THE ATHENIAN SCHOOLBOY
The chief aim of Athenian education was the building of character.
The Athenians were more concerned that their sons should grow up to
be good citizens, loving what was beautiful and hating all that was
ugly, than that they should know any great number of facts. The
object of any education is to teach a child how to live, and a system
of education is good or bad according as it fulfils this aim. As
different states and countries, at different periods, have had
different ideals as to what is meant by _living_, so they will all
have had different kinds of education, each thought out in such a way
as best to train the child for that conception of life believed in by
his state or country. For example, the Spartan conception of life
was that every citizen should be a good soldier, able to defend his
country and to go out and fight her wars. Whether the Spartan ideal
was a good one or not, may be questioned, but it cannot be denied
that Spartan education was an excellent preparation for such a life.
The Athenians had a much wider ideal than the {222} Spartans. They,
too, believed in the training of the body, and in making patriotic
citizens who would count it a glory to die in defence of their city,
but they also believed that it was a glory to live for their city,
and to this end they trained the mind and the imagination as well as
the body. To an Athenian a good man was a good citizen, one who,
being physically perfect, would be able to defend his city in time of
war, who, being able to think, would be capable of governing, and
loving all that was beautiful would set high standards of taste in
art, in letters, and in conduct. Praxiteles gave outward form to
this ideal in his statue of Hermes, and though the Athenian ideal was
not complete, Athenian education produced a warrior like Miltiades,
statesmen like Themistocles and Pericles, a poet like Sophocles,
artists like Pheidias and Praxiteles, philosophers like Socrates and
Plato, and a historian like Thucydides.
[Illustration: THE FLUTE LESSON, THE WRITING LESSON. (ABOVE A
WRITING-ROLL, A FOLDED TABLET, A RULING SQUARE, ETC.) From the Kylix
of Douris, now at Berlin (No. 2285). Monumenti dell' Institute, ix.
Plate 54.]
The Athenians believed that training which aimed only at
money-making, or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from
intelligence, was mean and vulgar and did not deserve to be called
education. True education, they held, made a child long to be a good
citizen and taught him both how to rule and to obey. It must not be
supposed that the Athenians despised wealth or the power of wealth.
Only a wealthy state could have built the Parthenon or celebrated the
great Panathenaic Festival, but the Athenians despised mere
money-making, and they believed that a man's success was not to be
measured by the amount of money he had made, {223} but by the use to
which he put it, and they believed that an education which taught a
boy to be industrious and thrifty, to despise self-indulgence and
luxury, to think straight and see clearly, would make him a better
citizen than one which aimed only at making him a successful man of
business. So they aimed at giving every boy a good education.
First among things, [said one of their teachers], I reckon human
education. For if you begin anything whatever in the right way,
the end will probably be right also. The nature of the harvest
depends upon the seeds you sow. If you plant good education in a
young body, it bears leaves and fruit the whole life long, and no
rain or drought can destroy it.[1]
The Athenian boy went to school when he was seven years old. At this
age he was placed in the charge of a pedagogue, a trusted slave who
accompanied him when he went to school, carried his books for him,
and helped him, when necessary, with his lessons. The pedagogue was
also expected to keep him in good order, to teach him good manners,
to answer all his many questions, and to punish him whenever he
thought fit, which was probably very often.
Schools opened early, so early that Solon made a law forbidding
schoolmasters to open their schools before sunrise and requiring them
to be closed before sunset, so that the boys should not have to walk
about the dark and empty streets. The Athenian {224} boy, then, had
to be early astir. "He gets up at dawn, washes the sleep from his
eyes, and puts on his cloak. Then he goes out from his father's
house with his eyes fixed upon the ground, not looking at anyone who
meets him." (A modest and unassuming appearance in public was
required of every boy.) "Behind him follow attendants and
pedagogues, bearing in their hands the implements of virtue,
writing-tablets or books containing the great deeds of old, or, if he
is going to a music-school, his well-tuned lyre."[2]
Arrived at the school, the pedagogue remained in an ante-room, where
he waited with all the other pedagogues until morning school was
over. The boy entered a larger room beyond, where he settled down to
his lessons. The boys sat on low benches with their writing-tablets
on their knees, and the master sat on a higher chair in front of
them. Lyres and other musical instruments, a book-roll or two, or
perhaps some drinking-cups hung on the walls.
Athenian boys were taught three main subjects: letters, music and
gymnastics. The first thing connected with letters was to be able to
read and write. The first writing lessons were given on wooden
tablets covered with wax, and for a pen a stylus with a sharp metal
point was used. With this stylus the letters were scratched on the
wax. When a boy had learnt to write better, he was allowed to write
on papyrus with a reed dipped in a kind of sticky substance which
took the place of ink.
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When the boy has learned his letters [we are told], and is
beginning to understand what is written, as before he understood
only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great
poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at school; in these are
contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises of
ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in
order that he may imitate them and desire to become like them.[3]
Athenian boys had no books for children--they began by reading great
poetry and literature. Much of the literature they learnt by heart,
standing in front of the master who recited it to them, and they
learnt it by repeating it after him line by line. In this way they
mastered passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey, and though it must
have been unusual, it was not an unknown feat for a boy to be able to
recite the whole of those poems by heart. "My father," said one man
speaking of his school days, "in his pains to make me a good man,
compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems, and even now I can
repeat the Iliad and the Odyssey by heart."[4] Reciting poetry in an
Athenian school was by no means a dull affair, for the boys acted as
they recited. The art of reciting poetry was held in high esteem not
only in Athens, but all over Greece, and in all places where the
Greek tongue was spoken and where Greek ideals prevailed. During the
disastrous war that Athens waged against Sparta at the end of the
fifth century B.C. an Athenian {226} expedition was sent to Sicily.
After a terrible fight in the harbour of Syracuse, the Athenians were
utterly defeated, and all those who survived the battle were taken as
prisoners and confined in the stone quarries near the city.[5] They
were exposed to the sun and the rain and almost starved to death.
But any man who could recite a chorus or one of the scenes from a
play of Euripides, the great Athenian poet, was given his freedom and
allowed to return home.
A certain amount of arithmetic was also taught, for it was considered
a good training for the mind.
"No branch of education is considered so valuable a preparation
for household management and politics, and all arts and crafts,
sciences and professions, as arithmetic; best of all by some
divine art, it arouses the dull and sleepy brain, and makes it
studious, mindful and sharp,"
and it was said of arithmetic that "those who are born with a talent
for it are quick at all learning, while even those who are slow at
it, have their general intelligence much increased by studying
it."[6] But Athenian children, like others, sometimes found it
difficult to learn, and "I am pretty sure," said an Athenian, "that
you will not easily find many sciences that give the learner and
student so much trouble and toil as arithmetic."[7]
[Illustration: THE LYRE LESSON, AND THE POETRY LESSON. (ABOVE IS AN
ORNAMENTAL MANUSCRIPT BASKET.) From a Kylix by Douris, now in Berlin
(No. 2285). Monumenti dell' Instituto, ix. Plate 54.]
Part of the day was given to the study of letters, {227} and then the
boys went to the music school, where they learnt to play the lyre and
to sing. A song accompanied by the music of the lyre was a favourite
part of the entertainment after a banquet, and every Athenian
gentleman was expected to be able to sing and play whenever he was
called upon. So much was it the mark of a gentleman, that "He who
doesn't know the way to play the lyre" became a proverbial expression
for an uneducated person.
Very little is known about Greek music, but it was considered very
necessary that the music taught should be of an ennobling and
inspiring kind. The Lydian melodies were held to be altogether too
soft and sentimental, and the Athenians preferred those known as
Dorian, because they were simpler and sterner and of a kind to
inspire men to noble and manly deeds. Aristotle who wrote so much
about the ideal state, wrote also about the education an ideal state
should give to its children. He held that "music is neither a
necessary nor a useful accomplishment in the sense in which letters
are useful, but it provides a noble and worthy means of occupying
leisure time," and Aristotle, like all Athenians, believed that it
was the part of a good education to teach not only how to work well,
but also how to use leisure well. The Athenians thought music was a
good medicine for all ills. One philosopher, when his temper had
been ruffled and he felt irritated and tired, used to take up his
harp and play, saying, "I am calming myself."
In the afternoon the boys were taken by their pedagogues to the
palaestra or wrestling-school, {228} where they learned gymnastics.
It was as important that the boy should have a well-trained, graceful
body, as that he should have a clear and well-furnished mind, and so
he spent a good part of each day running, jumping, wrestling, and
throwing the discus under a special master.
According to Plato, this education turned the Athenian boy from being
"the most unmanageable of animals" into "the most amiable and divine
of living beings." This change had not taken place without many a
punishment of the boy, and it was a proverb that "he that is not
flogged cannot be taught." Not long ago an old Greek papyrus was
discovered which gives a vivid account of the discipline that was
thought necessary by both parents and teachers, for the schoolboy who
preferred, as he probably often did, to play games instead of
learning his lessons. A mother brought her truant boy, Cottalus, to
his schoolmaster, Lampriscus, to receive a flogging for his misdeeds,
and she said:
_Mother_.
Flog him Lampriscus,
Across the shoulders, till his wicked soul
Is all but out of him. He's spent my all
In playing odd and even; knuckle bones
Are nothing to him. Why, he hardly knows
The door of the Letter School. And yet the thirtieth
Comes round and I must pay--tears no excuse.
His writing tablet which I take the trouble
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To wax anew each month lies unregarded
In the corner. If by chance he deigns to touch it
He scowls like Hades, then puts nothing right
But smears it out and out. He doesn't know
A letter till you scream it twenty times.
* * * *
Yet he knows
The seventh and the twentieth of the month,
Whole holidays, as if he reads the stars,
He lies awake o' nights dreaming of them.
But, so may yonder Muses prosper you,
Give him in stripes no less than--
_Lampriscus_ (briskly).
Right you are.
Here, boys, hoist him
Upon your backs. I like your goings on,
My boy! I'll teach you manners! Where's my strap,
With the stinging cow's tail?
_Cottalus_ (_in terror_).
By the Muses, Sir,--Not with the stinger.
_Lampriscus_.
Then you shouldn't be so naughty.
_Cott._
O how many will you give me?
_Lamp._
Your mother fixes that.
_Cott._
How many, mother?
_Mother._
As many as your wicked hide can bear
(_They proceed with the flogging_).
_Cott._
Stop!--That's enough! Stop!
_Lamp._
You should stop your ways.
_Cott._
I'll never do it more, I promise you.
_Lamp._
Don't talk so much, or else I'll bring a gag.
_Cott._
I won't talk,--only do not kill me,--please.
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_Lamp._ (_at length relenting_).
Let him down, boys.
_Mother._
No, leather him till sunset.
_Lamp._
Why, he's as mottled as a water snake.
_Mother._
Well, when he's done his reading, good or bad,
Give him a trifle more, say twenty strokes.[8]
Children were not always well behaved in other ways, it seems, and
complaints were made by their parents that the children contradicted
them and did not always rise when their elders came into the room,
that they chattered too much before company, crossed their legs when
they sat down, and completely tyrannized over their pedagogues.
But in spite of all his misdemeanours and punishments, in letters,
music and gymnastics, the Athenian boy was educated until he was
eighteen years old. The stories of the ancient heroes who had fought
at Troy, and those of more recent times who had defeated the Persians
filled him with enthusiasm for his race and a love of freedom for his
city. Having to learn many things without the aid of books, his mind
grew quick, alert and observant, and his music and gymnastics taught
him the beauty of self-control and dignified restraint.
[Illustration: MUSIC SCHOOL SCENES. From a Hydria in the British
Museum. (E 171.)]
At eighteen, the Athenian youth left school. The state did not give
him the full rights of a citizen until a few years later, and until
then he was required to perform certain military duties, but he was
no longer a boy, and he was considered old enough to understand the
meaning of citizenship, {231} and to know what were its duties and
privileges. So it was then, at the time of leaving his boyhood
behind, and entering upon the richer and fuller life before him, that
the youth took the oath of the Ephebi or young men. He was given the
shield and spear of the warrior, and then in the temple, before Zeus,
the Lord of Heaven, and in the presence of the highest Athenian
magistrates, he swore:
"Never to disgrace his holy arms, never to forsake his comrade in
the ranks, but to fight for the holy temples, alone or with
others: to leave his country, not in a worse, but in a better
state than he found it; to obey the magistrates and the laws, and
defend them against attack; finally to hold in honour the
religion of his country."
[1] From _The Schools of Hellas_, by Kenneth J. Freeman.
[2] Lucian, translated by Kenneth J. Freeman, in _The Schools of
Hellas_.
[3] Plato: _Protagoras_, translated by Jowett.
[4] Xenophon: _Banquet_.
[5] See p. 312.
[6] Plato: _Laws_.
[7] Plato: _Republic_, translated by Davies and Vaughan.
[8] Herodas: _Mime_, III, translated by Kenneth J. Freeman in _The
Schools of Hellas_.
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