(3)Discus-throwing.—The modern world has been rendered very familiar with the method of this exercise by the copies of thediscobolusof Myron, preserved in Rome and extensively engraved and photographed, and that of thediscobolusof Alcamenes which now stands in the Vatican (see Overbeck,Griech. Plastikvol. i, p. 276). The discus was generally a flat, round piece of stone or metal, a sort of large quoit with no hole in the middle, which the user sought tothrow as far as he could. The discobolus of Alcamenes shows us a youth balancing the discus in his left hand, and taking the measure of his throw with his eye; that of Myron shows us another in the act of throwing. He swings the discus backward in his right hand, and bends his body forward to balance it. His right foot, the toes contracted with effort, rests firmly on the ground; the left is slightly lifted; the whole body is like a bent bow. In the next instant the left foot will advance, the left hand, now resting on the right knee, will swing backwards, the body will resume its erect position, and the discus will be shot forward from the right hand like an arrow. Nothing could show more clearly than does this statue the perfect organization, symmetry, and balance which were the aim of Greek gymnastics. Not one limb could be moved without affecting all the rest,—which shows that the exercise extended to the whole body.
(4)Javelin-casting.—The aim of this exercise was to develop skill and precision of eye and hand, rather than strength of muscle. The instrument employed was a short dagger or lance, which was aimed at a mark. He who could hit the mark from the greatest distance was the most proficient scholar. The spear, before being thrown, was balanced in the right hand at the height of the ear.
(5)Wrestling.—This very complicated exercise was evidently the principal one in the gymnastic course, the one to which the others were merely preparatory. It was the only one which a boy could not practice by himself. It exercised not only the whole body, but the patience and temper as well. The aim of thewrestler was to throw (καταβλλειν) his antagonist. Those who took part in this exercise had their bodies rubbed with oil and strewn with fine sand. It seems that the wrestler was allowed to do anything he chose to his antagonist except to bite, strike, or kick him. Before he could claim the victory he had to throw him three times. After the contest the wrestlers scraped from their bodies, with a strigil, the oil and dust,[2]bathed, were again rubbed with oil, exposed their bodies to the sun, in order to dry and tan them, and dressed. The bathing was done in cold water, and both the bathing and the sunning were in part intended to inure the body to sudden cold and heat, which inurement was considered a very essential part of physical training.
Such were the chief exercises employed in the gymnastic training of the Athenians. Thus far, we have considered the two branches of education as conducted separately, and as not coming at any point in contact with each other. But it would have been very unlike the Greek, and especially the Athenian, to leave the two divisions of education unrelated and unharmonized. And, indeed, he did not so leave them, but brought them together in the most admirable way in what he calledorchesis, a word for which we have no better equivalent than
(γ)Dancing(ὄρχησις, χορός).
"Dancers," says Aristotle, "by means of plastic rhythms (rhythms reproduced in plastic forms) imitate characters, feelings, and actions." Xenophon, in hisAnabasis, describing a banquet that took place in the wilds of Paphlagonia, says: "After the treaty was ratified and the pæan sung, there first rose up two Thracians and danced in armor to the flute, leaping high and lightly, and using their swords. Finally one of them struck the other, so that everybody thought he had wounded him; but he fell in an artificial way. Then the Paphlagonians raised a shout; but the assailant, having despoiled the fallen man of his armor, went out singing the Sitalcas. Then others of the Thracians carried out the other as if he had been dead; but he was none the worse. Next, some Ænianes and Magnesians stood up and danced the so-called Carpæa in armor. The manner of the dance was this: one man, putting his arms within reach, sows and drives a team, frequently turning round as if afraid. Then a robber makes his appearance. As soon as the other espies him, he seizes his arms, advances to him, and fights in front of the team. And the two did this keeping time to the flute. Finally the robber, having bound the other, carries off both him and the team; sometimes, on the contrary, the ploughman binds the robber, in which case he yokes him, with his hands bound behind his back, to his oxen and drives off." Several other dances, performed by persons of different nationalities, follow; but enough has been quoted to show that the Greek ὄρχησις was something very different from our dancing. It was, indeed, a pantomimic ballet, interspersed withtableaux vivans.
In the dances here mentioned, the flute is the instrument employed, and this the player could notaccompany with his voice. But in the Athenian schools, in the old time, the flute, and all music without words, were tabooed. There can be no doubt, therefore, that in these the orchestic performances were accompanied by the lyre, the player on which sang in words what the dancers danced. It is obvious that in such performances the musical (literary) and gymnastic branches of education came in for about equal shares. Dancing exercised the whole human being, body and soul, and exercised them in a completely harmonious way. It is this harmony, this rhythmic movement of the body in consonance with the emotions of the soul and the purposes of the intelligence, that isgrace(χάρις). Hence, while the Greeks relied upon gymnastics to impart strength and firmness to the body, they looked to dancing for courtliness and grace. Plato places the two on the same footing, as parts of a single discipline.
The fact that the two divisions of education met in dancing seems to prove what I surmised above, viz. that they were conducted within the same precincts; in which case we may suppose that, while the dancing exercises took place in the palæstra, the music was supplied by the music master. We know that the chorus-leader was a public officer, appointed by the demos, and had to be over forty years old. In any case, it is curious enough to think that Athenian, and, generally, Greek, education culminated in dancing. But this was a perfectly logical result; for the chorus is the type of Greek social life, as we see most clearly in theRepublicof Plato. It hardly needs to be pointed out that the supreme form of Greek art, the drama,was but a development of the Bacchic or Dionysiac chorus. This development consisted in the separation of the music from the pantomime, and the assignment of the former to the chorus, which no longer danced, but walked, and of the latter to the actors, who added the dialogue to it. Greek life was divided into three parts—civil, military, religious. Music and letters were a preparation for the first, gymnastics for the second, and dancing for the third. Dancing formed a prominent part in Greek worship, and it may be doubted whether free Athenians ever danced except "before the gods "—ἐν ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς προσόδοις, as Xenophon says.
Two things still remain to be considered with regard to Athenian schools, (1) grading, (2) holidays. With respect to the former, the practice probably differed at different times; but we seem to be justified in assuming that, at the time of which I am speaking, there were but two grades, boys (παῖδες) and youths (νεανίσκοι). These are mentioned by Plato, in theLysis, as celebrating the Hermæa together in a palæstra. The first grade would include the boys from seven to eleven years of age; the second, those from eleven to fifteen. As to holidays, they seem to have been simply the feast-days of the greater gods, when business of every sort was suspended. Such days amounted to about ninety annually.
(3)College Education.
About the time when he was blossoming into manhood, that is, some time between his fourteenth and his sixteenth year, the Athenian boy of the olden timewas transferred from the private school and palæstra, which belonged to the family side of life, to the gymnasium, which belonged to the State, and in which he received the education calculated to fit him for the duties of a citizen. Having, in the family and the school, been trained to be a gentleman (καλοκἀγαθός), he must now be trained to be a citizen, capable of exercising legislative, judicial, and military functions. The State saw to it that he received this training, if his parents chose and could afford it.
In the time of Solon, aboutb.c.590, two great gymnasia, the Academy and Cynosarges, were erected in the midst of extensive groves outside the city walls. These groves were afterwards surrounded with high walls, furnished with seats and other conveniences, and turned into city parks. The Academy, which lay to the northwest of the city, in the valley of the Cephisus, and was under the patronage of Athena, was the resort of the full-blooded citizens, while Cynosarges, situated to the east of the city, near the foot of Lycabettus, was assigned to those who had foreign blood in their veins, that is, who had only one parent of pure Athenian stock. This gymnasium was under the patronage of Heracles, whose worship always implies the presence of a foreign and vanquished element. These were the only two gymnasia belonging to Athens before the time of Pericles. They were, probably, destroyed by the Persians in 480, and had afterwards to be rebuilt, and the groves replanted.
While the children of nearly all the free citizens of Athens attended the school and the palæstra, it isclear that only the youth of the wealthier classes attended the gymnasium. One result of this was that the government and offices of the State fell exclusively into the hands of those classes; and it was perhaps just in order to make this division, without introducing any class-law, that the shrewd Solon established the gymnasia, which thus became a bulwark against democracy.
As soon as the Athenian youth was transferred to the gymnasium, he passed from under the charge of the pedagogue, who represented the family, and came under the direct surveillance of the State. He was now free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer, and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus, at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now learnt toride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age, a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the Greeks,—Plato, Aristotle, etc.,—and why love, in the modern sense, plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the State encroached upon the family. Plato'sRepublicwas only the logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palæstra were continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into thepentathlon—running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling, boxing—which formedthe programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions. During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the reeve of hisdemos(ward or village), as a candidate for independent citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him, along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian oath of citizenship (seep. 61). He was now technically anephēbos, cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs, and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses(φρούρια) that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the public festivals. At the end of the year, all theephēboiof one year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the assembled people (ἀπεδείξαντο τῷ δήμῳ περὶ τὰς τάξεις[3]), after which they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as ruralgendarmerie(περίπολοι), scouring the country in all directions. They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks, springs, etc., (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life, indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (Alpini) of the Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great heights. That during this time theephēboishould have taken any part in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination (δοκιμασία εἰς ἄνδρας), after which they were full members of the State.
(4)University Education.
The Greek university was the State, and the Greek State was a university—aCultur-Staat, as the Germans say. That the State is a school of virtue, was a view generally entertained in the ancient world, which, until it began to decay, completely identified the man with the citizen. The influence of this view upon the attitude of the individual to the State, and of the State to the individual, can hardly be overestimated. The State claimed, and the individual accorded to it, a disciplinary right which extended to every sphere and action of life. Thus the sphere of morality coincided exactly with the sphere of legality, or, to put it the other way, the sphere of legality extended to the whole sphere of morality, and this was considered true, whatever form the State or government might assume—monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, etc.
To give a full account of the university education of old Athens would be to write her social and political history up to the time of the Persian Wars. This is, of course, out of the question. All I can do is to point out those elements in the State which enabled it to produce that splendid array of noble men, and accomplish those great deeds and works, which make her brief career seem the brightest spot in the world's history.
The chief of these elements, and the one which included all the rest, was the Greek ideal of harmony. Athens was great as a State and as a school so long as she embodied that ideal, so long as she distributed power and honor in accordance with worth (ἀρετή) intellectual, moral, practical; in a word, so long as the State was governed by the best citizens (ἄριστοι), and the rest acknowledged their right to do so. Notwithstanding the contention of Grote and others, it is strictly true that Athens was great because, and so long as, she was aristocratic (in the ancient sense), and perished when she abandoned her fundamental ideal by becoming democratic. This assertion must not be construed as any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing paved the way for a higher ideal than her own. It simply states a fact, which may be easily generalized without losing its truth: An institution perishes when it abandons the principle on which it was founded and built up. Unless we bear this in mind, we shall utterly fail to understand the lesson of Athenian history. If it be maintained that some of Athens' noblest work was done under the democracy, the sufficient answer is, that it was nearly all done by men who retained the spirit of the old aristocracy, and bitterly opposed the democracy. We need name only Æschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.
THE "NEW EDUCATION" (b.c.480-338)
INDIVIDUALISM AND PHILOSOPHY
Homer ought to be driven from the lists and whipt, and Archilochus likewise.—Heraclitus.
Homer ought to be driven from the lists and whipt, and Archilochus likewise.—Heraclitus.
Thou needs must have knowledge of all things,First of the steadfast core of the Truth that forceth conviction,Then of the notions of mortals, where true conviction abides not.—Parmenides.
Thou needs must have knowledge of all things,First of the steadfast core of the Truth that forceth conviction,Then of the notions of mortals, where true conviction abides not.—Parmenides.
All things were undistinguished: then Intellect came and brought them into order.—Anaxagoras.
All things were undistinguished: then Intellect came and brought them into order.—Anaxagoras.
Man is the measure of all things.In regard to the Gods, I am unable to know whether they are or are not.—Protagoras.
Man is the measure of all things.
In regard to the Gods, I am unable to know whether they are or are not.—Protagoras.
Strepsiades.Don't you see what a good thing it is to have learning? There isn't any Zeus, Phidippides!Phidippides.Who is there then?Streps.Vortex rules, having dethroned Zeus.Phid.Pshaw! what nonsense!Streps.You may count it true, all the same.Phid.Who says so?Streps.Socrates the Melian, and Chærephon, who knows the footprints of fleas.—Aristophanes,Clouds.
Strepsiades.Don't you see what a good thing it is to have learning? There isn't any Zeus, Phidippides!
Phidippides.Who is there then?
Streps.Vortex rules, having dethroned Zeus.
Phid.Pshaw! what nonsense!
Streps.You may count it true, all the same.
Phid.Who says so?
Streps.Socrates the Melian, and Chærephon, who knows the footprints of fleas.—Aristophanes,Clouds.
There is an old-fashioned saw, current of yore among mortals, that a man's happiness, when full-grown, gives birth and dies not childless, and that from Fortune there springs insatiate woe for all his race. But I, dissenting from all others, am alone of different mind. It is the Irreverent Deed that begets after it more of its kind. For to righteous homes belongs a fair-childrened lot forever; but old Irreverence is sure to beget Irreverence, springing up fresh among evil men, when the numbered hour arrives. And the new Irreverence begets Surfeit of Wealth, and a power beyond all battle, beyond all war, unholy Daring, twin curses, black to homes, like to their parents. But Justice shines in smoky homes, and honors the righteous life, and, leaving, with averted eyes, foundations gilded with impurity of hands, she draws nigh to holy things, honoring not the power of wealth, with its counterfeit stamp of praise. And her will is done.—Æschylus.From the time they are children to the day of their death, we teach them and admonish them. As soon as the child understands what is said to him, his nurse and his mother and his pedagogue and even his father vie with each other in trying to make the best of him that can be made, at every word and deed instructing him and warning him, "This is right," "This is wrong," "This is beautiful," "This is ugly," "This is righteous," "This is sinful," "Do this," "Don't do that." And if the child readily obeys, well and good; if he does not, then they treat him like a bent and twisted stick, straightening him out with threats and blows. Later on, they send him to school, and then they lay their injunctions upon the masters to pay much more attention to the good behavior of their sons than to their letters and music (κιθάρισις); and the teachers act upon these injunctions. Later yet, when they have learnt to read, and are proceeding to understand the meaning of what is written, just as formerly they understood what was said to them, they put before them on the benches to read the works of good poets, and insist upon their learning them by heart—works which contain many admonitions, and many narratives, noble deeds, and eulogies of the worthy men of old—their purpose being to awaken the boy's ambition, so that he may imitate these men and strive to be worthy likewise. The music-teachers also, pursuing the same line, try to inculcate self-control (σωφροσύνη) and to prevent the boys from falling into mischief. In addition to this, when they have learnt to play on the lyre, their masters teach them other poems, written by great lyric poets, making them sing them and play the accompaniments to them, and compelling them to work into their souls the rhythms and melodies of them, so that they may grow in gentleness, and, having their natures timed and tuned, may be fitted to speak and act. The truth is, the whole life of man needs timingand tuning. Furthermore, in addition to all this, parents send their sons to the physical trainer, in order that their bodies may be improved and rendered capable of seconding a noble intent, and they themselves not be forced, from physical deterioration, to play the coward in war or other (serious) matters. And those who can best afford to give this education, give most of it, and these are the richest people. Their sons go earliest to school and leave it latest. And when the boys leave school, the State insists that they shall learn the laws and live according to them, and not according to their own caprice ... And if any one transgresses these laws, the State punishes him ... Seeing that so much attention is devoted to virtue, both in the family and in the State, do you wonder, Socrates, and question whether virtue be something that can be taught? Surely you ought not to wonder at this, but rather to wonder if it couldnotbe taught.—Plato,Protagoras(words of Protagoras)."Isn't it true, Lysis," said I, "that your parents love you very much?"—"To be sure," said he.—"Then they would wish you to be as happy as possible?"—"Of course," said he.—"And do you think a person is happy who is a slave, and is not allowed to do anything he desires?"—"I don't, indeed," said he.—"Then, if your father and mother love you and wish you to be happy, they endeavor by every means in their power to make you happy."—"To be sure they do," said he.—"Then they allow you to do anything you please, and never chide you, or prevent you from doing what you desire."—"By Jove! they do, Socrates: they prevent me from doing a great many things."—"What do you mean," said I; "they wish you to be happy, and yet prevent you from doing what you wish? Let us take an example: If you want to ride in one of your father's chariots, and to hold the reins, when it is competing in a race, won't they allow you, or will they prevent you?"—"By Jove! no: they would not allow me," said he. "But why should they? There is a charioteer, who is hired by my father."—"What do you mean? They allow a hired man, rather than you, to do what he likes with the horses, and pay him a salary besides?"—"And why not?" said he.—"Well then, I suppose they allow you to manage the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and whip it, they would permit you."—"How could they?" said he.—"What?" said I: "is nobody allowed to whip it?"—"Of course," he said; "the muleteer."—"A slave or a free man?"—"A slave," said he.—"And so it seems they think more of a slave than oftheir son, and entrust their property to him rather than to you, and allow him to do what he pleases, whereas they prevent you. But, farther, tell me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even trust you to that extent?"—"How trust me?" said he.—"Then does some one manage you?"—"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he.—"But he is surely not a slave?"—"Of course he is, our slave," said he.—"Is it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he governs you?"—"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind," he said.—"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern you?"—"To any extent."—"So then your father likes to set over you a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is weaving—does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments used in spinning."—And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched them."—"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done some wrong to your father and mother?"—"By Jove, not I," he said.—"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis, and do nothing that you desire."—"The reason, Socrates," he said, "is, that I am not of age."—Plato,Lysis.The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens. Registration as member of a deme or township takes place when eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys. Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If the verdict is against him he appeals to the Heliæa, and the municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally proposed for theregister, the State sells him for a slave; if the judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the senate, and if anyone is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine is imposed on the municipality by which he was registered. After approbation, they are calledepheboi, or cadets, and the parents of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being sworn, choose three men of the tribe above forty years of age, whom they believe to be of stainless character and fittest for the superintendence of youth, and out of these the commons in ecclesia select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians. These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the temples, march down to Piræus, where they garrison the north and south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma [about 20 cts.] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols [about 13 cts.]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the commons meet in the theatre and the cadets, after displaying before them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years, wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritance, or heiresses, or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When the three years are completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens.—Aristotle,Constitution of Athens(Poste's Version, with slight alterations).
There is an old-fashioned saw, current of yore among mortals, that a man's happiness, when full-grown, gives birth and dies not childless, and that from Fortune there springs insatiate woe for all his race. But I, dissenting from all others, am alone of different mind. It is the Irreverent Deed that begets after it more of its kind. For to righteous homes belongs a fair-childrened lot forever; but old Irreverence is sure to beget Irreverence, springing up fresh among evil men, when the numbered hour arrives. And the new Irreverence begets Surfeit of Wealth, and a power beyond all battle, beyond all war, unholy Daring, twin curses, black to homes, like to their parents. But Justice shines in smoky homes, and honors the righteous life, and, leaving, with averted eyes, foundations gilded with impurity of hands, she draws nigh to holy things, honoring not the power of wealth, with its counterfeit stamp of praise. And her will is done.—Æschylus.
From the time they are children to the day of their death, we teach them and admonish them. As soon as the child understands what is said to him, his nurse and his mother and his pedagogue and even his father vie with each other in trying to make the best of him that can be made, at every word and deed instructing him and warning him, "This is right," "This is wrong," "This is beautiful," "This is ugly," "This is righteous," "This is sinful," "Do this," "Don't do that." And if the child readily obeys, well and good; if he does not, then they treat him like a bent and twisted stick, straightening him out with threats and blows. Later on, they send him to school, and then they lay their injunctions upon the masters to pay much more attention to the good behavior of their sons than to their letters and music (κιθάρισις); and the teachers act upon these injunctions. Later yet, when they have learnt to read, and are proceeding to understand the meaning of what is written, just as formerly they understood what was said to them, they put before them on the benches to read the works of good poets, and insist upon their learning them by heart—works which contain many admonitions, and many narratives, noble deeds, and eulogies of the worthy men of old—their purpose being to awaken the boy's ambition, so that he may imitate these men and strive to be worthy likewise. The music-teachers also, pursuing the same line, try to inculcate self-control (σωφροσύνη) and to prevent the boys from falling into mischief. In addition to this, when they have learnt to play on the lyre, their masters teach them other poems, written by great lyric poets, making them sing them and play the accompaniments to them, and compelling them to work into their souls the rhythms and melodies of them, so that they may grow in gentleness, and, having their natures timed and tuned, may be fitted to speak and act. The truth is, the whole life of man needs timingand tuning. Furthermore, in addition to all this, parents send their sons to the physical trainer, in order that their bodies may be improved and rendered capable of seconding a noble intent, and they themselves not be forced, from physical deterioration, to play the coward in war or other (serious) matters. And those who can best afford to give this education, give most of it, and these are the richest people. Their sons go earliest to school and leave it latest. And when the boys leave school, the State insists that they shall learn the laws and live according to them, and not according to their own caprice ... And if any one transgresses these laws, the State punishes him ... Seeing that so much attention is devoted to virtue, both in the family and in the State, do you wonder, Socrates, and question whether virtue be something that can be taught? Surely you ought not to wonder at this, but rather to wonder if it couldnotbe taught.—Plato,Protagoras(words of Protagoras).
"Isn't it true, Lysis," said I, "that your parents love you very much?"—"To be sure," said he.—"Then they would wish you to be as happy as possible?"—"Of course," said he.—"And do you think a person is happy who is a slave, and is not allowed to do anything he desires?"—"I don't, indeed," said he.—"Then, if your father and mother love you and wish you to be happy, they endeavor by every means in their power to make you happy."—"To be sure they do," said he.—"Then they allow you to do anything you please, and never chide you, or prevent you from doing what you desire."—"By Jove! they do, Socrates: they prevent me from doing a great many things."—"What do you mean," said I; "they wish you to be happy, and yet prevent you from doing what you wish? Let us take an example: If you want to ride in one of your father's chariots, and to hold the reins, when it is competing in a race, won't they allow you, or will they prevent you?"—"By Jove! no: they would not allow me," said he. "But why should they? There is a charioteer, who is hired by my father."—"What do you mean? They allow a hired man, rather than you, to do what he likes with the horses, and pay him a salary besides?"—"And why not?" said he.—"Well then, I suppose they allow you to manage the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and whip it, they would permit you."—"How could they?" said he.—"What?" said I: "is nobody allowed to whip it?"—"Of course," he said; "the muleteer."—"A slave or a free man?"—"A slave," said he.—"And so it seems they think more of a slave than oftheir son, and entrust their property to him rather than to you, and allow him to do what he pleases, whereas they prevent you. But, farther, tell me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even trust you to that extent?"—"How trust me?" said he.—"Then does some one manage you?"—"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he.—"But he is surely not a slave?"—"Of course he is, our slave," said he.—"Is it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he governs you?"—"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind," he said.—"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern you?"—"To any extent."—"So then your father likes to set over you a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is weaving—does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments used in spinning."—And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched them."—"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done some wrong to your father and mother?"—"By Jove, not I," he said.—"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis, and do nothing that you desire."—"The reason, Socrates," he said, "is, that I am not of age."—Plato,Lysis.
The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens. Registration as member of a deme or township takes place when eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys. Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If the verdict is against him he appeals to the Heliæa, and the municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally proposed for theregister, the State sells him for a slave; if the judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the senate, and if anyone is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine is imposed on the municipality by which he was registered. After approbation, they are calledepheboi, or cadets, and the parents of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being sworn, choose three men of the tribe above forty years of age, whom they believe to be of stainless character and fittest for the superintendence of youth, and out of these the commons in ecclesia select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians. These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the temples, march down to Piræus, where they garrison the north and south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma [about 20 cts.] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols [about 13 cts.]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the commons meet in the theatre and the cadets, after displaying before them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years, wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritance, or heiresses, or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When the three years are completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens.—Aristotle,Constitution of Athens(Poste's Version, with slight alterations).
Thatperfect harmony between power and worth at which the Athenian State aimed, was something not easily attained or preserved. As far back as its recorded history reaches, we find a struggle forpower going on between a party which possessed more power than its worth justified, and a party which possessed less; that is, between a party which, having once been worthy, strove to hold power in virtue of its past history, and one that claimed power in virtue of the worth into which it was growing: in a word, a struggle between declining aristocracy and growing democracy. To the party in power, of course, this seemed a rebellion against lawful authority and privilege, and it did its best to suppress it. Hence came the rigorous legislation of Draco; later the more conciliatory, less out-spoken, but equally aristocratic legislation of Solon; then the tyranny of Pisistratus, lasting as long as he could hold the balance of power between the contending parties; then the constitution of Clisthenes, with the breaking up of the old Athenian aristocratic system, the remodelling of the tribes, the degradation of the Areopagus, and the definite triumph of democracy. To complete the movement and, as it were, to consecrate it, came the Persian Wars, which mark the turning-point, theperipeteia, in Athenian history and education. Whatever efforts aristocracy makes to maintain itself after this, are made in the name of, and under cover of a zeal for, democracy.
The aristocratic Athenian State was based upon land-ownership, slavery, and the entire freedom of the land-owning class from all but family and State duties, from all need of engaging in productive industry. So long as the chief wealth of the State consisted in land and its produce, so long the population was divided into two classes, the rich and the poor, andso long the former had little difficulty in keeping all power in its own hands. But no sooner did the growth of commerce throw wealth into the hands of a class that owned no land, and was not above engaging in industry, than this class began to claim a share in political power. There were now two wealthy classes, standing opposed to each other, a proud, conservative one, with "old wealth and worth," and a vain, radical one, with new wealth and wants, both bidding for the favor of the class that had little wealth, little worth, and many wants, and thus making it feel its importance. Such is the origin of Athenian democracy. It is the child of trade and productive industry. It owed its final consecration to the Persian Wars, and especially to the battle of Salamis, in which Athens was saved by her fleet, manned chiefly by marines (ἐπιβάται) from the lower classes, the upper classes, as we have seen, being trained only for land-service. Thus the battle of Salamis was not only a victory of Greece over Persia, but of foreign trade over home agriculture, of democracy over aristocracy.
The fact that the Athenian democracy owed its origin to trade determined, in great measure, its history and tendencies. One of its many results was that it opened Athens to the influx of foreign men, foreign ideas, and foreign habits, not to speak of foreign gods, all of which tended to break up the old self-contained, carefully organized life of the people. In no department were their effects sooner or more clearly felt than in that of education. From about the date of the battle of Salamis, when the youthful Ionian, Anaxagoras, came to Athens, a succession ofmen of "advanced" ideas in art and science sought a field of action within her borders. Such a field, indeed, seemed purposely to have been left open for them by the State, which had provided no means of intellectual or moral education for its young citizens, after they passed under its care (seep. 87). Nothing was easier or more profitable than for these wise foreigners to constitute themselves public teachers, and fill the place which the State had left vacant. The State might occasionally object, and seek to punish one or another of them for corrupting of the youth by the promulgation of impious or otherwise dangerous ideas, as it did in the case of Anaxagoras; but their activity was too much in harmony with a tendency of the time,—a radical and individualistic tendency inseparable from democracy,—to be dispensed with altogether. Hence it was that, within a few years after the battle of Salamis, there flourished in Athens a class of men unknown before within her boundaries, a class of private professors, or "sophists," as they called themselves, who undertook to teach theoretically what the State had assumed could be taught only practically and by herself, viz., virtue and wisdom. Their ideas were novel, striking, and radical, hence congenial to a newly emancipated populace, vain of its recent achievements, and contemptuous of all that savored of the narrow, pious puritanism of the old time; their premises were magnificent, and their fees high enough to impose upon a class that always measures the value of a thing by what it is asked to pay for it; their method of teaching was such as to flatter the vanity, and secure the favor, of both pupils andparents. No wonder that their success was immediate and their influence enormous.
From the days of Socrates to our own, 'sophist' has been a term of reproach, and not altogether unjustly so. Hegel, Grote, and Zeller have, indeed, shown that the sophists did not deserve all the obloquy which has attached itself to their name, inasmuch as they were neither much better nor much worse than any class of men who set up to teach new doctrines for money, and, as wise economists, suit supply to demand; nevertheless, it may be fairly enough said that they largely contributed to demoralize Athens, by encouraging irreverence for the very conceptions upon which her polity was built, and by pandering to some of the most selfish and individualistic tendencies of democracy. If it be said that they have their place in the history of human evolution, as the heralds of that higher view of life which allows the individual a sphere of activities and interests outside of that occupied by the State, this may at once and without difficulty be admitted, without our being thereby forced to regard them as noble men. The truth is, they represented, in practice and in theory, the spirit of individualism, which was then everywhere asserting itself against the spirit of nationalism or polity, and which perhaps had to assert itself in an exaggerated and destructive way, before the rightful claims of the two could be manifested and harmonized. It is the incorporation of this spirit of individualism into education that constitutes the "New Education."
This spirit, as manifested in the sophists and their teaching, directed itself against the old political spiritin all the departments of life—in religion, in politics, in education. It discredited the old popular gods, upon loyalty to whom the existence of the State had been supposed to depend, substituting for them some crude fancy like Vortex, or some bald abstraction like Intellect. It encouraged the individual to seek his end in his own pleasure, and to regard the State as but a means to that end. It championed an education in which these ideas occupied a prominent place. What the sophists actually taught the ambitious young men who sought their instruction, was self-assertion, unscrupulousness, and a showy rhetoric, in whose triumphal procession facts, fancies, and falsehoods marched together in brilliant array. It is but fair to them to say that, in their endeavor to instruct young men in the art of specious oratory, they laid the foundations of the art of rhetoric and the science of grammar. So much, at least, the world owes to them.
Since it was to the young men, who, freed from the discipline of home, pedagogue, school, and palæstra, could be met with anywhere, in the street, the agora, the gymnasium, that the sophists directed their chief attention, it was of course these who first showed the effects of their teaching. But their influence, falling in, as it did, with the pronounced radical tendencies of the time, soon made itself felt in all grades of education, from the family to the university, in the form of an irreverent, flippant, conceited rationalism, before whose self-erected and self-corrupted tribunal every institution in heaven and earth was to be tried. In the schools this influence showed itself in various ways: (1) in an increased attention to literature, andespecially to the formal side of it, (2) in the tendency to substitute for the works of the old epic and lyric poets the works of more recent writers tinged with the new spirit, (3) in the introduction of new and complicated instruments and kinds of music, (4) in an increasing departure from the severe physical and moral discipline of the old days. We now, for the first time, hear of a teacher of literature, distinct from the music master, of teachers who possessed no copy of Homer (Alcibiades is said to have chastised such a one), of flutes, citharas, and the like in use in schools, of wildness and lewdness among boys of tender age. In the palæstra the new spirit showed itself in a tendency to substitute showy and unsystematic exercises for the vigorous and graded exercises of the older time, to sacrifice education to execution.
But, as already remarked, the new spirit showed itself most clearly and hurtfully in the higher education. The young men, instead of spending their time in vigorous physical exercise in the gymnasia and open country, began now to hang about the streets and public places, listening to sophistic discussions, and to attend the schools of the sophists, exercising their tongues more than any other part of their bodies. The effect of this soon showed itself in a decline of physical power, of endurance, courage, and manliness, and in a strong tendency to luxury and other physical sins. They now began to imagine for themselves a private life, very far from coincident with that demanded of a citizen, and to look upon the old citizen-life, and its ideals, sanctions, and duties, with contempt or pity, as something which they had learnt to rise above.The glory and well-being of their country were no longer their chief object of ambition. The dry rot of individualism, which always seems to those affected by it an evidence of health and manly vigor, was corrupting their moral nature, and preparing the way for the destruction of the State. For it was but too natural that these young men, when they came to be members of the State, should neglect its lessons and claims, and, following the new teachings, live to themselves. Thus, just as the character of the "Old Education" of Athens showed itself in the behavior of her sons in the Persian Wars, so that of her "New Education" showed itself fifty years later in the Peloponnesian War, that long and disastrous struggle which wrecked Athens and Greece.
Yet Athens and her education were not allowed to go to ruin without a struggle. The aristocratic party long stuck to the old principles and tried to give them effect; but, failing to understand the new circumstances and to take account of them, it erred in the application of them, by seeking simply to restore the old conditions. Individuals also exerted their best efforts for the same end. Æschylus, who had fought at Marathon, and who, more than any other Greek, was endowed with the spirit of religion, interpreted the old mythology in an ethical sense, and in this form worked it into a series of dramas, whereby the history and institutions of the Greek people were shown to be due to a guiding Providence of inexorable justice, rewarding each man according to his works, abhorring proud homes "gilded with impurity of hands," and dwelling with the pure and righteous, though housedin the meanest cot. Æschylus thus became, not only the father of Greek tragedy, but also the sublimest moral teacher Greece ever possessed. For moral grandeur there is but one work in all literature that can stand by the side of Æschylus'Oresteia, and that is theDivine Comedy. Yet Æschylus was driven from Athens on a charge of impiety, and died in exile.
But it was not the tragic drama alone that was inspired and made a preacher of righteousness: in the hands of Aristophanes, the comic drama exerted all its power for the same end. For over thirty years this inimitable humorist used the public theatre to lash the follies, and hold up to contempt the wretched leaders, of the Athenian populace, pointing out to his countrymen the abyss of destruction that was yawning before them. The world has never seen such earnest comedy, not even in the works of Molière or Beaumarchais. Yet it was all in vain. Long before his death, Aristophanes was forbidden to hold up to public scorn the degradation of his people.
Among the individual citizens who labored with all their might to bring back Athens to her old worth were two of very different character, endowments, and position, the one laboring in the world of action, the other in the world of thought. The first was Pericles, who, seeing that democracy was the order of the day, accepted it, and, by his personal character and position, strove to guide it to worthy ends. In order to encourage gymnastic exercises, particularly among the sons of the newer families, he built the Lyceum, in a grove sacred to Apollo, between Cynosarges and the city walls, as a gymnasium for them.With a view to encouraging among them the study of music, he built an odeon, or music-hall, under the southeast end of the Acropolis. Both were magnificent structures. What he did towards the completion of the great theatre for the encouragement of dancing, we do not know; that this entered into his plan, there can hardly be any doubt. But Pericles was too wise a man to suppose that he could induce his pleasure-seeking countrymen to subject themselves to the old discipline, without offering them an object calculated to rouse their ambition and call forth their energy. This object was nothing less than a united Greece, with Athens as its capital. How hard he tried to make this object familiar to them, and to render Athens worthy of the place he desired her to occupy, is pathetically attested to this day by the Propylæa and the Parthenon. On the frieze of the latter is represented the solemn sacrifice that was to cement the union of the Hellenic people, and place it at the head of civilization. When degenerate Greece resisted all his efforts to make her become one peaceably, he tried to make her do so by force, and the Peloponnesian War, started on a mere frivolous pretext, was the result. He did not live long enough to learn the outcome of this desperate attempt to wake his countrymen to new moral and political life, and it was well. If he had, he might have been forced to recognize that he had been attempting an impossible task,—trying to erect a strong structure with rotten timber, to make a noble State out of ignoble, selfish men. Unfortunately, the example of his own private life, in which he openly defied one of the laws of theState, and tried to make concubinage (ἑταίρησις) respectable, more than undid all the good he sought to accomplish. The truth is, Pericles was himself too deeply imbued with the three vices of his time—rationalism, self-indulgence, and love of show—to be able to see any true remedy for the evils that sprang from them. What was needed was not letters, music, gymnastics, dancing, or dream of empire, but something entirely different—a new moral inspiration and ideal.
This, the second of the men to whom reference has been made, Socrates, sought to supply. In the midst of self-indulgence, he lived a life of poverty and privation; in the midst of splendor and the worship of outward beauty, he pursued simplicity and took pleasure in his ugliness; in the midst of self-assertive rationalism and all-knowing sophistry, he professed ignorance and submission to the gods. The problem of how to restore the moral life of Athens and Greece presented itself to Socrates in this form:The old ethical social sanctions, divine and human, having, under the influence of rationalism and individualism, lost their power, where and how shall we find other sanctions to take their place?To answer this one question was the aim of Socrates' whole life. He was not long in seeing that any true answer must rest upon a comprehension of man's entire nature and relations, and that the sophists were able to impose upon his countrymen only because no such comprehension was theirs. He saw that the old moral life, based upon naïve tradition and prescription, sanctioned by gods of the imagination, would have to give place to a moral life restingupon self-understanding and reflection. He accordingly adopted as his motto the command of the Delphic oracle,Know Thyself(γνῶθι σεαυτóν), and set to work with all his might to obey it.
He now, therefore, went to meet the sophists on their own ground and with their own methods, and he did this so well as to be considered by many, Aristophanes among them, as the best possible representative of the class. What is true is, that he was the first Athenian who undertook to do what the sophists had for some time considered their special function,—to impart a "higher education" to the youth and men of Athens. He went about the streets, shops, walks, schools, and gymnasia of the city, drawing all sorts of persons into conversation, and trying to elicit truth for himself and them (for he pretended to know nothing). He was never so pleased as when he met a real sophist, who professed to have knowledge, and never so much in his element as when, in the presence of a knot of young men, he could, by his ironical, subtle questions, force said sophist to admit that he too knew nothing. The fact was, Socrates, studying Heraclitus, had become convinced that the reason why men fell into error was because they did not know themselves, or their own thoughts, because what they called thoughts were mere opinions, mere fragments of thoughts. He concluded that, if men were ever to be redeemed from error, intellectual and moral, they must be made to think whole thoughts. Accordingly, he took the ordinary opinions of men and, by a series of well-directed questions, tried to bring out their implications, that is, the wholes ofwhich they were parts. Such is the Socratic or dialectic (= conversational) method. It does not pretend to impart any new knowledge, but merely, as Socrates said, to deliver the mind of the thoughts with which it is pregnant. And Socrates not only held that saving truth consisted of whole thoughts; he held also that all such thoughts were universally and necessarily true; that, while there might be many opinions about a thing, there could be but one truth, the same for all men, and therefore independent of any man. This was the exact opposite of what Protagoras the sophist had taught, the opposite of the gospel of individualism (seep. 93). Man is so far from being the measure of all things, that there is in all things a measure to which he must conform, if he is not to sink into error. This measure, this system of whole truths, implying an eternal mind to which it is present, and by which it is manifested in the world, is just what man arrives at, if he will but think out his thoughts in their completeness. In doing so, he at once learns the laws by which the universe is governed and finds a guide and sanction for his own conduct—a sanction no longer external and imposed by the State, but internal and imposed by the mind. A system like this involved a complete reversal of the old view of the relation between man and the State, and at the same time took the feet from under individualism. "It is true," said Socrates in effect, "that the individual, and not the State, is the source of all authority, the measure of all things; but he is so, not as individual, but as endowed with the universal reason by which the world, including the State, is governed." This is the sum and substance of Socrates' teaching, this is what he believed to be true self-knowledge. This is the truth whose application to life begins a new epoch in human history, and separates the modern from the ancient world; this is the truth that, reiterated and vivified by Christianity, forms the very life of our life to-day.
In adopting this view, Socrates necessarily formed "a party by himself," a party which could hope for no sympathy from either of the other two into which his countrymen were divided. The party of tradition charged him with denying the gods of his country and corrupting her youth; the radical party hated him because he convicted its champions of vanity, superficiality, and ignorance. Between them, they compassed his death, and Athens learnt, only when it was too late, that she had slain her prophet. But Socrates, though slain, was not dead. His spirit lived on, and the work which he had begun grew and prospered. Yet it could not save Athens, except upon a condition which she neither would nor could accept, that of remodelling her polity and the life of her citizens in accordance with divine truth and justice. Indeed, though he discovered a great truth, Socrates did not present it in a form in which it could be accepted under the given conditions. He himself even did not by any means see all the stupendous implications of his own principle, which, in fact, was nothing less than the ground of all true ethics, all liberty, and all science. It is doubtful whether any one sees them now, and certain that they have been nowhere realized. Still his truth and his life were not without their immediate effect upon Athens and Athenian education. Men, working in his spirit, and inspired with his truth, more or less clearly understood, almost immediately replaced the sophists in Athens, and drew the attention of her citizens, old and young, to the serious search for truth. In fact, from this time on, the intellectual tendency began to prevail over the gymnastic and musical, and this continued until, finally, it absorbed the whole life of the people, and Athens, from being a university-State, became a State-university. Such it was in the days of Cicero, Paul, Plutarch, Lucian, and Proclus. That this one-sided tendency was fatal to the political life of Athens, and therefore, in some degree, to its moral life, is clear enough; and, though we cannot hold Socrates personally responsible for this result, we must still admit that it was one which flowed from his system of thought. Personally, indeed, Socrates was a moral hero, and "five righteous" men like him, had they appeared, would have gone far to save Athens; but this very heroism, this inborn enthusiasm for righteousness, blinded him so far as to make him believe that men had only to know the right in order to be ready to follow it. Hence that exaggerated importance attached to right knowing, and that comparative neglect of right feeling and right doing, which in the sequel proved so paralyzing. Hence the failure of Socrates' teaching to stem the tide of corruption in Athens, and restore her people to heroism and worth.
Socrates left behind him many disciples, some of whom distinguished themselves in practical ways,others as founders of philosophic schools, emphasizing different sides of his teaching. He was but a few years in his grave when two of these were teaching regularly in the two old gymnasia of Athens. Plato, a full-blooded Athenian, was teaching in the Academy the intellectual and moral theories of his master, while Antisthenes, a half-breed (his mother being a Thracian), was inculcating the lesson of his heroic life in Cynosarges. Their followers were called, respectively, Academics and Cynics. Thus, by these two men, was the higher education for the first time introduced into the public institutions of Athens.
Socrates' aim, as we have seen, had been purely a moral one, and this fact was not lost sight of by his immediate followers. The chief question with them all was still: How can the people be brought back to moral life? But, thanks partly to the vagueness in which he had left the details of his doctrine, they were divided with respect to the means whereby this was to be accomplished. One party, best represented by Plato, and following most closely in the footsteps of the master, held that, man being essentially a social being, and morality a relation in society, it was only in and through a social order, a State, that virtue could be realized. Another party, represented by Antisthenes, maintained that virtue was a purely personal matter, and that the wise man stood high above any and all social institutions. These two views maintained themselves, side by side, in nearly all subsequent Greek thought, and at last found expression in the State and Church of the Christian world.
Two of Socrates' followers, believers in institutional morality, left behind them treatises which have come down to us, giving their views as to the manner in which virtue might be cultivated. These are the practical Xenophon and the theoretic Plato, both men of pure Athenian stock. Nothing will better enable us to comprehend the evils of the "New Education" than a consideration of the means by which these worthy men proposed to remedy them. Both are idealists and Utopians; but the former is conservative and reactionary, while the latter is speculative and progressive. Both are aiming at one thing—a virtuous and happy State, to replace the vicious and wretched one in which they found their lot cast; but they differed in their views regarding the nature of such a State, and the means of realizing it.
XENOPHON
Never a good is the rule of the many; let one be the ruler.—Homer.Wealth without Worth is no harmless housemate.—Sappho.One to me is ten thousand, if he be best.All the Ephesians, from youth up, ought to be hanged and the State left to the boys, because they cast out Hermodorus, the worthiest man amongst them, saying: 'No one of us shall be worthiest, else let him be so elsewhere and among others.'—Heraclitus.Reflecting once that, of the very small states, Sparta appeared to be the most powerful and the most renowned in Greece, I began to wonder in what way this had come about. But when I reflected upon the manners of the Spartans, I ceased to wonder. As to Lycurgus, who drew up for them the laws, by obedience to which they have prospered, I admire him and hold him to be, in the highest degree, a wise man. For he, instead of imitating other states, reached conclusions opposite to those of most, and thereby rendered his country conspicuous for prosperity.—Xenophon.
Never a good is the rule of the many; let one be the ruler.—Homer.
Wealth without Worth is no harmless housemate.—Sappho.
One to me is ten thousand, if he be best.
All the Ephesians, from youth up, ought to be hanged and the State left to the boys, because they cast out Hermodorus, the worthiest man amongst them, saying: 'No one of us shall be worthiest, else let him be so elsewhere and among others.'—Heraclitus.
Reflecting once that, of the very small states, Sparta appeared to be the most powerful and the most renowned in Greece, I began to wonder in what way this had come about. But when I reflected upon the manners of the Spartans, I ceased to wonder. As to Lycurgus, who drew up for them the laws, by obedience to which they have prospered, I admire him and hold him to be, in the highest degree, a wise man. For he, instead of imitating other states, reached conclusions opposite to those of most, and thereby rendered his country conspicuous for prosperity.—Xenophon.
Xenophonwas in no sense a philosopher or a practical teacher, but he was a man of sterling worth, of knightly courage, of wide and varied experience, of strong sagacity, and of genial disposition, a keen observer, and a charming writer. He was a true old Athenian puritan, broadened and softened by study and contact with the world. He hated democracy so cordially that he would not live in Athens to witness its vulgarity and disorder; but he loved his country, and desired to see its people restored to their ancient worth. He believed that this could be done only by some great, royal personality, like Lycurgus or Cyrus, enforcing a rigid discipline, and once more reducing the man to the citizen. Unwilling, probably, to hold up hated Sparta as a model to his beaten and smarting countrymen, he laid the scene of his pedagogical romance in far-off Persia.
In theEducation of Cyrus(Κύρου παιδεία) we have Xenophon's scheme for a perfect education. Despite the scene in which it is laid, it is purely Hellenic, made up of Athenian and Spartan elements in about equal proportions. For this reason also it has a special interest for us. As the portion of the treatise dealing directly with public education is brief, we can hardly do better than transcribe it in a translation.
"Cyrus is still celebrated in legend and song by the barbarians as a man of extraordinary personal beauty, and as of a most gentle, studious, and honor-loving disposition, which made him ready to undergo any labor, and brave any danger, for the sake of praise. Such is the account that has been handed down of his appearance and disposition. He was, of course, educated in accordance with the laws of the Persians. These laws seem to begin their efforts for the public weal at a different point from those of most other states; for most states, after allowing parents to educate their children as they please, and the older people even to spend their time according to their own preference, lay down such laws as: Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not rob, Thou shalt not commit burglary, Thou shalt not commit assault, Thou shalt not commitadultery, Thou shalt not disobey a magistrate, etc.; and if any one transgresses any of these laws, they inflict punishment on him. The Persian laws, on the contrary, provide beforehand that the citizens shall never, from the very first, have any disposition to commit a wicked or base act. And they do so in this way. They have what they call a Freemen's Square, where the royal palace and the other public buildings stand. From this square are removed all wares and chafferers, with their cries and vulgarities, to another place, so that their din and disorder may not interfere with the decorum of the cultivated class. This square in the neighborhood of the public buildings is divided into four parts, one for boys, one for youths (ἔφηβοι), one for mature men, and one for men beyond the military age. The hour when these shall appear in their places is settled by law. The boys and mature men come at daybreak, the older men when they think fit, except on the special days when they are bound to appear. The youths pass the night by the public buildings in light armor, only those who are married being excused. These are not hunted up, unless they have been ordered beforehand to appear; but it is not thought decent to be often absent. Each of these divisions is under the charge of twelve governors, one from each of the twelve tribes into which the Persians are divided. The governors of the boys are chosen from among the elderly men, with special view to their fitness for making the most of boys, while those of the youths are chosen from among the mature men upon a similar principle. Those of the mature men are selected with a view to their abilityto hold these to their regular duties, and to the special commands of the supreme authority. Even the old men have presidents appointed over them, who see that they perform their duty. What the duties of each are we shall now state, in order to show just how provision is made for securing the highest worth on the part of the citizens.
"First, then, the boys, when they go to school, spend their time in learning justice. They say they go for that purpose, just as our boys go to learn letters. Their governors spend the greater part of the day in acting as judges among them. It is needless to say that boys, as well as men, bring charges against each other of theft and robbery and violence and deceit and slander, and similar things, and those whom the judges find guilty of any of these they punish. But they also punish those whom they find bringing false charges. They pronounce judgment likewise on a charge which, more than anything else, makes men hate each other, and for which they are judged less than for any other, namely, ingratitude. If the judges find a boy in a position to return a favor and not doing it, they punish him severely, believing that persons who are ungrateful will, more than any others, be undutiful to the gods, to parents, country, and friends. It is generally held that ingratitude, more than aught else, leads to irreverence, and we need not add thatitis the prime mover in every form of baseness. They teach the boys also self-denial, and these are greatly aided in learning this virtue from seeing it daily practised by their elders. Another thing they teach them is obedience to those placed in authority overthem; and they are greatly aided in learning this, by seeing their elders strictly obeying their governors. Another thing yet which they teach them is self-discipline in matters of eating and drinking; and they are greatly aided in this by seeing that their elders never absent themselves for the purpose of eating, until they are permitted to do so by their governors, as well as by the fact that they (the boys) do not eat with their mothers, but with their teachers, and at a signal from their governors. As food, they bring with them from home bread, as a relish, nasturtium, and in order to drink, if they are thirsty, they bring an earthen cup to draw water from the river with. In addition to all these things, the boys learn to shoot with the bow and to throw the javelin. Up to the age of sixteen or seventeen years, these are the studies in which the boys engage; after that they are transferred to the class of cadets (ἔφηβοι).
"These cadets spend their time in this way: For ten years from the time when they graduate from the boys' class, they sleep, as we have already said, in the precincts of the public buildings, acting at once as a guard to the city and practising self-denial. It is generally agreed, indeed, that this is the age which especially requires attention. During the day they are at the disposal of their governors, and ready to perform any public service required. If no such service is demanded, they remain in the neighborhood of the public buildings. When the king goes out to hunt, which he does many times a month, he takes with him one-half of the tribes, and leaves the other behind. Those youths who accompany him must carry withthem bows and, in a sheath alongside their quivers, a bill or scimitar; also a light shield, and two javelins apiece, one to throw, the other to use, if necessary, at close quarters. For this reason they make hunting a matter of public concern, and the king, as in war, acts as their leader, hunts himself, and sees that the others hunt, the Persians being of opinion that this is the best of all preparations for war. And, indeed, it accustoms them to rise early, and to bear heat and cold; it affords them exercise in marching and running, and compels them to use their bows or their javelins upon wild animals, wherever they happen to come upon them. They are often forced, moreover, to sharpen their courage, when they find themselves face to face with some powerful animal. They must, of course, wound the one that comes to close quarters, and hold at bay the one that attacks them. Hence it is difficult to find in war anything that is absent from the chase. When they go out to hunt, the young men, of course, take with them a larger luncheon than the boys are allowed to have; but this is the only difference between the two. And while they are hunting, they sometimes do not lunch at all; but, if they have to remain beyond their time on account of some game, or otherwise, if they wish to prolong the chase, they make a dinner of this lunch, and on the following day continue the hunt till dinner-time, counting the two days one, because they consume only one day's food. And they do this for the sake of practice, so that, if ever they should run short of provisions in war, they may be able to do the same thing. These youths have as a relish what game they capture in the chase, otherwise they have nasturtium. And if any one thinks that they eat without pleasure, when they have only nasturtium with their food, or drink without pleasure, when they drink water, let him remember how sweet barley-cake and wheaten bread are when he is hungry, and how sweet water is when he is thirsty. The tribes that remain behind, when the king goes hunting, spend their time in the same studies which they pursued as boys, including shooting and javelin-casting, and in these continual contests are going on. There are likewise public exhibitions in them, at which prizes are offered; and whichever tribe contains most young men exceptionally proficient, manly, and steady, is commended by the citizens, who likewise honor, not only their present governor, but also the governor who had charge of them as boys. The young men who are left behind are also employed by the authorities, if any such service is required as manning a guard-house, tracking out malefactors, running down robbers, or anything demanding strength and swiftness. Such are the studies of the young men. And when they have passed ten years in these, they graduate into the class of mature men.
"From the date of this graduation, they spend five and twenty years more in the following manner: In the first place, like the young men, they place themselves at the disposal of the authorities for any public service requiring at once sagacity and unimpaired strength. If they are required to take the field in war, men proficient as they are go armed, no longer with bows and javelins, but with what are called hand-to-hand weapons, breast-plates, shields in their lefthands, such as we see in pictures of the Persians, and a sword or bill in their right. And all the officials are drawn from this class, except the boys' teachers. And when they have passed twenty-five years in this class, they are something more than fifty years of age. At that age they graduate into the class of elders, as, indeed, they are called.
"These elders no longer serve in war outside their own country, but, remaining at home, act as judges in public and private cases. They do so even in capital cases. They likewise choose all the officials, and if any person belonging to either of the classes of young and mature men neglects any of his lawful duties, the governor of his tribe, or any one else who pleases, may report him to the elders, and these, if they find the fact to be as reported, expel him from his tribe, and he who is expelled remains dishonored all his life.
"To give a clearer notion of the polity of the Persians as a whole, I will retrace my steps a little. After what has been said, this may be done in a very few words: The Persians, then, are said to number about one hundred and twenty thousand. Of these, none is excluded by law from honors or offices; but all Persians are allowed to send their sons to the public schools of justice. However, it is only those who are able to maintain their sons without employment that send them there: the rest do not. On the other hand, those that are educated by the public teachers are permitted to spend their youth among theephēboi, while those who have not completed this education are not. Again those that pass their youthamong theephēboi, and come up to the legal requirements, are allowed to graduate into the class of mature men, and to participate in honors and offices; whereas those who do not pass through the grade of theephēboido not rise to the class of mature men. Finally, those who complete the curriculum of the mature men without reproach, pass into the class of elders. Thus it is that this class of elders is composed of men who have passed through all the grades of culture. Such is the polity of the Persians, and such is the system of training whereby they endeavor to secure the highest worth."
This Utopian scheme of education has a peculiar interest, because it is nothing more or less than the old ideal of Greek education become fully conscious of itself, under the influence of the new ideal. Let us call attention to the main points of it. (1) The education here set forth is purely political: men are regarded simply and solely as citizens; all honors are civic honors. (2) No provision is made for the education of women, their range of activity being entirely confined to the family. (3) Distinction is made to rest upon education and conduct. (4) The poorer classes of the population, though not legally excluded from education, position, and power, are virtually excluded by their poverty, so that the government is altogether in the hands of the rich, and is, in fact, an aristocracy, while pretending to be a democracy: hence, (5) Social distinctions are distinctions of worth, which is just the Greek ideal.
There is, however, one point in the scheme which shows that it is reactionary, directed against prevailing tendencies. Not one word is said of the intellectual side of education, of music or letters. It is evident that Xenophon, himself a man of no mean literary attainments, clearly saw the dangers to Greek life and liberty involved in that exaggerated devotion to literary and intellectual pursuits which followed the teaching of the sophists and Socrates, and that, in order to check this perilous tendency, he drew up a scheme of education from which intellectual and literary pursuits are altogether excluded, in which justice takes the place of letters, and music is not mentioned.
This suggests a curious inquiry in respect to hisMemoirs of Socrates. This work has generally been regarded as giving us a more correct notion of the real, living Socrates than the manifestly idealizing works of Plato. But was not Xenophon, who could not fail to see the future power of Socrates' influence, as anxious as Plato to claim the prophet as the champion of his own views, and does not this fact determine the whole character of his work? Is it not a romance, in the same sense that theCyropædiais, with only this difference, that the facts of Socrates' life, being fairly well known to those for whom Xenophon was writing, could not be treated with the same freedom and disregard as those of Cyrus' life?