CHAPTER XXI._Mind and Hand: Manual Training the Chief Factor in Education

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM--HISTORIC.

_EGYPT AND GREECE._

Fundamental Propositions. -- Selfishness the Source of Social Evil;

Subjective Education the Source of Selfishness and the Cause of

Contempt of Labor; and Social Disintegration the Result of Contempt of

Labor and the Useful Arts. -- The First Class-distinction -- the

Strongest Man ruled; his First Rival, the Ingenious Man. --

Superstition. -- The Castes of India and Egypt -- how came they about?

-- Egyptian Education based on Selfishness. -- Rise of Egypt -- her

Career; her Fall; Analysis thereof. -- She Typifies all the Early

Nations: Force and Rapacity above, Chains and Slavery below. -- Their

Education consisted of Selfish Maxims for the Government of the Many

by the Few, and Government meant the Appropriation of the Products of

Labor. -- Analysis of Greek Character -- its Savage Characteristics.

-- Greek Treachery and Cruelty. -- Greek Venality. -- Her Orators

accepted Bribes. -- Responsibility of Greek Education and Philosophy

for the Ruin of Greek Civilization. -- Rectitude wholly left out of

her Scheme of Education. -- Plato’s Contempt of Matter: it led to

Contempt of Man and all his Works. -- Greek Education consisted of

Rhetoric and Logic; all Useful Things were hence held in Contempt.

It is a fundamental proposition of this work that selfishness is the

essence of depravity, and hence the source of all social evil; and in

previous chapters it has been shown, argumentatively, that exclusively

subjective processes of education tend, in a high degree, to promote

selfishness. Another fundamental proposition of this work is that the

useful arts are the true measure of civilization, and that, as they are

the product of labor, contempt of the laborer leads inevitably to social

disintegration and the destruction of the State. If these propositions

are true, the solution of all social problems is to be sought through a

radical change in educational methods. If they are true, it is of the

first importance that they be proved, not only by argument, but by the

citation of such facts of history as bear upon the subject. Civilization

is the product of education.[E14] If the education is good the product

will be good, if evil the product will be evil. The purpose of this and

the four following chapters is, therefore, to trace the progress of

civilization, to sketch in bold outline the social history of man.

The aphorism, all men are created equal, is a fine phrase, but its truth

is reserved for realization by the civilization of the future. A

tendency to the formation of class-distinctions in human society,

whether savage or civilized, is disclosed by all history.

The first class-distinction sprang from the physical superiority of one

savage over his fellows. He whose powerful frame and commanding eye

enabled him best to cope with the beasts of field and forest became

chief of the tribe. He held the first place by virtue of his brawny arm,

and the less athletic, and more timid, became his subjects. But he was

not long without rivals. His first rival was the dwarf, or hunchback,

who, struggling to overcome the misfortune of his deformity, in the

seclusion of his mud hut, invented the stone hatchet and stone-pointed

arrow-head. His next rival was the puny, pale-faced youth who converted

pantomimic signs and rude gestures into a language of sounds, and so

armed communities with the power of combination for mutual protection.

Those who soonest mastered the first alphabet took high rank in the

social circle, while those who could still only make themselves

understood by grimaces and gestures fell to the grade of ciphers in the

body politic, and came to be looked upon as dunces in society.

Thereafter the women, who had previously been won as wives by personal

prowess, were more equally parcelled out. The savage who had invented

the bow and the arrow was exempted from the toils of the chase, and from

the general contention at the courting season; a wife was assigned to

him, and his tent was supplied with game in the hope that he would

invent some other useful thing. Thus mind began to assert its empire

over matter, the division of labor commenced, and a class-distinction

was formed. Doubtless the youth who invented language cultivated

superstition among the ignorant, and so, increasing his already

considerable influence, secured the first social rank. Hence the castes

of India and Egypt, consisting, in their order, of the priesthood, the

army, the mercantile class, and, at the bottom of the scale, the servile

laborer.

Of the long period of social progress from a state of savagery to the

proud civilization of historic Egypt the record is faint and

fragmentary. Ages passed, during which men struggled, and died, and left

no sign--neither hieroglyphic character, monument, nor buried city.

Through what mental alchemy was the savage chief transformed, in the

course of hundreds of generations, into the learned, accomplished, and

astute Egyptian priest, from whose courtly lips Herodotus received the

chronicles of the Egyptian kings and the romantic story of the residence

in Egypt of Helen of Troy?[73] How were the members of the savage tribe

converted, one into an obedient soldier, another into an adroit,

self-seeking merchant, and another into a cringing slave? These are

secrets of antiquity, destined, doubtless, to remain forever unrevealed.

We do know, however, that the civilization of Egypt, like all other

civilizations, was the product of training or education; and the nature

of the education may be inferred from the character and fate of the

civilization.

[73] “Herodotus, ‘Euterpe,’” II., §§ 112-116. New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1882.

Of the Egyptian system of education selfishness was the basis. Given

chains and slavery for the lowest class and there were force and

rapacity in the highest class.[74] Before the free-born savage was

reduced to slavery and made to toil under the lash, whole hecatombs of

lives were sacrificed. Before the mind of the savage was degraded to the

baseness of slavery, his body, hacked and hewn, bent submissively to the

scourge. For the Egyptian boy there was, doubtless, a “Poor Richard’s

Almanack,” which taught him that he must “look to the main chance;” that

“in the race of life the devil takes the hindmost;” and that

“self-preservation is the first law of nature.” Thus trained he entered

the ranks of the priesthood, one of his brothers took a commission in

the army, and the others embarked in mercantile life. For the servile

class there was no education beyond their several occupations. Each man

was compelled to follow the trade of his father, to marry within his own

class, to die as he was born.

[74] “The Martyrdom of Man,” p. 18. By Winwood Reade. New York:

Charles P. Somerby, 1876.

Ruled by the priests, and the army, Egypt grew rich. Her commerce,

conducted by means of caravans, embraced the whole civilized world and

included all its products. She became a great military and naval power,

her armies overrunning Asia, and her fleets sweeping the Indian Ocean.

Her victorious campaigns opened new markets to her commerce, and through

these channels wealth poured into the empire. In the track of the wheels

of the Egyptian war-chariots the Egyptian merchant quickly followed. At

the point of the arrows of her archers she offered her linen goods to

conquered peoples, as England, at the point of the bayonet, subsequently

offered her cotton goods to prostrate India.

In Egypt all the learning of the time was concentrated. It was the

university of Greece. Every intellectual Greek made a voyage to Egypt;

it was regarded as a part of education, as a pilgrimage to the

cradle-land of their mythology.[E15] The possession of great wealth led

to habits of luxury. The house of the Egyptian gentleman was a palace

adorned with the triumphs of art, and devoted to pleasure. Its walls,

its floors, and its furniture reflected the skill, not to say genius, of

slaves--for all the manual labor of Egypt was performed by slaves. At

the end of the fashionable dinner, given in the palace by its rich

master, a mummy, richly painted and gilded, was presented to each guest

in turn by a servant, who said, “Look on this; drink and enjoy thyself,

for such as it is now so thou shalt be when thou art dead.”[75]

[75] “Herodotus, ‘Euterpe,’” II., p. 78. New York: Harper & Brothers,

1882.

One day when the priests were sacrificing in the temples, and the chief

officers of the army were dining with a contractor for army supplies, a

band of mountaineers rushed out of the recesses of Persia and swept like

a wind across the plains. They were dressed in leather; they had never

tasted fruit nor wine; they had never seen a market; they knew not how

to buy or sell. They were taught three things--to ride on horseback, to

hurl the javelin, and to speak the truth.[76] All Asia was covered with

blood and flames. The allied kingdoms fell at once, and India and Egypt

were soon afterwards added to the Persian empire.

[76] “Herodotus, ‘Clio,’” I., §§ 71, 136, 153. New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1882.

Egypt typifies all the early nations. In its rise, progress, and fall,

the course of the others may be traced. First there is a band of hardy

men whose prowess renders them irresistible. They are inured to toil;

they practise all the manly virtues; they are trained to labor with

their hands; they are taught to speak the truth. They lay the

foundations of the State in industry[E16] and prudence; their children

develop its resources; their children’s children, through many

generations, gradually accumulate wealth. The arts flourish, and

luxuries are multiplied. There are many great estates, and those who

inherit them cease to labor, and, ceasing to labor, they become a charge

upon the public; for the value of an estate created one hundred years

ago, or one year ago, can be maintained in no other way than by the

labor of to-day.[77] The idlers increase in number, and the struggle for

existence, of the workers, becomes more intense. Idleness breeds vice,

and the public morals are debauched.[E17] We see this class at the feast

of Belshazzar and at the dinner of the Egyptian _bon vivant_. On the

wall of every such banqueting room there is an ominous handwriting,

provided, only, that there is a Daniel to interpret it. It means that

the nation that degrades labor, tolerates idleness, and deifies vice, is

ripe for annihilation. If, now, there is on the frontier of the effete

nation a virile people, it is only a question of time and opportunity,

when they will make slaves of the revellers, and spoil of their

inherited estates. The worn-out, exhausted nation disappears in blood

and flames. The rich idler, the poor sycophant, the rulers and the

ruled, the slave and his master, the priest, the soldier, the merchant,

and the laborer, all go to destruction together.

[77] “It is not equitable that what one man hath done for the public

should discharge another of what it has a right to expect from him;

for one, standing indebted in himself to society, cannot substitute

anything in the room of his personal service. The father cannot

transmit to his son the right of being useless to his

fellow-creatures.... The man who earns not his subsistence, but eats

the bread of idleness, is no better than a thief.... To labor, then,

is the indispensable duty of social or political man. Rich or poor,

strong or weak, every idle citizen is a knave.”--“Emilius and Sophia,”

Vol. II., pp. 92, 93. By J. J. Rousseau. London: 1767.

In the ancient nations there was always force and rapacity above, and

chains and slavery below. Education was confined to a small class, and

consisted of selfish maxims for the government of the many, and

government was only another name for the appropriation of the products

of their labor. Selfishness bred injustice, and the practice of

injustice undermined the State. Whether the State survived or fell was a

matter of indifference to the slave. A slave he remained in any

event--if not of the Egyptian then of the Persian. But the importance of

labor is shown by those bloody revolutions. The battles of antiquity

were contests for the possession of the labor class. Which

nationality--the Egyptian or the Persian--should drive the toilers to

their daily tasks; which should reap the fruit of the sweat of their

brows; which should buy and sell them; which scourge them to their

dungeons? These were the questions which agitated the minds of ancient

rulers. They were the questions which agitated the mind of Xerxes when

he invaded Greece, with millions of followers, to encounter defeat at

the hands of a few thousand men of a superior type.

The Greek civilization sprung from mythology and ended in anarchy. In

the East the Greeks were called the people of youth. Their religion was

of the savage type. Their gods were immortalized men; they loved and

hated, transgressed and suffered; they resorted to stratagems to compass

their ends; they were a kind of exalted but unscrupulous aristocracy.

Greek patriotism was narrow; each city was politically independent, and

the citizen of one city was an alien and a stranger in the territory of

every other. The Greeks were superstitious. If the omens were

unfavorable the general refused to give battle; the plague was a visible

sign of the wrath of the gods; the priests sacrificed perpetually; the

oracle of Apollo outlived Grecian independence hundreds of years.[E18]

Grecian national festivals were childish, consisting of wrestling,

boxing, running, jumping, and chariot-racing. But the victor in those

games conferred everlasting glory upon his family and his country, and

was rewarded with distinguished honors.

Like savages, the Greeks were treacherous. The destiny of Greece was

controlled by renegades. There was disloyalty in every camp, a Greek

deserter in every opposing army, and a traitor, or a band of traitors,

in every besieged Greek city.[E19] They were cruel; of their captives

they butchered the men and enslaved the women, and they stripped and

robbed the bodies of the slain, on the battle-field. Like savages they

assassinated ambassadors, and like savages surrendered prisoners to

their personal enemies to be massacred.[E20] Their sense of honor was

dull. Xenophon, after winning imperishable renown, in conducting the

famous retreat of the “Ten Thousand,” led a detachment of them on a

pillaging expedition, and so amassed a fortune. “My patriotism,” says

Alcibiades, “I keep not at a time when I am being wronged.” “For there

was neither promise that could be depended on, nor oath that struck them

with fear,” exclaims Thucydides.[78]

[78] “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” Vol. I., p. 210. London:

George Bell & Sons.

Venality was the predominating trait in Greek character, and venality

unrestrained is savagery. In the Greek Pantheon the highest niche was

reserved for the God of Gain. The early Greeks were pirates; they

plundered one another; they sometimes actually sold themselves into

slavery, so great was their lust of gold. The richest cities ruled the

poor cities. Pericles boasted that he could not be bribed, but he robbed

all Greece to embellish Athens, and was accused of peculation, tried,

convicted, and fined. The Athenians declared that the Spartans were

taught to steal, and the Spartans retorted that the best Athenians were

invariably thieves. When Persia could no longer fight she defended her

territory against Greek invasion with gold coins.

The Greek orators never refused a bribe, and oratory ruled Greece.[E21]

Greek oratory was very persuasive. A discriminating writer declares

that, with their fine phrases and rhetorical expressions, the Greek

orators swindled history, obtaining a vast amount of admiration under

false pretences.[79]

[79] “The Martyrdom of Man,” p. 88. By Winwood Reade. New York:

Charles P. Somerby, 1876.

For these defects in Greek character, and for the resulting decay of

Greek civilization, Greek philosophy and Greek education must be held

responsible. Metaphysics and rhetoric ruined Greece. It was in the

schools of rhetoric that the young Greeks received their training for

the duties of public life. There they were taught the art of oratory;

there they learned how to make the worse appear the better reason. There

they were taught, not to expound the truth, but to indulge in the arts

of sophistry. It was in those schools that the young Greek was trained

to be eloquent, to win applause in the courts of law, not to convince

the judgments of judge, or juror; for judicial decisions were

notoriously subjects of the most shameful traffic.

The element of rectitude was wholly left out of the Greek system of

education, and hence wholly wanting in Greek character. The Greeks had a

profound distrust of one another. They were dishonest; they were

treacherous; they were cruel; they were false; and all these vices are

peculiar to a state of savagery.[E22] In ethics they never emerged from

the savage state, and hence in politics their failure was complete; for

the prime condition of the most simple form of civil society is mutual

confidence. But the mutual distrust of the Greeks, based on want of

integrity, was so absolute that political unity was impossible, and the

failure to combine the several cities under one government led,

eventually, to the destruction of Greek civilization.

To this result Greek philosophy also contributed. Plato’s contempt for

matter was so profound that he regarded the soul’s residence in the body

as an evil. He taught that the philosopher should emancipate himself

from the illusions of sense, devoting his life to reflection, and

surrendering his mind “to communion with its kindred eternal

essences.”[E23] Contempt of matter led logically to contempt of the

physical man, and hence to contempt of things, the work of man’s hands.

Such a philosophy was necessarily “in the air.” It afforded no aid to

the sciences; for science is the product of generalizations from matter.

It scorned art; for the arts are applications of the sciences in useful

things. With the Greek school-master rhetoric was the chief part of

education; with the Greek philosopher dialectics was the science _par

eminence_.

Thus the Greek system of education was confined to rhetoric and

logic--the art of speaking with propriety, elegance, and force, and the

power of deducing legitimate conclusions from assumed premises.[E24] In

the Greek schools of rhetoric there was no struggle to find the truth;

in the schools of philosophy there was no respect for the evidence of

the senses. The Greek orator harangued the jury eloquently while his

client bargained with the court for the price of justice! The Greek

philosopher confounded his audience with the force of his unanswerable

logic, and appealed to his inner consciousness in support of the

soundness of his premises!

The explanation of Greek duplicity is found in Greek metaphysics. To

scorn things is to disregard facts, and disregard of facts is contempt

of the truth. Greek education was confined to a consideration of the

subject of the nature and relations of abstract ideas, while the subject

of the nature and relations of things was wholly neglected. Such a

system of education led logically to selfishness, and out of selfishness

grew inordinate ambition and greed; and these passions led, through

treachery and dishonesty, to factional contests, which, eventuating in

bloodshed, could only end in anarchy. Distracted by the jealousies and

rivalries of States constantly in hostile conflict, and enfeebled by the

never-ending strife between the rich and the poor, Greece fell a prey to

the rapacity, and lust of power, of her unscrupulous Roman neighbor.

[E14] “All the happiness of families depends upon the education of

children, and houses rise or sink according as their children are

virtuous or vicious.”--Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” p. 262. London: S.

Cornish & Co., 1839.

[E15] “The Egyptians were, in the opinion of the Greeks, the wisest of

mankind.”--Herodotus, “Euterpe,” II., § 160. New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1882.

“For my part, I think that Melampus, being a wise man, both acquired

the art of divination, and having learned many other things in Egypt,

introduced them among the Greeks, and particularly the worship of

Bacchus.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 49.

“And indeed the names of almost all the Gods came from Egypt into

Greece.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 50.

“The manner in which oracles are delivered at Thebes in Egypt and at

Dodona, is very similar; and the art of divination from victims came

likewise from Egypt.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 57.

“The Egyptians were also the first who introduced public festivals,

processions, and solemn supplications: And the Greeks learned these

from them.”--Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 57.

To the same effect, see also:

Ibid, “Euterpe,” II., § 64.

„ „ „ § 109.

„ „ „ § 123.

„ „ „ § 160.

„ „ „ §§ 164-166.

„ „ „ § 171.

And Ibid, “Melpomene,” IV., § 180.

[E16] “Amasis it was who established the law among the Egyptians that

every Egyptian should annually declare to the governor of his district

by what means he maintained himself; and if he failed to do this, or

did not show that he lived by honest means, he should be punished with

death. Solon, the Athenian, having brought this law from Egypt,

established it at Athens; and that people still continue to observe

it, as being an unobjectionable regulation.”--Herodotus, “Euterpe,”

II., § 177. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882.

[E17] “Lysimachus, son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, son of

Thucydides, to the Athenian generals, Nicias and Laches:

“Both he and I have entertained our children with thousands of brave

actions done by our fathers both in peace and war, while they headed

the Athenians and their allies; but to our great misfortune we can

tell them no such thing of ourselves. This covers us with shame; we

blush for it before our children, and are forced to cast the blame

upon our fathers; who, after we grew up, suffered us to live in

effeminacy and luxury; while they were employing all their care for

the interest of the public.”--Plato’s “Divine Dialogues,” p. 256.

London: S. Cornish & Co., 1839.

[E18] “After the encounter between the cavalry had taken place,

Agesilaus, on offering sacrifice the next day with a view to

advancing, found the victims inauspicious and in consequence of this

indication turned off and proceeded toward the coast.”--Xenophon,

“Hellenics,” p. 369. London: George Bell & Sons, 1881.

See, also, Thucydides, Vol. II., p. 348. London: George Bell & Sons,

1880.

And Ibid, Vol. II., p. 484.

And, “Plutarch’s Lives [Timoleon],” p. 177. New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1850.

[E19] Alcibiades to the Lacedæmonians: “And now, I beg that I may not

be the worse thought of by any among you, because I am now strenuously

attacking my country with its bitterest enemies, though I formerly had

a reputation for patriotism.”--Thucydides, Vol. II., p. 439. London:

George Bell & Sons, 1880.

Of Pausanias and Themistocles, who were both traitors, Thucydides

says: “Such was the end of Pausanias the Lacedæmonian and Themistocles

the Athenian, _who had been the most distinguished of all the Greeks

in their day_.”--“History of the Peloponnesian War,” Vol. I., pp.

75-83.