amateurism and dabbling, by which boys were made Jacks-of-all-trades,
and above all to insist that the refined few ought to set the standard
of taste in matters musical, literary, and artistic, not the unrefined
many. With his view may be contrasted Perikles’ boast to the Athenian
people, “We can all criticise adequately, if we cannot all invent,”
and Aristotle’s belief that a crowd judges better than an individual
because its judgment is compounded of many judgments.
But when we come to Aristotle the creative instinct of the Hellenic
nation, apart from a few gifted individuals, is dead. To him and his
contemporaries music and painting are no longer rendered necessary
parts of education owing to the irresistible craving of an artistic
temperament for expression. Listen to his theory. Painting gives boys
an eye for beauty, and prevents them from being cheated in
art-dealing: there is no inward compulsion to paint. Boys had better
learn to sing and play, since children must needs make a noise. All
they really need is the power of criticising professional music. This
power, unluckily, cannot be acquired without personal study. But let
them drop their music as soon as they can, or they might be mistaken
for vulgar professionals. Such words could hardly have been addressed
to a nation that was still musical and artistic. So Aristotle’s
æsthetic criticism is really a study of the past, the discussion of a
dead age. He has no natural affinity for such things himself: he
prefers to sum up the opinions of experts. Consequently his remarks on
the subject are scientific but no more; for a real appreciation of the
Hellenic artistic and musical spirit it is necessary to go to Plato,
who combated it so fiercely just because he was more in sympathy with
it than suited his philosophic desires.
[Illustration: PLATE X. A.
IN A RIDING-SCHOOL
From a Kulix by Euphronios, now in the Louvre. Hartwig’s
_Meisterschalen_, Plate 53.]
[Illustration: PLATE X. B.
IN A RIDING-SCHOOL
From a Kulix by Euphronios, now in the Louvre. Hartwig’s
_Meisterschalen_, Plate 53.]
[680] The characteristics are sketched in Thuc. i. 70. Cp.
the difference between Florence and Venice in Renaissance
Italy.
[681] See also Thuc. i. 6; Athen. 512 B.C.
[682] No doubt all the theorists had a fatal temptation to
judge the harmony by the opinion which they held of the race
which produced it. The Lydian may have recovered prestige
during the fourth century, for it included Karian, and Karia
became a great power under Mausolos.
[683] Athen. 624 C.
[684] It is the only true Hellenic harmony (Plato, _Lach._
188 D).
[685] Plato’s opinion of the harmonies is in _Rep._ 398-399.
Aristotle, who professes only to summarise the views of
experts, discusses them in _Pol._ viii. 7.
[686] Plato apparently accepts this principle with regard to
the Korubantic dances (_Laws_, 790 D).
[687] Athen. 624 b.
[688] Pind. _P._ 5. 60-63. Cp. the story of Saul and David.
[689] Athen. 624 a.
[690] Plut. _Luk._ 4.
[691] _Pol._ iv. 20. 2.
[692] Plato, _Rep._ 399 A.
[693] Londoners must devoutly hope that the Hellenic theory
is false.
[694] Aristot. _Rhet._ ii. 21. 16.
[695] Plato, _Rep._ 401 B.
[696] A poetical education probably develops the imagination
at the expense of the logical mind. Plato is a good instance
of this: his imagination, against his will, outweighs his
reason. It may be this personal experience which gives so
much bitterness to his attack on poetry.
[697] Plut. _Solon_, 29. 30.
[698] Children have a natural tendency to act, and need
little inducement or instruction.
[699] Plato, _Rep._ 424 C.
[700] So in the later Renaissance the “Madonna” is the
artist’s wife.
[701] According to Dr. Verrall.
[702] Aristoph. _Frogs_, 1301, 1340.
[703] Ionicism = Herakleiteanism, πάντα ῥεῖ [panta rhei].
Doricism = Parmenideanism, τὸ πᾶν μένει [to pan menei].
[704] Plato, _Gorg._ 501-502; _Polit._ 288 C.
[705] Plato, _Laws_, 657-659.
[706] _Ibid._ 656.
[707] _Ibid._ 698-701 C.
[708] The essence of dancing is that it is _orderly_
movement; of singing that it is _orderly_ sound (_Laws_,
654).
[709] Plato, _Laws_, 669-70.
[710] _Ibid._ 800-802.
[711] _Ibid._ 829 c.
[712] Consequently the painter and the poet are, in Plato’s
opinion, allies of the Sophist.
[713] This is true, in a less degree, of the audience. Cp.
Plutarch’s account of the Spartans (_Lac. Inst._ 239 A):
“They did not listen to tragedies or comedies, in order that
neither in earnest nor in jest they might hear men
gainsaying the laws.”
[714] Plato, _Rep._ 395 ff.
[715] Plato holds that no one likes to imitate his
inferiors; so the good man will not care to imitate any but
the good. He ascribes this attitude to the Deity.
CHAPTER X
XENOPHON: “THE EDUCATION OF KUROS”
The central figure in many parishes in England is a retired
Major-General or Colonel. He constitutes the chief pillar of the
neighbouring church, reads the Lessons on Sundays, teaches in the
Sunday School, gives away the prizes at School-treats held in his own
grounds, and heads every subscription list; while his leisure is given
to the compilation of a military memoir or two, and perhaps, if he is
very literary, of a few short stories. Just such a man was Xenophon.
On retiring from active service, he withdrew to the little village of
Skillous in Elis, where he owned a house and a park. The whole country
swarmed with fish and game, so that he and his sons could have as much
hunting as they pleased. Guests were numerous, for past his gates ran
the great high-road from Lakedaimon to Olympia. In his grounds he
built a chapel to Artemis, the expenses being defrayed from a tithe of
the spoils he had taken in the heart of the Persian Empire. The tenth
of the produce of his land was paid to the goddess, and once a year he
gave a great sacrificial feast in her honour, to which all the
neighbours were invited. In this way the retired General lived for
twenty years, devoted to his religion, his hunting, and the
composition of his books. Having two sons of his own, he naturally
gave some attention to the problems of education. His treatise on the
constitution of Lakedaimon is simply a sketch of the Spartan school
system, no doubt intended for his boys, who were brought up at Sparta.
A curious passage in his _Economics_[716] shows that he considered the
most effective mode of teaching to be a series of appeals, by means of
question and answer, to personal observation and common-sense.
Ischomachos asks Sokrates whether he knows how to plant trees.
Sokrates at first replies “No,” but when he is questioned point by
point, whether on his excursions to Lukabettos, he has noticed the
depth of the trenches in the orchards, and some similar details, and
when his common-sense has shown him that plants grow quicker through
soft than through hard soil, he finds that he is an expert nurseryman,
and decides that questioning must be the way to teach.
But the most important of Xenophon’s educational works is the
_Education of Kuros_. In this he becomes the classical Miss Edgeworth
and Henty combined. The book is really an historical novel, mostly
fiction, embodying a moral story for the young, an ideal system of
education, and a practical treatise on the whole duty of a general.
The ideal system comes first, as a sort of preface, and presents a
curious parallel to the rival schemes of his contemporary Plato.
Xenophon makes the reader suppose that his system was practised in
Persia in the time of Kuros’ boyhood, but there is no authority for
his statement. Persia is in this case a convenient title for Utopia.
The ordinary State, according to Xenophon, leaves its citizens to form
their own characters; but the Persian system definitely aims at
producing virtue. In every Persian city there is what is called the
“Free Agora.”[717] This is an open square, like the ordinary
market-place, but unlike it in being without shops or booths, for the
vulgar bustle and clamour of buying and selling is forbidden here, as
likely to disturb the peace and calm of the educated. Round it lie the
royal palace and the State buildings, so that it would be a place of
some architectural pretensions and not unlike the quadrangle of a
College at an English University. The square is divided into four
parts――one for the children, one for the epheboi, one for full-grown
men, and one for the old; for men of all ages have their place in this
College. Any Persian is at liberty to send his son to school here, but
only the rich can afford to support their sons while they attend the
classes: the poor man’s children, in Utopian Persia as in modern
England, must needs work for their living at an early age. The schools
are apparently only for boys: Xenophon has nothing to say here about
feminine education, although he approves of the Spartan system.
All boys under sixteen are ranged together in twelve companies,
according to the number of Persian tribes; of arrangement in classes
by age or intelligence nothing is said. They have to be in their
quarter of the Free Agora at daybreak. Their education is under the
control of twelve masters chosen from the elder men. What they learn
in school is _Justice_, as boys elsewhere learn letters. The system is
as curious as the subject. A sort of miniature law-court is
constituted, where the masters act as judges and the boys accuse one
another before them. The accusations must not be concocted for the
occasion, for any one found guilty of bringing a false charge against
a schoolfellow is severely punished. Smith Major has stolen Brown’s
bow and arrows, or Jones has called Robinson various opprobrious
names; the offenders are hauled up before the tribunal, duly tried,
and, if convicted, flogged.[718] Ingratitude is regarded as a
particularly heinous crime. It appears that promising pupils were
allowed to act as judges sometimes. The boy Kuros tells his mother how
he received this honour and once gave a wrong verdict, to his own
discomfiture. “The case was like this, mother,” he is made to say. “A
big boy wearing a small coat met a small boy wearing a big coat, and
compelled him to exchange. I was told to decide the case, and said
that it was best that each should have the coat which fitted him. Then
the master flogged me. For the point was, To whom did the big coat
belong? not, Whom did it fit best? It belonged to the boy who bought
or made it, not to the boy who took it by force, breaking the law.”
Besides “Justice,” the children were taught the properties of plants,
in order that they might avoid those that were harmful and use those
which were good.[719] This seems a curious anticipation of
“Nature-study,” with a strictly utilitarian object, and Xenophon
deserves credit for an original suggestion.
The boys are assisted in the formation of good habits by the sight of
their elders in the adjacent quarter of the Free Agora, setting them
an example in temperance and obedience and self-restraint. They also
learn not to be greedy, by taking their meals, when ordered, in the
school, under supervision, off the very simple fare of bread, water,
and a sort of seed resembling the modern mustard, which is all that
they are allowed to bring with them from home for the purpose. What is
more, this probably constituted the only meal which the children had
on such days. It must have been a pretty stiff lesson in abstinence!
How they would have hated a master who ordered it too often! For games
and exercise they had shooting with the bow and hurling the
javelin――that is, military training.
The other three ages are also organised each under twelve masters in
its own quarter of the Agora of Education. The epheboi, who in Utopia
include all from sixteen to twenty-six, even sleep there, acting as a
standing army and a police force to guard the palace and the State
buildings. Xenophon thinks it well that the men of this age, who need
more attention, in his opinion, than even the boys, should be always
under the eye of the authorities. They are organised into twelve
companies, one from each of the Persian tribes. Their time is largely
occupied in police-work, such as catching brigands, and in hunting.
Xenophon attaches great importance to hunting of all sorts, as being
the best training for war.[720] For it involves exposure to heat and
cold and other hardships, training in marching and running, and skill
with bow and javelin;[721] it also requires courage, to meet the
sudden charge of a panther; and long and patient strategy, to catch
birds and hares.[722] So, several times a month, the king goes out
hunting and takes six companies of the epheboi with him, armed with
bows and arrows, a dagger, a light shield, and two spears――one for
throwing and one for stabbing. When not engaged in hunting or in
police-work, the epheboi revise what they learned as boys, and
practise shooting, competing with one another; there are also public
contests, with prizes. Prizes are also given to the officer in charge
of the company which shows itself the most intelligent, courageous,
and trustworthy; the master who taught this company in its school-days
is also commended.
The men from twenty-six to fifty occupy the third, and the elders the
fourth, quarter of the Agora. The former act as a standing army of
heavy infantry; the latter as a reserve force for home defence, as
Judges, as the electors to the offices of State, and as the teachers
of the children. The other offices are filled by the third age. Any
freeborn Persian can climb this four-runged Ladder of Education to the
very top; but no one may enter a higher class without having served
his full time in those below it. To Xenophon, it appears, belongs the
credit of being the first theorist to recognise the merits of this
Thessalian custom of the “Free Agora,” the State-provided centre of
culture, afterwards adopted so extensively in Alexandria, where the
educated classes of all ages might meet in an intellectual atmosphere
and amid beautiful surroundings, and provide that exchange and mart of
ideas by personal intercourse which Newman considered to be the
essence of a University. In the Free Agora of Utopian Persia all the
educated spend their days, influencing one another by talk and
example, exchanging and criticising ideas, competing in warlike
exercises――and all in an atmosphere untainted by the vulgarity of
money-making. On the other hand, culture there does not mean idleness;
to Xenophon, as to Plato, education seemed to entail great
responsibilities, and the educated classes provide the sole standing
army of the State and have to give their countrymen the benefit of
their intelligence by serving as Rulers and Judges.
But Xenophon’s University provides only legal and military
instruction; intellectual culture is not recognised in his “Persia.”
The boys learn the principles of their national law; for, as Xenophon
is careful to proclaim, the Justice which they are taught is no
Platonic elaboration, but simple conformity to the law of the
land.[723] Their other lessons aim solely at the soldier’s life: this
is the object of their severe diet, their botany, and their training
in arms. General morality is to be imbibed from contact in the Agora
with their exemplary seniors, not by ethical contemplation. The system
has the merit of being extremely practical, as would be expected from
a man of Xenophon’s stamp. The boys are to be soldiers all their
lives, and Rulers and Judges in their old age. Consequently they are
to be taught only what is essential to this calling. The soldier must
be well versed in the use of arms and capable of enduring hardships;
so the boys are taught to use the bow and javelin and lead a sternly
simple life. The chief essential to the Ruler and Judge is a sound
knowledge of the national law: the boys are taught law from the first,
in a highly practical way, and even learn to administer it, acting as
judges to their schoolfellows. No better means could be devised for
teaching boys the legal procedure of their native land than this of
constituting them into a miniature Court.[724] It is a scheme,
however, which would be repugnant to the whole idea of an English
public school, where the boys are expected to fight their own battles
and set their own tone without calling in the master’s assistance
except in grave cases. But the Hellenic boy was never left without
supervision: the paidagogos, or some elder, was always in
attendance.[725] Probably the chief criticism which it would have
occurred to an Athenian of that age to urge against Xenophon’s system
would be, not that it encouraged tale-bearing, nor that it failed to
teach self-reliance, but that his countrymen were quite sufficiently
litigious already without any teaching. The absence of literature and
music would also have seemed a fatal objection.
The “Persian” schools are apparently open, free of charge, to any boy
whose father chooses to send him. For the only expense which the
parents are mentioned as incurring is the loss of any wages which
their son might have been earning if set to a trade instead of being
sent to school. Xenophon thus institutes free education without
compulsion. Pupils may be withdrawn at any age; if they or their
families have enough private means to enable them to live in leisure
all their lives they can rise through the various stages to the
highest offices of the State, provided that they are not rejected as
unfit during their upward passage. Theoretically the educational
ladder is open to all; practically it is closed to all but those who
are well-to-do and fairly capable to boot. But the education provided
is not a general culture, intellectually and morally good for all
children, nor yet utilitarian knowledge, such as arithmetic or
writing, which will serve as a useful, or even necessary, basis for a
trade or profession: it is a strictly technical education in the work
of War and Government. Few parents, therefore, would send their boys
to Xenophon’s schools, at any rate for a longer period than would be
required for learning just the rudiments of national law and morality,
unless they designed them for a public career.
Thus Xenophon, like his beloved Spartans, has made war the main object
of education, and, like the Romans, uses law as the chief instrument
of instruction. But he has seen the demerits of the Spartan
“Mess-clubs,” and his boys take their meals and sleep, as a rule, at
home; only the epheboi, as in Crete, dine and sleep always in the
agora. His chief merit is that he recognised that an educational
atmosphere, εὐκοσμία τῶν πεπαιδευμένων [eukosmia tôn pepaideumenôn],
free from the associations of money-making, is essential to an
educational establishment.
After this deeply interesting sketch of Xenophon’s educational ideals,
the _Education of Kuros_ becomes a historical novel with a purpose, an
idealised Kuros acting as example throughout. In Book i. there is the
description of him as the model boy, courteous to his elders, quick
and eager to learn, brave, impetuous, loved by all, but rather a prig.
The description is full of improving anecdotes and little sermons. The
book concludes with a lecture on the duties of a general, dealing with
tactics and the best means of training the army and providing
supplies. Xenophon puts all his personal experience into this, and
there is plenty of adventure to make the book palatable to his young
readers.
A few extracts will make the characteristics of this curious work
plain.
When quite young, Kuros went with his mother Mandané to stay with his
grandfather Astuages, King of Media. The old man, thinking that the
boy would be homesick and wishing to comfort him, sent for him at
dinner the first evening and set all sorts of rich meats and sauces
before him. Then Kuros said, “Grandfather, you must find it a great
nuisance, if you have to help yourself to so many courses and taste so
many kinds of food.” His grandfather replied, “Why, don’t you think
this a much finer dinner than what you get at home?” “No,
grandfather,” replied Kuros; “at home we satisfy our appetites by a
short-cut, just bread and meat, but here, although your object is the
same, you wind in and out so much on the way that it takes you ever so
much longer to reach it.” “But, my boy, the delay is only so much
pleasure, as you will see if you try.” Kuros, however, persisted in
refusing the unwholesome dainties, so his grandfather compensated him
by giving him an enormous help of meat. “Is all this meant for me,”
asked Kuros, “to do what I like with?” “Yes, my boy.” Then Kuros took
the meat and distributed it to the servants who were waiting at table,
saying to one, “This is because you taught me to ride”; to another,
“This is because you gave me a javelin”; to a third, “This is for
waiting on my grandfather so nicely.” From this example the young
reader doubtless learned not to desire too many courses or too rich
sweets at table, and perhaps also to be grateful to every one, even
servants. After this Kuros remained in Media, while his mother
returned home. “He soon won the love of his schoolfellows, and quite
charmed their parents when invited to their houses by the affection
which he showed for their sons.” A good moral, this, for little boys
who go out to parties.
This model boy does not die young, but grows up. He had been rather a
chatterbox when small (a warning to the young readers), but only owing
to his desire for knowledge and his readiness to answer questions;
besides, he chattered in such a nice way that it was a pleasure to
hear him. But as he grew older, he grew more bashful. “He always
blushed when he met his elders, and he talked in a quieter tone. When
he played with his schoolfellows, he chose the games where he expected
to be beaten, not those in which he expected to win; and he was always
ready to lead the laugh against himself when beaten.” Model youth! Of
course, he soon became the champion at every form of sport, just as in
a modern book of the kind he would have won at least five “Blues.”
Kuros next appears as a mighty hunter, and then at the age of fifteen
takes a leading part in a battle against the Assyrians; in fact, it is
his strategy and prowess that decide the day. What more could be
wanted in a book for boys? The modern author would give him a grizzly
bear, a lion, and a V.C.: Xenophon gives him the Persian equivalents.
After this, little more is said of Kuros’ boyhood. He is next
introduced as a man of twenty-six, just put into command of a Persian
expedition to help Media against the Assyrians.[726] Henceforth
Xenophon’s object is no longer to point a moral, but to instruct
budding generals and princes in strategy and government. The remaining
books are a “Handbook of Tactics, with hints on the proper treatment
of inferiors”; so they fitly begin with a long lecture by Kuros’
father on the whole duty of a general.[727] There is, however, a good
deal of moral advice and occasional allegory interspersed amid the
tactics. For instance, a certain Gobruas came to dine with the Persian
army. “Seeing how plain the food was, he regarded the Persians as
rather _bourgeois_. But then he observed what good manners the guests
had. No educated Persian would allow himself to be seen staring at a
dish, or helping himself hurriedly, or acting at table without proper
deliberation. For they think it piggish to be excited by the presence
of food or drink. He noticed, too, that they never asked one another
questions which might cause pain, that their jests were never
malicious nor their wit rude, that everything that they did was in the
best taste, and that they never lost their tempers with one another.”
And so on. “Manners for men,” we might call it, by Xenophon.
A curiously interesting case of allegory, which well shows how
imaginary most of the history is, may be found in the third book.[728]
The son of the king of Armenia had had for a companion and tutor a
certain Sophist, of whose wisdom he was very proud. But his father
condemned the Sophist for corrupting[729] the boy. When he was being
led to execution, the man showed what a saint and hero he was by
calling the boy and saying, “Do not be angry with your father for
putting me to death. For it is no wicked purpose which makes him do
it, but only ignorance. All sins which men commit in ignorance I rank
as involuntary errors.” Later, the father confesses that he put the
Sophist to death for stealing away his son’s affections, “for I feared
that my boy might love him more than he loved me.” Kuros admits that
such jealousy is an explanation and regards it as pardonable.
The analogy to Sokrates is obvious to any one. The half-apology for
the Athenian people is very interesting in the mouth of the old
Socratic companion Xenophon.
But the object of the _Education of Kuros_ is, after all, to teach
generalship. A couple of examples of the way in which this is done
will suffice. On one occasion[730] Kuros orders the foot-cuirassiers
to lead the way in a forced march, and kindly explains the object of
such a manœuvre. “This command I give,” he says, “because they are the
heaviest part of the army. When the heaviest part is in the van,
obviously it is quite easy for the other arms, being lighter, to keep
up. But if the quickest detachment is in front on a night march, it is
not surprising if the army straggles, for the vanguard goes faster
than the rest.” Again, Kuros could call all his officers by name, to
their great surprise.[731] “For he thought it very absurd that
tradesmen should know the names of all their tools, and yet a general
should be so stupid as not to know the names of his officers whom he
must use as his tools in the most serious emergencies. Soldiers who
thought that their general knew their names would, he considered, be
more eager to do heroic deeds in his presence, and less eager to play
the coward. It seemed also to be foolish to be obliged to give orders,
when he wanted something done, in the way some masters do in their
households, ‘Fetch me some water, Somebody’; or ‘Cut some firewood,
Someone.’ For when the order is addressed to no one in particular,
each stands looking at his neighbour and expecting him to carry it
out.”
The military part is exceedingly well done. Xenophon was one of the
few good strategists whom Hellas produced, and his remarks on tactics,
the hygiene of an army, and discipline are sound and useful. What is
more, his novel is interesting and occasionally witty: it is
distinctly good reading. He has disguised his powder in the most
appetising jam, and so has achieved with success the difficult task of
writing a novel with a purpose. Had books been common then, his work
would have been both popular and useful in Boys’ Libraries, and have
done good service as a school prize. But from Plato it only provoked
the malicious and not very deep criticism that it was unhistorical and
unsound.[732] “Of Kuros,” he says, “I conjecture that, though he was a
good general and a patriot, he had not come across the merest scrap of
sound education, and never applied his mind to the art of managing a
household.[733] For, being absent on campaigns all his life, he
allowed the women to bring up his children. The women spoilt the boys,
letting no one gainsay them, and made them effeminate, not teaching
them the Persian habits or their father’s profession, but Median
luxury. Hence the collapse of Persia under Kambuses.”
[716] Xen. _Econ._ 19.
[717] Aristotle (_Pol._ vii. 12) says that “Free Agoras”
were customary in Thessaly. He adopts the system for his
ideal state――a clear compliment to Xenophon.
[718] Floggings were apparently to be frequent. “Tears are a
master’s instruments of instruction” (ii. 2. 14).
[719] viii. 8. 14.
[720] Hence his treatise on hunting.
[721] i. 2. 10.
[722] i. 6. 39-40.
[723] i. 3. 17.
[724] Cp. the experiment which was, I believe, tried in an
American school, where the boys learned the national
constitution by themselves electing in due form a President,
Congress, etc.
[725] “The perpetual presence of masters,” according to
Xenophon, “best inculcates proper modesty and discipline.”
[726] i. 5. 5.
[727] i. 6. 1-46.
[728] iii. 1. 38.
[729] διαφθείρειν [diaphtheirein], the word used in
Sokrates’ accusation.
[730] v. 3. 37.
[731] v. 3. 46. Notice the Socratic comparison.
[732] Plato, _Laws_, 694 C-D.
[733] A hit at Xenophon’s _Economics_.
PART III
CHAPTER XI
CONCLUDING ESSAY: THE SCHOOLS OF HELLAS
The preceding chapters have sufficiently established, as it seems to
me, that Hellenic education alike at Sparta and at Athens, in theory
and in practice, aimed at producing the best possible citizen, not the
best possible money-maker; it sought the good of the community, not
the good of the individual. The methods and materials of education
naturally differed with the conception of good citizenship held in
each locality, but the ideal object was always the same.
The Spartan, with his schoolboy conception of life, believed that the
whole duty of man was to be brave, to be indifferent to hardships and
pain, to be a good soldier, and to be always in perfect physical
condition; when his Hellenic instincts needed æsthetic satisfaction,
he made his military drill into a musical dance and sang songs in
honour of valour. Long speaking and lengthy meditation he regarded
with contempt, for he preferred deeds to words or thoughts, and the
essence of a situation could always be expressed in a single sentence.
This Spartan conception of citizenship fixed the aim of Spartan
education. Daily hardships, endless physical training, perpetual tests
of pluck and endurance, were the lot of the Spartan boy. He did not
learn to read or write or count; he was trained to speak only in
single words or in the shortest of sentences, for what need had a
Spartan of letters or of chattering? His imagination had also to be
subordinated to the national ideal: his dances, his songs, his very
deities, were all military.
The Athenian’s conception of the perfect citizen was much wider and
much more difficult of attainment. Pluck and harmony of physical
development did not satisfy him: there must be equal training of mind
and imagination, without any sacrifice of bodily health. He demanded
of the ideal citizen perfection of body, extensive mental activity and
culture, and irreproachable taste. “We love and pursue wisdom, yet
avoid bodily sloth; we love and pursue beauty, yet avoid bad taste and
extravagance,” proclaims Perikles in his summary of Athenian ideals.
Consequently Athenian education was triple in its aims; its activities
were divided between body, mind, and taste. The body of the young
Athenian was symmetrically developed by the scientifically designed
exercises of the palaistra. At eighteen the State imposed upon him two
years of physical training at public cost. In after life he could
exercise himself in the public gymnasia without any payment; there was
no actual compulsion, except the perpetual imminence of military
service, which, however, almost amounted to compulsion.
As to mental instruction, every boy had to learn reading, writing,
arithmetic, and gain such acquaintance with the national literature as
these studies involved. The other branch of primary education, playing
and singing, intended to develop the musical ear and taste, was
optional, but rarely neglected. The secondary education given by the
Sophists, rhetors, and philosophers was only intended for the
comparatively few who had wealth and leisure.
Taste and imagination were cultivated in the music- and art-schools,
but the influences of the theatre, the Akropolis, the temples and
public monuments, and the dances which accompanied every festival and
religious occasion, were still more potent, and were exercised upon
all alike. This æsthetic aspect of education was regarded as
particularly important in Hellas owing to the prevalent idea that art
and music had a strong influence over character.
For the training of character was before all things the object of
Hellenic education; it was this which Hellenic parents particularly
demanded of the schoolmaster. So strongly did they believe that virtue
could be taught, that they held the teacher responsible for any
subsequent misdemeanour of his pupils. Alkibiades and Kritias had
ruined Athens: they were Sokrates’ pupils: therefore execute Sokrates;
this seemed perfectly logical to an Athenian. If a Sophist sued a
defaulting pupil for an unpaid bill, he was regarded as ridiculous,
for it was his business to teach justice, and if those who had learned
under him behaved unjustly, it was clearly because his teaching had
been worthless.
Since the main object of the schools of Hellas was to train and mould
the character of the young, it would be natural to suppose that the
schoolmasters and every one else who was to come into contact with the
boys were chosen with immense care, special attention being given to
their reputation for virtue and conduct. At Sparta this principle was
certainly observed. Education was controlled by a paidonomos, selected
from the citizens of the highest position and reputation, and the
teaching was given, not by hired foreigners or slaves, but by the
citizens themselves under his supervision. But then the teaching at
Sparta dealt mostly with the manners and customs of the State, or with
bodily and military exercises, known to every grown man, and the
citizens had plenty of leisure. The Athenians were in a more difficult
position. There were more subjects for the boy to learn, and some of
them the parents might have neither the capacity nor the time to
teach. Owing also to the day-school system at Athens and the
peculiarities of Hellenic manners, the boys needed some one always at
hand to take them to and from school and palaistra. Thus both paid
teachers and attendants were needed. But it was also necessary not to
let education become too expensive, lest the poor should be unable to
afford it. Consequently the paidagogoi came often to be the cheapest
and most worthless slaves, and the schoolmasters as a class to be
regarded with supreme contempt. No doubt careful parents chose
excellent paidagogoi, schoolmasters, and paidotribai for their sons,
and made the choice a matter of much deliberation: the teachers at the
best schools and palaistrai were often men of position and repute. But
that the class as a whole was regarded with contempt there can be
little doubt. The children went into a school as they would have gone
into any other shop, with a sense of superiority, bringing with them
their pets, leopards and cats and dogs, and playing with them during
lesson-times. Idlers and loungers came into the schools and
palaistrai, as they came into the market-booths, to chatter and look
on, seriously interrupting the work. The schoolmasters and paidotribai
at Athens were, in fact, too dependent upon their public for
subsistence to take a strong line, and, in spite of their power, often
exercised, of inflicting corporal punishment, they seem to have been
distinctly at the mercy of the pupils and their friends. The
paidagogoi too, though they seem to have kept their pupils in order,
were often not the right people to control a boy’s conduct; they were
apt to have a villainous accent, and still more villainous habits. It
must be confessed that the Athenians, in their desire to make
education cheap, ran a very great risk of spoiling what in their
opinion was its chief object, the training of character.
Otherwise, they sought this end whole-heartedly. The games, physical
exercises, and hardships of a boy’s life were meant to develop his
pluck, fortitude, and endurance. For, according to the Hellenic view,
now too much neglected in many quarters, the condition and treatment
of the body had a very important effect both upon mental activities
and upon character. It was for this reason that physical training
formed at least half of every system of education practised in
Hellenic states or recommended by Hellenic philosophers. A National
School which trained the minds only, and neglected the bodies of the
pupils, would have been inconceivable to a Hellene. It was not merely
that physical infirmities interrupted the free exercise of thought, or
led to peevishness and lack of decision. Man was a whole to the
Hellenes, and one part of him could not be sound if the other parts
were not. So strongly did they hold this opinion, that they more than
half believed that physical beauty was a sign of moral beauty; it was
this latent idea which added an additional significance to the
exercises of the palaistra with their symmetrical development of the
body, and to the competitions for manly beauty which were prevalent
throughout the country; it lent, moreover, a nobler aspect to that
passion for the outward loveliness of youth which the vases,
sculpture, and literature of ancient Hellas reveal so surprisingly.
But, besides this vaguer and more doubtful connection with character,
bodily exercise and development were supposed to have a special and
indubitable effect in strengthening the resolution and will-power. The
object of physical training was only in a minor degree to keep the
body in good condition; its main aim was to develop strength of
character, determination, fortitude, endurance, pluck, and energy.
But, in accordance with that Hellenic canon of “moderation in all
things,” which was worked out so thoroughly by Aristotle, there might
be too much, as well as too little, of all these ethical qualities.
Consequently physical exercise must be taken only in due moderation,
and carefully balanced by artistic and musical training, which
militated in an opposite direction, leading, if pursued in excess, to
weakness of character, indecision, effeminacy, cowardice, and sloth. A
scientifically arranged symmetry between the two would produce the
perfect character.
In the literary and æsthetic schools there were two elements of the
subjects taught, both with an ethical effect, matter and form. The
literature studied in the schools was expected to be full of improving
suggestions and life-histories of heroes worthy of imitation, couched
in the form most attractive to young minds, in order that they might
appreciate and love its teaching and examples. The music which the
boys played or heard, the songs which they sang, the dances which they
performed or watched, the art which they copied or observed, must be
such as would influence their characters for good――mould them, that
is, in accordance with the national ideal. For Hellenic morality was
æsthetic; they followed the course which appealed to their imagination
and sense of beauty. It was therefore the object of education to make
the children see and feel beauty in virtue, and good art in good
ethics, in order that they might find satisfaction for their æsthetic
cravings――the dominant instinct of a Hellene――in living good and
upright lives.
For the unanimous feeling of Hellas based ethics not upon duty, but
upon happiness――upon the satisfaction, that is, of the instincts. But
this eudæmonistic attitude was qualified by an important consideration
which is often forgotten. Owing to the solidarity of Hellenic life,
the happiness which was sought was primarily not that of the
individual but that of the community. The readiness of the average
Hellene, during the best period of the country, to sacrifice
everything on behalf of his city is very remarkable. The real, if
unformulated, basis of his ethics came thus to be not personal
pleasure, but duty to the State. When the individualism of the
Socratic age overthrew this basis, the Hellenes fell back from the
happiness of the State to the happiness of the self, and both
patriotism and personal morality suffered from the change.
It was the sense of duty to the State, the resolution to promote the
happiness of the whole citizen-body, which made parents willing to
undergo any sacrifice in order to have their sons educated in the way
which would best minister to this ideal. The bills of the masters of
letters and music and of the paidotribai, and the lengthy loss of the
son’s services in the shop or on the farm in Attica, the break-up of
family life at Sparta, must have been a sore trial to the parents and
have involved many sacrifices. Yet there is no trace of grumbling. The
Hellene felt that it was quite as much his duty to the State to
educate her future citizens properly as it was to be ready to die in
her cause, and he did both ungrudgingly. If the laws which made the
teaching of letters compulsory at Athens fell into desuetude, it was
only because the citizens needed no compulsion to make them do their
duty. Nor had the State to pay the school bills; for every citizen,
however poor, was ready to make the necessary sacrifices of personal
luxuries and amusements in order to do his duty to the community by
having his children properly taught. The State only interfered to make
schooling as cheap and as easy to obtain as possible.
The solidarity of Hellenic life, which converted eudæmonism into
patriotism, was carefully encouraged by the educational system.
Sparta, with this object, invented the boarding-school, where boys
learnt from early years to sink their individualities in a community
of character and interests. The Athenians and most of the other
Hellenes, on the other hand, had day-schools. This fact might seem to
militate against the principle which I have stated. But Hellenic
custom qualified the system of day-schools in a particular way. There
were no home-influences in Hellas. The men-folk lived out of doors.
The young Athenian or Ephesian from his sixth year onwards spent his
whole day away from home (excepting possibly for an interval for the
mid-day meal), in the company of his contemporaries, at school or
palaistra or in the streets. When he came home, there was no
home-life. His father was hardly ever in the house. His mother was a
nonentity, living in the women’s apartments; he probably saw little of
her. His real home was the palaistra, his chief companions his
contemporaries and his paidagogos. He learned to dissociate himself
from his family and associate himself with his fellow-citizens. No
doubt he lost much by this system, but the solidarity of the State
gained.
The duties of citizenship were also impressed upon the boys in other
and more direct ways, especially its supreme duty, at any rate in
those days, of military service. The schools of Sparta and Crete were
one long training for war. The other States set apart two years of the
boy’s life, those from eighteen to twenty, as a period of
conscription, during which he was at the service of his city and under
the orders of the military authorities, learning tactics and the use
of arms, and being practised in the life of camps and forts. The young
recruit took a solemn oath of allegiance to his country and its
constitution: the sacredness of his civic duties was impressed upon
him from the first. The first function of his new officers was to take
him on a personally conducted tour, so to speak, of the national
temples, that he might realise something of the religious life and
history of his country. His weapons were solemnly presented to him in
the theatre of Dionusos, before the assembled people; they were
sacred, and to lose them in battle or disgrace them by cowardice was
not only dishonourable, it was impious. Nor were the boys allowed to
grow up in ignorance of the constitution of their city: the ephebos of
eighteen had to be acquainted with the laws, some of which he had
probably learnt in the music-school, set to a tune. Every means was
taken of making the boys realise that they were members of a
community, to whose prosperity and happiness their own advantage or
pleasure must be subordinated. In this way grew up the strong Hellenic
sense of an obligation of utter self-sacrifice on behalf of the State.
But education had also to consult the happiness of the children as
well as the happiness of the community, although in a lesser degree.
This may seem a startling statement to make with regard to Spartan
education. Nevertheless, I believe it to be strictly true. It must be
remembered that all our accounts of the rigours and horrors of Spartan
methods come from Athenian writers who in all probability had never
been to Lakedaimon. Xenophon, who had his sons educated there, gives a
much milder, and wholly eulogistic, account. The somewhat hedonistic
Attic visitor must have watched Spartan games and exercises with much
the feelings of a French visitor at an English public school; he found
it difficult to realise that the boys underwent such hardships of
their own free will. Then we must remember what the Spartan boys were.
They were a picked breed of peculiar toughness, strength, and health;
for centuries every invalid had been exposed at birth or rejected as
incapable of the school-system. Generation after generation had been
trained to be thick-skinned and stout-hearted; pluck and endurance
were hereditary, and asceticism was a national characteristic. The
whole system, with its perpetual fighting, its rough games, its
hardships, its fagging and “roughing-it” in the woods, is just what
boys of this sort might be expected to evolve for themselves because
they liked it. I have already pointed out, in my account of the
Spartan schools, how very similar are many of the customs which grew
up at the older English public schools, mainly on the boys’ own
initiative. If English boys, brought up on the whole much less
roughly, evolved such customs of their own free will, the young
Spartans may reasonably be supposed to have accepted them gladly. One
significant token of this survives. The violent and sometimes fatal
floggings of the epheboi at the altar of Artemis Orthia were entirely
voluntary on the part of the victims; yet there was no lack of
candidates even in Plutarch’s days. The Spartan school-system was, in
fact, an exact expression of the national characteristics, and
accordingly was entirely acceptable to the Spartan boys.
That the Athenian system was designed to suit the wishes of the
Athenian children is less difficult to establish. It is only necessary
to think what the primary schools were like. When once the letters and
rudiments of reading and writing had been mastered, the process
perhaps being aided by metrical alphabets and dramatised spelling, the
boys began to read, learn by heart, and write down the fascinating
stories of adventure and the romantic tales of Homer. There was no
grammar to be studied; that, when invented, came at a later age as a
voluntary subject. There were no years wasted over “Primary Readers”
consisting of dull and second-rate stories. The boys began at once
upon the best and most attractive literature in their language, and it
remained their study for many years, and was still remembered and
loved in after life. Nor can it be doubted that the music- and
art-schools were attractive to Athenian boys, sons of a people who
filled their whole city with art, and made their year a round of
musical festivals. A large part, too, of Athenian schooling was what
now would be called play; for the Hellene recognised the importance of
physical exercise in the upbringing of the young, and included it in
his conception of education.
The effect upon Hellenic culture of thus making education attractive
was far-reaching. Instead of regarding with aversion or a bored
indifference the subjects which they had studied at school, the
Hellenes had an affection for them and continued to practise and
improve themselves in them. Throughout their lives they were eager to
hear recitations of Homer. At banquets they sang the songs and played
the music on the lyre which they had learnt at school. Elderly men
would return to a music-master, to improve their style, or rush off to
hear a Sophist lecture on geography or astronomy. The exercises of the
palaistra were pursued till old age made them impossible. Grown
citizens retained throughout an affection for education, and went on
educating themselves all their lives. Thus an Hellenic city formed a
centre of widely diffused culture, a home where literature and art and
music and research could flourish surrounded by appreciation and
capable criticism. Children, too, seeing how much their elders were
preoccupied with education, found it even more attractive than its
designers had made it, since they were not constrained by
nursery-logic to see in it one of the plagues of youth from which
“grown-ups” were set free. No doubt the Hellenic schoolmaster was much
assisted in his endeavour to make education attractive by the
intellectual curiosity which was a feature of all those States where
the intellect was systematically trained. The young Athenian or young
Chian was exceedingly eager to learn. In fact, his eagerness was
excessive; he was too much in a hurry; he desired to have his
information given to him ready-made, not having the patience to think
or to undertake researches on his own account. Hence the phenomenal
success and educational unsoundness of those prototypes of the modern
“crammer,” the Sophists, who supplied their pupils with a superficial
knowledge of many subjects ready-made, and already dressed in striking
phraseology. This intellectual appetite for the accumulation of facts
made secondary education at Athens attractive without much effort on
the part of the teachers, but it was not allowed to influence the
primary schools; a sound and symmetrical development of mind and body,
artistic taste and moral character, had to precede the accumulation of
facts. This latter stage too was universally treated as optional. In
unintellectual districts it found no place, and even in Athens it was
only for those who felt a desire for it; it was not forced upon the
unwilling and incapable. For education was regarded as the development
of the latent powers of the individual personality, it was no vain
attempt to excite or implant non-existent faculties. Every one had a
body, which he must make as efficient as possible, for the service of
the State; every one, in an æsthetic people, had a taste which could
be developed; every one had enough intellect to learn his letters; and
every one, above all, had a character to be formed. But not every one
could be an international athlete or a first-class artist or musician,
and not every one had sufficient mental gifts to combine the
accumulation of facts with profit or enjoyment.
In fact, Hellenic sentiment was distinctly adverse to great
development in any one direction: the Hellenes had a reasonable horror
of undue specialisation at school. The object of education was to make
symmetrical, all-round men, sound alike in body, mind, character, and
taste, not professional athletes who were mentally vacuous and without
any appreciation of art, nor great thinkers of stunted physique, nor
celebrated musicians who lacked brains. Opponents of the Spartan
system tried to condemn it on this ground, as a specialisation
intended only to produce good soldiers; but the pro-Spartans seemed to
have claimed in return that it developed both character and good taste
in judging art and music, even if it produced small capacity for
painting or playing, while Laconian terseness involved a greater depth
of mental exercise than Athenian verbosity.
Thus Hellenic education was not intended to produce professional
knowledge of a single subject; such technical instruction was deemed
unworthy of the name of education, and was excluded from the schools.
The subjects studied were for the most part a means, not an end. Just
as a walk is sometimes taken not for the sake of reaching any
particular place, but in order to keep the muscles of the body in good
condition, so education in Hellas was meant to develop and exercise
the muscles of mind, imagination, and character, not to inculcate
so-called “useful” information. The literature read at school was
imaginative poetry, like that of Homer or Simonides, not the practical
prose treatises upon Agriculture and Economics which utilitarian
motives would have demanded. For the poetry was both attractive to the
boys and improving for their characters, while the handbooks, however
excellent, only enhanced their financial prospects. The immediate
future of the individual boy may, it is true, depend somewhat largely
upon the utilitarian knowledge which he has learnt at school, although
a sound education in the Hellenic sense of the word will prove more
advantageous to him in the long run; but the future of a State depends
upon the character of its citizens. Thus a truly national education
like that of Sparta or of Athens seeks to train the characters of the
future citizens; having formed their characters, it leaves them with
well-justified confidence to gain what technical instruction they need
for themselves. At a national crisis it was not skill in trade or
profession, not good cobbling, nor good weaving, that Athens required
of her citizens; but pluck, energy, self-sacrifice, obedience, and
loyalty. Money was, it is true, required for building the triremes and
for fortifying the city: it was therefore well that Athenian trade and
manufactures should prosper. But Athens recognised, and rightly, that
her financial resources would be better served if she trained her boys
to be industrious and thrifty and ascetic, if she made it repugnant to
their taste to fling their money away upon luxury and self-indulgence,
than if she founded the finest system of technical instruction
possible.
But whether Sparta and Athens could have ignored technical and
utilitarian subjects so wholly in their schools, if they had been
educating the whole population of the State, is another question. It
must be remembered that the Spartan and Athenian citizens who attended
the schools were only a fraction of the inhabitants of Laconia and
Attica. They corresponded pretty closely to the upper classes, the
aristocracy and gentlemen, of a modern State. The bulk of the middle
and lower classes in a Hellenic State were either foreign immigrants,
who possessed no civic rights and did not usually attend the schools,
or serfs and slaves. Athens, like mediæval Florence, was only a
democracy in the very limited sense that her full citizens――a
governing class, that is, and a mere fraction of the population――had
equality of civic rights among themselves: the rest had no rights at
all. Sparta was a “mixed constitution”; but that did not mean that the
middle and lower classes, the Perioikoi and Helots, had any share in
it whatever.
Consequently education in Hellas is the education of a small upper
class, not of the whole population of the State. The schools of Hellas
were not necessarily for the wealthiest inhabitants of the country,
for there were plenty of rich Metoikoi and poor citizens at Athens;
not necessarily for the boys who had most leisure, for the
sausage-seller goes to school as well as a Nikias or Alkibiades; but
for a hereditary aristocracy of birth, for that is what Hellenic
“citizenship” means. The boys who attended the lessons of Dionusios or
Elpias were the sons and grandsons of a cultured class, no matter how
humble their circumstances might be; their families had lived in
Attica, they believed, from time immemorial, and were probably
descended from the local deities. They had the views of an hereditary
caste, including a certain preoccupation with physical and military
activities, and a contempt for trade.
For the duties of such an aristocracy did not consist in heaping up
riches; their position was comparatively independent of their
financial successes. Their work was, in brief, to govern and to fight.
They composed the electorate of the State, which chose the
magistrates; they alone were members of the public Assembly; they
alone were eligible for office. They sat as dikastai――jurymen and
justices in one――in the law-courts; they made the laws and they
administered them. The national honour and morality lay in their
hands, for they controlled alike the foreign and the home policy of
the State. They formed, too, the cultured circle which governed
natural taste; it was their criticism which shaped the art of the
vase-painters, the architects, the sculptors, the bronze-makers, and
the countless other artistic tradesmen, the style of the orators, the
literature of dramatists and dithyrambists, the music of the choric
composers. When governors and administrators were needed for the
outlying districts of the Athenian or Spartan Empires, or if officers
were required to lead local levies to battle, any citizen, rich or
poor, might be sent. The citizens, too, formed the core of the fleets
and armies in the best days of Hellas. The object of Hellenic
education was to produce this type of citizen――a man capable of
governing, of fighting, and of setting the taste and standards of his
country.
Thus the schools of Hellas correspond in England not to the national
schools, but to the “public schools.” I do not mean to assert that the
English public-school boy stands, in after life, in the position of
the Hellenic citizen to the bulk of the population. English democracy
rests on a wider basis than Athenian or Florentine, and, in theory at
any rate, the exclusive power of the “upper classes” is at an end.
None the less it is true that from among the boys educated at the
public schools comes a very considerable part of the generals and
military officers, of the clergy, of the squires, of the Justices of
the Peace and other administrators of the law, of the governors and
officials required by the Indian Empire and the various dependencies
and Crown Colonies, of the members of Parliament and statesmen at
home. If the influence of the public schools of England upon the
governing and fighting of the nation is less than that which the
schools of Hellas were able to exercise, their influence upon national
taste and standards in art and culture and literature is probably in
no way inferior. It is therefore their duty to train their pupils’
characters, that they may be fit and able administrators, governors,
and justices; and their tastes, that their criticism and demands may
rightly direct the culture of the nation. In striving after these
ends, the public schools of England may, I think, take not a few hints
from the like-motived schools of Hellas.
INDEX
Abacus, illustrated, 104
Aegina pediment, 5
Aeolian harmony, 240, 241
Aeschylus, 245
Aesop, 49, 96
Agesilaos, 13, 138, 236
Aglauros, temple of, 210
Aineias Tacticus, 208
Aischines, father of, an usher, 83
Akademeia, 125
description of scene in, 134-142
Plato’s teaching in the, 196-207
Plato’s lectures in the, described by Epikrates, 199
Plato’s lectures, reference by Ephippos and Antiphanes, 200
Plato’s lectures in the, reference by Amphis, 201
Plato’s lectures in the, references in Comedy, 201
Plato’s lectures in the, reference by Alexis, 200-201
Plato’s pupils described by Ephippos, 200
Alexander, 2, 203
Alexis, 207
his catalogue of a school library, 95
on the Akademeia, 200-201
Alkibiades, 207, 277
plays the flute, 111
in the pankration, 133
Alphabet, metrical, 88
Amphis, on the Akademeia, 201
Anaxagoras, 81, 158, 209, 230
Angelo, Michel, 5
Anthology, on wrestling, 132
_Antidosis_ of Isokrates, 190
Antigenes, palaistra of, 60
Antipater, 192
Antiphanes, on the Akademeia, 200
Antiphon the Sophist, 172-173
Apelles, 115
Apollodoros, 208
Apprenticeship, 44-45
Arcadia, 243
Archephebos, 220
Archon Eponumos, 71 _n._
_Areiopagitikos_ of Isokrates, 190
Areiopagos, supervision of the young, 70
and the epheboi, 213
Ares, 211
Argos, 12 _n._
foot-races for girls at, 142
Aristophanes, supports athleticism, 123
criticism of Sophists in the _Clouds_, 166-167
attacks new artistic standards, 251
Aristotle, 202
condemns professional athletes, 123
at Plato’s lecture on “The Good,” 198
his school in the Lukeion, 203
views on art in education, 117, 258
Aristoxenos, 171
Arithmetic, teaching of, 100-107
Arkadia, schools in, 77, 243
Art, characteristics of Greek, 237-239
teaching of, in primary schools, 114-117
Artemis Koruthalia, 40
Artemis Orthia, 29, 285
Artistic education, 237-258
Aristotle on, 117
Art-schools, date of the rise of, 115
Aster, Plato’s pupil, 201-202
Astupalaia, school in, 77
Athleticism at Sparta, 11-34
in Crete, 36-38
at Athens and the rest of Greece, 118-156
revolt against excessive, 75
excessive addiction to, 119-132
Autokrator, 192
Autolukos, 75-76
Auxo, 211
Axiothea, 197
Barbitos, 108
Bathing-room in the gymnasium, 137
Boiotia, schools in, 76
Books, use of, in education, 204-209
Isokrates’ opinion of, 204
Plato’s opinion of, 205
rare before the Periclean age, 207
trade in, 207
prices of, 208-209
variety of, 208
_Bousiris_ of Isokrates, 185, 187, 195
Boxing in the palaistra, 132-133
Bribery, among professional athletes, 121
Cavalry, training for, 143, 149-152
Chabrias, 202
Chancellor (Kosmetes) of the epheboi, 212-213
Chares, 208
Charondas, 62
_Cheiron, Precepts of_, 96
Chess (πεσσοί [pessoi]), 105
Children, exposure of Spartan, 13
Chios, Isokrates in, 181
collapse of a school of letters in, 76
girls wrestling in, 142
Choirilos, 95, 207
Choregia, description of, 148-149
Choregos, 60, 148
Competitions, local, 62-65
Conscription, 283
at Athens, 55-56
Cookery-book, 207
by Simos, 96
by Mithaikos, 208
Cookery-schools, 45
Corporal punishment, 18, 29, 66, 68, 98-100, 262 and _n._, 285
Crete, education at, 34-38
Damon, a music-teacher, 113, 249
Dancing at Sparta, 22, 30-32
dithuramboi, 144-145
religious aspect of, 143-144, 248
dramatic aspects of, 144-145
systems of, 145
the War-dance, 146-147
the Naked-dance, 31, 147
universal throughout Hellas, 143
educational importance of, 143
Delphoi, educational endowments at, 62
Demosthenes, 195, 202
Derkulos, 71
Diaulos, 133
Dictation, 87
Diodotos, 192
Dion, 202
Dionusia, epheboi at, 214
Dionusios, Plato’s master, 158, 160
Plato’s pupil, 202, 203
Dionusodoros the Sophist, 173
Dionusos, 144, 283
Diskos in the palaistra, 134
Dorian harmony, 240-241
Douris, Vase of, 52, 86, 92
Drama, influence of, in education, 248-249
Drawing, teaching of, in primary schools, 114
Dresden Gallery, 5
Dusting-room in the gymnasium, 137
Edgeworth, Maria, 74, 260
Egypt, in Plato’s _Laws_, 102-103
Eleusis, education at, 71
Elgin marbles, 3, 5
Elpias, school of, 83
Empedokles, 230
Enualios, 211
Epaminondas, 245
Ephebarchos, 220
Ephebic inscriptions, 221-223
Epheboi, 37, 263
examination and oath, 210-211
decline in number, 219-220
Ephippos, on the Akademeia, 200
Epicharmos, 95, 207
Epikrates, on Plato’s lectures, 199
Eponumos, Archon, 71 _n._
Eretria, school in, 77
Eros, 135
Eruthrai, school in, 77
Euagoras, 191
Eudikos, son of Apemantos, 98
Euenos of Paros, 168, 176
Euhemeros, 229 _n._
Euripides, his alphabetical puzzle, 90
denunciation of athleticism, 122
his rationalism, 230
Euthudemos the Sophist, 173
Euthudemos, companion of Sokrates, 207
Eutuchides, 155
Exposure of Spartan children on Taügetos, 13
Fees, 62, 278, 281
paid to schoolmasters, 81
of the paidotribes, 134
paid to Sophists, 168-169
of permanent secondary teachers, 182
in the Akademeia, 202-203
to the Sophronistai, 213
Festivals, school, 80-81
Flute, teaching of, 110
condemned by Pratinas, 110
condemned by Plato, 242
particulars of, 112
Flute-girls, professional, 111
“Foreign Legion,” 216, 218
Gelon of Syracuse, 228
Gesticulation, 129-130
Girls at Sparta, 29-30
wrestle at Chios, 142
foot-races for, at Argos, 142
Gorgias the Sophist, 168, 169, 174-176, 208
his euphuistic style, 176
his influence on later writers, 176
Grammatistes, 50
Gumnasiarchos, 213-214, 220
excursus on, 154-156
Gumnastes, distinct from paidotribes, 126 _n._
Gumnopaidia, 31, 146-147
Gymnasium, description of, 124
cost, 124
description of scene in, 134-142
ἀποδυτήριον [apodytêrion], 135
patron deities, 135
the oil-room, 136
the dusting-room, 137
the bathing-room, 137
the punch-ball room, 137
Sophists’ lectures, 138
central courtyard, 138-139
the xustos, 141
Gymnastics, excessive addiction to, 119-123
professional, disadvantages of, 120
Haltêres, 128
Hegemone, 211
_Helen_ of Isokrates, 185, 195
Hellas, educator of the world, 2-3
Hellenism, two currents of, 6
spread by Alexander, Rome, and the Renaissance, 2-3
spirit of, 3
methods of teaching, 4, 275-291
Henty, G. A., 260
Hephaisteia, 155
Herakleides of Pontos, 36 _n._, 198, 202, 241
Herakleitos, 229
Hermann, K. F., an emendation of, 125
“Hermes” of Praxiteles, 5, 250
Herondas, third Mime of, 98-100
Hesiod, 207
authority of, 228
teaching of, in primary schools, 95
Hestiaios, 198
Hippias of Elis, 97, 168, 169, 172
Hippokleides, 129
Hippokrates, 208, 215
Hippothontid tribe, 215
Holidays, on festivals, 80-81
Homer, 207
teaching of, in primary schools, 93-95
authority of, 228
Horace, 2
Hunting, 142-143, 259
Hupereides, 202
Hypo-Dorian harmony, 241
Iliaca, Tabula, 84
Ink, 85, 87
Inscriptions, ephebic, 221-223
Inukos, 168
Ion, the rhapsode, 97
Ionian harmony, 240-241
Iphikrates, 202
Isaios, 195
Isokrates, 161
pupil of Gorgias, 169
his school near the Lukeion, 180
teaching in Chios, 181
on the theory of education, 182
on the nature of philosophy, 184
his school described, 185-195
his methods, 186-190
his pupils, 191, 192
on theory of education, 192
definition of the educated man, 192-193
on religious myths, 230-231
Javelin and spear throwing in the palaistra, 134
Jiu-jitsu, 131
Jump, long, in the palaistra, 133
Kallias, his metrical alphabet, 88
his spelling drama, 88-90
Kameiros, in Rhodes, 53
Karia, 241 _n._
Karneia, 40
Kekropid tribe, 215, 219
Kikunna, 166
Kitharistes, 50
Klazomenai, 81
Kleinias, 243
Kleon, 113
Knucklebones, 65, 99, 105
Kolonos, 196
Konnaros, 65
Konnos, his music-school, 113
Korax, 208
Korubantic dances, 242 _n._
Kôrukoi, 128, 137
Kos, 215
Kosmetes of the epheboi, 212-213
Kottalos, in Herondas, 99-100
Kritias, 63, 277
plays the flute, 111
Kunaitha, 243
Kuretic dance in Crete, 36, 146
_Kuros, The Education of_, 259-272
Lampriskos, in Herondas, 99-100
Lampros, a music-teacher, 113, 164
Lastheneia, 197
Laughter, statue of, in Sparta, 12
Leap-frog in the palaistra, 130
Lectures in primary schools, 97
Leitourgiai, 60-61, 148
excursus on gumnasiarchoi, 154-156
Leokrates, 219
Lesbos, schools in, 77
Leschai at Sparta, 11
Libanius, 178
Libraries of Euthudemos, 207
of Peisistratos at Athens, 207
of Polukrates at Samos, 207
Library, a school, 95
Likumnios the Sophist, 176
Linos, 207
Literature, teaching of, in primary schools, 93-97
in secondary schools, 161-162
Logographoi, 180-181, 193
Long jump in the palaistra, 133
Lukeion, 125
description of scene in, 134-142
Lukourgos the orator, 202, 211
Lusandros, 16
Lusias, the logographos, 193
Lusis, 54
Lydian harmony, 240-242
Lyre, and lyric-schools, 107-114
Mantitheos, 60
Marathon, 3
Marriage customs, 48
Mathematics, teaching of, 100-107
in secondary schools, 159
Meals, hours of, 80
Medical beliefs, 243
Menander, 250
Menedemos, 196
Metrodoros, 230
Metrotimé, in Herondas, 98-100
Michel Angelo, 5
Mikkos, 138 n.
Mithaikos, 208
Mixed-Lydian harmony, 241
Moderators (Sophronistai), 70, 212-213, 220
Mounuchia, 213
Mousaios, 164
Mukalessos, schools at, 76
Muronides, 218
Music, 240-244
in Crete, 36-37
in primary schools, 107-114
Music, Plato on the value of, 113
Aristotle on the value of, 114
characteristics of Greek, 240-244
Greek views of the properties of, 243
in Arkadia, 243
Music-schools, experiments in, 110
“Nature-study,” 262
Nikeratos, 94
Nikostratos, archonship of, 212
Oberammergau, 249
Oil-room in the gymnasium, 136
Oinopides, 158
Orpheus, 95, 164, 207
Oxurhunchos, fragment on wrestling unearthed at, 131
Paidagogos, 266, 278-279
duties of, 66-69
Paidonomos, 277
Paidotribes, 50, 278
duties of, 126
his symbol of office, 128
his fee, 134
Painting, teaching of, in primary schools, 114
Palaistra, distinct from gymnasium, 124
life in the, 124-134
teaching of gesticulation (τὸ χειρονομεῖν) [to cheironomein], 129
wrestling (πάλη) [palê], 130-132
leap-frog, 130
rope-climbing, 130
boxing, 132
pankration, 132-133
long jump, 133
running, 133
javelin and spear, 134
diskos, 134
fees of the paidotribes, 134
Pamphilos the Macedonian, 115
Panathenaic festival, 148, 152, 155
_Panathenaikos_ of Isokrates, 187, 189
Pankration in the palaistra, 132-133
Parthenon, 244, 245
the “Theseus” of the, 5
Peiraieus, 213
Peisistratos, 247
popularisation of Homer by, 52
Pencils, 84
Perikles, 3, 246, 276
Peripoloi, 214 and n., 215
Permanent secondary schools, 179-209
their natural growth at Athens, 179
fees, 182
of Isokrates, 185-195
Phaüllos, 139
Pheidias, 245, 250
Pheiditia at Sparta, 13-15
Pheidostratos, schoolroom of, 98
Pherekrates, _The Slave-Teacher_, 45
Philosophy, schools of, 195-207
their feuds, 203-204
Philoxenos, 242
Phokion, 202
Phrunichos, 215
Phrunis, 12
Phrygian harmony, 240
Physical education, 279
in Athens and the rest of Hellas, 118-156
contemporary criticism of excess, 119-123
dancing, 143-149
Pindar, eulogy of athleticism, 121-122
Pittalos, 45
Plataea, oath of the army at, 211
Plato, denounces excessive athleticism, 123
criticism of Sophists, 174
his teaching in the Akademeia, 196-207
his teaching in the Akademeia described by Epikrates, 199
teaching in the Akademeia: his affection for his pupils, 201-202
teaching in the Akademeia: names of his pupils, 202
teaching in the Akademia, gratuitous, 203
on the theory of education, 205-206
criticism of religious myths, 231-233
on the value of myths, 235
on the educative value of artistic environment, 246
his excessive imagination, 247
on the Athenian drama, 253
criticism of art, 255-258
on Xenophon’s Kuros, 272
Playgrounds, 83
Plecktron, 107
Poetry, place of, in education, 247-249
Polemon, 201
Polos the Sophist, 168, 176, 208
Polugnotos, 115
Polybios, on Arcadian music, 243
Pratinas, on the flute, 110
Praxiteles, the “Hermes” of, 5, 250
Prizes, 65
Prodikos the Sophist, 168, 171-172
_Choice of Herakles_, 96, 98, 171-172
Propulaia, 245
Protagoras the Sophist, 167-168, 170, 230
Proverbs, Greek, 45, 57 _n._, 110, 111, 152
Public schools, English, compared, 23, 212 _n._, 265
Punch-ball, 137
Pyrrhic dance, 36
Raphael, 5
Rationalism, spread of, 229-230
Reading, teaching of, 87-92
Religious education, 228-236
Plato’s revision, 231-233
Rhetoric in secondary schools, 160-161
weaknesses of Greek, 174-175
Riding, 143, 149-152
Rope-climbing in the palaistra, 130
Rowing, 143, 153-154
Running, long-distance, 133
in the palaistra, 133
Salmudessos, 207
Schoolmaster, status of, 81
Secondary education, 157-209
secondary classes in primary schools, 157-158
Sophists, 157-178
permanent schools, 179-209
variety of subjects, 159
rhetoric, 160-161
literary subjects, 161
the education voluntary, 163
_Semelé_, 145, 256
Shakespeare, 249
Shelley, translation of epigram, 202
Siburtios, palaistra of, 60
Sicily, education in Chalcidian cities of, 62
Sikinnos, 67
Simon, 208
Simos, his cookery-book, 96
Sistine Chapel, 5
Skias, council-chamber at Sparta, 12
Skillous, 259
_Slave-Teacher, The_, of Pherekrates, 45
Sokrates, 167, 230, 270, 277
Solon, 57, 247
enactment on handicraft, 45
regulations about paidagogoi, 67
enactments to safeguard morality, 68-69
archaic phrases in his laws, 95
on courtiers, 104
metrical version of Athenian laws, 109
? on gumnasiarchai, 155
Sophists, 157-178, 286
and mathematics, 102
subjects taught, 165
criticism of Aristophanes, 166
criticism of Plato, 174
scale of fees, 169
secret of their power, 170
their undemocratic influence, 177
their rationalism, 177
criticised by Isokrates, 182
Sophokles, 3
Sophronistai, 70, 212-213, 220
Sparta, education at, 11-34
character of people, 11
importance of education at, 12
details of Pheiditia, 13-15
the State a military machine, 12
conservatism of, 12
strictness of discipline, 13
Spartan nurses, 13
system of State schools, 14
Syssitia, 39-40
ideals in education, 275
educational methods, 285
Spelling, teaching of, 88-90
Spelling-book, terra-cotta fragment of, 89 _n._
Speusippos, 202
Stadion, 133
Stesimbrotos, 230
Swimming, 143, 152-153
Syntono-Lydian harmony, 242
Syssitia at Sparta, 39-40, 267
at Crete, 40-41
Tabula Iliaca, 84
Taügetos, exposure of Spartan children on, 13
Taureas, palaistra of, 60
Technical instruction, 44-46
of the logographoi, 180-181
Teles, 115, 160
Tennyson, quoted, 235
Teos, 220
educational endowments in, 62
prizemen in competitions, 63
recitations of boys at, 96
Tertiary education, 210-223
Thales (Cretan poet), 243
Thallo, 211
Thargelia, 148, 155
Theodoros, 160, 176
Theognis, 96
Theophanes, 212
Theophrastos, 243
Theory of education, 227-272, 275-291
Plato’s views on, 205-206
Xenophon’s views on, 259-272
Thermopylae, 3
“Theseus,” of the Parthenon, 5, 245
Thespis, 247
Thrasuboulos of Kaludon, 215
Thrasumachos, 177, 208
Timeas, palaistra of, 60
Timotheos, 12, 145
Timotheos the general, 196
Timotheos of Herakleia, 192
Tisias, 208
Tithenidia, 40
Torch-race, 155
Trade, Greek views on, 43
Troizen, schools in, 77, 220
Undressing-room in the gymnasium, 135
Virgil, 2
Wax, tablets of, 84
Women, gymnastics for, at Sparta, 30
seclusion of, 46
duties of, 47
excluded from athletics in Athens, 142
admitted to the Akademeia, 197
position of, 282
Wrestling in the palaistra described, 130-132
Writing, teaching of, 85-87
Xenokrates, 196, 201, 202, 203
Xenophanes, 229
Xenophanes of Kolophon, criticises athleticism, 121
Xenophon, treatise on _The Horse_, 208
handbooks on educational subjects, 208
_The Education of Kuros_, 259-272
character of, 259-260
Xerxes, 61, 239
Xustos, in the gymnasium, 141
Zeuxippos of Heraklea, 114
ἄβακος [abakos], 104
ἀγέλαι [agelai], 37
ἀλειπτής [aleiptês], 126 _n._
ἀνδρεῖα [andreia], 35
ἀπεργάζεσθαι [apergazesthai], 116
ἀπόδρομοι [apodromoi], 38
ἀποδυτήριον [apodytêrion], 135
γραμμαί [grammai], 86
γραμματιστής [grammatistês], 165
γυμνασιαρχεῖν [gymnasiarchein], 155
γυμνοπαιδία [gymnopaidia], 146
ἐλαιοθέσιον [elaiothesion], 136 _n._
ἐξαλείφειν [exaleiphein], 116
ἔπαικλον [epaiklon], 39
ἐπίκροτος [epikrotos], 151
ἦθος [êthos], 244
κάθαρσις [katharsis], 242
κατάστεγος δρόμος [katastegos dromos], 136
κιθαριστής [kitharistês], 165
κοπίδες [kopides], 40
κρυπτοί [kryptoi], 215, 220
ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον [lêxiarchikon grammateion], 210
μεγαλόψυχος [megalopsychos], 236
μειράκιον [meirakion], 53, 191
μέτοικοι ἰσοτελεῖς [metoikoi isoteleis], 216
ξηραλοιφεῖν [xêraloiphein], 136 _n._
ὁμόνοια [homonoia], 172
ὄρμος [hormos], 30 _n._
παιδαγωγεῖον [paidagôgeion], 84
παιδονόμος [paidonomos], 36
πάλη [palê], 130-132
πεμπάζειν [pempazein], 104
περιγραφή [perigraphê], 116
περιτόλια [peripolia], 215
πεσσοί [pessoi], 105
πλέξον [plexon], 131
σκιαγραφία [skiagraphia], 116
σοφιστής [sophistês], 164, 165
στλεγγίς [stlengis], 142
σχῆμα [schêma], 131
ὑπαίθριοι [hypaithrioi], 215
ὑπογραμμός [hypogrammos], 85
ὑπογράφειν [hypographêin], 116
ὑπογραφή [hypographê], 86
φορβέια [phorbeia], 112, 128
χειρονομεῖν [cheironomein], 129
χυτλοῦσθαι [chytlousthai], 136 _n._
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
Transcriber’s Note
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the
end of the chapter in which related anchors occur. Dialect, obsolete
words and misspellings were left unchanged. Final stops missing at
the end of sentences were added. Transliterations of words and phrases
in Greek follow within brackets.
The following items were noted or changed:
There are two anchors to Footnotes [28], [291], [449], [537], and
[548]. Footnote [585] has 3 anchors.
Unprinted “I.” added at the beginning of the list of Illustrations.
In Footnote [513], reference letter after 384 is unclear; it could be
either E or B.
In Footnote [651], changed stop to comma in list: “… 466, 470”.
End of Project Gutenberg's Schools of Hellas, by Kenneth John Freeman