It
differed
in this respect
from nearly every other system of Greek education.
from nearly every other system of Greek education.
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals by Thomas Davidson
--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. That it produced
strong warriors and patriotic citizens, there can be no doubt. But that
is all: it produced no men. It was greatly admired by men like Xenophon
and Plato, who were sick of Athenian democracy; but Aristotle estimated
it at its true worth. He says: "As long as the Laconians were the only
people who devoted themselves to violent exercises, they were superior
to all others; but now they are inferior even in gymnastic contests and
in war. Their former superiority, indeed, was not due to their training
their young men in this way, but to the fact that they alone did so. "
And even Xenophon, at the end of a long panegyric on the Spartan
constitution, is obliged to admit that already in his time it has fallen
from its old worth into feebleness and corruption, and this in spite of
the fact that he had his own sons educated at Sparta. When Sparta fell
before the heroic and cultured Epaminondas, she fell unpitied, leaving
to the world little or nothing but a warning example.
CHAPTER IV
PYTHAGORAS
Virtue and health and all good and God are a harmony. --Pythagoras.
One is the principle of all. --Philolaus the Pythagorean.
All things that are known have number. --_Id. _
The principles of all virtue are three, knowledge, power, and
choice. Knowledge is like sight, whereby we contemplate and judge
things; power is like bodily strength, whereby we endure and adhere
to things; choice is like hands to the soul, whereby we stretch out
and lay hold of things. --Theages the Pythagorean.
The Doric discipline, even in Sparta, where it could exhibit its
character most freely, produced merely soldiers and not free citizens or
cultivated men. It was, nevertheless, in its essential features, the
Hellenic ideal, and numerous attempts were made to remedy its defects
and to give it permanence, by connecting it with higher than mere local
and aristocratic interests. One of the earliest and most noteworthy of
these was made by Pythagoras.
This extraordinary personage appears to have been born in the island of
Samos in the first quarter of the sixth century B. C. Though he was born
among Ionians, his family appears to have been Achaian and, to some
extent, Pelasgian (Tyrrhenian), having emigrated from Phlius in the
Argolid. After distinguishing himself in Ionia, he emigrated in middle
life to Magna Graecia, and took up his abode in the Achaian colony of
Croton, then a rich and flourishing city. The cause of his emigration
seems to have been the tyranny of Polycrates, which apparently imparted
to him a prejudice against Ionic tendencies in general. Whether he
derived any part of his famous learning from visits to Egypt, Phoenicia,
Babylonia, etc. , as was asserted in later times, is not clear. It is not
improbable that he visited Egypt, and there is good reason for believing
that he became acquainted with Phoenician theology through Pherecydes of
Syros. That he was an omnivorous student is attested by his
contemporary, Heraclitus. He was undoubtedly affected by the physical
theories current in his time in Ionia, while he plainly drew his
political and ethical ideas from Sparta or Crete.
Of his activity in Ionia we know little; but we may perhaps conclude
that it was of the same nature as that which he afterwards displayed in
Italy. Here he appeared in the triple capacity of theologian, ethical
teacher, and scientist. His chief interest for us lies in the fact that
he was apparently the first man in Greece, and, indeed, in the western
world, who sought to establish an ethical institution apart from the
State. In this respect he bears a strong resemblance to the prophet
Isaiah, who may be said to have originated the idea of a Church (see p.
133). Pythagoras' aim seems to have been to gather round him a body of
disciples who should endeavor to lead a perfect life, based upon certain
theological or metaphysical notions, and guided by a rule of almost
monastic strictness. Like other men who have found themselves in the
midst of irreverence, selfishness, and democratic vulgarity and anarchy,
he believed that his time demanded moral discipline, based upon respect
for authority and character, with a firm belief in future retribution,
and inculcated by a careful study of the order and harmony of nature;
and such discipline he strove, with all his might, to impart. Having no
faith in the capacity of the State to be an instrument for his purpose,
he set to work independently of it, and seems to have met with very
marked success, drawing to him many of the best men and women of
Southern Italy. So numerous and powerful, indeed, did his followers
become that they held the balance of power in several cities, and were
able to use it for the enforcement of their own principles. As these
were exceedingly undemocratic, and opposed to the tendencies of the
time, they finally roused bitter opposition, so that the Pythagoreans
were persecuted and attempts made to exterminate them with fire and
sword. In this way their political influence was broken, and their
assemblies suppressed; but the effect of Pythagoras' teaching was not
lost. His followers, scattered abroad throughout the Hellenic world,
carried his precepts and his life-ideal with them. In the following
centuries they found many noble sympathizers--Pindar, Socrates, Plato,
Epicharmus, etc. --and underwent many modifications, until they finally
witnessed a resurrection, in the forms of Neo-Pythagoreanism and
Neo-Platonism, after the Christian era. In these later guises,
Pythagoreanism lost itself in mysticism and contemplation, turning its
followers into inactive ascetics; but in its original form it seems to
have been especially adapted to produce men of vigorous action and
far-sighted practicality. Milo of Croton, the inimitable wrestler;
Archytas of Tarentum, philosopher, mathematician, musician, inventor,
engineer, general, statesman; and Epaminondas, the greatest and noblest
of Theban generals, were professed Pythagoreans.
We might perhaps express the aim of Pythagoras' pedagogical efforts by
the one word HARMONY. Just as he found harmony everywhere in the
physical world, so he strove to introduce the same into the constitution
of the human individual, and into the relations of individuals with each
other. He may perhaps be regarded as the originator of that view of the
world, of men, and of society which makes all good consist in order and
proportion, a view which recommends itself strongly to idealists, and
has given birth to all those social Utopias, whose static perfection
seems to relieve the individual from the burden of responsibility, and
which have been dangled before the eyes of struggling humanity from his
days to ours. According to this view, which had its roots in Greek
thought generally, the aim of education is to find for each individual
his true place and to make him efficient therein. Man is made for order,
and not order for man. He is born into a world of order, as is shown by
the fact that number and proportion are found in everything that is
known. Pythagoras, in his enthusiasm for his principle, carried his
doctrine of numbers to absurd lengths, identifying them with real
things; but this enthusiasm was not without its valuable results, since
it is to Pythagoras and his school that we owe the sciences of geometry
and music. Moreover, experience must have taught him that it is one
thing to propound a theory, another to make it effective in regulating
human relations. In order to accomplish the latter object, he invoked
the aid of divine authority and of the doctrines of metempsychosis and
future retribution. Hence his educational system had a strong religious
cast, which showed itself even outwardly in the dignified demeanor and
quiet self-possession of his followers.
Harmony, then, to be attained by discipline, under religious sanctions,
was the aim of Pythagoras' teaching. Believing, however, that only a
limited number of persons were capable of such harmony, he selected his
pupils with great care, and subjected them to a long novitiate, in which
silence, self-examination, and absolute obedience played a prominent
part. The aim of this was to enable them to overcome impulse,
concentrate attention, and develop reverence, reflection, and
thoughtfulness, the first conditions of all moral and intellectual
excellence. While the first care was directed to their spiritual part,
their bodies were by no means forgotten. Food, clothing, and exercise
were all carefully regulated on hygienic and moral principles.
Regarding the details of Pythagoras' educational system we are not well
informed; but the spirit and tendency of it have been embalmed for us in
the so-called _Golden Words_, which, if not due to the pen of Pythagoras
himself, certainly reach back to very near his time, and contain nothing
at variance with what we otherwise know of his teaching. We insert a
literal version.
THE GOLDEN WORDS.
The Gods immortal, as by law disposed,
First venerate, and reverence the oath:
Then to the noble heroes, and the powers
Beneath the earth, do homage with just rites.
Thy parents honor and thy nearest kin,
And from the rest choose friends on virtue's scale.
To gentle words and kindly deeds give way,
Nor hate thy friend for any slight offence.
Bear all thou canst; for Can dwells nigh to Must.
These things thus know.
What follow learn to rule:
The belly first, then sleep and lust and wrath.
Do nothing base with others or alone:
But most of all thyself in reverence hold.
Then practise justice both in deed and word,
Nor let thyself wax thoughtless about aught:
But know that death's the common lot of all.
Be not untimely wasteful of thy wealth,
Like vulgar men, nor yet illiberal.
In all things moderation answers best.
Do things that profit thee: think ere thou act.
Let never sleep thy drowsy eyelids greet,
Till thou hast pondered each act of the day:
"Wherein have I transgressed? What have I done?
What duty shunned? "--beginning from the first,
Unto the last. Then grieve and fear for what
Was basely done; but in the good rejoice.
These things perform; these meditate; these love.
These in the path of godlike excellence
Will place thee, yea, by Him who gave our souls
The number Four, perennial nature's spring!
But, ere thou act, crave from the gods success.
These precepts having mastered, thou shalt know
The system of the never-dying gods
And dying men, and how from all the rest
Each thing is sunder'd, and how held in one:
And thou shalt know, as it is right thou shouldst,
That nature everywhere is uniform,
And so shalt neither hope for things that lie
Beyond all hope, nor fail of any truth.
But from such food abstain as we have named,
And, while thou seek'st to purge and free thy soul,
Use judgment, and reflect on everything,
Setting o'er all best Thought as charioteer.
Be glad to gather goods, nor less to lose.
Of human ills that spring from spirit-powers
Endure thy part nor peevishly complain.
Cure what thou canst: 'tis well, and then reflect:
"Fate never lays too much upon the good. "
Words many, brave and base, assail men's ears.
Let these not disconcert or trammel thee;
But when untruth is spoken, meekly yield.
What next I say in every act observe:
Let none by word or deed prevail on thee
To do or say what were not best for thee.
Think ere thou act, lest foolish things be done;--
For thoughtless deeds and words the caitiff mark;--
But strongly do what will not bring regret.
Do naught thou dost not know; but duly learn.
So shall thy life with happiness o'erflow.
Be not neglectful of thy body's health;
But measure use in drink, food, exercise--
I mean by 'measure' what brings no distress.
Follow a cleanly, simple mode of life,
And guard against such acts as envy breed.
Then, if, when thou the body leav'st, thou mount
To the free ether, deathless shalt thou be,
A god immortal,--mortal never more!
In this system six things are noteworthy: (1) Its comprehensiveness, in
that it takes account of man's whole nature,--body, soul, and spirit;
affections, intellect, and will, and of all his relations--to gods and
men, to self and nature: (2) Its aimfulness, in that it promises
happiness here and blessedness hereafter, as the reward of right living:
(3) Its piety, in that it everywhere recognizes the need of divine
assistance: (4) Its appreciation of science, as insight into the nature
and grounds of multiplicity and unity: (5) Its stress laid on right
doing, as the condition of right knowing: (6) Its belief in man's
divinity and perfectibility. It is curious that the poem contains no
reference to the doctrine of metempsychosis, which might apparently have
been appealed to as a powerful moral sanction.
That a system like that of Pythagoras, combining the religious, the
mystical, the scientific, the ethical, and the social tendencies of the
Hellenic mind, should have exerted a deep and abiding influence, need
not surprise us. We find profound traces of it, not only in all
subsequent Greek thought, but even in foreign systems, such as Essenism,
whose elements were Hebrew Nazarenism and Greek Pythagoreanism. The
relations between Essenism and Christianity have not yet been
determined. Of the effect of Pythagoras' teaching on Epaminondas I have
already spoken.
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. That it produced
strong warriors and patriotic citizens, there can be no doubt. But that
is all: it produced no men. It was greatly admired by men like Xenophon
and Plato, who were sick of Athenian democracy; but Aristotle estimated
it at its true worth. He says: "As long as the Laconians were the only
people who devoted themselves to violent exercises, they were superior
to all others; but now they are inferior even in gymnastic contests and
in war. Their former superiority, indeed, was not due to their training
their young men in this way, but to the fact that they alone did so. "
And even Xenophon, at the end of a long panegyric on the Spartan
constitution, is obliged to admit that already in his time it has fallen
from its old worth into feebleness and corruption, and this in spite of
the fact that he had his own sons educated at Sparta. When Sparta fell
before the heroic and cultured Epaminondas, she fell unpitied, leaving
to the world little or nothing but a warning example.
CHAPTER IV
PYTHAGORAS
Virtue and health and all good and God are a harmony. --Pythagoras.
One is the principle of all. --Philolaus the Pythagorean.
All things that are known have number. --_Id. _
The principles of all virtue are three, knowledge, power, and
choice. Knowledge is like sight, whereby we contemplate and judge
things; power is like bodily strength, whereby we endure and adhere
to things; choice is like hands to the soul, whereby we stretch out
and lay hold of things. --Theages the Pythagorean.
The Doric discipline, even in Sparta, where it could exhibit its
character most freely, produced merely soldiers and not free citizens or
cultivated men. It was, nevertheless, in its essential features, the
Hellenic ideal, and numerous attempts were made to remedy its defects
and to give it permanence, by connecting it with higher than mere local
and aristocratic interests. One of the earliest and most noteworthy of
these was made by Pythagoras.
This extraordinary personage appears to have been born in the island of
Samos in the first quarter of the sixth century B. C. Though he was born
among Ionians, his family appears to have been Achaian and, to some
extent, Pelasgian (Tyrrhenian), having emigrated from Phlius in the
Argolid. After distinguishing himself in Ionia, he emigrated in middle
life to Magna Graecia, and took up his abode in the Achaian colony of
Croton, then a rich and flourishing city. The cause of his emigration
seems to have been the tyranny of Polycrates, which apparently imparted
to him a prejudice against Ionic tendencies in general. Whether he
derived any part of his famous learning from visits to Egypt, Phoenicia,
Babylonia, etc. , as was asserted in later times, is not clear. It is not
improbable that he visited Egypt, and there is good reason for believing
that he became acquainted with Phoenician theology through Pherecydes of
Syros. That he was an omnivorous student is attested by his
contemporary, Heraclitus. He was undoubtedly affected by the physical
theories current in his time in Ionia, while he plainly drew his
political and ethical ideas from Sparta or Crete.
Of his activity in Ionia we know little; but we may perhaps conclude
that it was of the same nature as that which he afterwards displayed in
Italy. Here he appeared in the triple capacity of theologian, ethical
teacher, and scientist. His chief interest for us lies in the fact that
he was apparently the first man in Greece, and, indeed, in the western
world, who sought to establish an ethical institution apart from the
State. In this respect he bears a strong resemblance to the prophet
Isaiah, who may be said to have originated the idea of a Church (see p.
133). Pythagoras' aim seems to have been to gather round him a body of
disciples who should endeavor to lead a perfect life, based upon certain
theological or metaphysical notions, and guided by a rule of almost
monastic strictness. Like other men who have found themselves in the
midst of irreverence, selfishness, and democratic vulgarity and anarchy,
he believed that his time demanded moral discipline, based upon respect
for authority and character, with a firm belief in future retribution,
and inculcated by a careful study of the order and harmony of nature;
and such discipline he strove, with all his might, to impart. Having no
faith in the capacity of the State to be an instrument for his purpose,
he set to work independently of it, and seems to have met with very
marked success, drawing to him many of the best men and women of
Southern Italy. So numerous and powerful, indeed, did his followers
become that they held the balance of power in several cities, and were
able to use it for the enforcement of their own principles. As these
were exceedingly undemocratic, and opposed to the tendencies of the
time, they finally roused bitter opposition, so that the Pythagoreans
were persecuted and attempts made to exterminate them with fire and
sword. In this way their political influence was broken, and their
assemblies suppressed; but the effect of Pythagoras' teaching was not
lost. His followers, scattered abroad throughout the Hellenic world,
carried his precepts and his life-ideal with them. In the following
centuries they found many noble sympathizers--Pindar, Socrates, Plato,
Epicharmus, etc. --and underwent many modifications, until they finally
witnessed a resurrection, in the forms of Neo-Pythagoreanism and
Neo-Platonism, after the Christian era. In these later guises,
Pythagoreanism lost itself in mysticism and contemplation, turning its
followers into inactive ascetics; but in its original form it seems to
have been especially adapted to produce men of vigorous action and
far-sighted practicality. Milo of Croton, the inimitable wrestler;
Archytas of Tarentum, philosopher, mathematician, musician, inventor,
engineer, general, statesman; and Epaminondas, the greatest and noblest
of Theban generals, were professed Pythagoreans.
We might perhaps express the aim of Pythagoras' pedagogical efforts by
the one word HARMONY. Just as he found harmony everywhere in the
physical world, so he strove to introduce the same into the constitution
of the human individual, and into the relations of individuals with each
other. He may perhaps be regarded as the originator of that view of the
world, of men, and of society which makes all good consist in order and
proportion, a view which recommends itself strongly to idealists, and
has given birth to all those social Utopias, whose static perfection
seems to relieve the individual from the burden of responsibility, and
which have been dangled before the eyes of struggling humanity from his
days to ours. According to this view, which had its roots in Greek
thought generally, the aim of education is to find for each individual
his true place and to make him efficient therein. Man is made for order,
and not order for man. He is born into a world of order, as is shown by
the fact that number and proportion are found in everything that is
known. Pythagoras, in his enthusiasm for his principle, carried his
doctrine of numbers to absurd lengths, identifying them with real
things; but this enthusiasm was not without its valuable results, since
it is to Pythagoras and his school that we owe the sciences of geometry
and music. Moreover, experience must have taught him that it is one
thing to propound a theory, another to make it effective in regulating
human relations. In order to accomplish the latter object, he invoked
the aid of divine authority and of the doctrines of metempsychosis and
future retribution. Hence his educational system had a strong religious
cast, which showed itself even outwardly in the dignified demeanor and
quiet self-possession of his followers.
Harmony, then, to be attained by discipline, under religious sanctions,
was the aim of Pythagoras' teaching. Believing, however, that only a
limited number of persons were capable of such harmony, he selected his
pupils with great care, and subjected them to a long novitiate, in which
silence, self-examination, and absolute obedience played a prominent
part. The aim of this was to enable them to overcome impulse,
concentrate attention, and develop reverence, reflection, and
thoughtfulness, the first conditions of all moral and intellectual
excellence. While the first care was directed to their spiritual part,
their bodies were by no means forgotten. Food, clothing, and exercise
were all carefully regulated on hygienic and moral principles.
Regarding the details of Pythagoras' educational system we are not well
informed; but the spirit and tendency of it have been embalmed for us in
the so-called _Golden Words_, which, if not due to the pen of Pythagoras
himself, certainly reach back to very near his time, and contain nothing
at variance with what we otherwise know of his teaching. We insert a
literal version.
THE GOLDEN WORDS.
The Gods immortal, as by law disposed,
First venerate, and reverence the oath:
Then to the noble heroes, and the powers
Beneath the earth, do homage with just rites.
Thy parents honor and thy nearest kin,
And from the rest choose friends on virtue's scale.
To gentle words and kindly deeds give way,
Nor hate thy friend for any slight offence.
Bear all thou canst; for Can dwells nigh to Must.
These things thus know.
What follow learn to rule:
The belly first, then sleep and lust and wrath.
Do nothing base with others or alone:
But most of all thyself in reverence hold.
Then practise justice both in deed and word,
Nor let thyself wax thoughtless about aught:
But know that death's the common lot of all.
Be not untimely wasteful of thy wealth,
Like vulgar men, nor yet illiberal.
In all things moderation answers best.
Do things that profit thee: think ere thou act.
Let never sleep thy drowsy eyelids greet,
Till thou hast pondered each act of the day:
"Wherein have I transgressed? What have I done?
What duty shunned? "--beginning from the first,
Unto the last. Then grieve and fear for what
Was basely done; but in the good rejoice.
These things perform; these meditate; these love.
These in the path of godlike excellence
Will place thee, yea, by Him who gave our souls
The number Four, perennial nature's spring!
But, ere thou act, crave from the gods success.
These precepts having mastered, thou shalt know
The system of the never-dying gods
And dying men, and how from all the rest
Each thing is sunder'd, and how held in one:
And thou shalt know, as it is right thou shouldst,
That nature everywhere is uniform,
And so shalt neither hope for things that lie
Beyond all hope, nor fail of any truth.
But from such food abstain as we have named,
And, while thou seek'st to purge and free thy soul,
Use judgment, and reflect on everything,
Setting o'er all best Thought as charioteer.
Be glad to gather goods, nor less to lose.
Of human ills that spring from spirit-powers
Endure thy part nor peevishly complain.
Cure what thou canst: 'tis well, and then reflect:
"Fate never lays too much upon the good. "
Words many, brave and base, assail men's ears.
Let these not disconcert or trammel thee;
But when untruth is spoken, meekly yield.
What next I say in every act observe:
Let none by word or deed prevail on thee
To do or say what were not best for thee.
Think ere thou act, lest foolish things be done;--
For thoughtless deeds and words the caitiff mark;--
But strongly do what will not bring regret.
Do naught thou dost not know; but duly learn.
So shall thy life with happiness o'erflow.
Be not neglectful of thy body's health;
But measure use in drink, food, exercise--
I mean by 'measure' what brings no distress.
Follow a cleanly, simple mode of life,
And guard against such acts as envy breed.
Then, if, when thou the body leav'st, thou mount
To the free ether, deathless shalt thou be,
A god immortal,--mortal never more!
In this system six things are noteworthy: (1) Its comprehensiveness, in
that it takes account of man's whole nature,--body, soul, and spirit;
affections, intellect, and will, and of all his relations--to gods and
men, to self and nature: (2) Its aimfulness, in that it promises
happiness here and blessedness hereafter, as the reward of right living:
(3) Its piety, in that it everywhere recognizes the need of divine
assistance: (4) Its appreciation of science, as insight into the nature
and grounds of multiplicity and unity: (5) Its stress laid on right
doing, as the condition of right knowing: (6) Its belief in man's
divinity and perfectibility. It is curious that the poem contains no
reference to the doctrine of metempsychosis, which might apparently have
been appealed to as a powerful moral sanction.
That a system like that of Pythagoras, combining the religious, the
mystical, the scientific, the ethical, and the social tendencies of the
Hellenic mind, should have exerted a deep and abiding influence, need
not surprise us. We find profound traces of it, not only in all
subsequent Greek thought, but even in foreign systems, such as Essenism,
whose elements were Hebrew Nazarenism and Greek Pythagoreanism. The
relations between Essenism and Christianity have not yet been
determined. Of the effect of Pythagoras' teaching on Epaminondas I have
already spoken.
