No More Learning

If systems of education are to be classified according to their
results--and these are perhaps the fairest test--then the "Old
Education" of Athens must be assigned a very high place. The character
which she displayed, and the exploits which she performed, in the early
decades of the fifth century B. C. , bear unequivocal testimony to the
value of the training to which her citizens had previously been
subjected. This training could perhaps hardly be better characterized
than by the word "puritanical. " The men who fought at Marathon, Salamis,
and Plataeae were puritans, trained, in a hard school, to fear the gods,
to respect the laws, their neighbors, and themselves, to reverence the
wisdom of experience, to despise comfort and vice, and to do honest
work. They were not enfeebled by aesthetic culture, paralyzed by abstract
thinking, or hardened by professional training. They were educated to be
men, friends, and citizens, not to be mere thinkers, critics, soldiers,
or money-makers. It was against a small band of such men that the hosts
of Persia fought in vain.

It is natural that this "Old Education" of Athens should have a special
interest for us, inasmuch as it seems, in great measure, to have solved
the problem that must be uppermost with every true educator and friend
of education, viz. How can strong, wise, and good men be produced? For
this reason, as also because we are the better informed regarding the
educational system of Athens than that of any other Greek state, it
seems proper to devote special attention to it, treating it as
preeminently Greek education. Indeed, whatever is permanently valuable
in Greek education is to be found in that of Athens, other systems
having mainly but an historical interest for us.

In comparing the education of Athens with that of Sparta, we are at once
struck with two great distinctions: (1) While Spartan education is
public, Athenian education is mainly private; (2) While Sparta educates
for war, Athens educates for peace. As to the former of these, it is not
a little remarkable that, while many of the first thinkers of Greece,
including Plato and Aristotle, advocated an entirely public education,
Athens never adopted it, or even took any steps in that direction. It
seems as if the Athenians felt instinctively that socialistic education,
by relieving parents of the responsibility of providing for the
education of their own children, was removing a strong moral influence,
undermining the family, and jeopardizing liberty. Perhaps the example of
Sparta was not without its influence. No liberty-loving people, such as
the Athenians were, would consent to merge the family in the State, or
to sacrifice private life to public order. As to the second distinction,
which was all-pervasive, it divides the two peoples by an impassable
gulf and assigns them to two different grades of civilization. And it
was one of which both peoples were entirely conscious. While Sparta
represented her ideal by a chained Ares, Athens found hers in a Wingless
Victory, a form of Athena, the divinity of political and industrial
wisdom. As the aim of Sparta was strength, so that of Athens was
WISDOM--the wise man in the wise state. By the "wise man," was meant he
whose entire faculties of body, soul, and mind were proportionately and
coordinately developed; by the "wise state," that in which each class of
the population performed its proper function, and occupied its proper
relation toward the rest, and this without any excessive exercise of
authority. If the Spartan, like the artificially tamed barbarian,
submitted to living by rule and command, the Athenian, like the
naturally civilized man, delighted to live in a free and natural way
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) governed from within, and not from without. To
make possible such life was the aim of Athenian education, which,
instead of seeking to merge the man in the State, or to rend the two
asunder, treated them as necessary correlates and strove to balance
their claims.

The endeavor on the part of Athens to steer a middle course between
socialism and individualism, is manifest in the fact that, though she
had no public system of education, she took great care to see that her
citizens were thoroughly educated in the spirit of her institutions,
and, indeed, made such education a condition of citizenship, which was
thus an academic degree, conferred only after careful examination. By a
law of Solon's, parents who had failed to give their sons a proper
education lost all claim upon them for support in their old age.
Furthermore, Athens subjected all her male citizens to a systematic
preparation for civil and military functions, before she allowed them to
exercise these.

Athenian education comprised four grades corresponding to four
institutions, (1) the family, (2) the school, (3) the gymnasium or
college, (4) the State. We may consider these in their order.


(1) FAMILY EDUCATION.

The birth of a child was regarded by the Athenians as a joyful event, as
something calling for gratitude to the gods. This expressed itself in a
family festival, called the Amphidromia, celebrated usually on the
seventh day after the birth. On this occasion, the child was carried
rapidly round the family altar and received its name. A sacrifice was
then offered to the gods, the mother was purified, and christening
presents were displayed. The child was now a member of the family and
under the protection of its gods. For the next seven years, it was
wholly in the hands of parents and nurses, the latter being usually
slaves. During this time its body was the chief object of care, and
everything seems to have been done to render it healthy and hardy.
Cradles do not seem to have been in use, and the child was sung to sleep
on the nurse's knee. While it was being weaned, it was fed on milk and
soft food sweetened with honey. As soon as it was able to move about and
direct attention to external objects, it received playthings, such as
rattles, dolls of clay or wax, hobby-horses, etc. , and was allowed to
roll and dig in the sand. Such were the simple gymnastics of this early
period. As to the other branch of education, it consisted mostly in
being sung to and in listening to stories about gods and heroes,
monsters and robbers, of which Greek mythology was full. By means of
these the child's imagination was roused and developed, and certain
aesthetic, ethical, and national prepossessions awakened. Though children
were often frightened from certain acts and habits by threats of bogles
coming to carry them off, yet the chief ethical agency employed was
evidently strict discipline. To secure good behavior in his children was
the first care of the Athenian parent. Though disinclined to harshness,
he never doubted that "he who spareth the rod hateth the child. "
Children were never placed upon exhibition or applauded for their
precocious or irreverent sayings. They were kept as much as possible out
of the way of older people, and, when necessity brought them into the
presence of these, they were taught to behave themselves quietly and
modestly. No Greek author has preserved for us a collection of the smart
sayings or roguish doings of Athenian children.

Though the Kindergarten did not exist in those old days, yet its place
was, in great measure, filled by the numerous games in which the
children engaged, in part at least under their nurses' superintendence.
Games played so important a part in the whole life of the Greek people,
and especially of the Athenians, that their importance in the education
of children was fully recognized and much attention devoted to them.
During play, character both displays itself more fully, and is more
easily and deeply affected, than at any other time; and, since the whole
of the waking life of the child in its earliest years is devoted to
play, this is the time when character is formed, and therefore the time
which calls for most sedulous care. In playing games, children not only
exercise their bodies and their wits; they also learn to act with
fairness, and come to feel something of the joy that arises from
companionship and friendly rivalry in a common occupation. Moreover, as
games have no end beyond themselves, they are admirable exercises in
free, disinterested activity and a protection against selfish and sordid
habits. Of all this the Athenians were fully aware.

There are probably few games played by children in our day that were not
known in ancient Athens. It seems, however, that games were there
conducted with more system, and a deeper sense of their pedagogical
value, than they are with us. We hear of running, leaping, hopping,
catching, hitting, and throwing games, gymnastic games, and games of
chance. The ball, the top, the hoop, the swing, the see-saw, the
skipping rope, the knuckle-bones were as much in use in ancient, as in
modern, times. Cards, of course, there were not; and, indeed, games of
chance, though well known, seem rarely to have been indulged in by
children. It hardly seems necessary to remark that there were some games
peculiar to boys and others to girls, and that the latter were less rude
than the former. Doubtless, too, the games played in the city, where the
children would have few chances of going beyond their homes, were
different from those played in the country, where almost complete
freedom to roam in the open air was enjoyed. We must always bear in mind
that well-to-do Athenian families spent the greater part of the year at
their country-houses, which, with few exceptions, were so near the city
that they could be reached even on foot in a single day. This country
life had a marked effect upon the education of Athenian children.


(2) SCHOOL EDUCATION.

About the age of seven, the Athenian boy, after being entered on the
roll of prospective citizens in the temple of Apollo Patroos, and made a
member of a phratria, went to school, or, rather, he went to two
schools, that of the music-master, and that of the physical trainer. He
was always accompanied thither and back by a _pedagogue_, who was
usually a slave, who carried his writing-materials, his lyre, etc.
(there being no school-books to carry), and whom he was expected
implicitly to obey. The boys of each quarter of the city collected every
morning at some appointed place and walked to school, like little
soldiers, in rank and file. They wore next to no clothing, even in the
coldest weather, and were obliged to conduct themselves very demurely in
the streets. The school hours were very long, beginning early in the
morning and continuing till late in the evening. Solon found it
necessary to introduce a law forbidding schoolmasters to have their
schools open before sunrise or after sunset. It thus appears that boys,
after the age of seven, spent their whole day at school, and were thus
early withdrawn from the influence of their mothers and sisters, a fact
which was not without its bearing upon morals.

There are several interesting points in connection with Athenian school
life about which our information is so scanty that we are left in some
doubt respecting them. For example, though it is quite plain that Athens
had no system of public instruction, it is not so clear that she did not
own the school buildings. Again, it is not certain whether music
(including letters) and gymnastics were, or were not, taught in the same
locality. Thirdly, there is some doubt about the number and order of the
hours devoted to each of the two branches of study. In regard to these
points I can state only what seems to me most probable.

As to school buildings, we are expressly told by the author of the
fragmentary tract on _The Athenian State_, currently attributed to
Xenophon, but probably written as early as B. C. 424, that "the people
(? ? ? ? ? ) builds itself many palaestras, dressing-rooms, baths, and the
masses have more enjoyment of these than the few that are well-to-do. "
If we assume that some of these palaestras were for boys, as we
apparently have a right to do, we must conclude that some, at least, if
not all, of the schools for bodily training were public edifices, let
out by the State to teachers. Like all the great gymnasia, some, and
possibly all, of them were situated outside the city walls and had
gardens attached to them. Whether the music-schools were so likewise, is
doubtful, and this brings us to our second question--whether the two
branches of education were taught in the same place. That they were not
taught in the same room, or by the same person, is clear enough; but it
does not follow from this that they were not taught in the same
building, or at any rate in the same enclosed space. Though there seems
to be no explicit statement in any ancient author on this point, I think
there are sufficient reasons for concluding that, generally at least,
they were so taught. If we find that Antisthenes, Plato, and Aristotle,
who may be said to have introduced a systematic "higher education" into
Athens, opened their schools in the great public gymnasia, frequented by
youths and men, we may surely conclude that the lower mental education
was not separated from the physical. In the _Lysis_ of Plato, we find
some young men coming out of a palaestra outside the city walls, and
inviting Socrates to enter, telling him that their occupation (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? )
consists _mostly_ in discussions (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), and that their
teacher is a certain Miccus, an admirer of his. Socrates recognizes the
man as a capable "sophist," a term never used of physical trainers. On
entering, Socrates finds a number of boys and youths (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) playing
together, the former having just finished a sacrifice. It seems to
follow directly from this that intellectual education was imparted in
the palaestras. If this be true, we may, I think, conclude that in Athens
the schools generally were outside the city walls, though the case was
certainly different in some other cities.

In regard to our third question, it is clear that, if boys spent their
whole day in one place, it would be more easy to divide it profitably
between musical instruction and gymnastics than if they spent one part
of it in one place, and another in another. Just how it was divided, we
do not know, and I have little doubt that much depended upon the notions
of parents and the tendencies of different periods. It is quite clear,
from certain complaints of Aristotle's, that in Athens parents enjoyed
great liberty in this matter. In any case, since, as we know, the
institutions of education were open all day, it seems more than probable
that one class of boys took their gymnastic lesson at one hour, another
at another, and so with other branches of study. It cannot be that the
physical training-schools were deserted when the music-schools were in
session. I think there is sufficient reason for believing that,
generally, the younger boys took their physical exercises in the
morning, and their intellectual instruction in the afternoon, the order
being reversed in the case of the older boys. How much of the time spent
at school was given up to lessons and how much to play, is not at all
clear; but I am inclined to think that the playtime was at least as long
as the worktime. The schools were for boys what the agora and the
gymnasium were for grown men--the place where their lives were spent.

Before we consider separately the two divisions of Athenian education, a
few facts common to them may be mentioned. In the first place, they had
a common end, which was, to produce men independent but respectful,
freedom-loving but law-abiding, healthy in mind and body, clear in
thought, ready in action, and devoted to their families, their
fatherland, and their gods. Contrary to the practice of the Romans, the
Athenians sought to prepare their sons for independent citizenship at as
early an age as possible. In the second place, the motives employed in
both divisions were the same, viz. fear of punishment and hope of
reward. As we have seen, the Athenian boy, if he behaved badly, was not
spared the rod. As an offset against this, when he did well, he received
unstinted praise, not to speak of more substantial things. Education,
like everything else in Greece, took the form of competition. The
Homeric line (_Il. _, vi, 208; xi, 784),

"See that thou ever be best, and above all others distinguished,"

was the motto of the Athenian in everything. In the third place, in both
divisions the chief aim was the realization of capacity, not the
furthering of acquisition. Mere learning and execution were almost
universally despised in the old time, while intelligence and capacity
were universally admired. In the fourth place, in both divisions the
utmost care was directed to the conduct of the pupils, so that it might
be gentle, dignified, and rational. In the fifth place, education in
both its branches was intended to enable men to occupy worthily and
sociably their leisure time, quite as much as to prepare them for what
might be called their practical duties in family, society, and State.
The fine arts, according to the Greeks, furnished the proper amusements
for educated men (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ).


(? ) _Musical (and Literary) Instruction_.

Though the Greek word _music_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) came in later times to have an
extended meaning, in the epoch of which we are treating, it included
only music in our sense, and poetry, two things which were not then
separated. Aristophanes, as late as B. C. 422, can still count upon an
audience ready to laugh at the idea of giving instruction in astronomy
and geometry, as things too remote from human interests (_Clouds_, vv
220 sqq. ).
The poetry consisted chiefly of the epics of Homer and
Hesiod, the elegiacs of Tyrtaeus, Solon, Theognis, etc. , the iambics of
Archilochus, Simonides, etc. , and the songs of the numerous lyrists,
Terpander, Arion, Alcaeus, Alcman, Sappho, Simonides, etc. The music was
simple, meant to "sweeten" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) the words and bring out their
meaning. In fact, the music and the poetry were always composed
together, so that the poet was necessarily also a musician. What we call
"harmony" was unknown in Greek music at all times, and instrumental
music was almost entirely confined to solo-playing.

In treating of Athenian, and, indeed, of all Greek, education, it is of
the utmost importance to realize that the intellectual and moral part of
it has music and poetry for its starting-point. This is the core round
which everything else gathers; this is what determines its character,
influence, and ideal. Culture, as distinguished from nature, is the
material of Athenian intellectual and moral education; and by this is
meant, not the history or theory of culture, as it might be set forth in
prose, but culture itself, as embodied in the ideals and forms of
music-wedded poetry, appealing to the emotions that stir the will, as
well as to the intelligence that guides it.

By making the works of the great poets of the Greek people the material
of their education, the Athenians attained a variety of objects
difficult of attainment by any other one means. The fact is, the ancient
poetry of Greece, with its finished form, its heroic tales and
characters, its accounts of peoples far removed in time and space, its
manliness and pathos, its directness and simplicity, its piety and
wisdom, its respect for law and order, combined with its admiration for
personal initiative and worth, furnished, in the hands of a careful and
genial teacher, a material for a complete education such as could not
well be matched even in our own day. What instruction in ethics,
politics, social life, and manly bearing could not find a fitting
vehicle in the Homeric poems, not to speak of the geography, the
grammar, the literary criticism, and the history which the comprehension
of them involved? Into what a wholesome, unsentimental, free world did
these poems introduce the imaginative Greek boy! What splendid ideals of
manhood and womanhood did they hold up for his admiration and imitation!
From Hesiod he would learn all that he needed to know about his gods and
their relation to him and his people. From the elegiac poets he would
derive a fund of political and social wisdom, and an impetus to
patriotism, which would go far to make him a good man and a good
citizen. From the iambic poets he would learn to express with energy his
indignation at meanness, feebleness, wrong, and tyranny, while from the
lyric poets he would learn the language suitable to every genial feeling
and impulse of the human heart. And in reciting or singing all these,
how would his power of terse, idiomatic expression, his sense of poetic
beauty and his ear for rhythm and music be developed! With what a
treasure of examples of every virtue and vice, and with what a fund of
epigrammatic expression would his memory be furnished! How familiar he
would be with the character and ideals of his nation, how deeply in
sympathy with them! And all this was possible even before the
introduction of letters. With this event a new era in education begins.
The boy now not only learns and declaims his Homer, and sings his
Simonides or Sappho, he learns also to write down their verses from
dictation, and so at once to read and to write. This, indeed, was the
way in which these two (to us) fundamental arts were acquired. As soon
as the boy could trace with his finger in sand, or scratch with a stylus
on wax, the forms of the letters, and combine them into syllables and
words, he began to write poetry from his master's dictation. The
writing-lesson of to-day was the reading, recitation, or singing-lesson
of to-morrow. Every boy made his own reading-book, and, if he found it
illegible, and stumbled in reading, he had only himself to blame. The
Greeks, and especially the Athenians, laid the greatest stress upon
reading well, reciting well, and singing well, and the youth who could
not do all the three was looked upon as uncultured. Nor could he hide
his want of culture, since young men were continually called upon, both
at home and at more or less public gatherings, to perform their part in
the social entertainment.

The strictly musical instruction of this period was almost entirely
confined to simple, strong Doric airs, sung to an accompaniment which
was played on an instrument closely resembling the modern guitar (? ? ? ? ,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). Complicated and wind instruments were unpopular, and the
softer or more thrilling kinds of music, Lydian, Phrygian, etc. , had not
yet been introduced, at least into schools. Anything like the skill and
execution demanded of professional players, who were usually slaves or
foreigners, was considered altogether unworthy of a free man and a
citizen, and was therefore not aimed at. Fond as the Athenians were of
the fine arts, they always held professional skill in any of them,
except poetry and musical composition, to be incompatible with that
dignity and virtue which they demanded of the free citizen. A
respectable Athenian would no more have allowed his son to be a
professional musician than he would have allowed him to be a
professional acrobat.

It is difficult for us to understand the way in which the Greeks
regarded music. Inferior as their music was to ours in all technical
ways, it exerted an influence upon their lives of which we can form but
a faint conception. To them it was a daemonic power, capable of rousing
or assuaging the passions, and hence of being used for infinite good or
evil. No wonder, then, that in their education they sought to employ
those kinds which tended to "purgation" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), and to avoid those
that were exciting, sentimental, or effeminate! No wonder that they
disapproved of divorcing music from the intellectual element contained
in the words, and allowing it to degenerate into a mere emotional or
sensual luxury! Music the Greeks regarded, not indeed as a moral force
(a phrase that to them, who regarded morality as a matter of the will,
would have conveyed no meaning), but as a force whose office it was, by
purging and harmonizing the human being, to make him a fit subject for
moral instruction. Music, they held, brought harmony, first into the
human being himself, by putting an end to the conflict between his
passions and his intelligent will, and then, as a consequence, into his
relations with his fellows. Harmony within was held to be the condition
of harmony without.

In the period of which I am speaking, no distinction was yet made
between music and literature (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), both being taught by the
_citharist_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). Indeed, the term for teacher of literature
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) was not then invented. But the citharist not only taught
literature: he also taught the elements of arithmetic, a matter of no
small difficulty, considering the clumsy notation then in use. This was
done by means of pebbles, a box of sand, or an abacus similar in
principle to that now used by billiard players to keep count of their
strokes.

As to the schoolrooms in ancient Athens, they were apparently simple in
the extreme; indeed, rather porches open to sun and wind than rooms in
the modern sense. They contained little or no furniture. The boys sat
upon the ground or upon low benches, like steps (? ? ? ? ? ), while the
teacher occupied a high chair (? ? ? ? ? ? ). The benches were washed,
apparently every day, with sponges. The only decorations permitted in
the schoolrooms, it seems, were statues or statuettes of the Muses and
Apollo, and the school festivals or exhibitions were regarded as
festivals in honor of these. Indeed, in Greece every sort of festival
was regarded as an act of worship to some divinity. The chief school
festival seems to have been the _Mus? a_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), at which the boys
recited and sang.


(? ) _Gymnastics or Bodily Training_.

Under the term _Gymnastics_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), the Greeks generally included
everything relating to the culture of the body. The ends which the
Athenians sought to reach through this branch of education were health,
strength, adroitness, ease, self-possession, and firm, dignified
bearing. A certain number of boys, intending to take part in the Olympic
and other great games, were allowed to train as athletes under a gymnast
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) in the public gymnasia, and under the direction of
the State; but these were exceptions. The athlete was not an ideal
person at Athens, as he was at Thebes and Sparta.

Gymnastic exercises were conducted partly in the palaestras, or wrestling
schools, partly on the race-courses, both of which were under the
direction of professional trainers (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ). In early times, the
palaestra and race-course were simply an open space covered with sand and
probably connected with the school (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), thus corresponding to
our playground. Later, this space was partly covered over and furnished
with dressing-rooms, a bath, seats for spectators, an altar for
sacrifices, statues, etc. Of the five gymnastic exercises in which boys
were trained, all except wrestling seem to have been conducted on the
race-course, so that the palaestra was reserved for what its name
implied. It is by no means certain that every palaestra had a race-course
connected with it, at least in the time of which we are speaking, and
possibly in many cases the boys took part of their exercises in the
public race-course running from the agora to beyond the walls. Just as
the schoolroom was decorated with images of Apollo and the Muses, so the
palaestra was decorated with images of Hermes, Heracles, and Eros,
symbolizing, respectively, adroitness, human strength, and youthful
friendship. The special patron of the palaestra was Hermes, and the
gymnastic exhibition took the form of a festival to him, the Hermaea, at
which a sacrifice was offered and the boys were allowed the use of the
building to play games in, the victors wearing crowns.

It would be impossible, in a work of this compass, to enter into a
minute description of all the exercises of the Athenian palaestra. We
must be content with a general statement, which may be prefaced with the
remark that these exercises were at first light, increasing gradually in
rigor and difficulty as the strength and skill of the growing child
permitted.

The chief gymnastic exercises were five, named in this order in a famous
line of Simonides: (1) leaping, (2) running, (3) discus-throwing, (4)
javelin-casting, (5) wrestling (? ? ? ? ), which last gave the name to the
palaestra. We shall not strictly follow this order, but begin with

(1) _Running. _--This was the simplest, lightest, most natural, and,
therefore, the most easily taught of exercises.