THE GROWTH OF SYSTEMATIC HIGHER EDUCATION.--UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS.
§ 70. It has been stated in the foregoing chapters that during the
earlier or strictly classical period the Greeks never thought of
endowing or regulating higher education. The careful system of training
at Sparta, promoted and controlled by the State, hardly included even
primary education. The police regulations alluded to at Athens only
concerned details of management in private schools, and only primary
schools, which were worked by masters self-appointed and supported
by the demand for them or their popularity in their district. Nowhere
do we find anything approaching to a State endowment or regulation
of university education. In fact, the want of such higher education
was only felt when the Greek mind began to turn inwards upon itself
after its extraordinary expansion in the Persian wars. And then the
first want was supplied by voluntary efforts--by the Sophists who
wandered from town to town, citizens of no fixed State, teachers in
complete independence of all State direction. Indeed, their avoidance
of political duties and responsibilities often brought them into
suspicion, oftener into contempt.
Socrates and Plato brought against them two other objections--the one
serious and capital, the other trivial and absurd; and yet it was
the latter which told with the public. The former objection was that
of superficiality and boastful assumption; they professed, within a
short time, to teach all that was needful in science and literature,
in philosophy and politics. And here the deeper thinking of professed
philosophers superseded them, though they had not been either useless
or contemptible in their day. The second objection reminds us strongly
of the prejudice once felt against taking interest for money--all such
profit being regarded as usury in the worst sense of the term. It
was urged that the Sophists asked and received pay for spreading the
truth, and for teaching what every honest man ought to communicate (if
he were able) for nothing. But although it was all very well for the
eccentric and exceptional Socrates, for the wealthy Plato, to refuse
all remuneration, the theory that the Sophist was not a laborer worthy
of his hire asserted that all higher education must be carried on by
amateurs, and thus tended to destroy all systematic and widely diffused
culture.
§ 71. This narrow prejudice, therefore, did not resist the common-sense
of the public when brought to bear upon it. We are assured that Plato,
like Socrates, took no payment. Our authorities are silent about
Aristotle, and it is hence inferred that he followed the same rule.
But Speusippus, his successor in the school, is said to have demanded
regular fees. This had been the practice with all the rhetoricians
who taught young men after their emancipation from school, and who
followed the natural precedent of the Sophists. Such a practice was all
the more reasonable, as the pupils in philosophical schools, even in
Plato’s, were divided into amateur pupils, who came for mere general
training, and professional students, who meant to take up teaching for
their livelihood, and who spent a long time in special studies. Thus
pupils’ fees were always a possible, and became an actual, endowment
for higher teaching. In the Sophists’ days men complained that these
fees were exorbitant, though perhaps not with justice. In later days
we hear of large fees from rich pupils, but always as voluntary
donations, and for the purpose of relieving poorer fellow-students.
For the schools of philosophy began to be secured from difficulties
by a second means of endowment--the donations of patrons and the
bequests of pious founders. As regards these donations by rich pupils,
we hear from Philostratus[61] that a rich scholar, Damianus, gave
to each of the Sophists Aristeides and Adrianos 10,000 drachmæ, to
supply poor students with free lectures. This gift, about £400 of our
money, represents a far larger sum in relation to the then existing
conditions of wealth. One hundred drachmæ were probably considered an
adequate fee for a complete course; and if it be true that a popular
teacher could often command one hundred pupils, even though the course
occupied more than one year, the endowment was considerable.
The desire of procuring free education for poorer lads with literary
tastes is, however, an interesting and permanent feature in the Greek
mind. At the present moment the University of Athens provides free
education for every Greek, and is wholly supported by a State subsidy.
This now unique provision brings to Athens an influx of young Greeks
from all the Levant, from Turkish countries, from Egypt--nay, even
from Italy. They support themselves as best they can, often by menial
employments, provided they can keep their lecture hours free. Lodging
together in the humblest apartments, they club their scanty earnings
for the purchase of a light and a text-book, which they use in common,
the one sleeping till his fellow has done his work, and wakes him to
hand him the fresh-trimmed lamp and well-worn manual.
This state of things, which reminds us so strongly of the mediæval
universities, and is inestimably honorable to a growing age of culture
when the masses want leavening, may be driven to a dangerous excess
when the educated classes become too numerous; for it dissuades every
ambitious young man from agriculture and the commercial pursuits so
necessary to a nation’s welfare. And as this is the case in Greece
now, so it was doubtless the case when, in the days of Hellenism,
Athens offered philosophy at so cheap a rate to all the Greek-speaking
world. The class of learned idlers who would not pursue any mercantile
calling increased throughout Greece.[62] Although, therefore, the
condition of things at Oxford and Cambridge--which, in addition to
their vast endowments, demands a heavy outlay from their alumni--is not
to be defended, there is an opposite error, and one likely to do more
mischief: it is the setting-up of the lower classes to seek university
degrees with a minimum of expense and trouble, and consequently a
minimum of culture. This mistaken course, which now threatens the Irish
people, in addition to all their other misfortunes, tends strongly to
increase (as is the case in modern Greece) a dangerous class of social
and political malcontents, who consider that their high education is
not recognized, and that they have no scope for their literary or
political talents.[63]
§ 72. We turn to the endowments by bequest, which were the direct cause
of the establishment of philosophical schools at Athens. This idea
seems due to Plato, who acquired for his school a local habitation as
well as a name. It is well known that from early times there were two
gymnasia (in the Greek sense) provided for the youth who had finished
their schooling--that in the groves of the suburb called after the hero
Academus, and that called the Kynosarges, near Mount Lycabettus. The
latter was specially open to the sons of citizens by foreign wives.
Thirdly, in Pericles’ day was established the _Lykeion_, near the river
Ilisos. They were all provided with water, shady walks and gardens, and
were once among the main beauties of Athens and its neighborhood.
The Academy became so identified with Plato’s teaching that his
pupils Antisthenes (the Cynic) and Aristotle settled beside or in the
Kynosarges and Lykeion respectively, and were known by their locality
till the pupils of Antisthenes removed to the frescoed portico (_stoa_)
in Athens, and were thence called Stoics. Epicurus taught in his own
garden in Athens. All these settlements were copied from Plato’s idea.
He apparently taught both in the public gymnasium and in a private
possession close beside it; and in his will, preserved by Diogenes
Laertius, he bequeaths his two pieces of land to Speusippus, thus
designating him as his formal successor. His practice being followed,
the title _scholarch_ soon grew up for the head of the school, and
the owner of a life interest in the διατριβή or locality devoted to
the purpose. Each master was called the _successor_ (διάδοχος) of his
predecessor, and the succession of these heads of schools has been
traced with more or less success all through the Hellenistic period.
§ 73. This is, no doubt, the cause of the fixed and traditional
character of the philosophical schools at Athens, and one main reason
why this city became in the Roman Empire, when original research had
died out, the principal university of the old world. The successive
scholarchs seem to have thought of nothing but the repeating and
expounding of the founder’s views; and it is mentioned as a special
loss to the Peripatetic school that Aristotle’s works were left away
from the school, and travelled into the possession of Neleus to
Scepsis in the Troad. Hence the scholarchs, instead of developing a
new doctrine, were simply helpless, and only taught what they could
remember, or what had been preserved by fragments in the note-books
of the school. The proper investment of the school property was also
the scholarch’s duty, and we hear that in the fourth century A.D.,
under Proclus, the Platonic endowment was worth more than one thousand
pieces of gold annually. Suidas tells us[64] “that from time to time
pious patrons of learning bequeathed in their wills to the adherents
of the school the means of living a life of philosophic leisure.” This
is very analogous to the bequests of pious founders in the Middle
Ages, especially of those who had the far-seeing wisdom to free their
endowments from the penalty of teaching--a humane and enlightened
intention, now frustrated by the rage for turning universities into
mere training establishments.
The designating of a successor by will, or shortly before the
scholarch’s death, became the rule in the principal schools of
rhetoric, except that at Athens election by the school came to take
its place. So far as we know, this was first suggested by Lycon,
Aristotle’s third successor, if not by Theophrastus. But the will of
Lycon, preserved by Diogenes, is express: “I bequeath the _peripatos_
to my pupils Bulon, Kallinos, etc., without condition. Let them appoint
whomsoever they think will be most zealous and best keep together
the school. May the rest of the school stand by him, for my sake and
that of the place.” These words not only imply that there was a staff
of assistants, selected from favorite pupils who intended to make
philosophy their profession, but is peculiarly interesting as naturally
suggesting a competitive examination, without naming it, as the method
of choice. In Lucian’s “Eunuch,” the appointment is described as
an election by votes of the chief men, after an examination of the
candidate in his knowledge of, and faith in, the system. There were
cases when the electing body was not the school, but the Areopagus,
or the council; for the hatred and jealousy of the schools made an
election from without safer. When the chief literary posts at Athens
became salaried by the State, such interference was natural, and
disputed elections were even referred to the emperor at Rome.
§ 74. Eunapius tells us of an interesting dispute of this kind for the
office of Sophist (the highest literary post at Athens) on the death of
Julianus, 340 A.D., and its consequent vacation. Six candidates--four
of them pupils of Julianus, and two other needy persons--were selected
by common consent; the Roman proconsul was president of the electing
court, and so violent was the canvassing that he was obliged to
interfere and order people out of Athens. The candidates handed in
essays and made set speeches. There were _claqueurs_ ready with their
prepared applause. Then the proconsul again cited them, and gave them
a theme for an extempore speech. Five refused, saying they were not
accustomed to pour out, but to think out, their orations. Prohæresius,
a pupil of Julianus, alone took up the challenge, and, all applause
being interdicted, maintained his reputation splendidly. Nevertheless,
he did not then obtain the chair; for his opponents secured influential
electors with dinners and presents, and, no doubt, the social talents
of a Sophist in this chair were very important. They took shameful ways
of succeeding; “but, indeed,” says Eunapius, “you can hardly blame them
for working their case as best they could.”
This interesting story belongs to later days, when the chairs of
philosophy and rhetoric at Athens came under State support and
control. In early days, up to the Christian era, the schools were
perfectly private, free, and independent of the State. We hear, indeed,
of such decrees as that of the Thirty Tyrants forbidding rhetoric
and philosophy to be taught. But though any ancient state, even a
free democracy, would have thought itself quite justified in such
interference for public reasons, there is no definite attempt at such a
policy till the days of Theophrastus, when (about 316 B.C.) Sophocles,
son of Amphicleides of Sunium, passed a law that no one should open a
school of philosophy without the approval of the senate and people.
There was a formal exodus of philosophic students, who only returned
with Theophrastus, when Sophocles was convicted under the _law against
illegal procedure_ (γραφὴ παρανόμων), and his law repealed. This
attempt of Sophocles might have been defended from Plato’s “Republic”
and “Laws,” where the philosopher distinctly recommends State control
of education. But it was, no doubt, the antidemocratic tone of the
schools, especially of the Platonic school, which prompted this action,
for we hear that Demosthenes’ nephew, Demochares, and other democratic
leaders, supported Sophocles, on the special ground that Plato’s school
had supplied most of the later tyrants to Greece.
The true way of controlling education had not yet dawned upon the
public men of Athens--the endowing of chairs, with a power of removal.
We hear, indeed, gradually of small salaries for _sophronistæ_ and
other guardians of youth, but direct State patronage of teachers first
meets us among the Egyptian and Pergamene successors of Alexander.
Then the Roman emperors, as we shall presently see, appointed regular
professors. But all this took the form of honoring a great teacher,
as states honored him with civic freedom, immunity from taxes, bronze
statues, and the like. His special teaching was not criticised or
directed from without.
§ 75. The time came, however, when more than formal or irregular honors
were paid to the teaching profession. The Roman emperors established
chairs (θρόνοι) of theoretical and practical rhetoric, and of the four
sects of philosophy, the former of which they endowed with 10,000
drachmæ per annum each. The highest chair was entitled the Sophist’s
chair, that term having, after all, maintained its old respectability,
and recovered from the obloquy thrown upon it by Socrates and Plato.
There was even a subdivision of the Sophist’s chair, a second chair
being called the _political_ chair. These appointments seem to have
been the device of Hadrian, though L. Egnatius Lollianus of Ephesus
was the first salaried occupant of the chair, and was appointed under
Antoninus Pius. The same policy, carried out by Marcus Aurelius,
gave immunity from taxes and civic duties to all the learned
professions--physicians, philosophers, rhetoricians, and grammarians.
Then the term δημοσιεύειν (_to be a public servant_), once applied to
a public hangman or a dispensary doctor, now came to mean a public and
salaried professor.
The salaries were paid in kind--five Roman modii of wheat per
month--and were thus free from the great fluctuations in money values
common in those days. The pupils’ fees were paid in money, and were
due on January 1; but we hear many complaints of irregularity in this
respect. This was mainly caused by the ambition of the rival teachers
to have their class-rooms filled, and hence their indulgence in the
case of the poor and the procrastinating, who could not or would not
pay, and were nevertheless permitted to continue their studies. One
hundred drachmæ paid down seem to have been thought an average fee; but
great variations were allowed, and there was evidently no tariff, or
any such credentials as our parchments to show that a man had attended
his course, paid his fees regularly, and obtained what we call a
degree. Libanius mentions an amusing case of a man sending with his son
to Athens a donkey, by the sale of which the fees were to be paid. No
doubt, the profits made by the greater chairs were considerable, and
the _sophist_ and _rhetor_, with their higher colleagues, represented
Athens on state occasions as civic dignitaries. They were expected to
go out to meet any very distinguished visitor, and address him with
complimentary harangues; they had to present themselves officially
every month to the proconsul at Corinth, presumably to report on the
state of Athens. We hear that they obtained leave of absence only by
special permission and with difficulty. In contrast to this importance
and splendor, we have a pitiable account in Libanius of the miseries
of the rhetors at Antioch, who strove to keep up a respectable
appearance while they were persecuted with duns and creditors, and
almost starved at home.
§ 76. A great deal of obscurity still remains, not only concerning the
exact number of salaried professors of sophistic and rhetoric, but
concerning their relations to the crowd of assistants, recognized and
unrecognized, which must have existed at the University of Athens. So
clear was the policy of Hadrian, and still more of M. Aurelius, to make
it the main seat of the world’s learning, that all manner of students
went thither to enjoy the various privileges offered. The grand man,
the _Sophist_, could not be expected to do tutor’s or coaching work;
and as many lads came from the far East and West with little training,
there must have been a considerable class of private teachers to help
them on. This was also done by the lad’s _pædagogue_, who came with
him from home. But there appears to have been a licensed class of
secondary professors, the _Privat-Docenten_ of the Germans, who enjoyed
no salary, but lived on the fees of pupils. It is not likely that the
total number of these licensed lecturers in sophistic and rhetoric
exceeded eight or ten; the private tutors were probably very numerous.
We naturally inquire how this State appointment to professorial
chairs was consistent with the succession already described in the
four philosophical schools. In these there was no formal change;
they were elected by a committee of recognized heads of each school.
But gradually the influence of the emperor made itself felt. The
procurator, who came from Corinth to look after such matters, either
influenced the nomination of the committee, or _recommended_ the
election of a particular candidate. Even in the case of the public
chairs there was sometimes a competition, and often the emperor did
not interfere with his lieutenant’s arrangements. Herodes Atticus was
almost omnipotent in his day in these appointments. Dismissals from
the public chairs were very unusual, but distinctly asserted as the
emperor’s right. The Prohæresius above mentioned was dismissed by the
Emperor Julian, because he appeared to be a Christian.
§ 77. It is more interesting to turn to the peculiarities of life
which bound together the young men at the University of Athens, and
the various customs which then, as now, gave a peculiar tone to
the student’s life. What is called the _atmosphere_ of Oxford or
Cambridge, of Dublin or Harvard, consists in a body of traditional
customs maintained by the peculiar conservatism of youth, which
moulds every new-comer, and produces a certain type of character,
and even a certain fixity of manners. It seems probable that the
earliest Italian universities in the Middle Ages, which go back to the
eleventh or twelfth century, acquired some of these traditions from
the Greek universities of the decadence, and thus a direct filiation
may be traced between the customs now to be described, as existing at
Athens in the Hellenistic period, and those of modern Europe. But to
investigate this obscure subject thoroughly would lead us far beyond
our present limits.
We hear that no one was allowed to attend lectures, at least in the
fourth century A.D., without dressing in the scholar’s short _cloak_
(τρίβων)--in fact, our college gown; and the right of wearing it was
only obtained by leave of the Sophist. This in itself was a mark
probably more universal than the gowns at Oxford and Cambridge, for we
have no evidence that Greek gentlemen, like the modern English, hated
all official costumes.[65]
There was no arrangement for a daily commons of students; there were no
college buildings, and the students lodged where they could, as they
do in the foreign universities, such as Göttingen or Leyden. But there
were special dining societies in each of the four philosophic schools,
meeting once a month or oftener, for which funds were bequeathed, and
which were regarded as a special bond of union. Of course, simple fare
and philosophical conversation was the original plan: it degenerated
into luxury and sumptuous feasting; for the dinners given by Lycon,
when head of the Peripatetic school, lasted till the following morning.
He entertained twenty at a time for the nominal fee of nine obols,
which was even remitted to poor scholars. This took place on the last
day of the month. Epicurus, in his will, made special provision for a
feast every twentieth of the month. The Stoics had three such clubs,
called after scholarchs who probably were the founders. The intention
of these feasts, which were more like Oxford _gaudies_ than ordinary
commons, was to bring masters and pupils into closer relation, and
this is found a true plan in all modern society. People seldom become
intimate who do not dine together.
At Athens, too, there was no official tutorial discipline;[66] there
were no compulsory chapels, or lectures, or fines; and order seems
to have been kept by the very republican arrangement of a senior
prefect (ἄρχων), elected by the class every ten days. We are told
that the professor, besides remonstrance, sometimes struck idle or
stupid scholars; and Libanius talks of being “sent down” as a terrible
disgrace, involving serious consequences to the lad’s parents, and
even to his native town. Perhaps it may correspond to expulsion from
our universities; but this must have been for the gravest crimes only.
The pupils of any professor were merely known as his _circle_ (οἱ ἀπό,
or περί, τινος); they were only his pupils or hearers in that they
attended his lectures. Indeed, they often designated him by a nickname
public enough to have been transmitted in after-literature.
§ 78. We find an unusual variety of terms,[67] all transferred from
other combinations, to express the clubs or unions of students among
themselves, and they are constantly mentioned in books and inscriptions
of the second and third centuries A.D. They naturally grew out of
the old separation of the ephebi into a separate class long before
university education was organized, or rather crystallized, into
the shape we are now discussing. The presidents of these clubs were
called _choregi_ (also κορυφαῖοι and ἀκρωμῖται). Inscriptions tell
us of similar private combinations among the ephebi in the second
century A.D., in which names from the general lists are repeated under
the separate heads of _Heracleids_ and _Theseids_, two associations
to be compared with the students’ clubs at the Italian and German
universities, which often bear the names of nations, thus pointing to
their mediæval origin. There is evidence of some peculiar importance,
possibly of rivalry, as regards the Theseids and Heracleids at Athens,
and the German critics are probably right in suspecting a political
bias to have been the true ground of difference. The constant relations
of Heracles and Theseus in the legends and the religion of Attica
are well known; the Temple of Theseus, still standing at Athens, is
by many considered a Heracleion, and the deeds of Heracles are more
conspicuously celebrated than those of Theseus in its sculptured
reliefs. Theseus was certainly raised by Attic legends into the
position of founder of the democracy, and the ideal of an ephebus, and
as such he may have been contrasted to Heracles, who was the ancestor
of Doric nobility, and might be regarded as of aristocratic tendency.
This conjecture has the merit of probability, though it has no basis
beyond these general grounds.
§ 79. When we come to later days, especially to the fourth century
A.D., we hear much about the students’ clubs from Philostratus,
Eunapius, Libanius, and others. It is remarkable that they were not
then formed on the national basis, as we may conceive the older
Heracleids to have been Bœotian youths, severed from the Attic
Theseids, or as we could conceive Irish students associating
themselves in an English university. They were rather suggested by the
rivalries of their teachers, originally of the separate philosophic
schools, but afterwards merely formed on the grounds of ambition and
popularity. A crowded attendance at lectures was so anxiously desired
that every kind of device was used by the rival professors to induce
students to come to them. This evil became so apparent in its effects
upon the students, who were flattered and courted by their masters,
that Libanius mentions a proposed _agreement_ (συνθήκη) between the
professors on the question, which was, however, unsuccessful. Thus
in the older University of Dublin the profits of college tutors were
so great that a similar rivalry in popularity existed, and the dons
are said to have studied unworthy arts to secure a full chamber. Such
canvassing has almost disappeared since the _treaty_, as Libanius
calls it, of putting the pupils’ fees into a common fund, of which the
greater part is divided according to the tutor’s standing, and only a
small premium is allowed for the actual number of pupils.
The constant jealousies and factions occasioned by this competition
among professors were reproduced in the Italian universities of
the Renaissance period; indeed, all through the Middle Ages. Thus,
according to Eunapius, the president of the club called Σπάρτη ἄτακτος
considered it part of his duty to bring his club in full force, and
well armed, to the Peiræus, or even down to Sunium, in order to catch
students coming from the East, green and fresh, and secure them for
the professor he patronized. Rival clubs met on these errands, and
had pitched battles worse than those of town and gown in England.
Every attempt was made to secure lads, even before they left their
homes. Libanius tells us he came to Athens, having been already
canvassed at his home in Antioch to attend the rhetor Aristodemus,
but was seized by a club in the interest of Diophantus, and only let
free with great difficulty, and after he had sworn allegiance to
Diophantus. We hear of every sort of violence being committed by these
students, in whose disputes the Roman governor at Corinth was sometimes
obliged to interfere. We hear of their debts and their poverty, their
dissoluteness and idleness. But, of course, the diligent and orderly
minority have left no trace behind, and we must take care to give no
exaggerated weight to the noisy doings of the baser sort. Even tossing
in a blanket (or carpet) was well known to them,[68] and applied to
unpopular teachers, probably of the obscurer sort, as may be seen from
Libanius’s oration _On the Carpet_, in which he lectures them on the
subject. We do not hear of any scholarships, bursaries, or exhibitions
intended to help indigent lads of ability. Indeed, this giving a lad
money rewards for educating himself seems a very evil device of modern
times. To support a student with the bare necessaries of life, and
give him free instruction, is a different thing, and this was the
idea of the pious founders of scholarships. To repay him in part for
an extravagant preparation by extravagant prizes is a very different
notion, but now so diffused that its absurdity no longer strikes the
public mind in England.
§ 80. Gregory the Nazianzen tells us of comic ceremonies by which
the freshman was initiated to his studies, and these practices were
technically called τελεταί, or initiatory rites. These are to be
compared to the teasing of beginners known at the German universities
under the name of _deposition_. At Athens the novice was brought by a
band to the baths through the market-place. Then those in front began
to push him back, and refuse to let him in, while those behind thrust
him forward. After a rude struggle, probably intended to try his
temper, he was let in, bathed, and thus formally admitted, receiving
his _tribon_, or college gown. There was also some unknown ceremony in
the theatre, called κυλίστραι, of which the name only is preserved,
from its being forbidden by law in 693 A.D., and this by a Church synod
in Constantinople. It was identified with other heathen practices
and traditions, and hence considered worthy of being threatened with
excommunication. These late occurrences of student practices give rise
to the suspicion that they may have been copied in the early school of
Bologna. Perhaps the most curious allusion[69] is to the fact that,
after a certain standing, students were by common consent excused from
these follies, as now in Germany a graduate at Leipzig or Göttingen, or
a professor, would no more think of fighting a student’s duel than an
English gentleman would; while every younger man is compelled to do so
by an iron custom amounting to the most absolute tyranny.
The example of the Stoics, who taught in the city, was followed
by other schools, after that the successive devastations of the
neighborhood of Athens by Philip V. of Macedon (200 B.C.), and by
Sulla, had injured the gardens and groves of both Kynosarges, Academy,
and Lykeion. We hear of the _Ptolemeion_ and _Diogeneion_ as the
fashionable places of resort, then Hadrian’s gymnasium--all within
the town, and all the gift of individual founders--the Diogenes in
question being a condottiere who commanded the second King Demetrius’s
troops in Attica, 225 B.C. There is some slight evidence that this
man’s gymnasium was used for beginners, and possibly they may even have
resided there; for we hear that scholars often set up _huts_ (καλύβια)
near the house of their favorite teachers. There were libraries in
connection with Ptolemy’s and Hadrian’s gymnasia. Indeed, it seems,
in later days, that such was the danger of a riot if professors
lectured in any public building, that they built private theatres for
themselves, attached to their own houses, and elegantly appointed. In
these we may be sure that their teaching took the form of a lecture,
not of disputation or of catechising. This latter kind of lesson was
very popular in Socrates and Plato’s time; but Aristotle already
severed it from his regular discourses, and held his philosophic
conversations with his pupils walking in the _Peripatos_: hence the
title of his school.
§ 81. We only know now the names of those professors who lived for the
world and for posterity, and strove to teach by publishing their works.
In an age when originality was dead, and the highest ability consisted
in the best commentary on Plato and Aristotle, this literary activity,
once admired and praised, seems to us, for the most part, idle
subtlety. Even in rhetoric all the laws and models were fixed; Longinus
only shows us a modern and æsthetic appreciation of beauty in style,
which we do not find in earlier rhetors. But, of all the scholarchs at
Athens, none are now of the least consideration save the heads of the
Neo-Platonic school; and even these were but followers of this strange,
fascinating doctrine, already preached in Alexandria and in Rome, which
strove to give a new meaning to the metaphysic of the Academy, and
accommodate it to the spiritual wants of earnest heathen, in the face
of Christianity.
But it is more than probable that, as in our own universities, so at
Athens, the best and most earnest of the teachers set themselves so
exclusively to their task that they left nothing behind them except in
the note-books of their classes. This sort of university teacher never
earns any wider popularity than that of his college; and yet there, and
among those who have known his diligence, his patience, and his power,
he will always rank far higher than those who rush before the public
from ambition, often with badly digested ideas. We shall, therefore, do
well not to set down the philosophical teaching at Athens at the level
of those tedious commentaries which the student will find collected in
the later volumes[70] of Mullach’s “Fragmenta Philosophorum Græcorum.”
§ 82. As regards the length of the course which the students were
expected to attend, there are very varying statements. Five to eight
years are mentioned, a period far too long for young gentlemen like
Cicero’s nephews, and probably only meant to apply to those who went
for professional purposes. There were lads of tender age, sometimes
under the care of a pædagogue, and men of middle-age, waiting for
the chance of a post. There seems to have been no limit of age, or
any compulsion or rule as to the number of courses to be kept. Every
student (or his parent) was supposed to select for himself what
subjects he should pursue. This was perhaps less mischievous than it
would now be, seeing the quadrivium of humanities was so fixed by
tradition that most students fell into it as a matter of course.
Neither was there in old days that multitude of special subjects,
totally unconnected either with each other or with a liberal education,
which now infests our educational establishments, and causes the hurry
after tangible results to displace the only true outcome of a higher
education--that capacity to think consecutively and clearly, which is
to be acquired by studying a logical and thoroughly articulated branch
of knowledge for the sake of its accuracy and method.
During most of the flourishing age of Hellenistic culture the rhetor
was the acknowledged practical teacher; and his course, which occupied
several years, with the interruption of the summer holidays, comprised
first a careful reading of classical authors, both poetical and
prose, with explanations and illustrations. This made the student
acquainted with the language and literature of Greece. But it was
only introductory to the technical study of expression, of eloquence
based on these models, and of accurate writing as a collateral branch
of this study. When a man had so perfected himself, he was considered
fit for public employment. In the latest times a special knowledge of
jurisprudence became more and more necessary for public servants, and
was provided for by special schools. We have, unfortunately, no minute
description of the precise course of reading adopted by either Sophists
or Rhetors, and are therefore confined to this general description.
But it is, in our days of hurry and of intellectual compression of
subjects, a remarkable thing to contemplate the youth of the civilized
world spending four or five years in the mere acquiring of accuracy
and elegance of expression after they had learned at school reading,
writing, and the elements of science.
§ 83. In this account of ancient university life our attention has been
almost exclusively confined to Athens, though there were other seats
of education very celebrated, and in much request--Rhodes, Massilia,
Tarsus, and, above all, Alexandria. Many Roman nobles preferred sending
their sons to Massilia for their education--a Greek town, planted far
away from the vices and luxuries of the East. Rhodes maintained its
political freedom longer than any other Hellenic settlement, and was
famous as a school of rhetoric. Tarsus, from which we know at least
one splendid specimen of a student--the Apostle Paul--always had a
high and solid reputation for work, and it is very remarkable how the
most serious of all the practical systems, the Stoic, is identified
with that part of Asia Minor. Afterwards iconoclasm found its cradle
there, and thus this land of serious reforms over and over again forced
upon the world an earnest view of life.[71] It is worthy of note how
constantly the great chairs at Athens were filled by men from these
outlying schools; indeed, a native Athenian in the Sophist’s chair was
a great rarity. Yet we know so little of the inner life of these remote
towns that they cannot now afford us any materials for our inquiry.
§ 84. The case is different with Alexandria, concerning which much
has been written and recorded. But, in the first place, it is hardly
correct to speak of education in Alexandria as strictly Hellenic,
or even Hellenistic. It was the meeting-ground of all the faith and
dogma of the old world. The Egyptian, Jewish, and Syrian elements were
so strong there that, considering the absence of all old Hellenic
traditions in this newest of all Greek-speaking towns, we could
hardly use it as a fair specimen of the good and evil in old Greek
training. We may add that up to the days of the great theological
controversies--days so graphically pictured in Kingsley’s “Hypatia”--we
know comparatively little about the students of Alexandria. All our
information clusters about the teachers. As we might expect, Alexandria
was regarded as the university of progress, the laboratory of positive
science, in contrast to the conservative and literary Athens.
Nevertheless, even all the sound literary criticism of those days comes
from Alexandria. For it is plain that the Ptolemies intended it not
as a training-place for youth so much as a home for research, richly
endowed with the means and materials for serious study--first of all,
an ample library, then handsome buildings, retirements, and adequate
endowments. These conceptions, and the success in their execution, are
profoundly interesting in the history of education, but are beyond the
scope of the present work.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] Βίοι σοφ. ii. 32, 2.
[62] The picture of Athens given in the Acts of the Apostles (ch.
xvii.) shows that the city was full of people cultivated in philosophy
and letters, but indisposed to pursue any serious calling. They lived
in the agora all day, as in a great club, looking out for gossip and
news. If any one desires to see a modern parallel, I refer him to the
Hall and Library of the Four Courts in Dublin--the most agreeable place
in the world to visit; for there the bar of Ireland, many of them for
want of briefs, occupy themselves with all the scandal of the day.
Nay, even those who are busy refresh themselves, in passing, with five
minutes’ talk, and are never too hurried to enjoy a good story when it
is offered to them. There is even a great deal of real business done in
this desultory and peripatetic way. Whether a new system of philosophy
or a new religion would find a hearing is perhaps doubtful, and marks
the difference between the old Greek and the modern idler.
[63] Thus, a critic might argue that the present ills of Ireland arise
not only from general idleness and want of thrift, but from melancholy
ignorance of all scientific principles of agriculture, and from a total
misappreciation of the conditions of trading; for here, if anywhere,
honesty is the best policy; but it is not obvious to the ignorant,
especially if they be astute. These evils might be diminished by
diffusing agricultural and commercial schools through the country, not
by granting university degrees for a smattering in arts.
[64] In his Lexicon, sub voc. _Plato_.
[65] All foreigners, on the contrary, seem to love official dress,
whether military or not. I was once in Genoa during a regatta, when a
crew of visitors from Spezia or Livorno used to walk about the streets
in boating costume, with their oars over their shoulders, to the
admiration of the Genoese. Imagine the Oxford eight, the day before the
University race, sauntering along Piccadilly in this style! I recommend
this case to the theorists who maintain that human nature is the same
at all times and places.
[66] The description by Libanius of the rhetor’s duty, to receive
the lad from his parents, to advise him, and even to punish him for
idleness, to acquaint the parents periodically of his progress, etc.,
reminds us perfectly of the duties of a college tutor. But this was
clearly a voluntary task, and generally undertaken not merely from duty
towards the lad, but from a desire to be popular and to secure a large
following.
[67] Χορός, θίασος, σύνοδος (religious), συνουσία, ποίμνιον, ἀγέλη.
I see that Sievers, in his life of Libanius, understands ἄρχων and
χορός of a council of professors; but this is surely incorrect. He was
probably misled by finding so much power attributed to a mere student.
[68] Called by the Romans _sagatio_, and hence probably soldiers’
horse-play, as _sagum_ is a soldier’s cloak.
[69] Libanius, i. 17.
[70] ii. and iii. are published; iv. is to follow.
[71] It is said that the exiled iconoclasts, driven out to Bulgaria,
were the spiritual parents of the Hussites and other early reformers
in Bohemia. From this new centre Protestantism spread across Europe.
So that the Scottish Puritan, and, for that matter, the New England
Puritan, derives his uncompromising earnestness from the remote source
which produced both Stoicism and the most vigorous early Christianity.
INDEX.
Abacus, 56
Academy, the (of Plato), 121
Accent, bad, 13
Æschines cited, 26
Æsop, 20
Age for beginning education, 15
Alcibiades, 15, 59
Alexandria, 50, 138
America, 79
Ἀμφωτίδες, 29
Anaxagoras, 47
Andromache, 8
Anytus, 88
Apollodorus, 59
Ἀπόῤῥαξις, 18
Ἄρχων of students, 130
Archytas’s rattle, 13
Aristophanes cited, 17, 34, 38, 53, 59, 83
Aristotle cited, 57, 61, 62, 110
---- his school, 122
Arithmetic, 54-56
Ἀσκωλιάζειν, 16
Astragali, 17, 19
Astyanax, 8
Athens, a university town, 82
---- modern university of, 119
Βαυκαλήματα, 20
Beethoven, 65
Βέμβιξ (top), 17
Βενίζελος cited, 20
Boating not a Greek amusement, 23
Bologna, early schools of, 134
Boxing, Greek, 29
Callias, grammatical tragedy of, 47
Carleton cited, 39
Carpet, tossing in, 133
Chairs at Athens, 125
Χαλκῆ μυῖα, 16
Χαλκισμός, 17
Chappell, Mr. Wm., 67
Chionis, feats of, 30
Choregi, 131
Chrestomathies, 50
Cicero quoted, 29, 39, 75
Cinnamus quoted, 18
Cithara, 67
Claqueurs of Sophists, 123
Clubs, student, 131
Cobet cited, 71
Community of wives and children, 102, 103
Competitive examinations, 14
Confirmation, 72
Course, length of university, 137
Crammer, the modern, 81, 82
Csárdás, Hungarian, 63
Curtius, Ernst, cited, 92
Demosthenes cited, 40
Διάδοχος, in the schools, 121
Dialects, preservation of, 54
Diogeneion, 134
Diogenes Laertius, 121
Diophantus, 133
Dolls, 20
Dositheus cited, 44
Drawing materials, 59
Dromeus, 27
Education, general contrasts of Greek and modern, 3
Egnatius Lollianus, 125
Egyptian education, 4
Εἰς ὤμιλλαν, 17
Elis, country life of, 14, 22, 28
Encyclical course, 46
Ephebi, 69 sq.
Epicrates, law of, 75
Ἐποστρακισμός, 17
Eton and Harrow match, 23
Eunapius cited, 124
Euripides cited, 8
Examinations, 14
Exposing of children, 10-12
Expression in music, 65
Field sports, value of, 21
Football, 18
Foreign languages, ignorance of, 13, 50
Form, in games, 23
Games of boys, 15 sq.
---- Olympic, 27, 30
Genius, production of, 105
Gods, the Greek, 24
Goldsmith, 41
Gorgias, 90
Gounod’s “Faust,” 66
Grammatical studies of Sophists, 89
Γραμματιστής, -ικός, 46
Grasberger quoted, 17, 28, 40
Gregory Naz. cited, 133
Grote cited, 77, 79, 101, 110
Gymnasia, 121
Hedge schools, 43
Hellenic character compared to Roman and English, 7
Heracleids, club of, 131
Hermes, tutelary god of schools, 43
Herodes Atticus, 128
Herodotus quoted, 6, 8, 24, 42
History, the lessons of, 2, 112
Homer cited, 7, 10, 36;
used in education, 37, 45
Hoops, 17
Human nature not uniform, 1, 2, 129 _n._
Hungarian gypsies, 62
Hunting, 22
Irish people threatened with new dangers, 120
Isocrates, 91 sq.
Journalism compared to Sophists, 78 sq.
Julian (emperor), 128
Κάλαμον παραβῆναι, 16
Κυλίστραι, 134
Κυνδαλισμός, 16
Lacrosse, 18
Lamia, 20
Landscape, Greek notions of, 58
Ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον, 73
Libanius cited, 126, 130, 133
Longinus, 135
Love-songs, contrasts in, 66
Lucian quoted, 39, 40, 44, 123
Lycon, will of, 123;
dinners of, 129
Lycophron, 100
Lycurgus (the orator), 75
Lyre, 67, 68
Marcus Aurelius, 125, 126
Marriage between relations, 12
---- rational theory of, 102 sq.
Massilia, 138
Μηλολόνθη, 17
Morra, 19
Moses, 5
---- the Attic (sc. Plato), 12
Mullach, Fragg. Phil., 136
Music, 35 sq., 113
---- dangers of, 64
---- Greek views of, 60 sq.
Ναναρίσματα, 20
Notice-boards in schools, 44
Novices at the university, 134
Nursery rhymes, 20
Ochlocracy, the so-called Athenian, 35
Official dress, foreign love of, 129
Olympia, Temple of, 58
Olympic games, 28, 30
Organization, ephebic, 75
Orphans, care of, 14
Orthodoxy in universities, 84, 85
Ὀστρακίνδα, 16
Pædagogus, the Greek, 26
Παιδαγωγεῖον, 42
Painting, 58 sq.
Palæstra, 22, 24 sq.
Pamphilus, 58
Παραγράφειν, 53
Parthenon, frieze of, 70, 72
Paul, St., 81, 82, 138
Pausanias, 27, 42
Payment of teaching, 117 sq.
Πενταλιθίζειν, 17
Pentathlon, 27
Peripatos, Aristotle’s, 135
Περίπολοι, 70, 74
Permanence of educational problems, 2
Persian education, 5;
in Xenophon, 115
Φαινίνδα, 18
Phayllus, feats of, 30
Philosophy, Isocrates’ definition of, 92, 93
Philostratus cited, 118
Φρυγίνδα, 17
Πλαγίαυλος, 68
Plato quoted, 5, 10, 12, 24, 28, 31, 32, 48, 52, 62, 78,
cap. xi. _passim_
---- school of, 88, 89
Platonopolis, 100 _n._
Pliny cited, 58
Plutarch quoted, 15
Pollux cited, 18, 71
Polo at Byzantium, 19 _n._
Prefects (at school), 76
Prodicus, 53, 85, 90
Prohæresius, 124, 128
Protagoras, 85, 89
Protestantism, Stoic origin of, 138
Ptolemeion, 134
Public schools, English, 29
Pythagoras, system of, 89
Quintilian quoted, 7, 52
Rackets, 19
Rationalism, Mr. Lecky’s, 107
Renan, E., cited, 49
Rhetor, the duties of, 126
Rhodes, 138
Riding, Greek notions of, 73
Roman education, 6
---- character, 7
Sagatio, 133
Scales, Greek musical, 64, 65
Scholarch, 121
School, the term, 42
---- appointments of, 42, 43
Schoolmaster’s tomb, 52
Science, elementary, 55
Sentiment about marriage, 107
Sex, differences of, 104, 112
Sleeping of infants, 9
Socrates, 74, 87
Sophist, the (title), 123
Sophists, the, 78 sq.;
their fees, 118
Sophocles of Sunium, 124
Sophronistæ, 125
Spartan nurses, 9, 10
Spartan mothers, 13, 38
---- objection to athletics, 27
---- training, 77
---- morals, 108
Σπάρτη ἄτακτος, a club, 132
Spelling, phonetic, 54
Speusippus, 118, 121
Sports, real value of, 31
Sprint races, 28
Stoics, 129, 134
Strabo, 50
Στρόβιλος (humming-top), 17
Studiedness of Greek eloquence, 97
Suidas quoted, 122
Swimming, 46
Tarsus, 138
Theodorus, Homeric pictures of, 45
Theognis, 50
Theophrastus cited, 43, 124
Theseids, club of, 131
Thring, Rev. G., cited, 58 _n._
Θρόνοι, 125
Thucydides cited, 42
Τρίβων, 128, 134
Uniformity in human nature, how far true, 1, 2, 129 _n._
Uniformity in children, 2
Ὑπογράφεσθαι, 52, 60 _n._
Ὑποθῆκαι, 50
Welcker cited, 48
Women, education of, 103, 104
Writing materials, 53
Xenophon, 7, 22
Ξυστός, 25
Zeller cited, 78
Zither, Tyrolese, 68
Ζωγράφος, -ία, 58
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Transcriber's note:
The following changes have been made to the text as printed:
1. Footnotes have been renumbered and assembled at the end of each
chapter.
2. A small number of errors in the punctuation and spacing of the
original work have been silently corrected.
3. Page 34: "re-referred" has been corrected to "referred".
4. Page 39: A missing footnote marker has been inserted after
"impatient at idleness:".
5. Page 40: A missing footnote marker has been inserted after
"sensible remark."
6. Footnote 19, 5th line from end: τρὸς has been corrected to πρὸς.
7. Page 56: The symbol "IΔI" in the phrase "combinations such as
IΔI meant 50" stands for a combination of the letters Π (Pi)
and Δ (Delta) in the original.
8. Footnote 28: Οεωδώρηον has been corrected to Θεωδώρηον.
9. Footnote 41: γυμναστικήν has been corrected to γυμναστικὴν.
10. Footnote 44: θεατής has been corrected to θεατὴς.
11. Page 86: "spritually" has been corrected to "spiritually".
12. Page 96: Comma removed from "St. John, Chrysostom".
13. Footnote 59, line 9: Η (Greek letter) has been corrected
to Ἢ.
14. Footnote 67, line 3: χόρος has been corrected to χορός.
15. Page 141, Index: Διαδόχος has been corrected to Διάδοχος.
16. Page 143, Index: "Ptolemeion" referenced to Page 134,
not Page 151.
The following anomaly in the printed text is noted, but no change has
been made:
1. Page 146, Index: Appletons’ Journal (New York City, 1869-1881)
printed its own name with the apostrophe in that unexpected
position.
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is in the public
domain.