The Schoolboys of Athens.
51. Athenians Generally Literate.—Education is not compulsory by law
in Athens, but the father who fails to give his son at least a modicum
of education falls under a public contempt, which involves no slight
penalty. Practically all Athenians are at least literate. In
Aristophanes’s famous comedy, _The Knights_, a boorish “sausage-seller”
is introduced, who, for the purposes of the play, must be one of the
very scum of society, and he is made to cry, “Only consider now my
education! I can but barely read, just in a kind of way.”[*]
Evidently if illiterates are not very rare in Athens, the fellow should
have been made out utterly ignorant. “He can neither swim[+] nor say
his letters,” is a common phrase for describing an absolute idiot.
When a boy has reached the age of seven, the time for feminine rule is
over; henceforth his floggings, and they will be many, are to come from
firm male hands.
[*] Aristophanes, “Knights”, II. 188-189.
[+] Swimming was an exceedingly common accomplishment among the Greeks,
naturally enough, so much of their life being spent upon or near the
sea.
52. Character Building the Aim of Athenian Education.—The true
education is of course begun long before the age of seven. _Character
not book-learning, is the main object of Athenian Education_, _i.e._ to
make the boy self-contained, modest, alert, patriotic, a true friend, a
dignified gentleman, able to appreciate and participate in all that is
true, harmonius and beautiful in life. To that end his body must be
trained, not apart from, but along with his mind. Plato makes his
character Protagoras remark, “As soon as a child understands what is
said to him, the nurse, the mother, the pedagogue, and the father vie
in their efforts to make him good, by showing him in all that he does
that ‘_this_ is right,’ and ‘_that_ is wrong’; ‘this is pretty,’ and
‘that is ugly’; so that he may learn what to follow and what to shun.
If he obeys willingly—why, excellent. If not, then try by threats and
blows to correct him, as men straighten a warped and crooked sapling.”
Also after he is fairly in school “the teacher is enjoined to pay more
attention to his morals and conduct than to his progress in reading and
music.”
53. The Schoolboy’s Pedagogue.—It is a great day for an Athenian boy
when he is given a pedagogue. This slave (perhaps purchased especially
for the purpose) is not his teacher, but he ought to be more than
ordinarily honest, kindly, and well informed. His prime business is to
accompany the young master everywhere out-of-doors, especially to the
school and to the gymnasium; to carry his books and writing tablets; to
give informal help upon his lessons; to keep him out of every kind of
mischief; to teach him social good manners; to answer the thousand
questions a healthy boy is sure to ask; and finally, in emergencies, if
the schoolmaster or his father is not at hand, to administer a needful
whipping. A really capable pedagogue can mean everything to a boy; but
it is asking too much that a purchased slave should be an ideal
companion.[*] Probably many pedagogues are responsible for their
charges’ idleness or downright depravity. It is a dubious system at
the best.
[*] No doubt frequently the pedagogue would be an old family servant of
good morals, loyalty, and zeal. In that case the relation might be
delightful.
The assigning of the pedagogue is simultaneous with the beginning of
school days; and the Athenians are not open to the charge of letting
their children waste their time during possible study hours. As early
as Solon’s day (about 590 B.C.) a law had to be passed forbidding
schools to open _before_ daybreak, or to be kept open after dusk. This
was in the interest not of good eyesight, but of good morals.
Evidently schools had been keeping even longer than through the
daylight. In any case, at gray dawn every yawning schoolboy is off,
urged on by his pedagogue, and his tasks will continue with very little
interruption through the entire day. It is therefore with reason that
the Athenian lads rejoice in the very numerous religious holidays.
54. An Athenian School.—Leaving the worthy citizen’s home, where we
have lingered long chatting on many of the topics the house and its
denizens suggest, we will turn again to the streets to seek the school
where one of the young sons of the family has been duly conducted
(possibly, one may say, driven) by his pedagogue. We have not far to
go. Athenian schools have to be numerous, because they are small. To
teach children of the poorer classes it is enough to have a modest room
and a few stools; an unrented shop will answer. But we will go to a
more pretentious establishment. There is an anteroom by the entrance
way where the pedagogues can sit and doze or exchange gossip while
their respective charges are kept busy in the larger room within. The
latter place, however, is not particularly commodious. On the bare
wall hang book-rolls, lyres, drinking vessels, baskets for books, and
perhaps some simple geometric instruments. The pupils sit on rude, low
benches, each lad with his boxwood tablet covered with wax[*] upon his
lap, and presumably busy, scratching letters with his stylus. The
master sits on a high chair, surveying the scene. He cultivates a grim
and awful aspect, for he is under no delusion that “his pupils love
him.” “He sits aloft,” we are told, “like a juryman, with an
expression of implacable wrath, before which the pupil must tremble and
cringe.”[+]
[*] This wax tablet was practically a slate. The letters written could
be erased with the blunt upper end of the metallic stylus, and the
whole surface of the tablet could be made smooth again by a judicious
heating.
[+] The quotation is from the late writer Libanius, but it is perfectly
true for classic Athens.
Athenian schoolboys have at least their full share of idleness, as well
as of animal spirits. There is soon a loud whisper from one corner.
Instantly the ruling tyrant rises. “Antiphon! I have heard you. Come
forward!” If Antiphon is wise, he will advance promptly and submit as
cheerfully as possible to a sound caning; if folly possesses him, he
will hesitate. At a nod from the master two older boys, who serve as
monitors, will seize him with grim chuckles. He will then be fortunate
if he escapes being tied to a post and flogged until his back is one
mass of welts, and his very life seems in danger. It will be useless
for him to complain to his parents. A good schoolmaster is supposed to
flog frequently to earn his pay; if he is sparing with the rod or lash,
he is probably lacking in energy. Boys will be boys, and there is only
one remedy for juvenile shortcomings.
This diversion, of course, with its attendant howling, interrupts the
course of the school, but presently matters again become normal. The
scholars are so few that probably there is only one teacher, and
instruction is decidedly “individual,” although poetry and singing are
very likely taught “in concert.”
55. The School Curriculum.—As to the subjects studied, the Athenian
curriculum is well fixed and limited: letters, music, and gymnastics.
Every lad must have a certain amount of all of these. They gymnastics
will be taught later in the day by a special teacher at a “wrestling
school.” The “music” may also be taught separately. The main effort
with a young boy is surely to teach him to read and write. And here
must be recalled the relative infrequency of complete books in classic
Athens.[*] To read public placards, inscriptions of laws, occasional
epistles, commercial documents, etc., is probably, for many Athenians,
reading enough. The great poets he will learn by ear rather than by
eye; and he may go through a long and respected life and never be
compelled to read a really sizable volume from end to end. So the
teaching of reading is along very simple lines. It is perhaps
simultaneous with the learning of writing. The twenty-four letters are
learned by sheer power of memory; then the master sets lines upon the
tablets to be copied. As soon as possible the boy is put to learning
and writing down passages from the great poets. Progress in mere
literacy is very rapid. There is no waste of time on history,
geography, or physical science; and between the concentration on a
singly main subject and the impetus given by the master’s rod the
Athenian schoolboy soon becomes adept with his letters. Possibly a
little arithmetic is taught him, but only a little. In later life, if
he does not become a trader or banker, he will not be ashamed to reckon
simple sums upon his fingers or by means of pebbles; although if his
father is ambitious to have him become a philosopher, he may have him
taught something of geometry.
[*] One gets the impression that books—in the sense of complete
volumes—were much rarer in Athens than in Imperial Rome, or in later
Middle Ages up to the actual period of the invention of printing.
Once more we see the total absence of “vocational studies” in this
Athenian education. The whole effort is to develop a fair, noble,
free, and lofty character, not to earn a living. To set a boy to study
with an eye to learning some profitable trade is counted illiberal to
the last degree. It is for this reason that practical arithmetic is
discouraged, yet a little knowledge of the art of outline drawing is
allowed; for though no gentleman intends to train his son to be a great
artist, the study will enable him to appreciate good sculpture and
painting. Above all the schoolmaster, who, despite his brutal
austerity, ought to be a clear-sighted and inspiring teacher, must lose
no opportunity to instill moral lessons, and develop the best powers of
his charges. Theoginis, the old poet of Megara, states the case well:—
To rear a child is easy; but to teach
Morals and manners is beyond our reach.
To make the foolish wise, the wicked good,
That science never yet understood.
56. The Study of the Poets.—It is for the developing of the best moral
and mental qualities in the lads that they are compelled to memorize
long passages of the great poets of Hellas. Theoginis, with his pithy
admonitions cast in semi-proverb form, the worldly wisdom of Hesiod,
and of Phocylides are therefore duly flogged into every Attic
schoolboy.[*] But the great text-book dwarfing all others, is
Homer,—“the Bible of the Greeks,” as later ages will call it. Even in
the small school we visit, several of the pupils can repeat five or six
long episodes from both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, and there is one
older boy present (an extraordinary, but by no means an unprecedented
case) who can repeat _both_ of the long epics word for word.[+]
Clearly the absence of many books has then its compensations. The
average Athenian lad has what seems to be a simply marvelous memory.
[*] Phocylides, whose gnomic poetry is now preserved to us only in
scant fragments, was an Ionian, born about 560 B.C. His verses were in
great acceptance in the schools.
[+] For such an attainment see Xenophon’s _Symposium_, 3:5.
And what an admirable text-book and “second reader” the Homeric poems
are! What characters to imitate: the high-minded, passionate, yet
withal loyal and lovable Achilles who would rather fight gloriously
before Troy (though death in the campaign is certain) than live a long
life in ignoble ease at home at Phthia; or Oysseus, the “hero of many
devices,” who endures a thousand ills and surmounts them all; who lets
not even the goddess Calypso seduce him from his love to his “sage
Penelope”; who is ever ready with a clever tale, a plausible lie, and,
when the need comes, a mighty deed of manly valor. The boys will all
go home to-night with firm resolves to suffer all things rather than
leave a comrade unavenged, as Achilles was tempted to do and nobly
refused, and to fight bravely, four against forty, as Odysseus and his
comrades did, when at the call of duty and honor they cleared the house
of the dastard suitors. True, philosophers like Plato complain: “Homer
gives to lads very undignified and unworthy ideas of the gods”; and men
of a later age will assert: “Homer has altogether too little to say
about the cardinal virtues of truthfulness and honesty.”[*] But making
all allowances the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are still the two grandest
secular text-books the world will ever know. The lads are definitely
the better for them.
[*] The virtue of unflinching _honesty_ was undoubtedly the thing least
cultivated by the Greek education. Successful prevarication, _e.g._ in
the case of Odysseus, was put at altogether too high a premium. It is
to be feared that the average Athenian schoolboy was only partially
truthful. The tale of “George Washington and the cherry tree” would
never have found favor in Athens. The great Virginian would have been
blamed for failing to concoct a clever lie.
Three years, according to Plato, are needed to learn the rudiments of
reading and writing before the boys are fairly launched upon this study
of the poets. For several years more they will spend most of their
mornings standing respectfully before their master, while he from his
chair reads to them from the roll of one author or another,—the pupils
repeating the lines, time and again, until they have learned them,
while the master interrupts to explain every nice point in mythology,
in real or alleged history, or a moot question in ethics.
57. The Greeks do not study Foreign Languages.—As the boys grow older
the scope of their study naturally increases; but in one particular
their curriculum will seem strangely limited. _The study of foreign
languages has no place in a Greek course of study._ That any gentleman
should learn say Persian, or Egyptian (unless he intended to devote
himself to distant travel), seems far more unprofitable than, in a
later age, the study of say Patagonian or Papuan will appear.[*] Down
at the Peiræus there are a few shipmasters, perhaps, who can talk
Egyptian, Phœnecian, or Babylonish. They need the knowledge for their
trade, but even they will disclaim any cultural value for their
accomplishment. The euphonious, expressive, marvelously delicate
tongue of Hellas sums up for the Athenian almost all that is valuable
in the world’s intellectual and literary life. What has the outer, the
“Barbarian,” world to give him?—Nothing, many will say, but some gold
darics which will corrupt his statesmen, and some spices, carpets, and
similar luxuries which good Hellenes can well do without. The Athenian
lad will never need to crucify the flesh upon Latin, French, and
German, or an equivalent for his own Greek. Therein perhaps he may be
heavily the loser, save that his own mother tongue is so intricate and
full of subtle possibilities that to learn to make the full use thereof
is truly a matter for lifelong education.
[*] This fact did not prevent the Greeks from having a considerable
respect for the traditions and lore of, _e.g._, the Egyptians, and from
borrowing a good many non-Greek usages and inventions; but all this
could take place without feeling the least necessity for studying
foreign languages.
58. The Study of “Music.”—But the Athenian has a substitute for this
omission of foreign language study: _Music_. This is something more
comprehensive than “the art of combining tones in a manner to please
the ear” [Webster]. It is practically the study of whatever will
develop the noble powers of the emotions, as contrasted to the mere
intellect.[*] Indeed everything which comes within the ample provinces
of the nine Muses, even sober history, might be included in the term.
However, for special purposes, the study of “Music” may be considered
as centering around playing instruments and singing. The teacher very
likely resides in a house apart from the master of the school of
letters. Aristophanes gives this picture of the good old customs for
the teaching of music. “The boys from the same section of the town
have to march thinly clad and draw up in good order—though the snow be
thick as meal—to the house of the harp master. There he will teach
them [some famous tune] raising a mighty melody. If any one acts silly
or turns any quavers, he gets a good hard thrashing for ‘banishing the
Muses!’”[+]
[*] Aristotle [_Politics_, V. (or VIII.) 1] says that the literary
education is to train the mind; while music, though of no practical
use, “provides a noble and liberal employment of leisure.”
[+] Aristophanes’s _The Clouds_. The whole passage is cited in Davis’s
_Readings in Ancient History_, vol. I, pp. 252-255.
Learning to sing is probably the most important item, for every boy and
man ought to be able to bear his part in the great chorals which are a
notable element in most religious festivals; besides, a knowledge of
singing is a great aid to appreciating lyric poetry, or the choruses in
tragedy, and in learning to declaim. To learn to sing elaborate solo
pieces is seldom necessary,—it is not quite genteel in grown-up
persons, for it savors a little too much of the professional. So it is
also with instrumental music. The Greeks lack the piano, the organ,
the elaborate brass instruments of a later day. Their flutes and
harps, although very sweet, might seem thin to a twentieth-century
critic. But one can gain considerable volume by the great _number_ of
instruments, and nearly everybody in Athens can pick at the lyre after
a fashion. The common type of harp is the lyre, and it has enough
possibilities for the average boy. The more elaborate _cithera_ is
usually reserved for professionals.[*] An Athenian lad is expected to
be able to accompany his song upon his own lyre and to play in concert
with his fellows.
[*] For the details of these harp types of instruments see Dictionary
of Antiquities.
The other instrument in common use is the _flute_. At its simplest,
this is a mere shepherd’s pipe. Anybody can make one with a knife and
some rushes. Then come elaborations; two pipes are fitted together
into one wooden mouthpiece. Now, we really have an instrument with
possibilities. But it is not in such favor in the schools as the lyre.
You cannot blow day after day upon the flute and not distort your
cheeks permanently. Again the gentleman’s son will avoid
“professionalism.” There are amateur flute players moving in the best
society, but the more fastidious frown upon the instrument, save for
hired performers.
59. The Moral Character of Greek Music.—Whether it is singing, harp
playing, or flute playing, a most careful watch is kept upon the
_character_ of the music taught the lads. The master who lets his
pupils learn many soft, dulcet, languishing airs will find his charges’
parents extremely angry, even to depriving him of their patronage.
Very soft music, in “Lydian modes,” is counted effeminate, fit only for
the women’s quarters and likely to do boys no good. The riotous type
also, of the “Ionic mode,” is fit only for drinking songs and is even
more under the ban.[*] What is especially in favor is the stern,
strenuous Dorian mode. This will make boys hardy, manly, and brave.
Very elaborate music with trills and quavers is in any case frowned
upon. It simply delights the trained ear, and has no reaction upon the
character; and of what value is a musical presentation unless it leaves
the hearers and performer better, worthier men? Let the average
Athenian possess the opportunity, and he will infallibly stamp with
disapproval a great part of both the popular and the classical music of
the later ages.[+]
[*] The “Phrygian mode” from which the “Ionic” was derived was still
more demoralizing; it was counted “orgiastic,” and proper only in
certain excited religious rhapsodies.
[+] We have extremely few Greek melodies preserved to us and these few
are not attractive to the modern ear. All that can fairly be said is
that the Hellenes were obvious such æsthetic, harmoniously minded
people that it is impossible their music should have failed in
nobility, beauty, and true melody.
60. The Teaching of Gymnastics.—The visits to the reading school and
to the harp master have consumed a large part of the day; but towards
afternoon the pedagogues will conduct their charges to the third of the
schoolboys’ tyrants: the gymnastic teacher. Nor do his parents count
this the least important of the three. Must not their sons be as
physically “beautiful” (to use the common phrase in Athens) as
possible, and must they not some day, as good citizens, play their
brave part in war? The _palæstras_ (literally “wrestling grounds”) are
near the outskirts of the city, where land is cheap and a good-sized
open space can be secured. Here the lads are given careful instruction
under the constant eye of an expert in running, wrestling, boxing,
jumping, discus hurling, and javelin casting. They are not expected to
become professional athletes, but their parents will be vexed if they
do not develop a healthy tan all over their naked bodies,[*] and if
they do not learn at least moderate proficiency in the sports and a
certain amount of familiarity with elementary military maneuvers. Of
course boys of marked physical ability will be encouraged to think of
training for the various great “games” which culminate at Olympia,
although enlightened opinion is against the promoting of professional
athletics; and certain extreme philosophers question the wisdom of any
extensive physical culture at all, “for (say they) is not the human
mind the real thing worth developing?”[+]
[*] To have a pale, untanned skin was “womanish” and unworthy of a free
Athenian citizen.
[+] The details of the boys’ athletic games, being much of a kind with
those followed by adults at the regular public gymnasia, are here
omitted. See Chap. XVII.
Weary at length and ready for a hearty meal and sleep, the boys are
conducted homeward by their pedagogues.
As they grow older the lads with ambitious parents will be given a more
varied education. Some will be put under such teachers of the new
rhetoric and oratory, now in vogue, as the famous Isocrates, and be
taught to play the orator as an aid to inducing their fellow citizens
to bestow political advancement. Certain will be allowed to become
pupils of Plato, who has been teaching his philosophy out at the groves
of the Academy, or to join some of his rivals in theoretical wisdom.
Into these fields, however, we cannot follow them.
61. The Habits and Ambitions of Schoolboys.—It is a clear fact, that
by the age say of thirteen, the Athenian education has had a marked
effect upon the average schoolboy. Instead of being “the most
ferocious of animals,” as Plato, speaking of his untutored state
describes him, he is now “the most amiable and divine of living
beings.” The well-trained lad goes now to school with his eyes cast
upon the ground, his hands and arms wrapped in his chiton, making way
dutifully for all his elders. If he is addressed by an older man, he
stands modestly, looking downward and blushing in a manner worthy of a
girl. He has been taught to avoid the Agora, and if he must pass it,
never to linger. The world is full of evil and ugly things, but he is
taught to hear and see as little of them as possible. When men talk of
his healthy color, increasing beauty, and admire the graceful curves of
his form at the wrestling school, he must not grow proud. He is being
taught to learn relatively little from books, but a great deal from
hearing the conversation of grave and well-informed men. As he grows
older his father will take him to all kinds of public gatherings and
teach him the working details of the “Democratic Government” of Athens.
He becomes intensely proud of his city. It is at length his chief
thought, almost his entire life. A very large part of the loyalty
which an educated man of a later age will divide between his home, his
church, his college, his town, and his nation, the Athenian lad will
sum up in two words,—“my _polis_”; _i.e._ the city of Athens. His home
is largely a place for eating and sleeping; his school is not a great
institution, it is simply a kind of disagreeable though necessary
learning shop; his church is the religion of his ancestors, and this
religion is warp and woof of the government, as much a part thereof as
the law courts or the fighting fleet; his town and his nation are alike
the sovran city-state of Athens. Whether he feels keenly a wider
loyalty to Hellas at large, as against the Great King of Persia, for
instance, will depend upon circumstances. In a real crisis, as at
Salamis,—yes. In ordinary circumstances when there is a hot feud with
Sparta,—no.
62. The “Ephebi.”—The Athenian education then is admirably adapted to
make the average lad a useful and worthy citizen, and to make him
modest, alert, robust, manly, and a just lover of the beautiful, both
in conduct and in art. It does not, however, develop his individual
bent very strongly; and it certainly gives him a mean view of the
dignity of labor. He will either become a leisurely gentleman, whose
only proper self-expression will come in warfare, politics, or
philosophy; or—if he be poor—he will at least envy and try to imitate
the leisure class.
By eighteen the young Athenian’s days of study will usually come to a
close. At that age he will be given a simple festival by his father
and be formally enrolled in his paternal _deme_.[*] His hair, which
has hitherto grown down toward his shoulders, will be clipped short.
He will allow his beard to grow. At the temple of Aglaurus he will
(with the other youths of his age) take solemn oath of loyalty to
Athens and her laws. For the next year he will serve as a military
guard at the Peiræus, and receive a certain training in soldiering.
The next year the state will present him with a new shield and spear,
and he will have a taste of the rougher garrison duty at one of the
frontier forts towards Bœtia or Megara.[+] Then he is mustered out.
He is an ephebus no longer, but a full-fledged citizen, and all the
vicissitudes of Athenian life are before him.
[*] One of the hundred or more petty townships or precincts into which
Attica was divided.
[+] These two years which the _ephebi_ of Athens had to serve under
arms have been aptly likened to the military service now required of
young men in European countries.