
patriotic, and brave.
(_b_) That of the "New Education," rationalistic and "liberal," whose
aim was the training of formidable individuals, self-centred,
law-despising, time-serving, and cunning.
It is in the struggle between the two systems, and in the practical
triumph of the latter, that Greece loses her moral fibre; so that her
citizens, weakened through sundering selfishness, fall an easy prey to
the foreign invader.
II. _The Hellenistic Period_ (338 B. C. -313 A. D. ). This extends from the
Battle of Chaeronea, in which Greece lost her independence, to the
definitive triumph of Christianity, which brought a new ideal and a new
spirit into life and education. It naturally subdivides itself into two
periods, (_a_) B. C. 338-146; (_b_) B. C. 146-A. D. 313.
(_a_) The Macedonian Period, during which Macedonian influence
prevailed, and Greek thought and education, absorbing foreign, chiefly
Oriental, elements, tended toward an encyclopaedic cosmopolitanism.
During this period, Alexandria is the centre of Greek influence.
(_b_) The Roman Period, during which, as Horace says, "Captive Greece
took captive her rude conqueror," and Rome became, alongside Alexandria,
a diffusive centre of Greek thought, art, and education.
Between the two great periods, the Hellenic and the Hellenistic, stands
the man who draws up the testament of the former and outlines the
programme of the latter, the Macedonian Greek, Aristotle.
Our second distinction will lead us to treat separately, in the Hellenic
period, the educational system of the three Greek races, (1) the AEolic,
(2) the Doric, (3) the Ionic, the first having its chief centre at
Thebes, the second at Sparta, the third at Athens. For an account of the
education of the first our data are but meagre; with the main features
of Spartan and Athenian education we are well acquainted. In education,
as in everything, Sparta was conservative, socialistic, and
aristocratic, while Athens tended to liberalism, individualism, and
democracy. Hence Sparta clung desperately to the "Old Education," and
almost closed her doors against art, letters, and philosophy, while
Athens, dragged into the "New Education," became the home of all these.
It must always be borne in mind that, in favoring individualism and the
"New Education," Athens was abandoning the Hellenic ideal, and paving
the way for the cosmopolitanism of the Hellenistic period. In this
latter, we shall have to distinguish between the educational systems of
Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.
Our third distinction is that between individual theory and popular
practice. In all epochs of their history the Greek states produced men
who strove to realize in thought and imagination the ideal of their
people, and to exhibit it as an aim, an encouragement, and an
inspiration, in contrast with the imperfect actual. In more than one
case this ideal modified the education of the following periods. Of
course, such theories did not arise until practice was compelled to
defend itself by producing sanctions, either in religion or in reason,
and it may perhaps be affirmed that the aim of them all was to discover
such sanctions for the Greek ideal. Among the many educational theorists
of Greece, there are six who especially deserve to be considered: (1)
Pythagoras, who in Southern Italy sought to graft on the Doric ideal a
half-mystical, half-ethical theology, and a mathematical theory of the
physical world; (2) Xenophon, who sought to secure the same ideal by
connecting it with a monarchical form of government; (3) Plato, who
sought to elevate it, and find a sanction for it in his theory of
super-sensuous ideas; (4) ARISTOTLE, who presented in all its fulness
the Hellenic ideal, and sought to find sanctions for it in history,
social well-being, and the promise of a higher life; (5) Quintilian,
who, in Rome, embodies the rhetorical or worldly education of the
Hellenistic period; and (6) Plotinus, who presents an ideal of
philosophical or other-worldly education, and paves the way for the
triumph of Christian dogma.
BOOK II
THE HELLENIC PERIOD (B. C. 776-338)
PART I
THE "OLD EDUCATION" (B. C. 776-480)
CHAPTER I
EDUCATION FOR WORK AND FOR LEISURE
When we consider the different arts that have been discovered, and
distinguish between those which relate to the necessary conditions
of life and those which contribute to the free enjoyment of it
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), we always consider the man who is acquainted with the
latter wiser than him who is acquainted with the former, for the
reason that the sciences of the latter have no reference to use.
Hence it was only when all the necessary conditions of life had been
attained that those arts were discovered which have no reference
either to pleasure or to the common needs of life; and this took
place first in those countries where men enjoyed
leisure. --Aristotle.
The free life of God is such as are our brief best moments. --_Id. _
It is not fitting that the free enjoyment of life should be
permitted to boys or to young persons; for the crown of perfection
belongs not to the imperfect. --_Id. _
Obviously, the free enjoyment of life demands not only the noble but
also the pleasant; for happiness consists of these too. --_Id. _
Among the Homeric Greeks, whose life was almost entirely devoted to
practical pursuits, education was mainly practical, aiming to produce "a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds. " As civilization advanced, and
higher political forms were evolved, certain classes of men found
themselves blessed with leisure which they were not inclined to devote
to mere play. In order to make a worthy use of this leisure, they
required a certain training in those arts which were regarded as
befitting a free man. Education, accordingly, in some states, widened
its scope, to include those accomplishments, which enable men to fill
their hours of freedom with refined and gracious enjoyment--music and
letters. Music, indeed, had been cultivated long before, not only by
professional bards, but even by princes, like Achilles and Paris; this,
however, was for the sake of amusement and recreation rather than of the
free enjoyment of life. It had been regarded as a means, not as an end.
We must be careful, in our study of Greek life and education, not to
confound play and recreation, which are for the sake of work, with the
free enjoyment of life, which is an end in itself, and to which all work
is but a means. "Enjoyment is the end. " We shall see, as we proceed, to
what momentous results this distinction leads, how it governs not only
all education but all the institutions of life, and how it finally
contributes to break up the whole civilization which it determines. It
may fairly be said that Greece perished because she placed the end of
life in individual aesthetic enjoyment, possible only for a few and
regarding only the few.
