§ 201. The system of active education was to find its solution in a
nation which wandered from the coast of the Red Sea to the foot of the
Lebanon mountains on the Mediterranean, and ventured forth upon the sea
which before that time all nations had avoided as a dangerous and
destructive element. The Phoenician was industrial, and needed markets
where he could dispose of the products of his skill. But while he sought
for them he disdained neither force nor deceit; he planted colonies; he
stipulated that he should have in the cities of other nations a portion
for himself; he urged the nations to adopt his pleasures, and insensibly
introduced among them his culture and even his religion. The education
of such a nation must have seemed profane, because it fostered
indifference towards family and one's native land, and made the restless
and passionate activity subservient to gain. The understanding and
usefulness rose to a higher dignity.
§ 202. Of the education of the Phoenicians we know only so much as to
enable us to conclude that it was certainly various and extensive: among
the Carthaginians, at least, that their children were practised in
reading, writing, and arithmetic, in religious duties; secondly, in a
trade; and, finally, in the use of arms, is not improbable. Commerce
became with the Phoenicians a trade, the egotism of which makes men dare
to plough the inhospitable sea, and to penetrate eagerly the horror of
its vast distances, but yet to conceal from other nations their
discoveries and to wrap them in a veil of fable.
--It is a beautiful testimony to the disposition of the Greeks, that
Plato and others assign as a cause of the low state of Arithmetic and
Mathematics among the Phoenicians and Egyptians the want of a free and
disinterested seizing of them.--