PAGE
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 441
The Development of Individualism. The Harmonization
of the Individual and Society.
INDEX 447
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE FIG. OPPOSITE PAGE
1. 1. Elders explaining to young men of an Australian
tribe at the ‘initiatory ceremonies’ 8
2. A Hindu school in the open air, with the
village schoolmaster teaching boys to write on
a strip of palm leaf with an iron stylus 8
2. 3. The _palæstra_ in education at Athens 14
4. The _didascaleum_ in education at Athens 14
3. 5. Roman school materials 36
6. Scene at a ludus or Roman elementary school 36
4. 7. A monk in the _scriptorium_ 56
8. A monastic school 56
5. 9. The temple of wisdom; an allegorical
representation of the mediæval course of study 72
6. 10. The lecture in mediæval universities 80
11. The disputation in mediæval universities 80
7. 12 and 13. Preliminaries and termination of a
combat in the education of chivalry 86
14. Boys playing tournament with a ‘quintain’ or
dummy man 86
8. 15. Apprenticeship training in a gild 92
16. Gild school at Stratford, where Shakespeare
learned ‘little Latin and less Greek’ 92
9. 17. Great English Public Schools: Winchester and
Eton 120
10. 18. Education of the Jesuits: Jesuit College at
Regensburg and diagram of a Jesuit schoolroom 136
11. 19. School of the Christian Brothers at Rouen 146
20. A Protestant school in a German village of
the sixteenth century 146
12. 21. A page from the _Orbis Pictus_ of Comenius,
illustrating a lesson on a trade 170
13. 22. Town school at Dedham (Massachusetts) with
watch-tower, built in 1648 198
23. Boston Latin School, founded in 1635 198
24. The buildings of Harvard College, erected in
1675, 1699, and 1720 198
14. 25. The child as a miniature adult 228
26. A naturalistic school 228
15. 27. A monitorial schoolroom 242
28. Pupils reciting to monitors 242
29. Monitor inspecting slates 242
16. 30. A ‘kitchen school’ 268
31. A colonial ‘summer school’ 268
32. The first ‘academy’ founded by Benjamin
Franklin at Philadelphia in 1750 268
17. 33. ‘Father’ Pestalozzi at Stanz 282
34. The ‘table of units’ of Pestalozzi 282
18. 35. Court of Fellenberg’s Agricultural Institute 298
36. General view of Fellenberg’s schools and
workshops 298
19. 37. James G. Carter 312
38. Horace Mann 312
39. Henry Barnard 312
40. Francis W. Parker 312
20. 41. The first high school, established at Boston
in 1821 332
42. The University of Michigan in 1855 332
21. 43. ‘The Carpenter’ from Froebel’s _Mother Play_ 360
22. 44. Jean Jacques Rousseau 368
45. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi 368
46. Johann Friedrich Herbart 368
47. Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel 368
In text. 48. Diagram of German education 380
In text. 49. Diagram of French education 392
In text. 50. Diagram of English education 392
23. 51. Charles Darwin 404
52. Herbert Spence 404
53. Thomas H. Huxley 404
54. Charles W. Eliot 404
In text. 55. Diagram of vocational education of boys in 424
Germany
24. 56. Indian house constructed in Dewey’s
experimental school 436
57. Part of the Thorndike Writing Scale 436
FOREWORD
Each chapter in this book will be prefaced by an _Outline_, or
generalized statement of the ideas to be included in it. Logically such
an epitome is needed at the beginning as well as at the end of the
chapter. At the beginning, it serves as a hypothetical or tentative
generalization of the facts; at the end, as a conclusion whose
truth has been tested in the light of these facts and accepted with
conviction.
By having this outline in mind when he studies the facts, the student
is enabled not only to see that the general statements are verified and
made more significant by the details, but at the same time to organize
the facts with reference to the generalization, and thereby secure
an easier control of them, and, through the relation of each to the
others, discover a fuller meaning in them all. Then, after this study
of the details has established the truth of the outline and enriched
its meaning, he can review the outline and fix it in mind as the
conclusion of the chapter.
PART I
ANCIENT TIMES
A STUDENTS HISTORY OF EDUCATION
CHAPTER I
THE EARLIEST EDUCATION
OUTLINE
Even a brief survey of the history of education may greatly broaden
one’s view.
Starting with primitive man, we find that his training aims only
at the necessities of life, and is acquired informally through the
elders and the medicine-men.
In Oriental education, the next stage in progress, illustrated by
India, a traditional knowledge is acquired through _memoriter_ and
imitative methods.
While Oriental, Jewish education afforded greater development of
individuality, but it was late in organizing schools, _memoriter_
in methods, and restricted in content.
Thus all education before the day of the Greeks was largely
_non-progressive_.
[Sidenote: Breadth of view obtained]
=The Value of the History of Education.=--The History of Education from
the earliest times should contribute largely to one’s breadth of view
and prove a study of the greatest liberal culture. A record of typical
instances of the moral, æsthetic, and intellectual development of man
in all lands and at all periods should certainly enlarge one’s vision
and enable him to appreciate more fully the part that education has
played in the progress of civilization. Such cultural values may be
found even in a limited survey of the world’s educational development.
[Sidenote: Space and perspective here given to subject matter.]
=Its Treatment in This Book.=--And this is all that will be undertaken
here. For, while valuable as a liberal study, the History of Education
finds its justification chiefly in the degree to which it functions
in the professional training of a teacher, and it will be necessary
in a brief treatise to omit or pass over hastily much that might be
of interest and value in a more complete account of the development
of civilization. Therefore, the amount of space and the perspective
afforded the various peoples, epochs, and leaders must here be
determined in large measure by the part they have played in the
evolution of educational institutions and practices, and by the light
their history sheds upon the aim, organization, content, and method of
education to-day. At times, too, the history of a single epoch, state,
or educational leader will be selected as a type, to the exclusion of
others equally important, and treated with considerable intensiveness,
instead of describing all sides of the subject with encyclopædic
monotony. Now the first historical epoch to leave a real impress upon
modern practice is that of Athens at its height. Hence a mere statement
of the salient features of education preceding that period is all
that can be afforded in this brief survey. A detailed account of the
educational processes used by savage tribes, Oriental nations, and even
Judæa may prove interesting and important in other connections, but it
must here be largely curtailed.
[Sidenote: Training through elders and medicine-men ties the savage to
the present.]
=Primitive Education.=--There is little to be noted in the training of
the young among primitive peoples, save that it is intended largely
for the satisfaction of immediate wants--food, clothing, and shelter.
Naturally no such actual institution as a school has yet been evolved,
but the training is transmitted informally by the parents. The method
used is simply that of example and imitation, or, more specifically,
‘trial and success.’ But a more conscious and formal education is given
at puberty through the ‘initiatory ceremonies’ (Fig. 1). In these rites
the youths are definitely instructed by the older men about their
relation to the spirits and the totem animals, subordination to the
elders, the relations of the sexes, the sacredness of the clansman’s
obligations, and other traditional usages. Strict silence is enjoined
upon them concerning this information, and to impress it upon their
minds, and test their endurance, they are required to fast for several
days and are often tortured and mutilated. As the savage does not
clearly distinguish between himself and the tribe to which he belongs,
there is practically no development of individuality, and since the
race has not yet learned to treasure its experience in writing, he has
no record of past experience and is virtually tied to the present.
[Sidenote: Vocational training and class divisions of the Orient.]
=Oriental Education.=--The nations of the ancient Orient--Egypt,
Babylonia, Assyria, China, India, and Persia--may be said to represent
the next higher stage in civilization. Their systems of education
prepare mostly for vocations, and are not sufficiently advanced to
undertake a training for manhood or citizenship. But since a division
of labor has now been evolved, the training has become more clearly
differentiated and fits for specific occupations. In this way, class
divisions, or even castes, have generally arisen in society, and the
young people are educated according to the position in life they
desire, or are required to fill. As an illustration of this stage of
development, we may consider somewhat in detail the social environment
and education of India.
[Sidenote: Mystic religion and caste system in India.]
=India: Its Religion and Castes.=--In India, largely as a result of
the debilitating climate, there was formulated about 1200 B. C. a
dreamy philosophy, according to which nothing except Brahma, the one
universal spirit, really exists. While men would seem to be temporarily
allowed a separate existence of their own, it was held that they should
remain inactive as far as possible and seek an ultimate absorption
into the great Eternal Spirit. Although somewhat modified by the
infusion of Buddhism, between 500 B. C. and 500 A. D., and by the
British occupation of the peninsula during the nineteenth century,
this mystic and static religion still dominates in India. Connected
with it is the caste system, by which the people are divided into
four hereditary classes. These are (1) the _brahmins_, or sacerdotal
class, which includes all those trained for law, medicine, teaching,
and other professional occupations; (2) the warriors, or military and
administrative caste; (3) the industrial group; and (4) the _sudras_,
or menial caste. Altogether outside the social order are the _pariahs_,
or outcasts. The caste system is exceedingly strict. One may fall into
a lower caste, but he cannot rise, and loss of caste by one person in a
family will degrade all the rest.
[Sidenote: Knowledge of sacred books and training in laws and
traditions.]
=The Hindu Education.=--Hence Hindu education has always endeavored
to fill the pupils with the tenets of their religion, and so prepare
them for absorption into the Infinite, rather than for activities in
this life, and to preserve the caste system and keep all within the
sphere of their occupation. The three upper castes are, therefore,
supposed to gain a knowledge of certain sacred works, especially
the four _Vedas_ or books of ‘knowledge,’ the six _Angas_ on
philosophical and scientific subjects, and the _Code of Manu_, which
is a collection of traditional customs; but few, outside the brahmin
class, are ever allowed to take advantage of this opportunity. The
warriors are expected to pay more attention to martial exercises,
and the industrial caste to acquire through apprenticeship the arts
necessary for its hereditary occupations. Sudras, pariahs, and women
are generally allowed no education. Except the sudras, all the castes
obtain elementary education from a study of the laws, traditions, and
customs of the country through the medium of the family, and more
recently through village schools held in the open air (Fig. 2). The
higher education is largely carried on in brahminic colleges, called
_parishads_, and, as also in the case of the elementary work, the
teachers have to be brahmins. Since all learning has been preserved by
tradition, the chief methods of instruction are those of memorizing
and imitation. Even the later texts are so written as to be easily
committed, and the lines are sung aloud by the pupils until they have
memorized them. Writing is learned by imitating the teacher’s copy on
the sand with a stick, then on palm leaves with a stylus (Fig. 2), and
finally on plane leaves with ink.
[Sidenote: Much traditional learning, but no progress results.]
=Effect of the Hindu Education.=--Hence, among the Hindus education is
forbidden to ninety-five per cent of the population, and, as far as it
does exist, it is a mere stuffing of the memory. It concerns itself but
little with mental culture or with preparation for real living. The
brahmins have handed down considerable traditional learning, grammar,
phonetics, rhetoric, logic, ‘Arabic’ notation, algebra, astronomy, and
medicine, but new knowledge of any sort is barred. The Hindus still
plow with sticks of wood, and their crops are harvested and threshed
by devices equally primitive. They bake bricks, work metals, and weave
cloth, but with the same kind of appliances that were used by their
remote ancestors. Until recently, they have been greatly lacking in
ambition, self-reliance, and personal responsibility, and have not yet
come to any feeling of solidarity or national unity. To them prosperity
and progress are foreign ideas.
[Sidenote: Oriental education in bondage to the past.]
=India as Typical of the Orient.=--The other countries of the ancient
Orient never fixed their social classes in so hard and fast a manner,
and have never included so elaborate a philosophy among the products
of their culture. But India may well be considered broadly typical
of the stage of development in the Orient. Certain common features
appear in the education of all the nations there. In the system of
each, the classes below the sacerdotal or priestly are given little
intellectual education, and the women none at all, but both are trained
by apprenticeship in their vocations. Actual schools, both elementary
and higher, have been instituted; and the latter, except in China, are
conducted at temples or priestly colleges by members of the sacerdotal
class. The educational content is naturally traditional. It is, for
the most part, ensured against change by being embalmed in sacred
books, such as the _Vedas_. The educational method consists largely in
the memorizing of the test and imitation of the copy set, and little
attempt is made to give a reason for the customs and traditional
knowledge taught. Hence, while individuality has begun to emerge, it is
suppressed by every agency possible; and, although these peoples have
largely overcome the primitive enslavement to nature and the present,
they are completely in bondage to the past.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Elders explaining to young men of an Australian
tribe at the ‘initiatory ceremonies.’
(Reproduced from Spencer and Gillen’s _Across Australia_.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--A Hindu school in the open air, with the
village schoolmaster teaching boys to write on a strip of palm leaf
with an iron stylus.
Reproduced from _Things as They Are_ by Amy Wilson-Carmichael, by
permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company.)]
[Sidenote: Greater development of personality,]
[Sidenote: but Oriental and non-progressive.]
=Jewish Education.=--The Jews are classed among the nations of the
Orient, but they formulated loftier aims and have exerted more
influence upon modern ideals in education. While their theology greatly
developed in the course of their history, from the first they held to
an ethical conception of God, and the chief goal of their education
was the building of moral and religious character. Not until after
the Babylonish captivity (586-536 B. C.), however, did they establish
actual schools. Before that, children were given an informal training
in the traditions and observances of their religion by their parents.
But they brought back from Babylon the idea of institutions for higher
training and started such schools through their synagogues. In the
second century B. C. the founding of elementary schools also began, and
eventually the Jews made education well-nigh universal. The beneficial
effect of this training is seen in the respect shown by the Jews for
their women, their kind treatment of children, and their reverence for
parents. The defects of their education appear in the stereotyped and
formal way in which the religious material came to be interpreted,
and the consequent hostility to science and art, except as they threw
light on some religious festival or custom. Although appeal was made
to various types of memory, systems of mnemonics devised, and other
good pedagogical features suggested, their methods of instruction
were largely _memoriter_. The Jewish system of education, as a whole,
afforded a greater development of personality than that of the other
Oriental nations, and through it have been spread some of the world’s
most exalted religious conceptions. Nevertheless, it did not depart
much from its traditions and the past, and to this extent it may be
classed with the training of the primitive tribes and of the Oriental
nations as predominantly _non-progressive_.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
For general works, see Graves, F. P., _History of Education before the
Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chaps. I-XI; Monroe, P., _Text-book in
the History of Education_ (Macmillan, 1905), chaps. I-II. A general
interpretation of the evolution of education in savagery and barbarism
is also given in Laurie, S. S., _Pre-Christian Education_ (Longmans,
Green, 1909), pp. 1-207; Morgan, L. H., _Ancient Society_ (Holt,
1907), Part I; and Taylor, H. O., _Ancient Ideals_ (Macmillan, 1913),
vol. I, chaps. I-V. An illustration of primitive training of especial
interest to American students is found in Spencer, F. C., _Education
of the Pueblo Child_ (Columbia University, Department of Philosophy
and Psychology, vol. 7, no. 1); and a detailed description of the
puberty rites of a variety of savage tribes, in Webster, H., _Primitive
Secret Societies_, (Macmillan, 1908), chaps. I-V. A more complete
account of the Hindu philosophy and education appears in Dutt, R. C.,
_Civilization of India_ (Dent, London), and Taylor, H. O., _Ancient
Ideals_ (Macmillan, 1913), vol. I, chaps. III and IV. A systematic
statement of the Jewish training has been adapted from a German work,
in Leipziger, H. M., _Education of the Jews_ (New York Teachers
College, 1890), and a more detailed account worked out in Spiers, B.,
_School System of the Talmud_ (Stock, London, 1898).
CHAPTER II
THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS
OUTLINE
The Spartan training was intended to serve the state by making
warriors, and little attention was paid to intellectual education.
At first the Athenian education was also mainly concerned in
serving the state. For the earliest stage of the boy’s education,
there were schools of two types,--one for intellectual training, as
well as one for physical; from fifteen to eighteen a more advanced
physical training was given; and then, for two years, a preparation
for military life.
After the Persian wars, the Athenians adopted ideals of education
affording a larger recognition of individualism. The sophists
introduced the new educational practices, and went to an extreme in
their individualism.
The systematic philosophers,--Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, tried
to mediate the outworn institutional education and the extreme
individualism. Socrates held that the sophistic ‘knowledge’ was
only ‘opinion,’ and that the more universal knowledge could be
reached in every person by stripping off his individualistic
opinion.
But Plato maintained that only the intellectual class could attain
to knowledge. For them he formulated a new course of study, in
addition to that in vogue, consisting of mathematical subjects and
dialectic. Aristotle held that the training for every one before
seven should be bodily; up to fourteen, the irrational soul should
be trained; and until twenty-one, the rational. While Plato and
Aristotle had little effect upon educational practice at the time,
they have since greatly influenced education.
After Aristotle, there arose individualistic schools of philosophy
and formal schools of rhetoric, and out of them universities sprang
up. Then Greek culture and education spread throughout the world.
[Sidenote: First development of individuality appeared among Greeks.]
=Progressive Nature of Greek Education.=--Real educational progress
began with the Greeks. In their training gradually appeared
considerable regard for individuality. They were the first people whose
outlook seems to have been toward the future rather than the past,
and they first made a serious attempt to promote human development in
accordance with a remote ideal progressively revealed. As a result,
they not only gave a wonderful impetus to educational practice in their
own time, but ever since then the world has had constant recourse to
them for inspiration and counsel. While this intellectual emancipation
did not appear to any extent before its development among the Athenians
in the middle of the fifth century B. C., well-planned systems of
education existed in Greece several centuries before this and paved the
way for the system in Athens during the Age of Pericles.
[Sidenote: Service to state the object.]
[Sidenote: Exposure of sickly infants.]
[Sidenote: Barracks training of boys.]
=Spartan Education: Its Aim and Early Stages.=--Among the states of
ancient Greece, Sparta possessed the earliest education of which we
have any extended information. Its citizens dwelt in the midst of
hostile peoples they had subjugated, and this made it necessary to
produce a race of hardy and patriotic warriors. Strength, courage, and
obedience to the laws were held as the aim of education. The Spartan
educational system was intended to serve the state, and the rights of
the individual were given little or no consideration. State control
began with birth. The infant was immediately inspected by a council
of elders, and, if he were sickly or deformed, he was ‘exposed’
to die in the mountains; but if he appeared physically promising,
he was formally adopted by the state and left with his mother for
rearing until seven. At that age the boys were placed in charge of a
state officer and ate and slept in a kind of public barracks. Here
their life became one of constant drill and discipline. In addition
to hard beds, scanty clothing, and little food, they were given a
graded course in gymnastics. Besides ball-playing, dancing, and the
_pentathlum_--running, jumping, throwing the discus, casting the
javelin, and wrestling--the exercises included boxing, and even
the brutal _pancratium_, in which any means of overcoming one’s
antagonist--kicking, gouging, and biting, as well as wrestling and
boxing--was permitted.
[Sidenote: Little intellectual or moral training.]
The Spartan boys, however, received only a little informal training
in the way of intellectual education. They simply committed to memory
and chanted the laws of Lycurgus and selections from Homer, and they
listened to the conversation of the older men during the meals at the
common table, and were themselves exercised in giving concise and
sensible answers to questions put to test their wisdom. Every adult was
also required to choose as his constant companion or ‘hearer’ a youth
to whom he might become an ‘inspirer.’
[Sidenote: Military training.]
=Training in Youth and Manhood: Results.=--When a youth reached
eighteen, he began the distinctive study of warfare. For two years he
was trained in the use of arms and skirmishing, and every ten days had
his courage and his physique tested by being whipped before the altar
of Artemis. Then he regularly entered the army, and for ten years
guarded some border fortress and lived upon the coarsest of fare. When
he became thirty, he was considered a man and forced to marry at once,
but even then he could visit his wife only clandestinely and was still
obliged to live in common with the boys and assist in their training.
[Sidenote: Similar education of girls.]
The education of women was very like that of the men. While the girls
were allowed to live at home, they were given a similar physical
training in the hope that they would become the mothers of sturdy sons.
Thus the Spartan education was shaped entirely with reference to the
welfare of the state. Their educational system served well its purpose
of creating strong warriors and devoted citizens, but it failed to
make for the highest manhood. Sparta developed practically no art,
literature, or philosophy, and produced little that tended to promote
civilization. She has left to the world little but examples of heroism
and foolhardiness alike.
[Sidenote: Two types of schools: (1) the _palaestra_, furnishing
physical training; (2) the _didascaleum_, furnishing music, reading,
and writing.]
[Sidenote: The _paedagogus_.]
=Old Athenian Education: Its Aim and Early Training.=--For many
centuries the Athenian education was not unlike the Spartan in
promoting the welfare of the state without much consideration of
individual interests. But even in early days Athens felt that the
state was best served when the individual secured the most complete
personal development. Hence, the Athenian boys began to receive at
seven years of age two kinds of training,--(1) the _pentathlum_ and
other physical exercises in the palaestra (Fig. 3) or exercising
ground, and (2) singing and playing upon the flute or lyre, and reading
and writing at the _didascaleum_ (Fig. 4.) or music school. After
the boy had learned his letters by tracing them in the sand, he was
taught to copy verses and selections from well-known authors, at first
upon wax-tablets with a stylus, and later upon parchment with pen
and ink. It was, moreover, necessary for the pupils in singing to be
taught the rhythm and melody, and to understand the poem so as to bring
out its meaning. Hence the explanations and interpretations given by
the teachers brought in all the learning of the times, and the moral
and intellectual value of the studies must have been much greater
than would be suggested by the meagerness of the course. Some moral
training and discipline were also given the boy by a slave called the
_paedagogus_, who conducted him to school and carried his lyre and
other appurtenances. This functionary was often advanced in years or
incapacitated for other duties by physical disability.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--The _palaestra_.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--The _didascaleum_.]
(Reproduced from illustrations taken from old vases by Freeman in his
_Schools of Hellas_.)
[Sidenote: Advanced physical training in _gymnasia_, and ephebic course
in military duties.]
=Training for the Youth.=--At fifteen the Athenian boy might take
physical training of a more advanced character at one of the exercising
grounds just outside Athens, which were known as _gymnasia_. He was now
permitted to go wherever he wished and become acquainted with public
life through first-hand contact. When eighteen the youth took the
oath of loyalty to Athens, and for two years as an _ephebus_ or cadet
continued his education with a course in military duties. The first
year he spent in the neighborhood of Athens and formed part of the city
garrison, but in the second year he was transferred to some fortress on
the frontier. At twenty the young man became a citizen, but even then
his training continued through the drama, architecture, sculpture, and
art that were all about him.
[Sidenote: Women given little training.]
[Sidenote: Resemblance of old Athenian education to Spartan.]
=Effect of the Old Athenian Education.=--Little attention was, however,
given by the Athenians to the education of woman. It was felt that
her duties demanded no knowledge beyond ordinary skill in household
affairs. With this exception, the Athenian education was superior to
the Spartan in allowing greater opportunity for individual development
and in furnishing a more rounded training. Nevertheless, until about
the middle of the fifth century B. C., while differing considerably in
degree from Sparta, Athens may be grouped with that country as adhering
to the ‘old’ education, where the individual was subordinated to the
good of the social whole.
[Sidenote: Extreme individualism in new Athenian education.]
=Causes and Character of the New Athenian Education.=--This
characterization is, of course, in contrast to Greek education in the
‘new’ period, which is represented by Athens alone. This later type
of education was probably somewhat the result of the gradual rise of
democratic ideals in Athens, but a more immediate set of factors grew
out of the Persian wars (492-479 B. C.). This extended conflict with
a powerful Oriental people, possessing a well-organized but widely
different body of traditions tended to broaden the views of the
Athenians greatly, and the ensuing political and commercial intercourse
with a variety of dependent states and nations in the Delian League,
together with social contact with the foreigners from every land that
were thronging the streets of Athens, led even more directly to a
reconstruction of practices and beliefs. A rapid transition in the
old traditions took place and society seems for a time to have been
sadly disorganized. The old was shattered, and while new ideals were
being constructed, a groping ensued. Although the latitude given the
individual was destined, as always, to produce progress in the long
run, and was of great ultimate service to the world, more immediately a
low ebb in morals at Athens resulted. Individualism ran riot. Education
reflected the conditions of the period. Its ideals became more and
more individualistic. The times demanded a training that would promote
the happiness of the individual with little consideration for the
welfare of the state as a whole. The old education seemed narrow and
barren of content; and there arose a desire for all sorts of knowledge
that might contribute to one’s advancement, whether it increased his
social usefulness or not. Skill in debate and public speaking was
especially sought, because of the unusual opportunity for personal
achievement in politics.
[Sidenote: Study of grammatical and rhetorical subtleties, in the place
of the old education.]
=The Sophists and Their Training.=--To meet these new demands, a set of
teachers known as the _sophists_ came into prominence. They professed
to train young men for a political career, and some of them even
claimed to teach any subject whatsoever, or how to defend either side
of an argument. These pretensions, together with their charging a fee
for their services, contrary to Athenian custom, seriously offended
the more conservative of the citizens of Athens. But many of the first
sophists afforded an honest and careful training. The effect of their
teaching was especially felt by the adolescents in the _gymnasium_
stage of education, since they were ambitious to distinguish
themselves politically. The physical training that had hitherto
dominated the gymnasium course gave way to a study of grammatical and
rhetorical subtleties, and whenever a sophist appeared in the street,
market-place, or house, the young men crowded about him to borrow from
his store of experience and wisdom, and acquire his method of argument.
To a less degree the same influence was felt in the lower schools and
by the cadets and younger citizens. The exercises of the palaestra were
no longer as rigorous, and existed for the sake of individual health
and pleasure rather than for the making of citizens. The literary work
of the didascaleum came to include, besides the Homeric epics, a wide
range of didactic, reflective, and lyric poetry, with a superabundance
of discussions. In music the old patriotic and religious songs sung to
the simple Doric airs and accompanied upon the seven-stringed lyre,
were replaced by rhythms of great difficulty, like the Lydian and
Phrygian, and by complicated instruments of all sorts.
[Sidenote: Reaction from the old subordination of the individual to the
state.]
=Their Extreme Individualism.=--All this inroad upon the time honored
curriculum shows how fully the sophists embodied the individualism of
the times. Although they held no body of doctrine common to them all,
they were generally at one in their position of extreme individualism.
They often went so far as to insist that there could not safely be
any universal criteria in knowledge or morals; that no satisfactory
interpretation of life could be made for all, but that every fact and
situation should be subject to the judgment of the individual. No doubt
the formula attributed to Protagoras, “Man (i. e. the individual) is
the measure of all things, both of the seen and the unseen,” would have
expressed the attitude common to most of them. They but carried to
its legitimate conclusion the complete reaction from the old ideal of
subordination of the individual to the state.
[Sidenote: The attitude of Pythagoras and Aristophanes;]
[Sidenote: and of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.]
=The Reactionaries and the Mediators.=--Meanwhile, the conservative
element was making its usual attempt to adjust the unsettled conditions
by suggesting a return to the old. Various schemes had been advanced,
even before the sophists had come into prominence. Of these the most
complete plan was that of Pythagoras (about 580-500 B. C.). By
adopting an analogy from the ‘harmony’ of the celestial bodies and from
the relation of the powers in the individual to each other, he arranged
a definite hierarchy in society, so that each member should have his
proper place, and complete harmony and social order should ensue. As
the influence of the sophists began to be felt, later representatives
of the reactionary movement, such as the matchless caricaturist,
Aristophanes (445-380 B. C.), began to appear and inveigh against
the new conditions. But the social process can never move backward,
and reconstruction on some higher plane was needed to overcome the
destructive tendencies of the times. To furnish this, was the task
set themselves by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Like the sophists,
they recognized that the traditional beliefs and sanctions, the old
social order, and the former ideals and content of education, had been
outlived, and that the individual could not find truth and morality
through an institutional system. At the same time they felt that the
extreme individualism of the sophists was too negative a basis upon
which to build, and that a more socialized standard of knowledge and
morality must be sought.
[Sidenote: ‘Knowledge’ versus ‘opinion’.]
[Sidenote: The ‘dialectic’ of Socrates.]
=The Method of Socrates.=--This mediating effort was begun by Socrates
(469-399 B. C.). While he started with the formula of Protagoras, he
maintained that the ‘man’ indicated thereby was not the individual, but
mankind as a whole. It is not the peculiar view of any individual that
represents the truth, but the knowledge that is the same for everyone.
The former, which the sophists considered ‘knowledge,’ Socrates held
to be only ‘opinion,’ and declared that the reason men think so
differently is because each sees but one side of the truth. He believed
that everyone could get at universal knowledge by stripping off
individual differences and laying bare the essentials upon which all
men are agreed. He conceived it to be the mission of the philosopher or
teacher to enable the individual to do this, and he endeavored to deal
with the mind of all those with whom he came in contact, so that they
would form valid conclusions. By his method, known as the _dialectic_,
or ‘conversational,’ he first encouraged the individual to make a
definite statement of his belief, and then, through a set of clever
questions, caused the person to develop his thought, until he became so
involved in manifest contradictions that he was forced to admit that
his view had been imperfectly formed. He thus caused the individual to
see that the view he had first expressed was mere ‘opinion’ and but
a single phase of the universal truth. As Socrates further held that
morality consists in right knowledge and made no distinction between
the knowledge of an action and the impulse to perform it, he strove
through his methods of developing knowledge to harmonize the individual
welfare with that of the social group.
[Sidenote: In the _Republic_ government was to be by the intellectual
class.]
[Sidenote: Early education.]
[Sidenote: Cadet training.]
=Plato’s System of Education for the Three Classes of Society.=--But
the believers in the old traditions and institutional morality felt
that Socrates was atheistic and immoral. They persuaded Athens to give
him the hemlock, and thus destroyed the man who might have proved her
savior. A pupil, Plato (427-347 B. C.), undertook to continue his work,
but his aristocratic birth and temperament caused him to underestimate
the intelligence of the masses. He held that they were incapable of
attaining to ‘knowledge’--that they possessed only ‘opinion.’ In his
most famous dialogue, _The Republic_, he endeavors to show that the
ideal state can exist only when the entire control of the government
is entrusted to the ‘philosophers,’ or intellectual class, who alone
possess ‘real knowledge.’ Those who are to compose the three classes
of society Plato would have selected during the educational process on
the basis of their ability. For all boys up to eighteen years of age
he prescribes an education similar to that in vogue in the palaestra,
didascaleum, and gymnasium, except that he would somewhat expurgate
the literary element, and would confine the musical training to the
simpler melodies and instruments. The youths who prove capable of going
beyond this lower education are next to take up the cadet training
between eighteen and twenty, but those who are incapable of further
education are to be relegated to the industrial class. During the cadet
period are to be determined those capable of going on with the higher
education of philosophers, while those who here reach their limit
become members of the military class.
[Sidenote: Higher education for philosophers:]
[Sidenote: (1) mathematical subjects;]
[Sidenote: (2) dialectic.]
As Athenian education did not extend beyond the twentieth year, Plato
is here obliged to invent a new course of study that will enable
the future philosophers to acquire the habit of speculation. This
additional course, he declares, should also be graded, in order that
a further test of intellectual and moral qualities may be made.
Arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, music, and astronomy, are to
occupy the first ten years of the course. These subjects, however,
are not to be studied for calculation or practical purposes of any
sort, but entirely from the standpoint of theory or the universal
relations underlying them, since only thus can they furnish a capacity
for abstract thought. After this, at thirty, the young men who can go
no further, are to be placed in the minor offices of the state, while
those who have shown themselves capable of the study of dialectic, go
on with that subject for five years longer. It then becomes the duty of
these highest philosophers to guide and control the state until they
have reached the age of fifty, when they may be allowed to retire.
[Sidenote: Return to subordination of the individual;]
[Sidenote: neglect of human will;]
[Sidenote: failure to see all human traits in each individual;]
[Sidenote: no means of evolution.]
=The Weakness of Plato’s System.=--Thus, where Socrates found the
basis of universal truth in everyone, Plato held that only one class
of people, the most intellectual, could attain to real knowledge. He,
therefore, maintained that the philosophers should absolutely guide
the conduct of the state, and that education should be organized
with that in view. Plato’s ideal state would thus become a sort of
intellectual oligarchy, and in a way was a return to the old principle
of subordinating the individual to society. _The Republic_ thus quite
neglected human will as a factor in society and assumed that men
can be moved about in life like pieces upon the chess board. Plato
failed to see, too, that each individual really possesses all human
characteristics. The workers have reason, and the philosophers have
passions, and a human being is not a man unless all these functions are
his. But even if his scheme had been a happy one, the treatise provided
no method of evolution from current conditions, and if it were further
granted that this order of things could be established at once. Plato
put the ban upon all innovation or change, and so closed the door to
progress.
[Sidenote: _The Laws_ offered a more practical and traditional system
of education.]
Hence _The Republic_ was viewed as a visionary conception, and had no
immediate effect upon education or any other institution of Athens. So
in his declining years, without denying _The Republic_ as ideal, he
wrote the more practical dialogue known as _The Laws_. In it he welded
elements from the educational systems of Sparta and older Athens, and
reverted to traditions and ideals not dissimilar to the doctrines of
Pythagoras. He replaced the philosophers with priests, an hereditary
ruler, a superintendent of education, and various other officials; and
the course of study reached its height with the subject of mathematics,
while dialectic was not mentioned.
[Sidenote: Model for later Utopias.]
[Sidenote: The ‘quadrivium’ and ‘formal discipline.’]
=His Influence upon Educational Theory and Practice.=--Thus the efforts
of Socrates, as continued by Plato, to obtain the benefit of the
growing individualism for society and education without disrupting
them, had seemingly come to naught. Nevertheless, Plato has had
considerable influence upon the thought and practice of men since the
Greek period. The ideal society where everything is well managed and
everyone is in the position for which nature intended him, has ever
since the day of _The Republic_ been a favorite theme for writers, as
witness More’s _Utopia_ and the _New Atlantis_ of Bacon. A specific
movement that shows the impress of Plato, as we shall see later, is the
formulation of the more advanced studies of the mediæval ‘seven liberal
arts’ under the name of the ‘quadrivium.’ It is even possible that the
whole conception of ‘liberal’ studies, and so the doctrine of ‘formal
discipline’ (see p. 182), may be traced back to Plato’s idea that the
mathematical subjects in the course for philosophers should never be
studied from a practical point of view. On the whole, Plato has been a
factor in educational theory and practice that cannot be overlooked.
[Sidenote: Theoretically a monarchy, but practically a democracy is
best.]
=Aristotle’s Ideal State and Education.=--A more practical attempt to
unify the new with the old in Athenian society and education was made
by Aristotle (386-322 B. C.), the pupil of Plato. From his father, the
court physician at Macedon, and from his study under Plato, Aristotle
obtained an excellent scientific training, which is evident in the
way he approaches his problems. It is in his _Politics_ especially
that he discusses the ideal state and the training of a citizen. His
method of investigation to determine the nature of this ideal state
is inductive, and before formulating his conception of it, he makes a
critical analysis of Plato’s _Republic_ and _Laws_, and analyzes the
organization of many other states, both ideal and actual. He concludes
that a monarchy is theoretically the best type of government, but that
the form most likely to be exercised for the good of the governed is
the democracy. He then considers in detail the best natural and social
conditions for a state. Among these practical considerations is the
proper education to make its citizens virtuous.
[Sidenote: Education necessary for virtue.]
[Sidenote: Training of the body,--]
[Sidenote: sensible advice.]
Since virtue is of two kinds, moral or practical, and intellectual or
speculative, and the former is merely the stepping-stone to the latter,
the education needed for the virtue of the state must not, like that
of Sparta, be purely a training for war and practical affairs. In
marking off the periods of education, Aristotle holds that “the care
of the body ought to precede that of the soul, and the training of the
impulsive side of the soul ought to come next; nevertheless, the care
of it must be for the sake of the reason, and the care of the body
for the sake of the soul.” The development of the body he wishes to
start even before birth by having the legislator “consider at what age
his citizens should marry and who are fit to marry.” Also he deems it
necessary to sanction the usage of his time of ‘exposing’ (see p. 13)
all deformed and weakly children. However, his advice concerning the
food, clothing, and exercise of children is humane and in keeping with
the best modern hygiene.
[Sidenote: Training of the irrational soul,--]
[Sidenote: gymnastics, music, and literary subjects.]
The training of the body is a preparation for the formal schooling,
which is to last from seven to twenty-one. This is divided into two
periods by puberty, the first to be devoted to the training of the
impulsive or irrational side of the soul, and the second to that of the
rational side. Education, he claims, should be public, as in Sparta,
for it is the business of the state to see that its citizens are all
rendered virtuous. However, the industrial classes, not being citizens,
have no need of education, and women are to be limited in the scope
of their training. The course of study for the irrational period is
largely the same as that in use at Athens,--gymnastics, music, and
literary subjects, although he recommends some reforms. Gymnastics
is intended for self-control and beauty of form, and the making of
neither athletes nor warriors should be the object, since the training
of the former exhausts the constitution, and that of the latter is
brutalizing. The literary subjects, which with Aristotle includes
drawing, as well as reading and writing, are not to be taught merely
for utilitarian reasons. Music is to be used not so much for relaxation
or intellectual enjoyment as for higher development. Since melodies
that afford pleasure are connected with noble ideas, and those
which give us pain are joined to debased ideas, the study of music
“cultivates the habit of forming right judgments, and of taking delight
in good dispositions and noble actions.” Another moral effect of music
is that it produces _katharsis_ or ‘purification’; that is, by arousing
in us pity and fear for humanity at large, it lifts us out of ourselves
and affords a safe vent for our emotions.
[Sidenote: Training of the rational soul,--mathematical subjects,
dialectic, and sciences.]
Such was to be the training for the body and for the irrational period,
but how Aristotle would have advised that the education of the rational
soul be carried on can only be surmised, since the treatise breaks off
suddenly at this point. It is probable that it would have included
a higher training in mathematical subjects and dialectic similar to
that advocated by Plato, and, from Aristotle’s own predilections, he
would have been likely also to add some of the physical and biological
sciences.
[Sidenote: Somewhat in bondage to his times.]
[Sidenote: Contribution to sciences, formulation of laws of thought,
and invention of terminology.]
[Sidenote: Formulation of Church doctrine.]
=The Permanent Value of His Work.=--Thus Aristotle, like Plato,
endeavored to work out the harmonizing of individual with social
interests by the creation of an ideal state, and he similarly failed
to answer the demand of the times. His work was much less visionary
than _The Republic_, but he did not fully recognize that the day of
the small isolated states of Greece, with their narrow prescriptions
for patriotism and social order, had passed forever. Hence he hoped to
achieve some reform by departing but little from existing conditions
and reading a philosophy into them, and this bondage to the times
prevented his educational system from making any advance beyond that
of Plato. But while Aristotle had little effect upon the society of
the times, his works have since been considered of great value, and
the methods that he formulated have been most important. He not
only started, or made the first great contributions to a number of
sciences, but he crystallized the laws of thought itself. Also, as
instruments to assist in fashioning the various sciences, Aristotle
invented a complete system of terminology, and created such pairs as
‘matter’ and ‘form,’ ‘mean’ and ‘extreme,’ and ‘cause’ and ‘effect,’
and such convenient expressions as ‘principle,’ ‘maxim,’ ‘habit,’ and
‘faculty.’ A more important effect of Aristotle’s ideas has been that
upon the formulation of doctrine in the Christian Church. After the
spread of Mohammedanism, which had largely absorbed the Aristotelian
principles, the Church, though at first bitterly opposing them, finally
found it impossible to suppress them, and began to clothe her own
doctrine in their dress. The greatest of the scholastics began to study
Aristotelianism, and soon made it the effective weapon of the Church
by reducing all human knowledge to a finished Aristotelian system with
theology at the top.
[Sidenote: Triumph of individualism.]
=The Post-Aristotelian Schools of Philosophy.=--But the harmonizing
attempt of Aristotle was fruitless. Like Socrates and Plato, he failed
to reconcile with the old and settled order the ever-expanding movement
toward individualism. Thus all efforts to control the individualistic
and disintegrating tendencies of the times were in vain, and the
conquest of the Greek states by Philip of Macedon (358-338 B. C.) was
only symptomatic of the complete collapse of corporate life and the
inability to reconstruct it successfully. All possibility of social
unity disappeared, and philosophy no longer considered the individual
from the standpoint of membership in society. It was occupied no
further with the harmonization of the individual and the state, but
concerned itself with the welfare of the individual and the art of
living. Individualism was completely triumphant, and education was
considered simply as a means to personal development or happiness,
without regard to one’s fellows. The new theories of life and education
were formulated by such schools of philosophy as the Epicureans,
Stoics, and Skeptics, which kept themselves far removed from society.
None of these ‘schools’ could be so termed in the sense of offering
an education, but rather in the modern usage of a group of adherents
to certain teachings. They spent their energy, for the most part, in
interpreting, elaborating, and lauding the original teachings of the
founders, and with them a stereotyped dogmatism took the place of
philosophy.
[Sidenote: Formal study and general knowledge.]
=The Schools of Rhetoric.=--But these schools were not the only outcome
of the teaching of the sophists. Just as they came about gradually from
the speculative tendencies of the sophists as developed through certain
famous philosophers, there likewise grew up more directly from the
sophistic efforts to train young men in rhetoric and public speaking a
multitude of rhetorical schools. In these a formal study was made of
oratory and the knowledge of the day. Their professed object was to
make successful men of the world, and, although they at first included
such reputable and influential schools as that of Isocrates (436-338
B. C.), they laid little claim to teaching anything solid or profound,
much less to forming any philosophic habits. They succeeded in
spreading a popular education among a people that had lost all hope of
a political life, but they soon degenerated into the use of narrow and
formal methods. The later rhetoricians attempted to hasten oratorical
training and preparation for life, by teaching their pupils ready-made
speeches and dialogues, together with a general knowledge of current
questions. Nevertheless, these schools flourished for several centuries
and closely rivalled those of the philosophers.
[Sidenote: Origin of University of Athens.]
[Sidenote: Other universities.]
[Sidenote: Philosophy and science at Alexandria.]
=The Hellenic Universities.=--From these two classes of schools, the
philosophical and the rhetorical, the fame of Athens spread rapidly,
and from the fourth century B. C. onward the number of young men
from all over the civilized world who came there to study steadily
increased. Before the close of the century the old cadet training of
Athens was united with this intellectual education, and there sprang
up a regular institution or university, which the young Athenians
and students from outside might attend. Before long, the Hellenic
world boasted other universities, such as those at Rhodes, Pergamon,
Alexandria, and Rome. Until almost 300 A. D. Athens remained the chief
intellectual center of civilization, and attracted students from all
parts of the Roman Empire. Gradually, however, the higher education
there tended toward the study of rhetoric alone and artificiality
grew apace. In consequence, Alexandria came to displace Athens as
the center of culture, and her university became the leading one of
the world. Here the various philosophic and religious sects gathered
to study and discuss, and the abstract Greek philosophy united with
the more concrete beliefs of the Orient, especially Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, and Christianity. Thus there flourished here the various
systems of religious philosophy known collectively as ‘Hellenistic,’
such as Neopythagoreanism, Neomazdeism, Philonism, Gnosticism, and
Neoplatonism. Considerably before this, too, there had developed
at Alexandria the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. Other noted
investigations, like those of Euclid in geometry, Archimedes in
physics, Eratosthenes in astronomy, and Diophantus in algebra, also
bore witness to the intellectual activity of this university.
[Sidenote: Spread through the Orient]
[Sidenote: and the Roman world.]
=Extension of Hellenic Culture.=--It can thus be seen that the
political downfall of Athens had only prepared the way for a larger
intellectual influence. As Alexander extended his yoke over one Eastern
country after another, he had carried with him all the culture of
Greece, and within a century of his death the whole Orient was dotted
with Greek gymnasia, stadia, and theaters, and saturated with Greek
literature, art, philosophy, and education. Similarly Rome, which had
come somewhat into contact with Greece before conquering her, had been
tinctured with Greek life and learning; and, after her absorption
of Macedon and Greece, she fell under the spiritual thrall of the
subjugated people. The history of Greek civilization and education was
so intermingled with the Roman that it can scarcely be distinguished
from it. The Greek schools of philosophy and rhetoric were continued
in Rome, Roman youths made up a great body of the attendance at the
universities of Athens and Alexandria, and the Roman emperors did much
for the support and extension of the work in these institutions. Hence
from the Greeks have developed some of the most advanced intellectual
and æsthetic ideas that civilization has known.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, _Before the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII;
Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. III. See also Laurie,
_Pre-Christian Education_ (Longmans, Green, 1900), pp. 208-318.
Davidson, T., in his _Aristotle_ (Scribner, 1896), develops the
periods of Greek education in chronological order, and his _Education
of the Greek People_ (Appleton, 1903) gives the social setting of
its development. A most scholarly and brilliant work is Freeman, K.
J., _Schools of Hellas_ (Macmillan, 1907), which is illustrated by
vase-scenes and other reproductions of Greek education. Bosanquet, B.,
_The Education of the Young in Plato’s Republic_ (Cambridge University
Press, 1908), Nettleship, R. L., _Theory of Greek Education in Plato’s
Republic_ (See Evelyn Abbott’s _Hellenica_, Longmans, Green, 1908),
and Burnet, J., _Aristotle on Education_ (Cambridge University Press)
afford a good interpretation of the theorists mentioned; while Capes,
W. W., in the _University Life in Ancient Athens_ (Harper, 1877), and
Walden, J. W., in the _Universities of Ancient Greece_ (Scribner,
1909), furnish a lively description of the students and professors.
CHAPTER III
THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS
OUTLINE
The contribution of the Romans to progress was largely due to their
absorption of Greek culture, but their primitive training had an
influence in itself. This was mostly civic and practical, and was
given informally in the family and the forum.
Through amalgamation with the Greek, Roman education maintained
three grades of schools: (1) the elementary school or _ludus_, (2)
the ‘grammar’ school, and (3) the rhetorical school. Beyond the
education of these schools, a young Roman might attend a university.
Schools were gradually subsidized by the emperors, but education
eventually deteriorated into a formal qualification for senatorial
rank. The practical Romans, however, created a universal empire
and legal system, a universal religion, and other institutions for
modern society.
[Sidenote: Until Hellenized, Roman ideals were narrow.]
=Roman Education Amalgamated with Greek.=--The name of Rome is still
suggestive of power and organization. These characteristics seem to
have been innate; but the significance of Roman development to the
history of progress and education was largely due to the fact that,
in her spread over the civilized world, the Eternal City amalgamated
the Greek civilization with her own. Until then her ideals of life,
while effective in conquest, had been narrow and little adapted to
the development of individuality or of cosmopolitanism. Unconsciously
realizing the need of broader ideals, she absorbed those of Greece.
But Rome could not be Hellenized without making some contributions to
the result from her own genius, and for that reason it is important
to learn something of Roman civilization and education, crude as they
were, before they came into contact with Greek culture.
[Sidenote: Its civic and practical aim.]
=Early Education in Rome.=--In the early days Rome was animated by
intense patriotism and love for military life, and felt that each
citizen was bound to merge his identity in that of the state. In
the surrender of individuality they were, to be sure, not unlike
the Spartans, although they believed that this subordination should
be brought about voluntarily rather than by compulsion of law and
state organization. But, with such a love as theirs for mere material
achievement, the Athenian ideal of a full and harmonious development
of one’s whole nature could scarcely be expected to make any appeal.
They looked not for harmony, proportion, or grace, but for stern
utility. They were sedate, grave, and serious, and their education was
practical, prosaic, and utilitarian.
[Sidenote: Informal training in the family and in public.]
Until the Greek institutions began to be adopted, schools did not exist
in Rome, except possibly the _ludus_ or elementary school. During this
pristine period education consisted in a practical training in Roman
ideals and everyday living conducted largely through the family. In
childhood the boys and girls alike were given a physical and moral
training by their mother, but, as the boy grew older, he went more in
the company of his father, and learned efficiency in life informally
through his example and that of the older men, while the girl was
taught at home by her mother. If the boy belonged to a patrician
family, he might acquire much knowledge concerning Roman custom and
law by hearing his father advise and aid the family _clients_, or
‘dependents,’ and by attending banquets with him. He might also receive
an apprenticeship training from his parent or some other older man in
the profession of soldier, advocate, or statesman. In case he was born
in a less exalted station, he might learn his father’s occupation at
the farm or shop. The girl, whatever her social status, was trained by
her mother in the domestic arts, especially in spinning and weaving
wool. Through their parents children probably learned to read and
write; and they committed to memory stories of Roman heroes, ballads,
martial and religious songs, and the _Twelve Tables_ of national laws,
after these had been codified (451 B. C.). Physical exercise was
secured largely by games, which were mostly in imitation of future
occupations, and gymnastics were employed simply as training for war.
The usages of home and public religion also played an important part
in the education of the young Romans, especially since almost every
activity in life was presided over by some deity, whom it was necessary
to propitiate when engaging in it.
[Sidenote: Practical and occupational character.]
Thus education in early Rome was practical, and, to some extent,
occupational. It was intended to produce efficiency as fathers,
citizens, and soldiers. It consisted in training the youths to
be healthy and strong in mind and body, and sedate and simple in
their habits; to reverence the gods, their parents, the laws, and
institutions; and to be courageous in war, and familiar with the
traditional agriculture, or the conduct of some business. It did
produce a nation of warriors and loyal citizens, but it inevitably
tended to make them calculating, selfish, overbearing, cruel, and
rapacious. They never possessed either lofty ideals or enthusiasm.
Their training was best adapted to a small state, and became
unsatisfactory when they had spread over the entire Italian peninsula.
The golden age of valor and stern virtue had then largely departed, and
they began unconsciously to seek a more universal culture. While such a
people regarded the Greeks as visionary, just as the Greeks looked upon
them as barbarians, they felt instinctively that only by absorption of
the Hellenic ideals could their cosmopolitan ambitions be carried out.
On the other hand, it was through the organization which the Romans
were able to furnish, that the great ideals formulated by the Greeks
were destined to be rendered effective and to become a matter of value
and concern to civilization ever since.
[Sidenote: Spread through Alexander and Roman conquests.]
[Sidenote: The schools resulting.]
=The Absorption of Greek Culture.=--There was a gradual infiltration
of Greek culture into Rome from very early days. This received a great
impulse through the conquests of Alexander (334-323 B. C.) and the
absorption of Macedon by Rome (168 B. C.), but it was not until about
half a century after Greece itself had become a Roman province (146 B.
C.), that the Greek educational ideals and institutions can be said to
have been completely absorbed by Rome. This new type of education was
thus well established early in the first century B. C. It may be said
to have remained almost unmodified until toward the end of the second
century A. D., when political conditions at Rome became most unstable
and the period of degeneracy set in. During these three centuries of
Hellenized Roman education, three grades of schools resulted from the
amalgamation. They were the (1) _ludus_ or school of the _litterator_,
as the lowest school was called; (2) the ‘grammar’ school, taught by
a _grammaticus_ or _litteratus_; and (3) the schools of rhetoric and
oratory, which furnished a somewhat higher education.
[Sidenote: Its content and methods.]
=The Ludus.=--The ludus, or lowest school, may possibly have existed
before the process of Hellenization even began, but if it did, it must
have been intended simply to supplement the more informal training
of the home. Whenever originated, it probably taught at first only
reading, writing, and rudimentary calculation, as in the family,
through the medium of historical anecdotes, ballads, religious songs,
and the _Twelve Tables_. But as the Greek influence crept in more and
more, the literary content was somewhat extended. About the middle of
the third century B. C., Livius Andronicus translated the _Odyssey_
into Latin; and a number of epics, dramas, and epigrams were soon
composed after Greek models. These works, in whole or part, were
introduced into the curricula of the _ludi_ and by the beginning of
the first century B. C., the _Twelve Tables_ had been displaced by
the Latinized _Odyssey_ of Andronicus. The methods of instruction
were _memoriter_ and imitative. The names and alphabetic order of the
letters were first taught without any indication of their significance
or even shape, and all possible combinations of syllables were
committed before any words were learned. Reading and writing were then
taught by dictation, and, in tracing the letters on wax-tablets with
the stylus (Fig. 5), the hand of the pupil was at first guided by the
teacher. Calculation was learned by counting on the fingers, by means
of pebbles, or upon the abacus, and eventually sums were worked upon
the tablets.
[Illustration:
(_a_) (_b_) (_c_)
Fig. 5.--School materials from wall paintings: (_a_) Wax tablet and
_capsa_, containing rolls, or books. (_b_) Three _stili_, _capsa_, and
roll leaning against it. (_c_) Wax tablet, with _stilus_ tied to it.]
[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Scene at a _ludus_ or Roman elementary school,
taken from a fresco found at Herculaneum.]
[Sidenote: Discipline and teachers.]
[Sidenote: Slaves to accompany pupils.]
[Sidenote: Buildings.]
Methods so devoid of interest were naturally accompanied by severe
discipline. The rod, lash, and whip seem to have been in frequent use,
and the names ordinarily applied to schoolmasters in Latin literature
are suggestive of harshness and brutality. Moreover, a fresco found
at Herculaneum depicts a boy held over the shoulders of another, with
the master beating the victim upon the bare back (Fig. 6). Under
these circumstances, no real qualifications were required of the
teacher, and his social standing was low. The Greek custom of having
the boy accompanied to and from school by a slave that was otherwise
incapacitated by age or physical disability soon came to be imitated
by the Romans. When a special building was employed for the school, it
was usually a mere booth or veranda, and the pupils sat on the floor or
upon stones.
[Sidenote: Curriculum.]
[Sidenote: Methods and discipline.]
[Sidenote: Buildings.]
=Grammar Schools.=--The ‘grammar’ school grew out of the increasing
literary work of the _ludus_. But, while offering a more advanced
course, it would seem to belong in part at least to the elementary
stage of education, especially as its work was never sharply divided
from that of the _ludus_. The young Roman might attend both a Greek
and a Latin grammar school, but, in case he did, usually went first to
the former. The curriculum in each consisted, according to Quintilian,
of ‘the art of speaking correctly’ and ‘the interpretation of the
poets,’ or, in other words, of a training in grammar and literature.
‘Grammar’ may, however, have included some knowledge of philology and
derivations, as well as drill on the parts of speech, inflections,
syntax, and prosody, and practice in composition and paragraphing.
The literary training was obtained by writing paraphrases of the best
authors, textual and literary criticism, commentaries, and exercises
in diction and verse-writing. Some other studies, like arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, geography, and music may also have been added in
time, from the suggestions of Plato, but the Romans naturally gave them
a practical bearing. Some gymnastics, mostly for military training,
were often in the course. The methods in the grammar schools were
somewhat better than those of the _ludus_, but the commentary of the
teacher on the text was usually taken down _verbatim_ by the pupil.
The discipline, in consequence, was not much in advance of that of the
lower schools. But the accommodations for these secondary schools were
decidedly superior, and the buildings not only possessed suitable seats
for the pupils and teacher, but were even adorned with paintings and
sculpture.
[Sidenote: Professional, but broad training.]
=Rhetorical Schools.=--The ‘rhetorical’ schools were a development of
work in debate that had gradually grown up in the grammar schools. The
earliest of these institutions at Rome were Greek, but by the first
century B. C., there had arisen a number in which Latin was used. While
they afforded a legal and forensic training, and seem more professional
in spirit than the grammar schools, they were by no means narrow. The
orator was for the Roman the typical man of culture and education, and
he was supposed not only to have been trained in eloquence and law and
history, but to possess wide learning, grace, culture, and knowledge of
human emotions, sound judgment, and good memory. Besides a training in
oratory, these schools furnished a linguistic and literary education
of some breadth. They may be considered as belonging partly to the
secondary and partly to the higher stage of education. The youths were
exercised first in declamation on ethical and political subjects, which
would bring in fine distinctions in Roman law and ethics, and later
they were given practice in three types of speeches,--deliberative,
judicial, and panegyric. Attention was given to all the various factors
in making a successful oration: the matter, arrangement, style,
memorizing, and delivery.
[Sidenote: Spread throughout the empire.]
=Universities.=--When the young Roman had completed his course at a
rhetorical school, he might, if he were ambitious, go to the university
at Athens, Alexandria, or Rhodes for a higher training. Later, a
university also sprang up at Rome, and before long these institutions
spread throughout the empire. The Greek influence caused a large number
of these institutions to be established in the East, but some were
also located in the West. The latter gave more emphasis to practical
subjects. In several instances the universities found their nucleus in
one of the many libraries that were started with books brought from the
sacking of Greece and Asia Minor.
[Sidenote: Imperial control of schools.]
=Subsidization of Education.=--Thus, through the adoption of the
institutions of the Greeks, Roman education became thoroughly
Hellenized. Although all the types of schools spread everywhere in the
empire, there was, of course, no such thing as a real school system,
except as the government gradually came to subsidize all schools. This
the different emperors accomplished in various ways,--by contributing
to school support, paying a salary to certain teachers, or granting
them exemption from taxation and military service, or offering
scholarships to a given number of pupils. As a result, schools came to
be established in many cases for the purpose of getting these special
privileges for the teachers, rather than for promoting education. To
stop these abuses, the emperor in 425 A. D. decreed that he had the
sole authority to establish schools, and that a penalty would be laid
upon anyone else assuming this prerogative. In this way the schools
came fully into the hands of the imperial government, and the basis for
the idea of public education was laid for the first time in history.
[Sidenote: Formal and superficial character.]
=Decay of Education.=--Before this, however, Roman education had
deteriorated. With the political and moral decay that were obvious
after the second century A. D., it became a mere form and mark of the
aristocracy. The training in oratory was continued, because it was
a necessary qualification for entering the senatorial class, but it
had lost its real function, since there was no longer any occasion
for oratory when the emperor dominated all the government and law.
It was not intended to furnish a training of any value in life, and
the careful literary preparation was more and more shirked. While the
grammarians and rhetoricians were still held in high esteem, they
contented themselves with mere display, and wandered from town to town
more for the purpose of entertaining than of teaching. Glittering
phrases, epigrams, and other artificialities took the place of
instruction and argument.
[Sidenote: Institutions furnished for the ideals of Judea and Greece.]
=Influence of Roman Education.=--But the Roman education and
civilization had left their impress upon the world. This was
accomplished by the practical nature of the Romans, and by their
ability to make abstract ideals concrete and embody them in
institutions that have been useful to civilization and progress.
Through them was created the idea of a universal empire, which has been
influential throughout the world’s history. Similarly, the concept of
law originating with the Greek philosophers became in the hands of the
Romans the great system of principles that underlies and guides all our
present civilization. And it was the Roman genius for organization that
institutionalized a despised religious sect and expanded it into the
position of the greatest world religion. If Judaism furnished the world
with exalted religious ideals, and if from Hellenism came striking
intellectual and æsthetic concepts, the institutions for realizing
these ideals originated with Rome.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, _Before the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XIII;
Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. IV. Interesting brief
monographs on the subject are Clarke, G., _Education of Children
at Rome_ (Macmillan, 1896), and Wilkins, A. S., _Roman Education_,
(Cambridge University Press, 1905). See also the treatment in Laurie,
_Pre-Christian Education_ (Longmans, Green, 1900), pp. 319-436.
CHAPTER IV
THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
OUTLINE
Christianity accomplished much in the reform of the degraded
Roman society. The earliest education of the Christians came
through their ‘otherworldly’ life, but actual schools, called
‘catechumenal,’ before long furnished a moral and religious
training.
After the amalgamation of Christianity with Græco-Roman philosophy,
‘catechetical’ schools furnished a higher training. When higher
education came to be utilized by the bishops for training their
clergy, institutions known as ‘episcopal’ or ‘cathedral’ schools
were founded.
Later, although opposition grew up among the Christians to the
culture of Greece and Rome, its impress was found to have been left
upon the doctrines and organization of Christianity.
[Sidenote: Impotence of Roman and other ideals.]
[Sidenote: Universal appeal of Christianity.]
=The Ideals of Early Christianity.=--The actual social conditions amid
which the religion of Christ was born, and which it was destined to
reform, were most degraded. The Roman world had become sunk in vice and
corruption. The Roman virtues of patriotism, bravery, and service to
the state had largely disappeared with the development of the empire,
and were impotent in checking the widespread depravity. Nor could the
lofty Greek thought accomplish much, since it was too intellectual
and philosophic to touch the masses. The debased Eastern religions,
which Rome had admitted in her easy-going skepticism, were still
less productive of good. While the more philosophic forms of Judaism
and the Roman development of Stoicism tended to raise the tone of
morals and pave the way for Christianity, not even these forces could
have accomplished a successful reform in Roman society, without the
stimulus and wide appeal of the Christian teachings. Christianity was
the ethical and universal religion needed as a leaven. Its truths were
based on faith rather than understanding, and its appeal was to the
instinctive promptings and emotions rather than to the intellect. This
made it democratic and enabled it to reach the masses, for everybody
can feel and have faith, even where he cannot understand.
[Sidenote: Segregation.]
[Sidenote: ‘Otherworldliness.’]
=Early Christian Life as an Education.=--Thus it came about that,
while the earliest Christians were without schools of their own and
were largely illiterate, their religion itself served as an education.
They were practically deprived of intellectual development, but they
received moral training of a very high order. The very dishonor and
unpopularity of the Christian religion, and the segregation of their
Church membership, gave the Christian life itself all the effect of a
species of schooling. The early Christians showed an extreme reaction
to the vicious morals of the time, and endeavored to cultivate the
higher ideals inculcated by the teachings of Christ. They had gathered
from the statements of the Master that he would soon return and this
world would come to an end. They, therefore, concerned themselves
entirely with a preparation for ‘Jerusalem the golden’ and ‘the life
everlasting,’ and the ideal of this most primitive Christian training
may be described as ‘otherworldly.’
[Sidenote: Cause of their organization.]
[Sidenote: Elementary content.]
=Catechumenal Schools.=--Early in the second century, however, when
the Church began to extend itself rapidly, it seemed necessary to
insist upon some sort of formal instruction as preliminary to Church
membership. It was also deemed wise to fix a period of probation after
the profession of one’s faith in Christ, in order that informers might
not be admitted to the services, or the Church disgraced by apostasy or
the lapses of those who had not well considered the step. These demands
were met by the gradual institution of popular instruction in Christian
principles for the Jewish and pagan proselytes, who were known as
_catechumens_. While some effort was made to lift the pupils of these
‘catechumenal’ schools from the bondage of ignorance, they were
primarily trained in the things needful for their souls’ salvation, and
the ideal of Christian education remained prevailingly ‘otherworldly.’
The instruction was carried on in the portico or other special portion
of the church; and consisted in moral and religious teachings, reading
and memorizing the Scriptures, together with some training in early
psalmody. The course usually lasted three years, and while some
distinction was made between the general division of catechumens and
those almost ready for baptism, there is little ground for supposing
that the schools were divided into actual classes. The meetings in the
church were held several times a week, or even every day.
[Sidenote: Græco-Roman training a worldly one.]
[Sidenote: Union of the worldly and otherworldly,--]
[Sidenote: Apologists]
[Sidenote: and Gnostics.]
=Amalgamation of Christianity with Græco-Roman Philosophy.=--But while
the Christian ideals and training were developing and crystallizing,
the Greek philosophy in its Roman form was being continued and
expanded. This movement has been seen to be very different from early
Christianity in its general purpose. It concerned itself chiefly
with life in this world. The problem it attempted to solve was how
one should live so as to get the most satisfaction out of life. The
Hellenized Roman schools may, therefore, be accounted as ‘worldly’
as the Christian schools were ‘otherworldly’ in their aim. A general
feeling of this marked difference in purpose and organization between
Christianity and the contemporaneous Græco-Roman culture was destined
to cause an opposition to pagan learning to spring up among the
Christians. But for two or three centuries this is scarcely noticeable,
especially in the Eastern empire, where it was felt that philosophy
was, like Christianity, a search after truth; and, as far as it went,
confirmed the Bible. There was even a tendency to unite the two
movements. As the new religion spread throughout the Roman world, and
was compelled to defend itself against charges of immorality, atheism,
and treason, the educated converts attempted to set forth the Christian
teachings in terms of Greek thought, and to solve speculative problems
that had never been considered by Jesus and his disciples. The first
Hellenizing Christians are known as _Apologists_, since their efforts
were directed toward reconciling Christianity with the Græco-Roman
philosophy. In general, they mingled Stoicism with the teachings of
Jesus. Later, other Hellenistic philosophers unified Christian doctrine
with the principles of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. Perhaps
the most extreme of these philosophic positions within Christianity
was a combination with Platonism known as _Gnosticism_, which was
intended to be a sort of esoteric knowledge and to show the relation of
Christianity to other religions and to the universe.
[Sidenote: Pupils in the school at Alexandria allowed to study all
Greek subjects.]
=Catechetical and Episcopal or Cathedral Schools.=--In this way, during
the second and third centuries, all the Christians at Alexandria, which
had become the great seat of Hellenistic philosophy, had their theology
tinctured with Greek thought. Before long, a sort of theological, or
‘catechetical’ school, was gradually organized at this center, to
counteract the heathen schools there and to afford higher instruction
for Christian teachers and leaders. This school had no building of its
own, and the students met at the teacher’s house, but they were able to
take advantage of the facilities at the University of Alexandria. In
addition to a thorough training in the Bible, the pupils were allowed
to study all types of Greek philosophy, except Epicureanism, the whole
range of sciences, classical Greek literature, grammar, rhetoric, and
other higher subjects of the pagan schools, but from a different point
of view. Thus the Græco-Roman and the Christian movements had formed
an alliance in education, and in this catechetical school we find an
attempted union of the ‘otherworldly’ ideal with the ‘worldly.’
[Sidenote: Other catechetical schools.]
The best known heads of this school at Alexandria were Clement
(150-215) and Origen (185-253). They were among the most noted of the
Eastern Fathers in the philosophic interpretation of Christianity,
and their work contributed not a little to heretical doctrine. Origen
may even have been expelled for heresy. At any rate, he opened a new
school of the same sort at Cæsarea, where he was kindly received. Other
catechetical schools sprang up rapidly at Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, and
elsewhere throughout the East. Later the accession of the followers
of Nestorius, whose Hellenized theology had in 431 been proscribed
by the Church at the Council of Ephesus, very greatly increased the
importance of these cities as intellectual centers. In addition to the
translations already there, the Nestorian Christians accumulated a
larger range of the original Greek treatises on philosophy, science,
and medicine.
[Sidenote: Bishops start Hellenic schools for their clergy.]
But before this, higher training of the Hellenic type came to be
regularly used by the bishops in training their clergy, and promotion
in the Church began to depend upon having had this education. So higher
schools of this sort were gradually instituted in every bishopric
at the see city, and became known eventually as ‘episcopal’ or
‘bishop’s’ schools, or, from their location at the bishop’s church, as
‘cathedral’ schools. These cathedral schools became the most important
educational institutions of the Middle Ages. From them were derived
all the schools of Western Europe, but the bishop soon became too busy
to attend to them himself and was forced to commit them to various
officials. Thus they developed in time into at least three types,--the
‘grammar’ school, taught by one of the cathedral canons, known as the
_scholasticus_; the ‘song’ or music school, taught by the _cantor_ or
_precentor_; and the ‘chorister’s’ school, which offered a combination
of the training in the two other schools. Thus the cathedral schools
virtually took the place of the old pagan schools supported by the
Roman emperors.
[Sidenote: Growth of opposition to the Græco-Roman culture.]
=Influence of Græco-Roman Culture upon Christianity.=--However, by the
century after the foundation of the catechetical school at Alexandria,
the Christians had begun to grow suspicious of Græco-Roman culture and
the ‘worldly’ ideal in education. Even the Eastern or Greek Fathers of
the Church appear to have cooled considerably in their attitude toward
philosophy, and the Western or Latin Fathers were more pronounced in
their opposition. Roman Christians could not forget the immorality
of those who had been connected with this culture, nor the abuse and
insults that these pagans had heaped upon them. They felt, too, that
the one great mission of the Church was ethical, and that Christ’s
second coming was at hand, and that all philosophy and learning were
somewhat impertinent.
[Sidenote: But great influence of Greece and Rome upon Christian
doctrine and Church organization.]
Nevertheless, despite this growth of opposition to pagan philosophy,
primitive Christianity could not endure in its simplicity after it
had been in contact with the advanced intellectual concepts of the
Greeks, as modified by the organizing genius of the Romans. Both
Greece and Rome left a permanent impress upon Christianity; and,
though dead, they yet live in the Christian Church. The influence of
Greek philosophy is seen in the formulation of a system of Christian
doctrine. This appears in the development of the _Apostles’ Creed_
during the second century, in the selection of a canon of sacred
writings or _New Testament_ during the third century, and still more in
the _Nicene Creed_ (325), which was not formulated until Christianity
had been largely Hellenized. Similarly, the Greek tendency to attribute
universal validity to their sacred writings, and the pomp, ceremonies,
and mysteries of the Hellenic worship, are more or less apparent in the
various ecclesiastical tenets and usages. On the other hand, the Roman
concepts of administration appear in the organization of the Church,
which seems to have closely paralleled the Roman civil polity. By the
third century priests and bishops had largely come to be similarly
located, and to correspond in control, to the Roman district and city
magistrates respectively. And in 445 the recognition of the supremacy
of the Bishop of Rome established a visible head of the entire Church,
corresponding to the position of the emperor on the civic side.
[Sidenote: Reversion to otherworldliness.]
=Rise of the Monastic Schools.=--Thus it has been seen how the
two great movements of Græco-Roman culture and Christian teaching
arose independently, in time united and later separated, although,
after separation, the Christian doctrines were somewhat affected by
their long association with pagan philosophy. Eventually the pagan
schools were suppressed by the edict of Justinian in 529 A. D.,
and the Christian education was left alone in the field. It then
found an additional means of expression in the ‘monastic’ schools,
in which there was naturally a tendency to revert to an ascetic or
‘otherworldly’ ideal, and to leave intellectual attainments largely out
of consideration. But these monastic institutions are to be grouped
with mediævalism and belong more distinctly to the next chapter.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, _Before the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 221-243. For the moral effect
of Christianity, see Lecky, W. E. H., _History of European Morals_
(Appleton, 1869), vol. II, pp. 1-100. Other places in the chapter
will be illumined by reading Ayer, J. C., Jr., _Catechumenal Schools_
and _Catechetical Schools_ (Monroe Cyclopædia of Education, vol. I);
Dill, D., _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_
(Macmillan, 1899), especially book V; Hatch, E., _The Influence of
Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church_ (Hibbert Lectures,
1888, Williams, London, 1891); Hodgson, G., _Primitive Christian
Education_ (Clark, Edinburgh, 1906); and Leach, A. F., _Bishop’s
Schools_ and _Cathedral Schools_ (Monroe Cyclopædia of Education, vol.
I).
PART II
THE MIDDLE AGES
CHAPTER V
THE MONASTIC EDUCATION
OUTLINE
During the Middle Ages the German hordes absorbed ancient
civilization under the authoritative guidance of the Church, and
the chief means of leavening the barbarian lump was found in the
cathedral and monastic schools.
Monasteries grew up to counteract the prevailing worldliness.
To keep the monks busy, Benedict prescribed the copying of
manuscripts, and this literary work rendered schools necessary.
In these monastic schools were taught the ‘seven liberal arts’ by
catechetical methods.
Thus monasticism helped preserve learning and education, although
it was somewhat hostile to the classics and science.
[Sidenote: Absorption of Greek, Roman and Christian civilization.]
=The Middle Ages as a Period of Assimilation and Repression.=--The
Middle Ages may be regarded as an era of assimilation and of
repression. On the one hand, the rude German hordes, who had by the
sixth century everywhere taken possession of the decadent ancient
world, were enabled during this period to rise gradually to such a
plane of intelligence and achievement that they could absorb the Greek,
Roman, and Christian civilization, and become its carriers to modern
times. On the other hand, that this absorption might take place, it
was necessary that the individual should conform to the model set,
and it was inevitable that a bondage to authority, convention, and
institutions should ensue.
[Sidenote: Authoritative attitude of the Church.]
The main power in effecting this subservience on the part of mediæval
society was the Christian Church. For it was but natural during the
period of assimilation that the Church, which had become completely
organized and unlimited in power, should stand as the chief guide and
schoolmaster of the Germanic hosts. By the decree of Justinian in
529 A. D., which closed the pagan schools and marks the beginning of
the Middle Ages, Christian education was left without a rival. Hence
the cathedral and monastic schools became almost the sole means of
leavening the barbarian lump. Contrary to the view commonly accepted,
the educational activities of the cathedral institutions were more
important and general than those of the monastic schools. But the
former have already been somewhat discussed, and so much relating to
the course and services of the latter will also apply to them that we
may now turn to a detailed description of the monastic schools.
[Sidenote: Reaction to prevailing vice.]
=The Evolution and Nature of Monasticism.=--To understand these
schools, it will be necessary to examine the movement out of which they
arose. Monasticism grew up through the corruption in Roman society and
the desire of those within the Church for a deeper religious life.
Christianity was no longer confined to small extra-social groups
meeting secretly, but was represented in all walks of society, and
mingled with the world. It had become thoroughly secularized, and even
the clergy had in many instances yielded to the prevailing worldliness
and vice.
[Sidenote: Hermits and monasteries.]
[Sidenote: Monasticism in the West.]
Under these circumstances there were Christians who felt that the only
hope for salvation rested in fleeing from the world and its temptations
and taking refuge in an isolated life of asceticism and devotion. This
led eventually to the foundation of monasteries, in which the monks
lived apart in separate cells, but met for meals, prayers, communion,
and counsel. Monasticism started in Egypt, but soon spread into Syria
and Palestine, and then into Greece, Italy, and Gaul. But in the
West monasticism gradually adopted more active pursuits and milder
discipline, and the monks turned to the cultivation of the soil and the
preservation of literature.
[Sidenote: Manual labor and reading required.]
[Sidenote: Resulting literary activities.]
=Benedict’s ‘Rule’ and the Multiplication of Manuscripts.=--These
monastic activities were especially crystallized and promoted by the
Benedictine ‘rule.’ This was a code formulated by St. Benedict in
529 for his monastery at Monte Cassino in Southwest Italy, and it
was generally adopted by the monasteries of Western Europe. In the
forty-eighth chapter of the ‘rule’ he commanded that the monks each
day engage in manual labor for at least seven hours and in systematic
reading for at least two hours. The requirement of daily reading led
to the collection and reproduction of manuscripts, and each monastery
soon had a _scriptorium_, or ‘writing-room,’ in one end of the building
(Fig. 7). Most of the works copied were of a religious nature and
were limited in number, but the monks were occasionally occupied with
the Latin classics, and they also became the authors of some original
literature, which included histories of the Church, the monasteries,
and the times, as well as works upon religious topics.
[Sidenote: Especial preservation of learning in English monasteries.]
=Amalgamation of and Irish Christianity.=--This preservation of
learning and development of literature was especially apparent in
the monasteries of England It came about through the amalgamation at
the Council of Whitby, in 664, of the Roman Church in England, with
Irish Christianity, which had preserved an unusually high order of
learning after its isolation. An immense enthusiasm for the Church,
culture, and literature of Rome resulted from this merging of the
rival organizations, and the English monasteries, such as Jarrow
and Wearmouth, and cathedral schools, like York, became the great
educational centers for Europe.
[Sidenote: Length of course.]
[Sidenote: Types of pupils.]
=The Organization of the Monastic Schools.=--The literary work of
the monasteries soon led to the establishment of regular schools
within their walls (Fig. 8). The course in these monastic schools may
often have lasted eight or ten years, as boys of ten or even less
were sometimes received, and no one could become a regular member of
the order before he was eighteen. By the ninth century the schools
sometimes also admitted pupils who never expected to enter the order.
These latter were called _externi_ in distinction to the _oblati_, who
were preparing to become monks. Some training was also given women in
convents for nuns, such as that established by the sister of Benedict.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.--A monk in the _scriptorium_.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.--A monastic school.]
[Sidenote: Evolution and scope of the _trivium_ and _quadrivium_.]
=The ‘Seven Liberal Arts’ as the Curriculum.=--The curriculum of the
monastic schools was at first elementary and narrow. It included only
reading, in order to study the Bible; writing, to copy the sacred
books; and calculation, for the sake of computing Church festivals. But
after a while the classical learning was gradually introduced in that
dry and condensed form of the ‘seven liberal arts’, which was also used
by the cathedral schools. This mediæval canon of studies was a gradual
evolution from Græco-Roman days. The discrimination of these liberal
subjects may be said to have begun with Plato, whose educational
scheme included a higher group of studies, consisting of arithmetic,
geometry, music, and astronomy; and during the later days of Greece
and Rome these ‘liberal’ subjects of Plato were combined with the
‘practical’ studies of the sophists,--grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic.
These ‘seven liberal arts’ were definitely fixed during the fifth
and sixth centuries A. D., through several treatises by such writers
as Martianus Capella, Boëthius, and Cassiodorus; and the grammar,
rhetoric, and dialectic eventually became classed as the _trivium_ or
lower studies, and the arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy as
the _quadrivium_ or higher (Fig. 9). While this curriculum was not a
broad one, the scope was much wider than would be supposed. ‘Grammar’
was an introduction to literature, ‘rhetoric’ included some knowledge
of law and history, ‘dialectic’ paved the way for metaphysics,
‘arithmetic’ extended beyond mere calculation, ‘geometry’ embraced
geography and surveying, ‘music’ covered a broad course in theory, and
‘astronomy’ comprehended some physics and advanced mathematics.
[Sidenote: Dictation and memorizing.]
[Sidenote: Donatus and Priscian,]
[Sidenote: Aristotle, Euclid, Boëthius, and Ptolemy.]
=The Methods and Texts.=--The general method of teaching in the
monastic schools was that of question and answer. As copies of the
various books were scarce, the instructor often resorted to dictation,
explaining the meaning as he read, and the pupils took the passage down
upon tablets and committed it. The reading books preparatory to the
study of literature, many of which are still extant, were generally
arranged by each teacher, and careful attention was given to the
etymological and literary study of the authors to be read. As to texts,
the leading works upon grammar were at first the elementary work of
Donatus (fourth century) and the more advanced treatise of Priscian
(sixth century), but by the thirteenth century there had sprung up
a series of simplified grammars, which, for the sake of memorizing,
were often written in verse. As rhetoric was no longer much concerned
with declamation, Cicero and Quintilian were rarely used as texts, but
various mediæval treatises upon official letters, legal documents, and
forms came into use. Dialectic was studied through translations of the
_Organon_ of Aristotle, Euclid furnished the text on geometry, the
works of Boëthius were generally used for arithmetic and music, and in
astronomy adaptations of the treatises of Aristotle and Ptolemy became
the texts.
[Sidenote: Maintenance of classical literature and education.]
=Effect upon Civilization of the Monastic Schools.=--Thus monasticism
accomplished not a little for civilization. While the works produced in
the monasteries were uncritical and superstitious, they compose most of
our historical documents and sources in the Middle Ages. And, although
monastic schools were decidedly hostile to classical literature as
representing the temptations of the world, and at all times their rigid
orthodoxy prevented every possibility of science and the development of
individualism, they, together with the cathedral schools, preserved a
considerable amount of Græco-Roman culture. Without the cathedral and
monastic schools, the Latin and Greek manuscripts and learning could
scarcely have survived and have been available at the Renaissance.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, _History of Education during the Middle Ages and the Transition
to Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1910), chaps. I-II; Monroe, _Text-book_
(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 243-274. For the evolution of the ascetic life,
see Lecky, _History of European Morals_ (Appleton, 1869), vol. II,
pp. 101-274; for the development of monasticism, Taylor, H. O., _The
Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. VII,
and Wishart, A. W., _A Short History of Monks and Monasticism_ (Brandt,
Trenton, 1902). The contribution of Irish monasticism is shown in
Healy, J., _Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum_ (Sealy, Dublin, 1897), and
Zimmer, H., _The Irish Element in Mediæval Culture_ (Putnam, 1891).
Succinct articles on _Abbey Schools_, _Bishop’s Schools_, _Church
Schools_, and _Cloister Schools_ by Leach, A. F. (Monroe Cyclopædia of
Education, vols. I and II), furnish the most accurate ideas of monastic
education as far as it is known. An account of the monastic libraries
is given in Clark, J. W., _Libraries in the Mediæval and Renaissance
Monasteries_ (Macmillan and Bowes, Cambridge, 1894), and Putnam, G. H.,
_Books and Their Makers during the Middle Ages_ (Putnam, 1896). The
best account of _The Seven Liberal Arts_ in English is that by Abelson,
P. (Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions, No. 11, 1906).
CHAPTER VI
CHARLEMAGNE’S REVIVAL OF EDUCATION
OUTLINE
Learning and schools had by the eighth century been sadly
disrupted, and, to restore them, Charlemagne invited Alcuin of York
to become his adviser in education. Alcuin induced Charlemagne to
conduct higher education at the Palace School, and to improve the
cathedral, monastic, and parish schools.
Even after Alcuin retired from the active direction of education,
he continued his educational influence, but he became set and
narrow. A broader spirit, however, appeared in his pupils, and
intellectual stagnation never again prevailed.
[Sidenote: Decay of learning.]
[Sidenote: Charlemagne]
[Sidenote: and Alcuin.]
=Condition of Education in the Eighth Century.=--In the course of the
seventh and eighth centuries mediæval education met with considerable
retrogression. The learning of the sixth century was disappearing,
the copying of manuscripts had almost ceased, and the cathedral and
monastic schools had been sadly disrupted. The secular clergy, monks,
nobility, and others who might have been expected to be trained,
at times seem even to have lost the art of writing, although the
leading churchmen must generally have maintained their knowledge of
ecclesiastical Latin and some acquaintance with the classical authors
and various compilations of the seven liberal arts. Just before this
time the Franks had succeeded in establishing a supremacy over the
other barbarian tribes and had spread their rule through what is now
France, Belgium, and Holland, and most of Western Germany. Under a
dynasty of vigorous kings, they now drove back the Moslems, conquered
the Lombards and Saxons, and subdued the Slavs and Bohemians, and
finally Charlemagne (742-814) even planned to re-establish the Western
Roman Empire under his sovereignty. This monarch greatly strengthened
and centralized his dominions by a number of improvements in external
administration, but, even before his recognition as emperor by the
pope (800), he had realized that a genuine unity of his people could
be brought about only through a much more effective and universal
education. He had a keen sense of the unfortunate educational
situation, and made every effort to improve it. To assist him in his
endeavors, in 782 he called Alcuin (735-804) from the headship of the
famous cathedral school at York (see p. 56) to be his chief adviser in
education.
[Sidenote: Methods and curriculum.]
=Higher Education at the Palace School.=--Through this noted scholar
Charlemagne proceeded to revive the cathedral, monastic, and parish
schools, and to increase the importance of the ‘Palace School.’ At this
latter school the great king, all his family, and many of his relatives
and intellectual friends studied under the Saxon educator. Alcuin
must, however, have used a more discursive and less _memoriter_ method
with his adult students than the formal catechetical plan employed
in instructing the youth. Among the subjects taught were grammar,
including some study of the Latin poets and the writings of the Church
Fathers, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, astronomy, and theology, but
Alcuin appears to have had but little command of the Greek learning.
Charlemagne himself seems to have become proficient in Latin and other
languages, but, in spite of strenuous efforts, he began too late in
life to train his hand to write.
[Sidenote: Capitularies to abbots and bishops.]
[Sidenote: Course in the monastic, cathedral, and village schools.]
[Sidenote: Free tuition.]
=Educational Improvement in the Cathedral, Monastic, and Parish
Schools.=--With the coöperation of Alcuin, Charlemagne also did
everything in his power to increase facilities and improve standards
in the existing types of schools. In 787 he issued an educational
‘capitulary’ or decree to the bishops and abbots, “urging diligence in
the pursuit of learning and the selection of teachers for this work
who are able, willing, and zealous to learn themselves and to teach
others.” Two years later he wrote a more urgent capitulary to the
bishops and abbots, in which he specified the subjects to be taught in
the cathedral and monastic schools and the care to be taken in teaching
them. Schools seem to have been everywhere established or revived in
the various cathedrals, monasteries, and villages, and the instruction
in several places became famous. All these schools came to offer at
least a complete elementary course, and some added considerable work
in higher education. Reading, writing, computation, singing, and
the Scriptures were taught first, but, beyond this, instruction in
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic was often given, and at the more
noted cathedral and monastic schools the _quadrivium_ also appeared in
the course. The schools in the villages, under the care of the parish
priests, taught only the rudiments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed,
and the Psalms. Tuition was free in all schools for those intending
to become monks or priests, but for the higher work a small fee was
sometimes paid by the laity. It seems to have been generally intended
that education should be gratuitous and open to all. A letter of the
Bishop of Orleans required it of his clergy; and through a capitulary
in 802 Charlemagne strove to make it compulsory.
[Sidenote: After retirement Alcuin’s influence continued, but he became
narrow.]
=Alcuin’s Educational Work at Tours.=--After fourteen years of
strenuous service, Alcuin retired from the active headship of the
educational system to the abbacy of the monastery at Tours. But even
here his educational work did not cease. He soon established a model
house of learning and education, whither flocked the most brilliant
youths in the empire, and since they rapidly became prominent as
teachers and churchmen, his influence upon the schools remained fully
as marked as before. He also wrote a number of educational works,
mostly on the seven liberal arts, and had a large correspondence about
education with kings and the higher clergy. Alcuin, however, was by
nature conservative, and with his retirement he became decidedly set
and narrow. His fear of dialectic and the more advanced views of
certain Irish scholars is almost ludicrous, and his repudiation of the
classic poets, even his former favorite, Vergil, is pathetic.
[Sidenote: His pupils retained his broader spirit.]
=Rabanus Maurus, Erigena, and Others Concerned in the
Revival.=--Fortunately, Alcuin’s pupils, who at his death occupied
practically all positions of educational importance, retained his
broader spirit. This was true in particular of Rabanus Maurus
(776-856), whose leadership caused the monastic school at Fulda
to become the great center of learning. Rabanus wrote even more
prolifically than Alcuin upon grammar, language, and theology, but
was not afraid to emphasize the study of classic literature or the
new training in dialectic. He also greatly expanded the mathematical
subjects of the curriculum, and tended to ascribe all phenomena
to natural laws. Rabanus, in his turn, influenced a large number
of pupils, and a further impetus was given to the movement by a
cross-fertilization of Irish learning, which was also introduced,
especially through the mastership of Joannes Scotus Erigena (810-876)
at the Palace School.
[Sidenote: Permanent effects of the revival.]
Thus during the ninth century and the first half of the tenth there
arose, through the initiative of Charlemagne and Alcuin, a marked
revival in education, and for several generations the cathedral and
monastic schools enthusiastically fostered education and learning.
Curricula were expanded, and many famous scholars appeared. While,
owing to the weakness of Charlemagne’s successors and the attacks
of the Northmen, learning gradually faded once more, intellectual
stagnation never again prevailed. Through the revival of the great
Frankish monarch, classical learning had to some extent been recalled
to continental Europe from its insular asylum in the extreme West.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. III; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 274-279. Read also Gaskoin, C. J.
C., _Alcuin, His Life and His Work_ (Clay, London, 1904), or West, A.
F., _Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools_ (Scribner, 1892), and
Mullinger, J. B., _The Schools of Charles the Great_ (Longmans, London,
1877).
CHAPTER VII
MOSLEM LEARNING AND EDUCATION
OUTLINE
Moslemism amalgamated in Syria with Greek philosophy and science,
and the Moslem cities there became renowned for their learning.
The masses of the Moslems were suspicious of the Greek learning,
however, and those who had absorbed the Hellenized philosophy were
driven from the Orient into Spain, where they founded Moorish
colleges.
The Moslems thus stimulated learning in the Christian schools, and
introduced Aristotle once more, but, after bringing learning back,
Moslemism itself reverted to its primitive stage.
[Sidenote: Illiteracy of early Moslemism.]
[Sidenote: Learning of the Mohammedan cities of Syria.]
=The Hellenization of Moslemism.=--One of the most important influences
in awakening mediæval Europe was the revival of learning and education
that came through the advent of the Moslems. Mohammed, the founder
of Moslemism, had been almost illiterate, and the _Koran_, or sacred
book, was a curious jumble of Judaistic, Christian, and other religious
elements with which Mohammed had become acquainted during his early
travels. As long as this religion was confined to the ignorant
and unreflecting tribes of Arabia, it served its purpose without
modification. But when it spread into Syria and came in contact with
Greek philosophy, in order to appeal to the people there, it had to
be interpreted in Hellenistic terms, and during the eighth, ninth,
and tenth centuries, through the influence of the Nestorian scholars
(see p. 46), the Mohammedans were engaged in rendering into Arabic
from the Syriac, or from the original Greek, the works of the great
philosophers, mathematicians, and physicians. The Mohammedan cities
of Syria soon became renowned for their learning. In them arose
such scholars as Avicenna (980-1037), who wrote many treatises on
mathematics and philosophy, and a _Canon of Medicine_ that remained
authoritative for five centuries. Similarly, there grew up a society
called the ‘Brothers of Sincerity,’ which in its course of study
amalgamated the Moslem theology with Hellenistic philosophy.
[Sidenote: Averroës and the Moorish colleges.]
=Hellenized Moslemism in Spain.=--But the masses of the Mohammedans
were as suspicious of the Greek learning as the orthodox Christians had
been, and toward the end of the eleventh century Hellenized Moslemism
was driven from the Orient and found a refuge in Northern Africa and
in Spain. Here the advanced Mohammedans became known as ‘Moors,’ and
their works were destined to have a pronounced influence upon the
Christians. There soon appeared such scholars as Averroës (1126-1198),
who became the authoritative commentator on Aristotle for several
centuries; and Moorish colleges were founded at Cordova, Granada,
Toledo, and elsewhere. In these institutions, while learning was
still at a low ebb in the Christian schools, were taught arithmetic,
geometry, trigonometry, astronomy, physics, biology, medicine,
surgery, jurisprudence, logic, and metaphysics. Arabic notation was
also introduced in place of the cumbersome Roman numerals and many
inventions and discoveries were made.
[Sidenote: Learning stimulated in Christian education.]
=Effect upon Europe of the Moslem Education.=--These schools and
colleges of the Moslems soon had their effect upon Christian education.
Through their influence, Raymund, Archbishop of Toledo, by the middle
of the twelfth century had the chief Arabic treatises on philosophy
translated into Castilian by a learned Jew, and then into Latin by
the monks; and Frederick II had scholars render the works of Averroës
into Latin. Such translations had, however, passed through several
media--Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Castilian, Latin--and could not be at
all accurate. But, stimulated by this taste of Greek learning, the
Christians sought a more immediate version, and a half century later
when the Venetians took the city of Constantinople, the works of
Aristotle were recovered in the original and translated directly into
Latin. Meanwhile the orthodox Mohammedanism had been coming to the
front in Spain and overwhelming the Hellenized form, and it was left
to Christian schools to continue the work of the advanced Moorish
institutions. Moslemism had returned to its primitive stage, but it
had helped bring back learning, especially the works of Aristotle, to
Christendom. As the classical learning had been restored from the West
during the revival of Charlemagne, it now returned from its refuge in
the East through the coming of the Moslems.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. V; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 331-334. For a further account of
Saracen education, see Coppée, H., _History of the Conquest of Spain
by the Arab-Moors_ (Little, Brown, Boston, 1881), especially bk. X;
Davidson, T., _The Brothers of Sincerity_ (International Journal of
Ethics, July, 1898), and Draper, J. W., _History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe_ (Harper, 1875), vol. I, chaps. XI and XIII, and
vol. II, chaps. II and IV.
CHAPTER VIII
EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES OF SCHOLASTICISM
OUTLINE
Scholasticism was a peculiar method of philosophic speculation in
the later mediæval period. At first, scholastic philosophers held
that faith must precede reason, but eventually reason itself tended
to become the means of testing the truth.
Scholastic education was organized in the monastic and episcopal
schools, and consisted in the limited learning of the times,
systematized on the basis of Aristotelian deduction. Scholasticism
was extreme in its discussions, but it tended to rationalize the
Church doctrines.
[Sidenote: Not a set of doctrines, but a peculiar method.]