This assertion must not be construed as
any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing
paved the way for a higher ideal than her own.
any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing
paved the way for a higher ideal than her own.
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals by Thomas Davidson
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
, as Xenophon says.
Two things still remain to be considered with regard to Athenian
schools, (1) grading, (2) holidays. With respect to the former, the
practice probably differed at different times; but we seem to be
justified in assuming that, at the time of which I am speaking, there
were but two grades, boys (? ? ? ? ? ? ) and youths (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). These are
mentioned by Plato, in the _Lysis_, as celebrating the Hermaea together
in a palaestra. The first grade would include the boys from seven to
eleven years of age; the second, those from eleven to fifteen. As to
holidays, they seem to have been simply the feast-days of the greater
gods, when business of every sort was suspended. Such days amounted to
about ninety annually.
(3) COLLEGE EDUCATION.
About the time when he was blossoming into manhood, that is, some time
between his fourteenth and his sixteenth year, the Athenian boy of the
olden time was transferred from the private school and palaestra, which
belonged to the family side of life, to the gymnasium, which belonged to
the State, and in which he received the education calculated to fit him
for the duties of a citizen. Having, in the family and the school, been
trained to be a gentleman (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), he must now be trained to be a
citizen, capable of exercising legislative, judicial, and military
functions. The State saw to it that he received this training, if his
parents chose and could afford it.
In the time of Solon, about B. C. 590, two great gymnasia, the Academy
and Cynosarges, were erected in the midst of extensive groves outside
the city walls. These groves were afterwards surrounded with high walls,
furnished with seats and other conveniences, and turned into city parks.
The Academy, which lay to the northwest of the city, in the valley of
the Cephisus, and was under the patronage of Athena, was the resort of
the full-blooded citizens, while Cynosarges, situated to the east of the
city, near the foot of Lycabettus, was assigned to those who had foreign
blood in their veins, that is, who had only one parent of pure Athenian
stock. This gymnasium was under the patronage of Heracles, whose worship
always implies the presence of a foreign and vanquished element. These
were the only two gymnasia belonging to Athens before the time of
Pericles. They were, probably, destroyed by the Persians in 480, and had
afterwards to be rebuilt, and the groves replanted.
While the children of nearly all the free citizens of Athens attended
the school and the palaestra, it is clear that only the youth of the
wealthier classes attended the gymnasium. One result of this was that
the government and offices of the State fell exclusively into the hands
of those classes; and it was perhaps just in order to make this
division, without introducing any class-law, that the shrewd Solon
established the gymnasia, which thus became a bulwark against democracy.
As soon as the Athenian youth was transferred to the gymnasium, he
passed from under the charge of the pedagogue, who represented the
family, and came under the direct surveillance of the State. He was now
free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to
attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make
himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the
gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer,
and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer
exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact
that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral
instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older
citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus,
at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost
compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and
stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts
of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same
time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and
of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now
learnt to ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to
sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of
statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk
in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless
or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the
Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of
his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when
there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His
affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of
devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age,
a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a
space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the
Greeks,--Plato, Aristotle, etc. ,--and why love, in the modern sense,
plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the
State encroached upon the family. Plato's _Republic_ was only the
logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the
social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the
Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the
public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palaestra were
continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done
in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by
boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into the
_pentathlon_--running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling,
boxing--which formed the programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions.
During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his
father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he
reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under
the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the
reeve of his _demos_ (ward or village), as a candidate for independent
citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and
came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was
entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He
was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the
State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned
the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to
the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him,
along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with
spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in
war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking
down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian
oath of citizenship (see p. 61). He was now technically an _eph? bos_,
cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe
discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs,
and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained
in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a
knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a
soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses (? ? ? ? ? ? ? )
that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time
by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the
public festivals. At the end of the year, all the _eph? boi_ of one
year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the
assembled people (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [3]), after which
they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as
rural _gendarmerie_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), scouring the country in all directions.
They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important
things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks,
springs, etc. , (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life,
indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (_Alpini_) of the
Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making
themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and
covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great
heights. That during this time the _eph? boi_ should have taken any part
in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest
degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed
a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), after which they were full members of the State.
(4) UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
The Greek university was the State, and the Greek State was a
university--a _Cultur-Staat_, as the Germans say. That the State is a
school of virtue, was a view generally entertained in the ancient world,
which, until it began to decay, completely identified the man with the
citizen. The influence of this view upon the attitude of the individual
to the State, and of the State to the individual, can hardly be
overestimated. The State claimed, and the individual accorded to it, a
disciplinary right which extended to every sphere and action of life.
Thus the sphere of morality coincided exactly with the sphere of
legality, or, to put it the other way, the sphere of legality extended
to the whole sphere of morality, and this was considered true, whatever
form the State or government might assume--monarchy, aristocracy,
democracy, etc.
To give a full account of the university education of old Athens would
be to write her social and political history up to the time of the
Persian Wars. This is, of course, out of the question. All I can do is
to point out those elements in the State which enabled it to produce
that splendid array of noble men, and accomplish those great deeds and
works, which make her brief career seem the brightest spot in the
world's history.
The chief of these elements, and the one which included all the rest,
was the Greek ideal of harmony. Athens was great as a State and as a
school so long as she embodied that ideal, so long as she distributed
power and honor in accordance with worth (? ? ? ? ? ) intellectual, moral,
practical; in a word, so long as the State was governed by the best
citizens (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), and the rest acknowledged their right to do so.
Notwithstanding the contention of Grote and others, it is strictly true
that Athens was great because, and so long as, she was aristocratic (in
the ancient sense), and perished when she abandoned her fundamental
ideal by becoming democratic.
This assertion must not be construed as
any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing
paved the way for a higher ideal than her own. It simply states a fact,
which may be easily generalized without losing its truth: An institution
perishes when it abandons the principle on which it was founded and
built up. Unless we bear this in mind, we shall utterly fail to
understand the lesson of Athenian history. If it be maintained that some
of Athens' noblest work was done under the democracy, the sufficient
answer is, that it was nearly all done by men who retained the spirit of
the old aristocracy, and bitterly opposed the democracy. We need name
only AEschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.
PART II
THE "NEW EDUCATION" (B. C. 480-338)
CHAPTER I
INDIVIDUALISM AND PHILOSOPHY
Homer ought to be driven from the lists and whipt, and Archilochus
likewise. --Heraclitus.
Thou needs must have knowledge of all things,
First of the steadfast core of the Truth that forceth conviction,
Then of the notions of mortals, where true conviction abides not.
--Parmenides.
All things were undistinguished: then Intellect came and brought
them into order. --Anaxagoras.
Man is the measure of all things.
In regard to the Gods, I am unable to know whether they are or are
not. --Protagoras.
STREPSIADES. Don't you see what a good thing it is to have learning?
There isn't any Zeus, Phidippides!
PHIDIPPIDES. Who is there then?
STREPS. Vortex rules, having dethroned Zeus.
PHID. Pshaw! what nonsense!
STREPS. You may count it true, all the same.
PHID. Who says so?
STREPS. Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footprints
of fleas. --Aristophanes, _Clouds_.
There is an old-fashioned saw, current of yore among mortals, that a
man's happiness, when full-grown, gives birth and dies not
childless, and that from Fortune there springs insatiate woe for all
his race. But I, dissenting from all others, am alone of different
mind. It is the Irreverent Deed that begets after it more of its
kind. For to righteous homes belongs a fair-childrened lot forever;
but old Irreverence is sure to beget Irreverence, springing up fresh
among evil men, when the numbered hour arrives. And the new
Irreverence begets Surfeit of Wealth, and a power beyond all battle,
beyond all war, unholy Daring, twin curses, black to homes, like to
their parents. But Justice shines in smoky homes, and honors the
righteous life, and, leaving, with averted eyes, foundations gilded
with impurity of hands, she draws nigh to holy things, honoring not
the power of wealth, with its counterfeit stamp of praise. And her
will is done. --AEschylus
From the time they are children to the day of their death, we teach
them and admonish them. As soon as the child understands what is
said to him, his nurse and his mother and his pedagogue and even his
father vie with each other in trying to make the best of him that
can be made, at every word and deed instructing him and warning him,
"This is right," "This is wrong," "This is beautiful," "This is
ugly," "This is righteous," "This is sinful," "Do this," "Don't do
that. " And if the child readily obeys, well and good; if he does
not, then they treat him like a bent and twisted stick,
straightening him out with threats and blows. Later on, they send
him to school, and then they lay their injunctions upon the masters
to pay much more attention to the good behavior of their sons than
to their letters and music (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ); and the teachers act upon
these injunctions. Later yet, when they have learnt to read, and are
proceeding to understand the meaning of what is written, just as
formerly they understood what was said to them, they put before them
on the benches to read the works of good poets, and insist upon
their learning them by heart--works which contain many admonitions,
and many narratives, noble deeds, and eulogies of the worthy men of
old--their purpose being to awaken the boy's ambition, so that he
may imitate these men and strive to be worthy likewise. The
music-teachers also, pursuing the same line, try to inculcate
self-control (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) and to prevent the boys from falling into
mischief. In addition to this, when they have learnt to play on the
lyre, their masters teach them other poems, written by great lyric
poets, making them sing them and play the accompaniments to them,
and compelling them to work into their souls the rhythms and
melodies of them, so that they may grow in gentleness, and, having
their natures timed and tuned, may be fitted to speak and act. The
truth is, the whole life of man needs timing and tuning.
Furthermore, in addition to all this, parents send their sons to the
physical trainer, in order that their bodies may be improved and
rendered capable of seconding a noble intent, and they themselves
not be forced, from physical deterioration, to play the coward in
war or other (serious) matters. And those who can best afford to
give this education, give most of it, and these are the richest
people. Their sons go earliest to school and leave it latest. And
when the boys leave school, the State insists that they shall learn
the laws and live according to them, and not according to their own
caprice . . . And if any one transgresses these laws, the State
punishes him . . . Seeing that so much attention is devoted to virtue,
both in the family and in the State, do you wonder, Socrates, and
question whether virtue be something that can be taught? Surely you
ought not to wonder at this, but rather to wonder if it could _not_
be taught. --Plato, _Protagoras_ (_words of Protagoras_).
"Isn't it true, Lysis," said I, "that your parents love you very
much? "--"To be sure," said he. --"Then they would wish you to be as
happy as possible? "--"Of course," said he. --"And do you think a
person is happy who is a slave, and is not allowed to do anything he
desires? "--"I don't, indeed," said he. --"Then, if your father and
mother love you and wish you to be happy, they endeavor by every
means in their power to make you happy. "--"To be sure they do," said
he. --"Then they allow you to do anything you please, and never chide
you, or prevent you from doing what you desire. "--"By Jove! they do,
Socrates: they prevent me from doing a great many things. "--"What do
you mean," said I; "they wish you to be happy, and yet prevent you
from doing what you wish? Let us take an example: If you want to
ride in one of your father's chariots, and to hold the reins, when
it is competing in a race, won't they allow you, or will they
prevent you? "--"By Jove! no: they would not allow me," said he. "But
why should they? There is a charioteer, who is hired by my
father. "--"What do you mean? They allow a hired man, rather than
you, to do what he likes with the horses, and pay him a salary
besides? "--"And why not? " said he. --"Well then, I suppose they allow
you to manage the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and
whip it, they would permit you. "--"How could they? " said
he. --"What? " said I: "is nobody allowed to whip it? "--"Of course,"
he said; "the muleteer. "--"A slave or a free man? "--"A slave," said
he. --"And so it seems they think more of a slave than of their son,
and entrust their property to him rather than to you, and allow him
to do what he pleases, whereas they prevent you. But, farther, tell
me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even
trust you to that extent? "--"How trust me? " said he. --"Then does
some one manage you? "--"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he. --"But he
is surely not a slave? "--"Of course he is, our slave," said he. --"Is
it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a
slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he
governs you? "--"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind,"
he said. --"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern
you? "--"To any extent. "--"So then your father likes to set over you
a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to
your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you
happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is
weaving--does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you
from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments
used in spinning. "--And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she
not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched
them. "--"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done
some wrong to your father and mother? "--"By Jove, not I," he
said. --"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you
from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the
whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to
do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no
advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than
you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else
shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis,
and do nothing that you desire. "--"The reason, Socrates," he said,
"is, that I am not of age. "--Plato, _Lysis_.
The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is
a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens.
Registration as member of a deme or township takes place when
eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the
townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they
believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the
verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys.
Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If
the verdict is against him he appeals to the Heliaea, and the
municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of
illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally
proposed for the register, the State sells him for a slave; if the
judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the
municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the
senate, and if anyone is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine
is imposed on the municipality by which he was registered. After
approbation, they are called _epheboi_, or cadets, and the parents
of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being
sworn, choose three men of the tribe above forty years of age, whom
they believe to be of stainless character and fittest for the
superintendence of youth, and out of these the commons in ecclesia
select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of
the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians.
These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the
temples, march down to Piraeus, where they garrison the north and
south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two
gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in
heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle
artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma
[about 20 cts. ] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols [about
13 cts. ]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own
tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for
they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The
first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the
commons meet in the theatre and the cadets, after displaying before
them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a
shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and
garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years,
wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic
functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from
interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant
or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritance, or heiresses,
or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When the three years are
completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens. --Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_ (_Poste's Version, with slight
alterations_).
That perfect harmony between power and worth at which the Athenian State
aimed, was something not easily attained or preserved. As far back as
its recorded history reaches, we find a struggle for power going on
between a party which possessed more power than its worth justified, and
a party which possessed less; that is, between a party which, having
once been worthy, strove to hold power in virtue of its past history,
and one that claimed power in virtue of the worth into which it was
growing: in a word, a struggle between declining aristocracy and growing
democracy. To the party in power, of course, this seemed a rebellion
against lawful authority and privilege, and it did its best to suppress
it. Hence came the rigorous legislation of Draco; later the more
conciliatory, less out-spoken, but equally aristocratic legislation of
Solon; then the tyranny of Pisistratus, lasting as long as he could hold
the balance of power between the contending parties; then the
constitution of Clisthenes, with the breaking up of the old Athenian
aristocratic system, the remodelling of the tribes, the degradation of
the Areopagus, and the definite triumph of democracy. To complete the
movement and, as it were, to consecrate it, came the Persian Wars, which
mark the turning-point, the _peripeteia_, in Athenian history and
education. Whatever efforts aristocracy makes to maintain itself after
this, are made in the name of, and under cover of a zeal for, democracy.
The aristocratic Athenian State was based upon land-ownership, slavery,
and the entire freedom of the land-owning class from all but family and
State duties, from all need of engaging in productive industry. So long
as the chief wealth of the State consisted in land and its produce, so
long the population was divided into two classes, the rich and the poor,
and so long the former had little difficulty in keeping all power in
its own hands. But no sooner did the growth of commerce throw wealth
into the hands of a class that owned no land, and was not above engaging
in industry, than this class began to claim a share in political power.
There were now two wealthy classes, standing opposed to each other, a
proud, conservative one, with "old wealth and worth," and a vain,
radical one, with new wealth and wants, both bidding for the favor of
the class that had little wealth, little worth, and many wants, and thus
making it feel its importance. Such is the origin of Athenian democracy.
It is the child of trade and productive industry. It owed its final
consecration to the Persian Wars, and especially to the battle of
Salamis, in which Athens was saved by her fleet, manned chiefly by
marines (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) from the lower classes, the upper classes, as we have
seen, being trained only for land-service. Thus the battle of Salamis
was not only a victory of Greece over Persia, but of foreign trade over
home agriculture, of democracy over aristocracy.
The fact that the Athenian democracy owed its origin to trade
determined, in great measure, its history and tendencies. One of its
many results was that it opened Athens to the influx of foreign men,
foreign ideas, and foreign habits, not to speak of foreign gods, all of
which tended to break up the old self-contained, carefully organized
life of the people. In no department were their effects sooner or more
clearly felt than in that of education. From about the date of the
battle of Salamis, when the youthful Ionian, Anaxagoras, came to Athens,
a succession of men of "advanced" ideas in art and science sought a
field of action within her borders. Such a field, indeed, seemed
purposely to have been left open for them by the State, which had
provided no means of intellectual or moral education for its young
citizens, after they passed under its care (see p. 87). Nothing was
easier or more profitable than for these wise foreigners to constitute
themselves public teachers, and fill the place which the State had left
vacant. The State might occasionally object, and seek to punish one or
another of them for corrupting of the youth by the promulgation of
impious or otherwise dangerous ideas, as it did in the case of
Anaxagoras; but their activity was too much in harmony with a tendency
of the time,--a radical and individualistic tendency inseparable from
democracy,--to be dispensed with altogether. Hence it was that, within a
few years after the battle of Salamis, there flourished in Athens a
class of men unknown before within her boundaries, a class of private
professors, or "sophists," as they called themselves, who undertook to
teach theoretically what the State had assumed could be taught only
practically and by herself, viz. , virtue and wisdom. Their ideas were
novel, striking, and radical, hence congenial to a newly emancipated
populace, vain of its recent achievements, and contemptuous of all that
savored of the narrow, pious puritanism of the old time; their premises
were magnificent, and their fees high enough to impose upon a class that
always measures the value of a thing by what it is asked to pay for it;
their method of teaching was such as to flatter the vanity, and secure
the favor, of both pupils and parents. No wonder that their success was
immediate and their influence enormous.
From the days of Socrates to our own, 'sophist' has been a term of
reproach, and not altogether unjustly so. Hegel, Grote, and Zeller have,
indeed, shown that the sophists did not deserve all the obloquy which
has attached itself to their name, inasmuch as they were neither much
better nor much worse than any class of men who set up to teach new
doctrines for money, and, as wise economists, suit supply to demand;
nevertheless, it may be fairly enough said that they largely contributed
to demoralize Athens, by encouraging irreverence for the very
conceptions upon which her polity was built, and by pandering to some of
the most selfish and individualistic tendencies of democracy. If it be
said that they have their place in the history of human evolution, as
the heralds of that higher view of life which allows the individual a
sphere of activities and interests outside of that occupied by the
State, this may at once and without difficulty be admitted, without our
being thereby forced to regard them as noble men. The truth is, they
represented, in practice and in theory, the spirit of individualism,
which was then everywhere asserting itself against the spirit of
nationalism or polity, and which perhaps had to assert itself in an
exaggerated and destructive way, before the rightful claims of the two
could be manifested and harmonized. It is the incorporation of this
spirit of individualism into education that constitutes the "New
Education. "
This spirit, as manifested in the sophists and their teaching, directed
itself against the old political spirit in all the departments of
life--in religion, in politics, in education. It discredited the old
popular gods, upon loyalty to whom the existence of the State had been
supposed to depend, substituting for them some crude fancy like Vortex,
or some bald abstraction like Intellect. It encouraged the individual to
seek his end in his own pleasure, and to regard the State as but a means
to that end. It championed an education in which these ideas occupied a
prominent place. What the sophists actually taught the ambitious young
men who sought their instruction, was self-assertion, unscrupulousness,
and a showy rhetoric, in whose triumphal procession facts, fancies, and
falsehoods marched together in brilliant array. It is but fair to them
to say that, in their endeavor to instruct young men in the art of
specious oratory, they laid the foundations of the art of rhetoric and
the science of grammar. So much, at least, the world owes to them.
Since it was to the young men, who, freed from the discipline of home,
pedagogue, school, and palaestra, could be met with anywhere, in the
street, the agora, the gymnasium, that the sophists directed their chief
attention, it was of course these who first showed the effects of their
teaching. But their influence, falling in, as it did, with the
pronounced radical tendencies of the time, soon made itself felt in all
grades of education, from the family to the university, in the form of
an irreverent, flippant, conceited rationalism, before whose
self-erected and self-corrupted tribunal every institution in heaven and
earth was to be tried. In the schools this influence showed itself in
various ways: (1) in an increased attention to literature, and
especially to the formal side of it, (2) in the tendency to substitute
for the works of the old epic and lyric poets the works of more recent
writers tinged with the new spirit, (3) in the introduction of new and
complicated instruments and kinds of music, (4) in an increasing
departure from the severe physical and moral discipline of the old days.
We now, for the first time, hear of a teacher of literature, distinct
from the music master, of teachers who possessed no copy of Homer
(Alcibiades is said to have chastised such a one), of flutes, citharas,
and the like in use in schools, of wildness and lewdness among boys of
tender age.
Two things still remain to be considered with regard to Athenian
schools, (1) grading, (2) holidays. With respect to the former, the
practice probably differed at different times; but we seem to be
justified in assuming that, at the time of which I am speaking, there
were but two grades, boys (? ? ? ? ? ? ) and youths (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). These are
mentioned by Plato, in the _Lysis_, as celebrating the Hermaea together
in a palaestra. The first grade would include the boys from seven to
eleven years of age; the second, those from eleven to fifteen. As to
holidays, they seem to have been simply the feast-days of the greater
gods, when business of every sort was suspended. Such days amounted to
about ninety annually.
(3) COLLEGE EDUCATION.
About the time when he was blossoming into manhood, that is, some time
between his fourteenth and his sixteenth year, the Athenian boy of the
olden time was transferred from the private school and palaestra, which
belonged to the family side of life, to the gymnasium, which belonged to
the State, and in which he received the education calculated to fit him
for the duties of a citizen. Having, in the family and the school, been
trained to be a gentleman (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), he must now be trained to be a
citizen, capable of exercising legislative, judicial, and military
functions. The State saw to it that he received this training, if his
parents chose and could afford it.
In the time of Solon, about B. C. 590, two great gymnasia, the Academy
and Cynosarges, were erected in the midst of extensive groves outside
the city walls. These groves were afterwards surrounded with high walls,
furnished with seats and other conveniences, and turned into city parks.
The Academy, which lay to the northwest of the city, in the valley of
the Cephisus, and was under the patronage of Athena, was the resort of
the full-blooded citizens, while Cynosarges, situated to the east of the
city, near the foot of Lycabettus, was assigned to those who had foreign
blood in their veins, that is, who had only one parent of pure Athenian
stock. This gymnasium was under the patronage of Heracles, whose worship
always implies the presence of a foreign and vanquished element. These
were the only two gymnasia belonging to Athens before the time of
Pericles. They were, probably, destroyed by the Persians in 480, and had
afterwards to be rebuilt, and the groves replanted.
While the children of nearly all the free citizens of Athens attended
the school and the palaestra, it is clear that only the youth of the
wealthier classes attended the gymnasium. One result of this was that
the government and offices of the State fell exclusively into the hands
of those classes; and it was perhaps just in order to make this
division, without introducing any class-law, that the shrewd Solon
established the gymnasia, which thus became a bulwark against democracy.
As soon as the Athenian youth was transferred to the gymnasium, he
passed from under the charge of the pedagogue, who represented the
family, and came under the direct surveillance of the State. He was now
free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to
attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make
himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the
gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer,
and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer
exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact
that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral
instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older
citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus,
at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost
compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and
stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts
of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same
time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and
of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now
learnt to ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to
sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of
statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk
in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless
or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the
Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of
his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when
there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His
affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of
devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age,
a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a
space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the
Greeks,--Plato, Aristotle, etc. ,--and why love, in the modern sense,
plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the
State encroached upon the family. Plato's _Republic_ was only the
logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the
social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the
Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the
public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palaestra were
continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done
in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by
boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into the
_pentathlon_--running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling,
boxing--which formed the programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions.
During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his
father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he
reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under
the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the
reeve of his _demos_ (ward or village), as a candidate for independent
citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and
came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was
entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He
was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the
State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned
the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to
the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him,
along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with
spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in
war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking
down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian
oath of citizenship (see p. 61). He was now technically an _eph? bos_,
cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe
discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs,
and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained
in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a
knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a
soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses (? ? ? ? ? ? ? )
that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time
by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the
public festivals. At the end of the year, all the _eph? boi_ of one
year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the
assembled people (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [3]), after which
they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as
rural _gendarmerie_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), scouring the country in all directions.
They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important
things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks,
springs, etc. , (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life,
indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (_Alpini_) of the
Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making
themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and
covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great
heights. That during this time the _eph? boi_ should have taken any part
in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest
degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed
a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), after which they were full members of the State.
(4) UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
The Greek university was the State, and the Greek State was a
university--a _Cultur-Staat_, as the Germans say. That the State is a
school of virtue, was a view generally entertained in the ancient world,
which, until it began to decay, completely identified the man with the
citizen. The influence of this view upon the attitude of the individual
to the State, and of the State to the individual, can hardly be
overestimated. The State claimed, and the individual accorded to it, a
disciplinary right which extended to every sphere and action of life.
Thus the sphere of morality coincided exactly with the sphere of
legality, or, to put it the other way, the sphere of legality extended
to the whole sphere of morality, and this was considered true, whatever
form the State or government might assume--monarchy, aristocracy,
democracy, etc.
To give a full account of the university education of old Athens would
be to write her social and political history up to the time of the
Persian Wars. This is, of course, out of the question. All I can do is
to point out those elements in the State which enabled it to produce
that splendid array of noble men, and accomplish those great deeds and
works, which make her brief career seem the brightest spot in the
world's history.
The chief of these elements, and the one which included all the rest,
was the Greek ideal of harmony. Athens was great as a State and as a
school so long as she embodied that ideal, so long as she distributed
power and honor in accordance with worth (? ? ? ? ? ) intellectual, moral,
practical; in a word, so long as the State was governed by the best
citizens (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), and the rest acknowledged their right to do so.
Notwithstanding the contention of Grote and others, it is strictly true
that Athens was great because, and so long as, she was aristocratic (in
the ancient sense), and perished when she abandoned her fundamental
ideal by becoming democratic.
This assertion must not be construed as
any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing
paved the way for a higher ideal than her own. It simply states a fact,
which may be easily generalized without losing its truth: An institution
perishes when it abandons the principle on which it was founded and
built up. Unless we bear this in mind, we shall utterly fail to
understand the lesson of Athenian history. If it be maintained that some
of Athens' noblest work was done under the democracy, the sufficient
answer is, that it was nearly all done by men who retained the spirit of
the old aristocracy, and bitterly opposed the democracy. We need name
only AEschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.
PART II
THE "NEW EDUCATION" (B. C. 480-338)
CHAPTER I
INDIVIDUALISM AND PHILOSOPHY
Homer ought to be driven from the lists and whipt, and Archilochus
likewise. --Heraclitus.
Thou needs must have knowledge of all things,
First of the steadfast core of the Truth that forceth conviction,
Then of the notions of mortals, where true conviction abides not.
--Parmenides.
All things were undistinguished: then Intellect came and brought
them into order. --Anaxagoras.
Man is the measure of all things.
In regard to the Gods, I am unable to know whether they are or are
not. --Protagoras.
STREPSIADES. Don't you see what a good thing it is to have learning?
There isn't any Zeus, Phidippides!
PHIDIPPIDES. Who is there then?
STREPS. Vortex rules, having dethroned Zeus.
PHID. Pshaw! what nonsense!
STREPS. You may count it true, all the same.
PHID. Who says so?
STREPS. Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footprints
of fleas. --Aristophanes, _Clouds_.
There is an old-fashioned saw, current of yore among mortals, that a
man's happiness, when full-grown, gives birth and dies not
childless, and that from Fortune there springs insatiate woe for all
his race. But I, dissenting from all others, am alone of different
mind. It is the Irreverent Deed that begets after it more of its
kind. For to righteous homes belongs a fair-childrened lot forever;
but old Irreverence is sure to beget Irreverence, springing up fresh
among evil men, when the numbered hour arrives. And the new
Irreverence begets Surfeit of Wealth, and a power beyond all battle,
beyond all war, unholy Daring, twin curses, black to homes, like to
their parents. But Justice shines in smoky homes, and honors the
righteous life, and, leaving, with averted eyes, foundations gilded
with impurity of hands, she draws nigh to holy things, honoring not
the power of wealth, with its counterfeit stamp of praise. And her
will is done. --AEschylus
From the time they are children to the day of their death, we teach
them and admonish them. As soon as the child understands what is
said to him, his nurse and his mother and his pedagogue and even his
father vie with each other in trying to make the best of him that
can be made, at every word and deed instructing him and warning him,
"This is right," "This is wrong," "This is beautiful," "This is
ugly," "This is righteous," "This is sinful," "Do this," "Don't do
that. " And if the child readily obeys, well and good; if he does
not, then they treat him like a bent and twisted stick,
straightening him out with threats and blows. Later on, they send
him to school, and then they lay their injunctions upon the masters
to pay much more attention to the good behavior of their sons than
to their letters and music (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ); and the teachers act upon
these injunctions. Later yet, when they have learnt to read, and are
proceeding to understand the meaning of what is written, just as
formerly they understood what was said to them, they put before them
on the benches to read the works of good poets, and insist upon
their learning them by heart--works which contain many admonitions,
and many narratives, noble deeds, and eulogies of the worthy men of
old--their purpose being to awaken the boy's ambition, so that he
may imitate these men and strive to be worthy likewise. The
music-teachers also, pursuing the same line, try to inculcate
self-control (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) and to prevent the boys from falling into
mischief. In addition to this, when they have learnt to play on the
lyre, their masters teach them other poems, written by great lyric
poets, making them sing them and play the accompaniments to them,
and compelling them to work into their souls the rhythms and
melodies of them, so that they may grow in gentleness, and, having
their natures timed and tuned, may be fitted to speak and act. The
truth is, the whole life of man needs timing and tuning.
Furthermore, in addition to all this, parents send their sons to the
physical trainer, in order that their bodies may be improved and
rendered capable of seconding a noble intent, and they themselves
not be forced, from physical deterioration, to play the coward in
war or other (serious) matters. And those who can best afford to
give this education, give most of it, and these are the richest
people. Their sons go earliest to school and leave it latest. And
when the boys leave school, the State insists that they shall learn
the laws and live according to them, and not according to their own
caprice . . . And if any one transgresses these laws, the State
punishes him . . . Seeing that so much attention is devoted to virtue,
both in the family and in the State, do you wonder, Socrates, and
question whether virtue be something that can be taught? Surely you
ought not to wonder at this, but rather to wonder if it could _not_
be taught. --Plato, _Protagoras_ (_words of Protagoras_).
"Isn't it true, Lysis," said I, "that your parents love you very
much? "--"To be sure," said he. --"Then they would wish you to be as
happy as possible? "--"Of course," said he. --"And do you think a
person is happy who is a slave, and is not allowed to do anything he
desires? "--"I don't, indeed," said he. --"Then, if your father and
mother love you and wish you to be happy, they endeavor by every
means in their power to make you happy. "--"To be sure they do," said
he. --"Then they allow you to do anything you please, and never chide
you, or prevent you from doing what you desire. "--"By Jove! they do,
Socrates: they prevent me from doing a great many things. "--"What do
you mean," said I; "they wish you to be happy, and yet prevent you
from doing what you wish? Let us take an example: If you want to
ride in one of your father's chariots, and to hold the reins, when
it is competing in a race, won't they allow you, or will they
prevent you? "--"By Jove! no: they would not allow me," said he. "But
why should they? There is a charioteer, who is hired by my
father. "--"What do you mean? They allow a hired man, rather than
you, to do what he likes with the horses, and pay him a salary
besides? "--"And why not? " said he. --"Well then, I suppose they allow
you to manage the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and
whip it, they would permit you. "--"How could they? " said
he. --"What? " said I: "is nobody allowed to whip it? "--"Of course,"
he said; "the muleteer. "--"A slave or a free man? "--"A slave," said
he. --"And so it seems they think more of a slave than of their son,
and entrust their property to him rather than to you, and allow him
to do what he pleases, whereas they prevent you. But, farther, tell
me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even
trust you to that extent? "--"How trust me? " said he. --"Then does
some one manage you? "--"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he. --"But he
is surely not a slave? "--"Of course he is, our slave," said he. --"Is
it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a
slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he
governs you? "--"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind,"
he said. --"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern
you? "--"To any extent. "--"So then your father likes to set over you
a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to
your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you
happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is
weaving--does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you
from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments
used in spinning. "--And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she
not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched
them. "--"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done
some wrong to your father and mother? "--"By Jove, not I," he
said. --"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you
from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the
whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to
do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no
advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than
you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else
shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis,
and do nothing that you desire. "--"The reason, Socrates," he said,
"is, that I am not of age. "--Plato, _Lysis_.
The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is
a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens.
Registration as member of a deme or township takes place when
eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the
townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they
believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the
verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys.
Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If
the verdict is against him he appeals to the Heliaea, and the
municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of
illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally
proposed for the register, the State sells him for a slave; if the
judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the
municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the
senate, and if anyone is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine
is imposed on the municipality by which he was registered. After
approbation, they are called _epheboi_, or cadets, and the parents
of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being
sworn, choose three men of the tribe above forty years of age, whom
they believe to be of stainless character and fittest for the
superintendence of youth, and out of these the commons in ecclesia
select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of
the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians.
These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the
temples, march down to Piraeus, where they garrison the north and
south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two
gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in
heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle
artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma
[about 20 cts. ] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols [about
13 cts. ]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own
tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for
they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The
first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the
commons meet in the theatre and the cadets, after displaying before
them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a
shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and
garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years,
wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic
functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from
interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant
or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritance, or heiresses,
or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When the three years are
completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens. --Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_ (_Poste's Version, with slight
alterations_).
That perfect harmony between power and worth at which the Athenian State
aimed, was something not easily attained or preserved. As far back as
its recorded history reaches, we find a struggle for power going on
between a party which possessed more power than its worth justified, and
a party which possessed less; that is, between a party which, having
once been worthy, strove to hold power in virtue of its past history,
and one that claimed power in virtue of the worth into which it was
growing: in a word, a struggle between declining aristocracy and growing
democracy. To the party in power, of course, this seemed a rebellion
against lawful authority and privilege, and it did its best to suppress
it. Hence came the rigorous legislation of Draco; later the more
conciliatory, less out-spoken, but equally aristocratic legislation of
Solon; then the tyranny of Pisistratus, lasting as long as he could hold
the balance of power between the contending parties; then the
constitution of Clisthenes, with the breaking up of the old Athenian
aristocratic system, the remodelling of the tribes, the degradation of
the Areopagus, and the definite triumph of democracy. To complete the
movement and, as it were, to consecrate it, came the Persian Wars, which
mark the turning-point, the _peripeteia_, in Athenian history and
education. Whatever efforts aristocracy makes to maintain itself after
this, are made in the name of, and under cover of a zeal for, democracy.
The aristocratic Athenian State was based upon land-ownership, slavery,
and the entire freedom of the land-owning class from all but family and
State duties, from all need of engaging in productive industry. So long
as the chief wealth of the State consisted in land and its produce, so
long the population was divided into two classes, the rich and the poor,
and so long the former had little difficulty in keeping all power in
its own hands. But no sooner did the growth of commerce throw wealth
into the hands of a class that owned no land, and was not above engaging
in industry, than this class began to claim a share in political power.
There were now two wealthy classes, standing opposed to each other, a
proud, conservative one, with "old wealth and worth," and a vain,
radical one, with new wealth and wants, both bidding for the favor of
the class that had little wealth, little worth, and many wants, and thus
making it feel its importance. Such is the origin of Athenian democracy.
It is the child of trade and productive industry. It owed its final
consecration to the Persian Wars, and especially to the battle of
Salamis, in which Athens was saved by her fleet, manned chiefly by
marines (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) from the lower classes, the upper classes, as we have
seen, being trained only for land-service. Thus the battle of Salamis
was not only a victory of Greece over Persia, but of foreign trade over
home agriculture, of democracy over aristocracy.
The fact that the Athenian democracy owed its origin to trade
determined, in great measure, its history and tendencies. One of its
many results was that it opened Athens to the influx of foreign men,
foreign ideas, and foreign habits, not to speak of foreign gods, all of
which tended to break up the old self-contained, carefully organized
life of the people. In no department were their effects sooner or more
clearly felt than in that of education. From about the date of the
battle of Salamis, when the youthful Ionian, Anaxagoras, came to Athens,
a succession of men of "advanced" ideas in art and science sought a
field of action within her borders. Such a field, indeed, seemed
purposely to have been left open for them by the State, which had
provided no means of intellectual or moral education for its young
citizens, after they passed under its care (see p. 87). Nothing was
easier or more profitable than for these wise foreigners to constitute
themselves public teachers, and fill the place which the State had left
vacant. The State might occasionally object, and seek to punish one or
another of them for corrupting of the youth by the promulgation of
impious or otherwise dangerous ideas, as it did in the case of
Anaxagoras; but their activity was too much in harmony with a tendency
of the time,--a radical and individualistic tendency inseparable from
democracy,--to be dispensed with altogether. Hence it was that, within a
few years after the battle of Salamis, there flourished in Athens a
class of men unknown before within her boundaries, a class of private
professors, or "sophists," as they called themselves, who undertook to
teach theoretically what the State had assumed could be taught only
practically and by herself, viz. , virtue and wisdom. Their ideas were
novel, striking, and radical, hence congenial to a newly emancipated
populace, vain of its recent achievements, and contemptuous of all that
savored of the narrow, pious puritanism of the old time; their premises
were magnificent, and their fees high enough to impose upon a class that
always measures the value of a thing by what it is asked to pay for it;
their method of teaching was such as to flatter the vanity, and secure
the favor, of both pupils and parents. No wonder that their success was
immediate and their influence enormous.
From the days of Socrates to our own, 'sophist' has been a term of
reproach, and not altogether unjustly so. Hegel, Grote, and Zeller have,
indeed, shown that the sophists did not deserve all the obloquy which
has attached itself to their name, inasmuch as they were neither much
better nor much worse than any class of men who set up to teach new
doctrines for money, and, as wise economists, suit supply to demand;
nevertheless, it may be fairly enough said that they largely contributed
to demoralize Athens, by encouraging irreverence for the very
conceptions upon which her polity was built, and by pandering to some of
the most selfish and individualistic tendencies of democracy. If it be
said that they have their place in the history of human evolution, as
the heralds of that higher view of life which allows the individual a
sphere of activities and interests outside of that occupied by the
State, this may at once and without difficulty be admitted, without our
being thereby forced to regard them as noble men. The truth is, they
represented, in practice and in theory, the spirit of individualism,
which was then everywhere asserting itself against the spirit of
nationalism or polity, and which perhaps had to assert itself in an
exaggerated and destructive way, before the rightful claims of the two
could be manifested and harmonized. It is the incorporation of this
spirit of individualism into education that constitutes the "New
Education. "
This spirit, as manifested in the sophists and their teaching, directed
itself against the old political spirit in all the departments of
life--in religion, in politics, in education. It discredited the old
popular gods, upon loyalty to whom the existence of the State had been
supposed to depend, substituting for them some crude fancy like Vortex,
or some bald abstraction like Intellect. It encouraged the individual to
seek his end in his own pleasure, and to regard the State as but a means
to that end. It championed an education in which these ideas occupied a
prominent place. What the sophists actually taught the ambitious young
men who sought their instruction, was self-assertion, unscrupulousness,
and a showy rhetoric, in whose triumphal procession facts, fancies, and
falsehoods marched together in brilliant array. It is but fair to them
to say that, in their endeavor to instruct young men in the art of
specious oratory, they laid the foundations of the art of rhetoric and
the science of grammar. So much, at least, the world owes to them.
Since it was to the young men, who, freed from the discipline of home,
pedagogue, school, and palaestra, could be met with anywhere, in the
street, the agora, the gymnasium, that the sophists directed their chief
attention, it was of course these who first showed the effects of their
teaching. But their influence, falling in, as it did, with the
pronounced radical tendencies of the time, soon made itself felt in all
grades of education, from the family to the university, in the form of
an irreverent, flippant, conceited rationalism, before whose
self-erected and self-corrupted tribunal every institution in heaven and
earth was to be tried. In the schools this influence showed itself in
various ways: (1) in an increased attention to literature, and
especially to the formal side of it, (2) in the tendency to substitute
for the works of the old epic and lyric poets the works of more recent
writers tinged with the new spirit, (3) in the introduction of new and
complicated instruments and kinds of music, (4) in an increasing
departure from the severe physical and moral discipline of the old days.
We now, for the first time, hear of a teacher of literature, distinct
from the music master, of teachers who possessed no copy of Homer
(Alcibiades is said to have chastised such a one), of flutes, citharas,
and the like in use in schools, of wildness and lewdness among boys of
tender age.
