SCHOOLS OF HELLAS
AN ESSAY ON THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION
[Illustration: Printer’s Logo]
[Illustration: IN A RIDING-SCHOOL
From a Kulix by Euphronios, now in the Louvre. Hartwig’s
_Meisterschalen_, Plate 53.]
Schools of Hellas
AN ESSAY ON THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF ANCIENT GREEK EDUCATION
FROM
600 TO 300 B.C.
BY
KENNETH J. FREEMAN
SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; BROWNE UNIVERSITY SCHOLAR;
CRAVEN UNIVERSITY SCHOLAR; SENIOR CHANCELLOR’S MEDALLIST, ETC.
EDITED BY
M. J. RENDALL
SECOND MASTER OF WINCHESTER COLLEGE
WITH A PREFACE BY A. W. VERRALL, LITT.DOC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1907
_All rights reserved_
ΦΙΛΟΚΑΛΟΙΣ [PHILOKALOIS]
ΚΑΙ [ΚΑΙ]
ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΟΙΣ [PHILOSOPHOIS]
PREFACE
The Dissertation here published was written by the late Mr. K. J.
Freeman, in the course of the year following his graduation at
Cambridge as a Bachelor of Arts, with a view to his candidature for a
Fellowship of Trinity College, for which purpose the rules of the
College require the production of some original work. In the summer of
1906, three months before the autumn election of that year, his
brilliant and promising career was arrested by death.
We have been encouraged to publish the work, as it was left, by
several judgments of great weight; nor does it, in my opinion, require
anything in the nature of an apology. It is of course, under the
circumstances, incomplete, and it is in some respects immature. But,
within the limits, the execution is adequate for practical purposes;
and the actual achievement has a substantive value independent of any
personal consideration. No English book, perhaps no extant book,
covers the same ground, or brings together so conveniently the
materials for studying the subject of ancient Greek education――education
as treated in practice and theory during the most fertile and
characteristic age of Hellas. It would be regrettable that this
useful, though preliminary, labour should be lost and suppressed, only
because it was decreed that the author should not build upon his own
foundation.
Novelty of view he disclaimed; but he claimed, with evident truth,
that the work is not second-hand, but based upon wide and direct study
of the sources, which are made accessible by copious references.
The subject is in one respect specially appropriate to a youthful
hand. Perhaps at no time is a man more likely to have fresh and living
impressions about education than when he has himself just ceased to be
a pupil, when he has just completed the subordinate stages of a long
and strenuous self-culture. It will be seen, in more than one place,
that the author is not content with the purely historical aspect of
his theme, but suggests criticisms and even practical applications. It
may be thought that these remarks upon a matter of pressing and
growing importance are by no means the less deserving of consideration
because the writer, when he speaks of the schoolboy and the
undergraduate, is unquestionably an authentic witness.
But, as I have already said, the work will commend itself sufficiently
to those interested in the topic, if only as a conspectus of facts,
presented with orderly arrangement and in a simple and perspicuous
style.
It is not my part here to express personal feelings. But I cannot
dismiss this, the first and only fruit of the classical studies of
Kenneth Freeman, without a word of profound sorrow for the premature
loss of a most honourable heart and vigorous mind. He was one whom a
teacher may freely praise, without suspicion of partiality; for,
whatever he was, he was no mere product of lessons, as this, his first
essay, will sufficiently show. It is not what he would have made it;
but it is his own, and it is worthy of him.
A. W. VERRALL.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
_January_ 1907.
EDITOR’S STATEMENT
It has fallen to my lot to edit this essay, the first, and last, work
of Kenneth John Freeman, a brilliant young Scholar of Winchester
College and Trinity College, Cambridge, whose short life closed in the
summer of 1906.
He was born in London on June 19, 1882, and died at Winchester on July
15, 1906,――a brief span of twenty-four years, the greater part of
which was spent in the strenuous pursuit of truth and beauty, both in
literature and in the book of Nature, but above all among the
Classics.
Scholarly traditions and interests he inherited in no small measure:
he was the son of Mr. G. Broke Freeman, a member of the Chancery Bar,
and a Classical graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the
grandson of Philip Freeman, Archdeacon of Exeter, himself a Scholar of
the same great Foundation, Craven University Scholar and Senior
Classic in 1839. He was also a great-grandson of the Rev. Henry Hervey
Baber, for many years Principal Librarian of the British Museum, and
Editor of the _editio princeps_ of the _Codex Alexandrinus_. From them
he inherited a passion for Classical study, a keen sense of form, and
a determined pursuit of knowledge, which nothing could daunt, not even
the recurrent shadow of a long and distressing illness.
Through his mother, a daughter of Dr. Horace Dobell, of Harley Street,
London, he was also a great-nephew of the poet Sydney Dobell; and thus
he may well have derived that poetic feeling which distinguished a
number of verses found among his papers, since printed for private
circulation.
His School and University career was uniformly successful. At
Winchester he won prizes in many subjects and several tongues, and
carried off the Goddard Scholarship, the intellectual blue ribbon, at
the age of sixteen.
At Cambridge he was Browne University Scholar in 1903, and in the
first “division” of the Classical Tripos in 1904, in which year he
also won the Craven Scholarship. The senior Chancellor’s medal fell to
him in the following year.
There is no need to enumerate his other distinctions, but the epigram
with which he won the Browne Medal in 1903 is so beautiful in itself
and so true an epitome of the boy and the man, that I am tempted to
quote it here:
ξεῖνε, καλὸν τὸ ζῆν καταγώγιόν ἐστιν ἅπασιν,
[xeine, kalon to zên katagôgion estin hapasin],
νηπυτίους γὰρ ὅμως νυκτιπλανεῖς τε φιλεῖ,
[nêpytious gar homôs nyktiplaneis te philei],
δῶρα χαριζόμενον φιλίας καὶ τερπνὸν ἔρωτα
[dôra charizomenon philias kai terpnon erôta]
καὶ πόνον εὔανδρον φροντίδα τ’ οὐρανίαν·
[kai ponon euandron phrontida t’ ouranian];
τρυχομένους δ’ ἤδη κοιμᾷ τὸν ἀκήρατον ὕπνον
[trychomenous d’ êdê koima ton akêraton hypnon]
πέμπει δ’ ὥστε λαθεῖν οἰκάδ’ ἐληλυθότας.
[pempei d’ hôste lathein oikad’ elêlythotas].
He was always an optimist, who regarded life as a “fair Inn,” which
provided much good cheer. Shyness and ill-health limited sadly the
range of his friends, but not his capacity and desire for
“friendship.” “Manly toil,” both physical and intellectual, was dear
to his soul: thus, though no great athlete, he was an ardent Volunteer
both at School and College, and declared that, had he not chosen the
teacher’s profession, he would have wished to be a soldier: he writes
of Sparta and Xenophon with evident sympathy. Also he fought and won
many an intellectual battle against great odds; to quote one instance,
he wrote the papers for his Craven Scholarship while convalescent in
his old nursery. His poems, to complete the parallel, may justly be
described as the “aspiring thoughts” of a singularly pure and reverent
heart.
It is a simple, uneventful record: six happy years as a Winchester
Scholar; three as a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge; one year of
travel and study, mainly devoted to the subject of Education, which
always had a special attraction for him; and lastly, one year, the
happiest of his life, when he returned to teach at his old school.
All appeared bright and promising; he was doing the work he desired at
the school of his choice, health and vigour seemed fully restored, and
a strenuous life as a Winchester Master lay before him, when an acute
attack of the old trouble, borne with perfect patience, cut him off in
the prime of his promise.
Then, to quote his own translation of his epigram:
When I was aweary, last and best
They gave me dreamless rest;
And sent me on my way that I might come
Unknown, unknowing, Home.
The work itself was never finished for the press; indeed, some
chapters, dealing with Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, did not appear
sufficiently complete to justify publication: these, therefore, we
have withheld. But this book is in substance what he left it, and he
was fully aware that the omitted chapters were in need of further
revision.
In any case, it would have been a labour of love to me to edit this
dissertation; but the labour has been lightened at every turn by the
ungrudging help and friendship of many Scholars. Dr. Verrall, besides
contributing a Preface, has contributed much advice in general and in
detail; Dr. Sandys has revised the proofs and given me the benefit of
his comprehensive knowledge of the subject; Dr. Henry Jackson went
through some of the later chapters and discussed points of general
interest. The original Essay or the proofs have in addition been
revised, from different points of view, by Mr. Edmund D. A. Morshead,
late Fellow of New College, Oxford, and Mr. F. M. Cornford, Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr. G. S. Freeman (brother of the author)
is responsible for the Index; while Mr. W. R. H. Merriman has spent
much pains upon verifying the numerous quotations. In a few cases Dr.
F. G. Kenyon’s erudition came to the rescue. To all these my best
thanks are due. Mr. A. Hamilton Smith of the British Museum was most
helpful in identifying the vases from which the illustrations are
derived. The author, who was a considerable draughtsman, had drawn
scenes from Greek vases with his own hand; but of course our
illustrations are derived from published reproductions, with two
exceptions. The two British Museum vase-scenes (Illustrations III. and
IV.) were specially drawn for this book: they have never been
carefully reproduced before. I must thank the Syndics of the Pitt
Press at Cambridge for their kind permission to reproduce their print
of Douris’ Educational Vase from Dr. Sandys’ _History of Classical
Scholarship_. The design which appears on the cover of this volume is
also adapted from this vase.
It remains to add a few sentences from a Statement which the author
himself drew up:
“I have,” he says, “confined my attention very largely for several
years to original texts and eschewed the aid of commentaries.” This
will be patent to the reader.
“As to accepted interpretations, I have, purposely and on principle,
neither read nor heard much of them, since I wished, in pursuance of
the bidding of Plato himself, not to receive unquestioningly the
authority of those whom to hear is to believe, but to develop views
and interpretations of my own. For I have always believed that
education suffers immensely from the study of books about books, in
preference to the study of the books themselves. M. Paul Girard’s book
in French (_L’Éducation Athénienne_) and Grasberger’s in German
(_Erziehung und Unterricht im klassischen Alterthum_), the latter of
which I have only read in part, have set me on the track of
authorities whom I should otherwise have missed, but I believe that my
acknowledgments in the text and in the notes fully cover my direct
obligations to them in other respects, although my indirect
obligations to M. Girard’s stimulating book, which are great, remain
unexpressed.
“An apology is, perhaps, needed for the peculiar, and not wholly
consistent, spelling of the Greek words. I had meant to employ the
Latinised spelling. But when I came to write Lyceum, Academy, and
pedagogue, my heart failed me. For I did not wish to suggest modern
music-halls, modern art, and, worst of all, modern ‘pedagogy.’ In
adopting the ancient spelling I had Browning on my side. But again,
when I wrote Thoukudides, my heart sank, for I could hardly recognise
an old friend in such a guise. So I decided, perhaps weakly, to steer
a middle course, and preserve the Latinised forms in the case of the
more familiar words. Thus I put Plato, not Platon, but Menon and
Phaidon.” We have adhered to this principle in the main; we need
hardly say that Lakedaimon is the transliteration of a Greek word:
Lacedaemonian is an English adjective. So a citizen of Troizen is a
Troezenian, and of Boiotia a Boeotian. “I have,” the author concludes,
“preferred _Hellas_ and _Hellene_ to _Greece_ and _Greek_. For a rose
by any other name does not always smell as sweet.”
M. J. RENDALL.
WINCHESTER COLLEGE,
_March_ 1907.
CONTENTS
PAGE
BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I
THE PRACTICE OF EDUCATION
CHAPTER I
SPARTA AND CRETE 11