Theban education was, of course, a reflex of the
character
of the Theban
and, indeed, of the Boeotian, people.
and, indeed, of the Boeotian, people.
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals by Thomas Davidson
) 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.
In historic Greece, music came to be an essential part of the education
of every free man. Even free women learnt it. Along with music went
poetry, and when this came to be written down, it was termed "letters. "
As every free man came to be his own minstrel and his own rhapsode, the
professional minstrel and rhapsode disappeared, and the Homeric poems
even, in order to be preserved from oblivion, were committed to writing
by an enlightened tyrant--Pisistratus.
The first portion of the Greek people that attained a degree of
civilization demanding an education for hours of leisure, was the AEolian
race, and particularly the Asiatic portion of it. Accordingly we find
that all the earliest musicians and poets, didactic and lyric, are
AEolians--Hesiod, Terpander, Arion, Alcaeus, Sappho, Pittacus, etc. Lesbos
seems to have taken the lead in this "higher education. " The last five
names all belong to that island, which produced also the earliest Greek
historian and prose-writer--Hellanicus. But the AEolians, though earliest
in the field, were soon outstripped by the other two races, the Doric
and the Ionic. AEolian education and culture never advanced beyond music
and lyric poetry. It knew no drama, science, or philosophy.
The AEolians were followed, almost simultaneously, by the Dorians and
Ionians, who pursued two widely divergent directions. The former
borrowed the lyric education and culture of the AEolians, and produced
several lyric poets of distinguished merit--Tyrtaeus, Alcman, Ibycus,
Stesichorus: nay, they even advanced far enough to take the first steps
in science, philosophy, and dramatic poetry. Pythagoras, Epicharmus,
Sophron, Xenarchus, and Susarion were all Dorians. But the progress of
the race was retarded and finally checked by rigid political
institutions of a socialistic character, which, by suppressing
individual initiative, reduced the whole to immobility.
The Ionians, on the contrary, borrowing freely from both AEolians and
Dorians, and evolving ever freer and freer institutions, carried
education and culture to a point which has never been passed, and
rarely, if ever, reached, in the history of our race. And when they
ceased to grow, and decay set in, this was due to exactly the opposite
cause to that which stunted them among the Dorians; namely, to excessive
individualism, misnamed liberty. Individualism ruined Athens.
Although education assumed different forms among different portions of
the Greek race, there are certain features that seem to have been common
to all these forms during the epoch of the "Old Education. " Two of these
deserve attention.
_First. _ Education was everywhere a branch of statecraft, and the State
itself was only the highest educational institution. This was equally
true whether the schools were public, as at Sparta, or private, as at
Athens. Everywhere citizenship was a degree, conferred only upon sons of
free citizens, after a satisfactory examination (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ).
_Second. _ The stages or grades of education were everywhere the same,
although their limits were not everywhere marked by the same number of
years. The first, extending usually from birth to the end of the seventh
year, was that of home education; the second, extending from the
beginning of the eighth year to the end of the sixteenth or, perhaps
oftener, the eighteenth year, was that of school education; the third,
extending from the beginning of the seventeenth or nineteenth year to
the end of the twentieth (in Sparta of the thirtieth), was that of
college education, or education for the duties of citizenship; the
fourth, including the remainder of life, was that of university
education, or education through the State, which then was the only
university. At the beginning of the third period, the young men took
their first State examination, and if they passed it successfully, they
received the degree of Cadet or Citizen-novice (? ? ? ? ? ? ); but it was only
at the beginning of the fourth period, and after they had passed a
second examination (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), that they received the degree
of Man and Citizen and were permitted to exercise all the functions of
freemen. The State then became, in a very real sense, their _Alma
Mater_.
In most states, this graded education fell only to the lot of males, the
education of females stopping short with the first grade, the family,
which was regarded as their only sphere. It was otherwise at Sparta,
Teos, and apparently among the AEolians generally. As a consequence it is
only among the AEolians and Dorians that any poetesses of note
appear--Sappho, Corinna, Telesilla, etc. Although, however, woman's
sphere was the family, and she was considered to have done her duty when
she worthily filled the place of wife, mother, and mistress, there was
nothing to prevent her from acquiring the higher education, if she chose
to do so. That she did not often so choose, seems true; still there are
examples of learned women even among the Athenians. The daughter of
Thucydides is said to have continued his history after his death, and,
whether the statement be true or not, the fact that it was made shows
that the ability to write history was not regarded as impossible or
surprising in a woman.
CHAPTER II
AEOLIAN OR THEBAN EDUCATION
Hesiod is the teacher of most. --Heraclitus.
When thou art dead, thou shalt lie in the earth.
Not even the memory of thee shall be
Thenceforward nor forever; for thou hast
No share in the Pierian roses; but
Ev'n in the halls of Hades thou shalt flit,
A frightened shadow, with the shadowy dead.
--Sappho (_to an uneducated woman_).
What rustic hoyden ever charms the soul,
That round her ankles cannot kilt her coats? --_Id. _
The AEolians appear to have been the earliest of the Greek races to make
any considerable advance in culture. Their claim to Homer can hardly be
sustained; but they certainly produced Hesiod, most of the greater lyric
poets and poetesses, and the first historian. For a time they bade fair
to lead the culture of Greece. But the promise was not fulfilled. During
the palmy period of Greek history, they were not only the most
uncultured and uncouth of the Greeks, but they even prided themselves
upon their boorishness of speech and manner, and derided culture. In the
glorious struggle in which Greece maintained the cause of culture and
freedom against Persia, Thebes, then the chief centre of AEolianism,
sided with the barbarian, as, indeed, was natural.
Theban education was, of course, a reflex of the character of the Theban
and, indeed, of the Boeotian, people. Its main divisions were those of
Greek education generally,--Gymnastics and Music; but the former was
learnt solely for athletic purposes, and the latter mainly for use at
banquets and drinking-bouts, in which the Boeotians found their chief
delight. Letters were studied as little as at Sparta (see p. 47), and
the language of the people remained harsh and unmusical. Of higher
education there was hardly a trace. The sophists passed Boeotia by. Even
Pindar, who was by birth a Theban, and a sincerely patriotic one, sought
and found recognition anywhere rather than among his own people. He did
not even write in their dialect.
The reason for this backwardness on the part of the Boeotian AEolians lay
in the fact that they lived, as a conquering race, in the midst of a
people superior to them in every respect save strength, and could
maintain their ascendency only by brute force. When this failed, and the
conquered race, which had never forgotten Cadmus and its ancient
traditions, came to the front, education and culture found their way
even to Thebes. It was due to this change in political conditions that a
Pindar could arise, and it was doubtless the demand for culture
consequent thereupon that induced certain members of the scattered
Pythagorean school (see p. 54) to seek refuge in Thebes and there devote
themselves to teaching. Among these were Philolaus[1] and Lysis, the
latter of whom was probably the author of the famous "Golden Words"
(see p. 57). But he has a better claim to fame than this; for he was the
teacher of the bravest and most lovable man that Greece ever
produced--Epaminondas.
If any enthusiastic believer in the power of education desire to fortify
his cause by means of a brilliant example, he will find none superior to
Epaminondas; for there can hardly be any question that it was the
earnest, systematic, religious, and moral Pythagorean training which he
received from the aged Lysis, whom he treated as a father, that made him
what he was, and enabled him to do what he did,--which was nothing less
than to place Thebes at the head of Greece. Thebes rose and fell with
Epaminondas. But that was not all. It was the example of Epaminondas
that kindled the ambition of Philip of Macedon, who was educated under
his eye, and of his far more famous son, Alexander, who made all Greece
a province of his empire. Pythagoras, Lysis, Epaminondas, Philip,
Alexander--in five brief generations an earnest teacher conquers a
world!
From the time of Epaminondas on, Thebes followed the ordinary course of
Greek education.
CHAPTER III
DORIAN OR SPARTAN EDUCATION
Go, tell at Sparta, thou that passest by,
That here, obedient to her laws, we lie.
--Simonides (_Epitaph on the Three Hundred who fell at Thermopylae_).
This is a matter for which the Lacedaemonians deserve approbation:
they are extremely solicitous about the education of their youth and
make it a public function. --Aristotle.
The Lacedaemonians impart to their children the look of wild beasts,
through the severity of the exercises to which they subject them,
their notion being that such training is especially calculated to
heighten courage. --_Id. _
These are so far behind in education and philosophy that they do not
learn even letters. --Isocrates.
OLD MEN. We _were_ once strong men (youths).
MEN. And we _are_; if you will, behold.
BOYS. And we _shall be_ far superior. --_Spartan Choric Anthem. _
They asked no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high:
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!
So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,
Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne! --Hemans.
There was a law that the cadets should present themselves naked in
public before the ephors every ten days; and, if they were well knit
and strong, and looked as if they had been carved and hammered into
shape by gymnastics, they were praised; but if their limbs showed
any flabbiness or softness, any little swelling or suspicion of
adipose matter due to laziness, they were flogged and justiced there
and then. The ephors, moreover, subjected their clothing every day
to a strict examination, to see that everything was up to the mark.
No cooks were permitted in Lacedaemon but flesh-cooks. A cook who
knew anything else was driven out of Sparta, as physic for
invalids. --AElian.
Every rational system of education is determined by some aim or ideal
more or less consciously set up. That of the Dorians, and particularly
of the Spartans, may be expressed in one word--STRENGTH, which, in the
individual, took the form of physical endurance, in the State, that of
self-sufficiency (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). A self-sufficient State, furnishing a
field for all the activities and aspirations of all its citizens, and
demanding their strongest and most devoted exertions--such is the Dorian
ideal. It is easy to see what virtues Dorian education would seek to
develop--physical strength, bravery, and obedience to the laws of the
State. Among the Dorians the human being is entirely absorbed in the
citizen. The State is all in all.
The Dorian ideal realized itself chiefly in two places, Crete and
Sparta. Both these were repeatedly held up in ancient times as models of
well-governed states, and even Plato puts the substance of his _Laws_
into the mouth of a Cretan.
About the details of Cretan education we are but poorly informed. Two
things, however, we know: (1) that Lycurgus, the reputed founder of
Spartan education, was held to have drawn many of his ideas from Crete,
and (2) that the final result of Cretan education--and the same is true
of all education that merges the man in the citizen--was, in spite of
its strictness, demoralizing. The character of the people was summed up
by their poet Epimenides, a contemporary of Solon's, in a famous line
quoted by St. Paul, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy
bellies. "
With regard to Spartan education our information is much greater, and we
may therefore select it as the type of Dorian education generally.
The Peloponnesian Dorians having, through contact with the more
civilized peoples whom they conquered, lost much of that rigorous
discipline and unquestioning loyalty which made them formidable, were,
in the ninth century B. C. , becoming disorganized, so that in two of the
Dorian states they were assimilated by the native population, the
Argives and the Messenians. The same process was rapidly going on in the
third state, Lacedaemon, when Lycurgus, fired with patriotic zeal,
resolved to put an end to it, by restoring among his people the old
Dorian military discipline. To prepare himself for this task, he visited
Crete and studied its institutions. On his return he persuaded his
countrymen to submit to a "Constitution," which ever afterwards went by
his name. This constitution included a scheme of education, whose aim
was a thorough training of the whole of the free citizens, both male and
female, (1) in physical endurance, and (2) in complete subordination to
the State. The former was sought to be imparted by means of a rigorous
and often cruel, system of gymnastics; the latter, through choric music
and dancing, including military drill. Spartan education, therefore, was
confined to two branches, Gymnastics and Music. Instruction in letters
was confined to the merest elements. Sparta accordingly never produced a
poet, an historian, an artist, or a philosopher of any note. Even the
arrangers of her choruses were foreigners--Tyrtaeus, Terpander, Arion,
Alcman, Thaletas, Stesichorus.
As Spartan education was nothing more or less than a training for
Spartan citizenship, we must preface our account of it by a few words on
the Spartan State.
The government of Sparta was in the hands of a closed aristocracy, whose
sole aim was the maintenance of its own supremacy, as against (1)
foreign enemies, (2) _Perioikoi_, or disfranchised native citizens, (3)
Helots, or native serfs. To secure this, it formed itself into a
standing army, with a strict military organization. Sparta, its one
abode, was a camp; all free inhabitants were soldiers. Though they were
compelled to marry, the city contained no homes. The men and, from the
close of their seventh year, the boys, lived in barracks and ate at
public tables (_Phiditia_). The women had but one recognized function,
that of furnishing the State with citizens, and were educated solely
with a view to this. No other virtue was expected of them. Aristotle
tells us that "they lived in every kind of profligacy and in luxury. "
Polyandry was common, and, when a woman lost all her husbands, she was
often compelled to enter into relations with slaves, in order that she
might not fail in her political duty.
Among a people organized on the basis of brute force, it were vain to
look for any of the finer traits of human nature--gentleness,
tenderness, sympathy, pity, mercy. The mercilessness and cruelty of the
Spartans were proverbial. Perioikoi and Helots incurring the displeasure
or suspicion of the authorities were secretly put to death, without even
the form of a trial. A striking instance of such cruelty is recorded by
Thucydides. The facts are thus stated by Grote (_History of Greece_,
vol. ii, pp. 376-7): "It was in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian
War, after the Helots had been called upon for signal military efforts
in various ways, . . . that the ephors felt especially apprehensive of an
outbreak. Anxious to single out the most forward and daring Helots, as
men from whom they had most to dread, they issued proclamation that
every member of that class who had rendered distinguished services
should make his claim known at Sparta, promising liberty to the most
deserving. A large number of Helots came forward to claim the boon: not
less than two thousand of them were approved, formally manumitted, and
led in solemn procession round the temples, with garlands on their
heads, as an inauguration to their coming life of freedom. But the
treacherous garland only marked them out as victims for sacrifice: every
man of them forthwith disappeared; the manner of their death was an
untold mystery. "
Spartan education was entirely conducted by the State, at the expense of
the State, and for the ends of the State. It differed in this respect
from nearly every other system of Greek education. It was divided into
four periods, corresponding respectively to childhood, boyhood, youth,
and manhood.
(_a_) CHILDHOOD. --As soon as the Spartan child came into the world, the
State, through officers appointed for that purpose, sent to examine it.
If it seemed vigorous, and showed no bodily defect, it was permitted to
live, and forthwith adopted by the State; otherwise it was carried to
the mountains and thrown over a precipice. The children accepted by the
State were for the next seven years left in charge of their mothers,
but, doubtless, still under State surveillance. Just how they were
trained during these years, we do not know. We can only guess that they
underwent very much the same process as other Greek children, any
difference being in the direction of rigor. As the details of Greek
education generally will be dealt with under the head of Athens, they
may be omitted here.
(_b_) BOYHOOD. --On completing his seventh year, the Spartan boy was
transferred from his mother's house and care to a public barracks and
the direct tuition of the State. Although the boys were in charge of a
special officer (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), who divided them into squads and
companies, and arranged their exercises for them, they were nevertheless
taught to regard every grown man as a teacher, and every such man was
expected to correct them promptly and rigorously, whenever he saw them
doing wrong. At the same time, every boy was expected to form an
intimate connection with some one man, who then, to a large extent,
became responsible for his conduct; and, though the choice in this
matter rested with the parties concerned, it was considered a disgrace
in a man, no less than in a boy, to be without such connection. Though
this arrangement, it is said, often led to lamentable abuses, there can
be no doubt that it admirably served the purposes of Sparta. It
furnished every boy with a tutor, who, under the circumstances, could
hardly fail to treat him kindly, and who was interested in making him
surpass all other boys in courage and endurance. This friendly influence
of teacher on pupil was something in which the Greeks at all times
strongly believed, and which formed an important force in all their
education. In Sparta, as in Crete and Thebes, it was legally recognized.
One of the duties of Spartan "inspirer" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? or ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), as he
was called, was to teach his young friend (? ? ? ? ? ) to demean himself
properly on all occasions, and to hold his tongue except when he had
something very important to say. In this way it was that the young
Spartans received their moral education, and acquired that effective
brevity of speech which to this day we call "laconic. "
The formal education of Spartan boys consisted mainly of gymnastics,
music, choric dancing, and larceny. Their literary education was
confined to a little reading, writing, and finger-arithmetic; everything
beyond this was proscribed. And the reasons for this proscription are
not difficult to discover. Sparta staked everything upon her political
strength, and this involved two things, (1) equality among her free
citizens, and (2) absolute devotion on their part to her interest, both
of which the higher education would have rendered impossible. Education
establishes among men distinctions of worth quite other than military,
and gives them individual interests distinct from those of the State. It
was the same reason that induced Rome, during the best period of her
history, to exclude her citizens from all higher education, which is
essentially individual and cosmopolitan.
The education of the Spartan boys was conducted mostly in the open air
and in public, so that they were continually exposed to the cheers or
scoffs of critical spectators, to whom their performances were a
continual amusement of the nature of a cock-fight. Whether the different
"inspirers" betted on their own boys may be doubtful; but they certainly
used every effort to make them win in any and every contest, and the
"inspirer" of a "winning" boy was an envied man. The result was that
many boys lost their lives amid cheers, rather than incur the disgrace
of being beaten. Inasmuch as the sole purpose of gymnastics was strength
and endurance; of dancing, order; and of music, martial inspiration, it
is easy to see what forms these studies necessarily assumed; and we need
only stop to remark that Dorian music received the unqualified
approbation of all the great educational writers of antiquity,--even of
Aristotle, who had only words of condemnation for Spartan gymnastics.
There was only one branch of Spartan school-education that was not
conducted in public, and that was larceny. The purpose of this curious
discipline was to enable its subjects to act, on occasion, as detectives
and assassins among the ever discontented and rebellious Helots. How
successful it was, may be judged from the incident recorded on page 45.
Larceny, when successfully carried out under difficult circumstances,
was applauded; when discovered, it was severely punished. A story is
told of a boy who, rather than betray himself, allowed a stolen fox,
concealed under his clothes, to eat out his entrails.
In one respect Spartan education may claim superiority over that of most
other Greek states: it was not confined to one sex. Spartan girls,
though apparently permitted to live at home, were subjected to a course
of training differing from that of their brothers only in being less
severe. They had their own exercise-grounds, on which they learnt to
leap, run, cast the javelin, throw the discus, play ball, wrestle,
dance, and sing; and there is good evidence to show that their exercises
had an admirable effect upon their physical constitution. That the
breezy daughters of Sparta were handsomer and more attractive than the
hot-house maidens of Athens, is a well-attested fact. Many Spartan women
continued their athletic and musical exercises into ripe womanhood,
learning even to ride spirited horses and drive chariots. If we may
believe Aristotle, however, the effect of all this training upon their
moral nature was anything but desirable. They were neither virtuous nor
brave.
(_c_) YOUTH. --About the age of eighteen, Spartan boys passed into the
class of _epheboi_, or cadets, and began their professional training for
war. This was their business for the next twelve years, and no light
business it was. For the first two years they were called _melleirenes_,
and devoted themselves to learning the use of arms, and to light
skirmishing. They were under the charge of special officers called
_bideoi_, but had to undergo a rigid examination before the ephors every
ten days (see p. 41). Their endurance was put to severe tests. Speaking
of the altar of Artemis Orthia, Pausanias says: "An oracle commanded the
people to imbrue the altar with human blood, and hence arose the custom
of sacrificing on it a man chosen by lot. Lycurgus did away with this
practice, and ordained that, instead, the cadets should be scourged
before the altar, and thus the altar is covered with blood. While this
is going on, a priestess stands by, holding, in her arms the wooden
image (of Artemis). This image, being small, is, under ordinary
circumstances, light; but, if at any time the scourgers deal too lightly
with any youth, on account of his beauty or his rank, then the image
becomes so heavy that the priestess cannot support it; whereupon she
reproves the scourgers, and declares that she is burdened on their
account. Thus the image that came from the sacrifices in the Crimea has
always continued to enjoy human blood. " This Artemis appears, with a
bundle of twigs in her arm, next to Ares, among the Spartan divinities,
on the frieze of the Parthenon. At twenty years of age, the young men
became _eirenes_, and entered upon a course of study closely resembling
actual warfare. They lived on the coarsest food, slept on reeds, and
rarely bathed or walked. They exercised themselves in heavy arms, in
shooting, riding, swimming, ball-playing, and in conflicts of the most
brutal kind. They took part in complicated and exhausting dances, the
most famous of which was the Pyrrhic, danced under arms. They manned
fortresses, assassinated Helots, and, in cases of need, even took the
field against an enemy.
(_d_) MANHOOD. --At the age of thirty, being supposed to have reached
their majority, they fell into the ranks of full citizens, and took
their share in all political functions. They were compelled to marry,
but were allowed to visit their wives only rarely and by stealth. They
sometimes had two or three children before they had ever seen their
wives by daylight. When not engaged in actual war, they spent much of
their time in watching the exercises of their juniors, and the rest in
hunting wild boars and similar game in the mountains. Like Xenophon,
they thought hunting the nearest approach to war.
Such was the education that Sparta gave her sons.
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.
In historic Greece, music came to be an essential part of the education
of every free man. Even free women learnt it. Along with music went
poetry, and when this came to be written down, it was termed "letters. "
As every free man came to be his own minstrel and his own rhapsode, the
professional minstrel and rhapsode disappeared, and the Homeric poems
even, in order to be preserved from oblivion, were committed to writing
by an enlightened tyrant--Pisistratus.
The first portion of the Greek people that attained a degree of
civilization demanding an education for hours of leisure, was the AEolian
race, and particularly the Asiatic portion of it. Accordingly we find
that all the earliest musicians and poets, didactic and lyric, are
AEolians--Hesiod, Terpander, Arion, Alcaeus, Sappho, Pittacus, etc. Lesbos
seems to have taken the lead in this "higher education. " The last five
names all belong to that island, which produced also the earliest Greek
historian and prose-writer--Hellanicus. But the AEolians, though earliest
in the field, were soon outstripped by the other two races, the Doric
and the Ionic. AEolian education and culture never advanced beyond music
and lyric poetry. It knew no drama, science, or philosophy.
The AEolians were followed, almost simultaneously, by the Dorians and
Ionians, who pursued two widely divergent directions. The former
borrowed the lyric education and culture of the AEolians, and produced
several lyric poets of distinguished merit--Tyrtaeus, Alcman, Ibycus,
Stesichorus: nay, they even advanced far enough to take the first steps
in science, philosophy, and dramatic poetry. Pythagoras, Epicharmus,
Sophron, Xenarchus, and Susarion were all Dorians. But the progress of
the race was retarded and finally checked by rigid political
institutions of a socialistic character, which, by suppressing
individual initiative, reduced the whole to immobility.
The Ionians, on the contrary, borrowing freely from both AEolians and
Dorians, and evolving ever freer and freer institutions, carried
education and culture to a point which has never been passed, and
rarely, if ever, reached, in the history of our race. And when they
ceased to grow, and decay set in, this was due to exactly the opposite
cause to that which stunted them among the Dorians; namely, to excessive
individualism, misnamed liberty. Individualism ruined Athens.
Although education assumed different forms among different portions of
the Greek race, there are certain features that seem to have been common
to all these forms during the epoch of the "Old Education. " Two of these
deserve attention.
_First. _ Education was everywhere a branch of statecraft, and the State
itself was only the highest educational institution. This was equally
true whether the schools were public, as at Sparta, or private, as at
Athens. Everywhere citizenship was a degree, conferred only upon sons of
free citizens, after a satisfactory examination (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ).
_Second. _ The stages or grades of education were everywhere the same,
although their limits were not everywhere marked by the same number of
years. The first, extending usually from birth to the end of the seventh
year, was that of home education; the second, extending from the
beginning of the eighth year to the end of the sixteenth or, perhaps
oftener, the eighteenth year, was that of school education; the third,
extending from the beginning of the seventeenth or nineteenth year to
the end of the twentieth (in Sparta of the thirtieth), was that of
college education, or education for the duties of citizenship; the
fourth, including the remainder of life, was that of university
education, or education through the State, which then was the only
university. At the beginning of the third period, the young men took
their first State examination, and if they passed it successfully, they
received the degree of Cadet or Citizen-novice (? ? ? ? ? ? ); but it was only
at the beginning of the fourth period, and after they had passed a
second examination (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), that they received the degree
of Man and Citizen and were permitted to exercise all the functions of
freemen. The State then became, in a very real sense, their _Alma
Mater_.
In most states, this graded education fell only to the lot of males, the
education of females stopping short with the first grade, the family,
which was regarded as their only sphere. It was otherwise at Sparta,
Teos, and apparently among the AEolians generally. As a consequence it is
only among the AEolians and Dorians that any poetesses of note
appear--Sappho, Corinna, Telesilla, etc. Although, however, woman's
sphere was the family, and she was considered to have done her duty when
she worthily filled the place of wife, mother, and mistress, there was
nothing to prevent her from acquiring the higher education, if she chose
to do so. That she did not often so choose, seems true; still there are
examples of learned women even among the Athenians. The daughter of
Thucydides is said to have continued his history after his death, and,
whether the statement be true or not, the fact that it was made shows
that the ability to write history was not regarded as impossible or
surprising in a woman.
CHAPTER II
AEOLIAN OR THEBAN EDUCATION
Hesiod is the teacher of most. --Heraclitus.
When thou art dead, thou shalt lie in the earth.
Not even the memory of thee shall be
Thenceforward nor forever; for thou hast
No share in the Pierian roses; but
Ev'n in the halls of Hades thou shalt flit,
A frightened shadow, with the shadowy dead.
--Sappho (_to an uneducated woman_).
What rustic hoyden ever charms the soul,
That round her ankles cannot kilt her coats? --_Id. _
The AEolians appear to have been the earliest of the Greek races to make
any considerable advance in culture. Their claim to Homer can hardly be
sustained; but they certainly produced Hesiod, most of the greater lyric
poets and poetesses, and the first historian. For a time they bade fair
to lead the culture of Greece. But the promise was not fulfilled. During
the palmy period of Greek history, they were not only the most
uncultured and uncouth of the Greeks, but they even prided themselves
upon their boorishness of speech and manner, and derided culture. In the
glorious struggle in which Greece maintained the cause of culture and
freedom against Persia, Thebes, then the chief centre of AEolianism,
sided with the barbarian, as, indeed, was natural.
Theban education was, of course, a reflex of the character of the Theban
and, indeed, of the Boeotian, people. Its main divisions were those of
Greek education generally,--Gymnastics and Music; but the former was
learnt solely for athletic purposes, and the latter mainly for use at
banquets and drinking-bouts, in which the Boeotians found their chief
delight. Letters were studied as little as at Sparta (see p. 47), and
the language of the people remained harsh and unmusical. Of higher
education there was hardly a trace. The sophists passed Boeotia by. Even
Pindar, who was by birth a Theban, and a sincerely patriotic one, sought
and found recognition anywhere rather than among his own people. He did
not even write in their dialect.
The reason for this backwardness on the part of the Boeotian AEolians lay
in the fact that they lived, as a conquering race, in the midst of a
people superior to them in every respect save strength, and could
maintain their ascendency only by brute force. When this failed, and the
conquered race, which had never forgotten Cadmus and its ancient
traditions, came to the front, education and culture found their way
even to Thebes. It was due to this change in political conditions that a
Pindar could arise, and it was doubtless the demand for culture
consequent thereupon that induced certain members of the scattered
Pythagorean school (see p. 54) to seek refuge in Thebes and there devote
themselves to teaching. Among these were Philolaus[1] and Lysis, the
latter of whom was probably the author of the famous "Golden Words"
(see p. 57). But he has a better claim to fame than this; for he was the
teacher of the bravest and most lovable man that Greece ever
produced--Epaminondas.
If any enthusiastic believer in the power of education desire to fortify
his cause by means of a brilliant example, he will find none superior to
Epaminondas; for there can hardly be any question that it was the
earnest, systematic, religious, and moral Pythagorean training which he
received from the aged Lysis, whom he treated as a father, that made him
what he was, and enabled him to do what he did,--which was nothing less
than to place Thebes at the head of Greece. Thebes rose and fell with
Epaminondas. But that was not all. It was the example of Epaminondas
that kindled the ambition of Philip of Macedon, who was educated under
his eye, and of his far more famous son, Alexander, who made all Greece
a province of his empire. Pythagoras, Lysis, Epaminondas, Philip,
Alexander--in five brief generations an earnest teacher conquers a
world!
From the time of Epaminondas on, Thebes followed the ordinary course of
Greek education.
CHAPTER III
DORIAN OR SPARTAN EDUCATION
Go, tell at Sparta, thou that passest by,
That here, obedient to her laws, we lie.
--Simonides (_Epitaph on the Three Hundred who fell at Thermopylae_).
This is a matter for which the Lacedaemonians deserve approbation:
they are extremely solicitous about the education of their youth and
make it a public function. --Aristotle.
The Lacedaemonians impart to their children the look of wild beasts,
through the severity of the exercises to which they subject them,
their notion being that such training is especially calculated to
heighten courage. --_Id. _
These are so far behind in education and philosophy that they do not
learn even letters. --Isocrates.
OLD MEN. We _were_ once strong men (youths).
MEN. And we _are_; if you will, behold.
BOYS. And we _shall be_ far superior. --_Spartan Choric Anthem. _
They asked no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high:
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!
So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,
Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne! --Hemans.
There was a law that the cadets should present themselves naked in
public before the ephors every ten days; and, if they were well knit
and strong, and looked as if they had been carved and hammered into
shape by gymnastics, they were praised; but if their limbs showed
any flabbiness or softness, any little swelling or suspicion of
adipose matter due to laziness, they were flogged and justiced there
and then. The ephors, moreover, subjected their clothing every day
to a strict examination, to see that everything was up to the mark.
No cooks were permitted in Lacedaemon but flesh-cooks. A cook who
knew anything else was driven out of Sparta, as physic for
invalids. --AElian.
Every rational system of education is determined by some aim or ideal
more or less consciously set up. That of the Dorians, and particularly
of the Spartans, may be expressed in one word--STRENGTH, which, in the
individual, took the form of physical endurance, in the State, that of
self-sufficiency (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). A self-sufficient State, furnishing a
field for all the activities and aspirations of all its citizens, and
demanding their strongest and most devoted exertions--such is the Dorian
ideal. It is easy to see what virtues Dorian education would seek to
develop--physical strength, bravery, and obedience to the laws of the
State. Among the Dorians the human being is entirely absorbed in the
citizen. The State is all in all.
The Dorian ideal realized itself chiefly in two places, Crete and
Sparta. Both these were repeatedly held up in ancient times as models of
well-governed states, and even Plato puts the substance of his _Laws_
into the mouth of a Cretan.
About the details of Cretan education we are but poorly informed. Two
things, however, we know: (1) that Lycurgus, the reputed founder of
Spartan education, was held to have drawn many of his ideas from Crete,
and (2) that the final result of Cretan education--and the same is true
of all education that merges the man in the citizen--was, in spite of
its strictness, demoralizing. The character of the people was summed up
by their poet Epimenides, a contemporary of Solon's, in a famous line
quoted by St. Paul, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy
bellies. "
With regard to Spartan education our information is much greater, and we
may therefore select it as the type of Dorian education generally.
The Peloponnesian Dorians having, through contact with the more
civilized peoples whom they conquered, lost much of that rigorous
discipline and unquestioning loyalty which made them formidable, were,
in the ninth century B. C. , becoming disorganized, so that in two of the
Dorian states they were assimilated by the native population, the
Argives and the Messenians. The same process was rapidly going on in the
third state, Lacedaemon, when Lycurgus, fired with patriotic zeal,
resolved to put an end to it, by restoring among his people the old
Dorian military discipline. To prepare himself for this task, he visited
Crete and studied its institutions. On his return he persuaded his
countrymen to submit to a "Constitution," which ever afterwards went by
his name. This constitution included a scheme of education, whose aim
was a thorough training of the whole of the free citizens, both male and
female, (1) in physical endurance, and (2) in complete subordination to
the State. The former was sought to be imparted by means of a rigorous
and often cruel, system of gymnastics; the latter, through choric music
and dancing, including military drill. Spartan education, therefore, was
confined to two branches, Gymnastics and Music. Instruction in letters
was confined to the merest elements. Sparta accordingly never produced a
poet, an historian, an artist, or a philosopher of any note. Even the
arrangers of her choruses were foreigners--Tyrtaeus, Terpander, Arion,
Alcman, Thaletas, Stesichorus.
As Spartan education was nothing more or less than a training for
Spartan citizenship, we must preface our account of it by a few words on
the Spartan State.
The government of Sparta was in the hands of a closed aristocracy, whose
sole aim was the maintenance of its own supremacy, as against (1)
foreign enemies, (2) _Perioikoi_, or disfranchised native citizens, (3)
Helots, or native serfs. To secure this, it formed itself into a
standing army, with a strict military organization. Sparta, its one
abode, was a camp; all free inhabitants were soldiers. Though they were
compelled to marry, the city contained no homes. The men and, from the
close of their seventh year, the boys, lived in barracks and ate at
public tables (_Phiditia_). The women had but one recognized function,
that of furnishing the State with citizens, and were educated solely
with a view to this. No other virtue was expected of them. Aristotle
tells us that "they lived in every kind of profligacy and in luxury. "
Polyandry was common, and, when a woman lost all her husbands, she was
often compelled to enter into relations with slaves, in order that she
might not fail in her political duty.
Among a people organized on the basis of brute force, it were vain to
look for any of the finer traits of human nature--gentleness,
tenderness, sympathy, pity, mercy. The mercilessness and cruelty of the
Spartans were proverbial. Perioikoi and Helots incurring the displeasure
or suspicion of the authorities were secretly put to death, without even
the form of a trial. A striking instance of such cruelty is recorded by
Thucydides. The facts are thus stated by Grote (_History of Greece_,
vol. ii, pp. 376-7): "It was in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian
War, after the Helots had been called upon for signal military efforts
in various ways, . . . that the ephors felt especially apprehensive of an
outbreak. Anxious to single out the most forward and daring Helots, as
men from whom they had most to dread, they issued proclamation that
every member of that class who had rendered distinguished services
should make his claim known at Sparta, promising liberty to the most
deserving. A large number of Helots came forward to claim the boon: not
less than two thousand of them were approved, formally manumitted, and
led in solemn procession round the temples, with garlands on their
heads, as an inauguration to their coming life of freedom. But the
treacherous garland only marked them out as victims for sacrifice: every
man of them forthwith disappeared; the manner of their death was an
untold mystery. "
Spartan education was entirely conducted by the State, at the expense of
the State, and for the ends of the State. It differed in this respect
from nearly every other system of Greek education. It was divided into
four periods, corresponding respectively to childhood, boyhood, youth,
and manhood.
(_a_) CHILDHOOD. --As soon as the Spartan child came into the world, the
State, through officers appointed for that purpose, sent to examine it.
If it seemed vigorous, and showed no bodily defect, it was permitted to
live, and forthwith adopted by the State; otherwise it was carried to
the mountains and thrown over a precipice. The children accepted by the
State were for the next seven years left in charge of their mothers,
but, doubtless, still under State surveillance. Just how they were
trained during these years, we do not know. We can only guess that they
underwent very much the same process as other Greek children, any
difference being in the direction of rigor. As the details of Greek
education generally will be dealt with under the head of Athens, they
may be omitted here.
(_b_) BOYHOOD. --On completing his seventh year, the Spartan boy was
transferred from his mother's house and care to a public barracks and
the direct tuition of the State. Although the boys were in charge of a
special officer (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), who divided them into squads and
companies, and arranged their exercises for them, they were nevertheless
taught to regard every grown man as a teacher, and every such man was
expected to correct them promptly and rigorously, whenever he saw them
doing wrong. At the same time, every boy was expected to form an
intimate connection with some one man, who then, to a large extent,
became responsible for his conduct; and, though the choice in this
matter rested with the parties concerned, it was considered a disgrace
in a man, no less than in a boy, to be without such connection. Though
this arrangement, it is said, often led to lamentable abuses, there can
be no doubt that it admirably served the purposes of Sparta. It
furnished every boy with a tutor, who, under the circumstances, could
hardly fail to treat him kindly, and who was interested in making him
surpass all other boys in courage and endurance. This friendly influence
of teacher on pupil was something in which the Greeks at all times
strongly believed, and which formed an important force in all their
education. In Sparta, as in Crete and Thebes, it was legally recognized.
One of the duties of Spartan "inspirer" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? or ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), as he
was called, was to teach his young friend (? ? ? ? ? ) to demean himself
properly on all occasions, and to hold his tongue except when he had
something very important to say. In this way it was that the young
Spartans received their moral education, and acquired that effective
brevity of speech which to this day we call "laconic. "
The formal education of Spartan boys consisted mainly of gymnastics,
music, choric dancing, and larceny. Their literary education was
confined to a little reading, writing, and finger-arithmetic; everything
beyond this was proscribed. And the reasons for this proscription are
not difficult to discover. Sparta staked everything upon her political
strength, and this involved two things, (1) equality among her free
citizens, and (2) absolute devotion on their part to her interest, both
of which the higher education would have rendered impossible. Education
establishes among men distinctions of worth quite other than military,
and gives them individual interests distinct from those of the State. It
was the same reason that induced Rome, during the best period of her
history, to exclude her citizens from all higher education, which is
essentially individual and cosmopolitan.
The education of the Spartan boys was conducted mostly in the open air
and in public, so that they were continually exposed to the cheers or
scoffs of critical spectators, to whom their performances were a
continual amusement of the nature of a cock-fight. Whether the different
"inspirers" betted on their own boys may be doubtful; but they certainly
used every effort to make them win in any and every contest, and the
"inspirer" of a "winning" boy was an envied man. The result was that
many boys lost their lives amid cheers, rather than incur the disgrace
of being beaten. Inasmuch as the sole purpose of gymnastics was strength
and endurance; of dancing, order; and of music, martial inspiration, it
is easy to see what forms these studies necessarily assumed; and we need
only stop to remark that Dorian music received the unqualified
approbation of all the great educational writers of antiquity,--even of
Aristotle, who had only words of condemnation for Spartan gymnastics.
There was only one branch of Spartan school-education that was not
conducted in public, and that was larceny. The purpose of this curious
discipline was to enable its subjects to act, on occasion, as detectives
and assassins among the ever discontented and rebellious Helots. How
successful it was, may be judged from the incident recorded on page 45.
Larceny, when successfully carried out under difficult circumstances,
was applauded; when discovered, it was severely punished. A story is
told of a boy who, rather than betray himself, allowed a stolen fox,
concealed under his clothes, to eat out his entrails.
In one respect Spartan education may claim superiority over that of most
other Greek states: it was not confined to one sex. Spartan girls,
though apparently permitted to live at home, were subjected to a course
of training differing from that of their brothers only in being less
severe. They had their own exercise-grounds, on which they learnt to
leap, run, cast the javelin, throw the discus, play ball, wrestle,
dance, and sing; and there is good evidence to show that their exercises
had an admirable effect upon their physical constitution. That the
breezy daughters of Sparta were handsomer and more attractive than the
hot-house maidens of Athens, is a well-attested fact. Many Spartan women
continued their athletic and musical exercises into ripe womanhood,
learning even to ride spirited horses and drive chariots. If we may
believe Aristotle, however, the effect of all this training upon their
moral nature was anything but desirable. They were neither virtuous nor
brave.
(_c_) YOUTH. --About the age of eighteen, Spartan boys passed into the
class of _epheboi_, or cadets, and began their professional training for
war. This was their business for the next twelve years, and no light
business it was. For the first two years they were called _melleirenes_,
and devoted themselves to learning the use of arms, and to light
skirmishing. They were under the charge of special officers called
_bideoi_, but had to undergo a rigid examination before the ephors every
ten days (see p. 41). Their endurance was put to severe tests. Speaking
of the altar of Artemis Orthia, Pausanias says: "An oracle commanded the
people to imbrue the altar with human blood, and hence arose the custom
of sacrificing on it a man chosen by lot. Lycurgus did away with this
practice, and ordained that, instead, the cadets should be scourged
before the altar, and thus the altar is covered with blood. While this
is going on, a priestess stands by, holding, in her arms the wooden
image (of Artemis). This image, being small, is, under ordinary
circumstances, light; but, if at any time the scourgers deal too lightly
with any youth, on account of his beauty or his rank, then the image
becomes so heavy that the priestess cannot support it; whereupon she
reproves the scourgers, and declares that she is burdened on their
account. Thus the image that came from the sacrifices in the Crimea has
always continued to enjoy human blood. " This Artemis appears, with a
bundle of twigs in her arm, next to Ares, among the Spartan divinities,
on the frieze of the Parthenon. At twenty years of age, the young men
became _eirenes_, and entered upon a course of study closely resembling
actual warfare. They lived on the coarsest food, slept on reeds, and
rarely bathed or walked. They exercised themselves in heavy arms, in
shooting, riding, swimming, ball-playing, and in conflicts of the most
brutal kind. They took part in complicated and exhausting dances, the
most famous of which was the Pyrrhic, danced under arms. They manned
fortresses, assassinated Helots, and, in cases of need, even took the
field against an enemy.
(_d_) MANHOOD. --At the age of thirty, being supposed to have reached
their majority, they fell into the ranks of full citizens, and took
their share in all political functions. They were compelled to marry,
but were allowed to visit their wives only rarely and by stealth. They
sometimes had two or three children before they had ever seen their
wives by daylight. When not engaged in actual war, they spent much of
their time in watching the exercises of their juniors, and the rest in
hunting wild boars and similar game in the mountains. Like Xenophon,
they thought hunting the nearest approach to war.
Such was the education that Sparta gave her sons.
