[Illustration: FIG. 6. AN ATHENIAN INSCRIPTION A decree of the Council and Assembly, dating from about 450 B.C. Note the difficulty of trying to read without any punctuation, and with only capital letters.]
Reading was taught by first learning the letters, then syllables, and finally words. [12] Plaques of baked earth, on which the alphabet was written, like the more modern horn-book (see Figure 130), were frequently used. [13] The ease with which modern children learn to read was unknown in Greece. Reading was very difficult to learn, as accentuation, punctuation, spacing between words, and small letters had not as yet been introduced. As a result the study required much time, [14] and much personal ingenuity had to be exercised in determining the meaning of a sentence. The inscription shown in Figure 6 will illustrate the difficulties quite well. The Athenian accent, too, was hard to acquire.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. GREEK WRITING-MATERIALS]
The pupil learned to write by first tracing, with the stylus, letters cut in wax tablets, and later by copying exercises set for him by his teacher, using the wax tablet and writing on his knee. Still later the pupil learned to write with ink on papyrus or parchment, though, due to the cost of parchment in ancient times, this was not greatly used. Slates and paper were of course unknown in Greece.
There was little need for arithmetic, and but little was taught. Arithmetic such as we teach would have been impossible with their cumbrous system of notation. [15] Only the elements of counting were taught, the Greek using his fingers or a counting-board, such as is shown in Figure 8, to do his simple reckoning.
[Illustration: FIG. 8 A GREEK COUNTING-BOARD Pebbles of different size or color were used for thousands, hundreds, tens, and units. Their position on the board gave them their values. The board now shows the total 15,379.]
GREAT IMPORTANCE OF READING AND LITERATURE. After the pupil had learned to read, much attention was given to accentuation and articulation, in order to secure beautiful reading. Still more, in reading or reciting, the parts were acted out. The Greeks were a nation of actors, and the recitations in the schools and the acting in the theaters gave plenty of opportunity for expression. There were no schoolbooks, as we know them. The master dictated and the pupils wrote down, or, not uncommonly, learned by heart what the master dictated. Ink and parchment were now used, the boy making his own schoolbooks. Homer was the first and the great reading book of the Greeks, theIliadand theOdysseybeing the Bible of the Greek people. Then followed Hesiod, Theognis, the Greek poets, and the fables of Aesop. [16] Reading, declamation, and music were closely interrelated. To appeal to the emotions and to stir the will along moral and civic lines was a fundamental purpose of the instruction (R. 5). A modern writer well characterizes the ancient instruction in literature in the following words:
By making the works of the great poets of the Greek people the material of their education, the Athenians attained a variety of objects difficult of attainment by any other one means. The fact is, the ancient poetry of Greece, with its finished form, its heroic tales and characters, its accounts of peoples far removed in time and space, its manliness and pathos, its directness and simplicity, its piety and wisdom, its respect for law and order, combined with its admiration for personal initiative and worth, furnished, in the hands of a careful and genial teacher, a material for a complete education such as could not well be matched even in our own day. What instruction in ethics, politics, social life, and manly bearing could not find a fitting vehicle in the Homeric poems, not to speak of the geography, the grammar, the literary criticism, and the history which the comprehension of them involved? Into what a wholesome, unsentimental, free world did these poems introduce the imaginative Greek boy! What splendid ideals of manhood and womanhood did they hold up for his admiration and imitation! From Hesiod he would learn all that he needed to know about his gods and their relation to him and his people. From the elegiac poets he would derive a fund of political and social wisdom, and an impetus to patriotism, which would go far to make him a good man and a good citizen. From the iambic poets he would learn to express with energy his indignation at meanness, feebleness, wrong, and tyranny, while from the lyric poets he would learn the language suitable to every genial feeling and impulse of the human heart. And in reciting or singing all these, how would his power of terse, idiomatic expression, his sense of poetic beauty and his ear for rhythm and music be developed! With what a treasure of examples of every virtue and vice, and with what a fund of epigrammatic expression would his memory be furnished! How familiar he would be with the character and ideals of his nation, how deeply in sympathy with them! And all this was possible even before the introduction of letters. With this event a new era in education begins. The boy now not only learns and declaims his Homer, and sings his Simonides or Sappho; he learns also to write down their verses from dictation, and so at once to read and to write. This, indeed, was the way in which these two (to us) fundamental arts were acquired. As soon as the boy could trace with his finger in sand, or scratch with a stylus on wax, the forms of the letters, and combine them into syllables and words, he began to write poetry from his master's dictation. The writing-lesson of to-day was the reading, recitation, or singing-lesson of to-morrow. Every boy made his own reading book, and, if he found it illegible, and stumbled in reading, he had only himself to blame. The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, laid the greatest stress on reading well, reciting well, and singing well, and the youth who could not do all three was looked upon as uncultured. Nor could he hide his want of culture, since young men were continually called upon, both at home and at more or less public gatherings, to perform their part in the social entertainment. [17]
[Illustration: FIG. 9. AN ATHENIAN SCHOOL From a cup discovered at Caere, signed by the painter Duris, and now in the Museum of Berlin.
A LESSON IN MUSIC AND LANGUAGEExplanation: At the right is thepaidagogos; he is seated, and turns his head to look at his pupil, who is standing before his master. The latter holds a writing-tablet and a stylus; he is perhaps correcting a task. At the left a pupil is taking a music lesson. On the wall are hung a roll of manuscript, a folded writing- tablet, a lyre, and an unknown cross-shaped object.
A LESSON IN MUSIC AND POETRYExplanation: At the right sits, cross- legged, thepaidagogos, who has just brought in his pupil. The boy stands before the teacher of poetry and recites his lesson. The master, in a chair, holds in his hand a roll which he is unfolding, upon which we see Greek letters. Above these three figures we see on the wall a cup, a lyre, and a leather case of flutes. To the bag is attached the small box containing mouthpieces of different kinds for the flutes. Farther on a pupil is receiving a lesson in music. The master and pupil are both seated on seats without backs. The master, with head erect, looks at the pupil who, bent over his lyre, seems absorbed in his playing. Above are hanging a basket, a lyre, and a cup. On the wall is an inscription in Greek.]
THE MUSIC SCHOOL. The teacher in this school gradually separated himself from the grammatist, and often the two were found in adjoining rooms in the same school. In his functions he succeeded the wandering poet or minstrel of earlier times. Music teachers were common in all the City- States of Greece. To this teacher the boy went at first to recite his poetry, and after the thirteenth year for a special music course. The teacher was known as acitharist, and the instrument usually used was the seven-stringed lyre. This resembled somewhat our modern guitar. The flute was also used somewhat, but never grew into much favor, partly because it tended to excite rather than soothe, and partly because of the contortions of the face to which its playing gave rise. Rhythm, melody, and the feeling for measure and time were important in instruction, whose office was to soothe, purge, and harmonize man within and make him fit for moral instruction through the poetry with which their music was ever associated. Instead of being a distinct art, as with us, and taught by itself, music with the Greeks was always subsidiary to the expression of the spirit of their literature, and in aim it was for moral-training ends. [18] Both Aristotle and Plato advocate state control of school music to insure sound moral results. Inferior as their music was to present-day music, it exerted an influence over their lives which it is difficult for an American teacher to appreciate.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. GREEK SCHOOL LESSONS
THE SINGING LESSON The boy is singing, to the accompaniment of a flute. On the wall hangs a bag of flutes.
THE LITERATURE LESSON The boy is reciting, while the teacher follows him on a roll of manuscript.]
The first lessons taught the use of the instrument, and the simple chants of the religious services were learned. As soon as the pupil knew how to play, the master taught him to render the works of the great lyric poets of Greece. Poetry and music together thus formed a single art. At thirteen a special music course began which lasted until sixteen, but which only the sons of the more well-to-do citizens attended. Every boy, though, learned some music, not that he might be a musician, but that he might be musical and able to perform his part at social gatherings and participate in the religious services of the State. Professional playing was left to slaves and foreigners, and was deemed unworthy a free man and a citizen. Professionalism in either music or athletics was regarded as disgraceful. The purpose of both activities was harmonious personal development, which the Greeks believed contributed to moral worth.
THE PALAESTRA; GYMNASTICS. Very unlike our modern education, fully one half of a boy's school life, from eight to sixteen, was given to sports and games in another school under different teachers, known as the palaestra. The work began gradually, but by fifteen had taken precedence over other studies. As in music, harmonious physical development and moral ends were held to be of fundamental importance. The standards of success were far from our modern standards. To win the game was of little significance; the important thing was to do the part gracefully and, for the person concerned, well. To attain to a graceful and dignified carriage of the body, good physical health, perfect control of the temper, and to develop quickness of perception, self-possession, ease, and skill in the games were the aims—not mere strength or athletic prowess (R. 2). Only a few were allowed to train for participation in the Olympian games.
The work began with children's games, contests in running, and ball games of various kinds. Deportment—how to get up, walk, sit, and how to achieve easy manners—was taught by the masters. After the pupils came to be a little older there was a definite course of study, which included, in succession: (1) leaping and jumping, for general bodily and lung development; (2) running contests, for agility and endurance; (3) throwing the discus, [19] for arm exercise; (4) casting the javelin, for bodily poise and coördination of movement, as well as for future use in hunting; (5) boxing and wrestling, for quickness, agility, endurance, and the control of the temper and passions. Swimming and dancing were also included for all, dancing being a slow and graceful movement of the body to music, to develop grace of motion and beauty of form, and to exercise the whole human being, body and soul. The minuet and some of our folk- dancing are our nearest approach to the Greek type of dancing, though still not like it. The modern partner dance was unknown in ancient Greece.
The exercises were performed in classes, or in small groups. They took place in the open air, and on a dirt or sandy floor. They were accompanied by music—usually the flute, played by a paid performer. A number of teachers looked after the boys, examining them physically, supervising the exercises, directing the work, and giving various forms of instruction.
THE GYMNASIAL TRAINING, SIXTEEN TO EIGHTEEN. Up to this point the education provided was a private and a family affair. In the home and in the school the boy had now been trained to be a gentleman, to revere the gods, to be moral and upright according to Greek standards, and in addition he had been given that training in reading, writing, music, and athletic exercises that the State required parents to furnish. It is certain that many boys, whose parents could ill afford further expense for schooling, were allowed to quit the schools at from thirteen to fifteen. Those who expected to become full citizens, however, and to be a part of the government and hold office, were required to continue until twenty years of age. Two years more were spent in schooling, largely athletic, and two years additional in military service. Of this additional training, if his parents chose and could afford it, the State now took control.
[Illustration: FIG. II. GROUND-PLAN OF THE GYMNASIUM AT EPHESOS, IN ASIA MINORExplanation:A, B, C, pillared corridors, or portico; D, an open space, possibly a palaestra, evidently intended to supply the peristylium; E, a long, narrow hall used for games of ball; F, a large hall with seats; G, in which was suspended a sack filled with chaff for the use of boxers; H, where the young men sprinkled themselves with dust; I, the cold bath; K, where the wrestling-master anointed the bodies of the contestants; L, the cooling-off room; M, the furnace-room; N, the vapor bath; 0, the dry- sweating apartment; P, the hot bath; Q, Q', rooms for games, for the keepers, or for other uses; R, R', covered stadia, for use in bad weather; S, S, S, S, S, rows of seats, looking upon T, the uncoveredstadium; U, groves, with seats and walks among the trees; V, V', recessed seats for the use of philosophers, rhetoricians, and others.]
For the years from sixteen to eighteen the boy attended a stategymnasium, of which two were erected outside of Athens by the State, in groves of trees, in 590 B.C. Others were erected later in other parts of Greece. Figure 11 shows the ground plan of one of thesegymnasia, and a study of the explanation of the plan will reveal the nature of these establishments. The boy now had for teachers a number of gymnasts of ability. The old exercises of thepalaestrawere continued, but running, wrestling, and boxing were much emphasized. The youth learned to run in armor, while wrestling and boxing became more severe. He also learned to ride a horse, to drive a chariot, to sing and dance in the public choruses, and to participate in the public state and religious processions.
Still more, the youth now passed from the supervision of a family pedagogue to the supervision of the State. For the first time in his life he was now free to go where he desired about the city; to frequent the streets, market-place, and theater; to listen to debates and jury trials, and to witness the great games; and to mix with men in the streets and to mingle somewhat in public affairs. He saw little of girls, except his sisters, but formed deep friendships with other young men of his age. [20] Aside from a requirement that he learn the laws of the State, his education during this period was entirely physical and civic. If he abused his liberty he was taken in hand by public officials charged with the supervision of public morals. He was, however, still regarded as a minor, and his father (or guardian) was held responsible for his public behavior.
THE CITIZEN-CADET YEARS, EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY. The supervision of the State during the preceding two years had in a way been joint with that of his father; now the State took complete control. At the age of eighteen his father took him before the proper authorities of his district or ward in the city, and presented him as a candidate for citizenship. He was examined morally and physically, and if sound, and if the records showed that he was the legitimate son of a citizen, his name was entered on the register of his ward as a prospective member of it (R. 4). His long hair was now cut, he donned the black garb of the citizen, was presented to the people along with others at a public ceremony, was publicly armed with a spear and a shield, and then, proceeding to one of the shrines of the city, on a height overlooking it, he solemnly took the Ephebic oath:
I will never disgrace these sacred arms, nor desert my companion in the ranks. I will fight for temples and public property, both alone and with many. I will transmit my fatherland, not only not less, but greater and better, than it was transmitted to me. I will obey the magistrates who may at any time be in power. I will observe both the existing laws and those which the people may unanimously hereafter make, and, if any person seek to annul the laws or to set them at naught, I will do my best to prevent him, and will defend them both alone and with many. I will honor the religion of my fathers. And I call to witness Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, and Hegemone.
He was now anEphebos, or citizen-cadet, with still two years of severe training ahead of him before he could take up the full duties of citizenship. The first year he spent in and near Athens, learning to be a soldier. He did what recruits do almost everywhere—drill, camp in the open, learn the army methods and discipline, and march in public processions and take part in religious festivals. This first year was much like that of new troops in camp being worked into real soldiers. At the end of the year there was a public drill and inspection of the cadets, after which they were sent to the frontier. It was now his business to come to know his country thoroughly—its topography, roads, springs, seashores, and mountain passes. He also assisted in enforcing law and order throughout the country districts, as a sort of a state constabulary or rural police. At the end of this second year of practical training the second examination was held, the cadet was now admitted to full citizenship, and passed to the ranks of a trained citizen in the reserve army of defense, as does a boy in Switzerland to-day (R. 4).
RESULTS UNDER THE OLD GREEK SYSTEM. Such was the educational system which was in time evolved from the earlier tribal practices of the citizens of old Athens. If we consider Sparta as representing the earlier tribal education of the Greek peoples, we see how far the Athenians, due to their wonderful ability to make progress, were able to advance beyond this earlier type of preparation for citizenship (R. 5). Not only did Athens surpass all Greece, but, for the first time in the history of the world, we find here, expressing itself in the education of the young, the modern western, individualistic and democratic spirit, as opposed to the deadening caste and governmental systems of the East. Here first we find a free people living under political conditions which favored liberty, culture, and intellectual growth, and using their liberty to advance the culture and the knowledge of the people (R. 6).
Here also we find, for the first time, the thinkers of the State deeply concerned with the education of the youth of the State, and viewing education as a necessity to make life worth living and secure the State from dangers, both within and without. To prepare men by a severe but simple and honest training to fear the gods, to do honest work, to despise comfort and vice, to obey the laws, to respect their neighbors and themselves, and to reverence the wisdom of their race, was the aim of this old education. The schooling for citizenship was rigid, almost puritanical, but it produced wonderful results, both in peace and in war. [21] Men thus trained guided the destinies of Athens during some two centuries, and the despotism of the East as represented by Persia could not defeat them at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.
THE SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM. The simplicity of the curriculum was one of its marked features. In a manner seldom witnessed in the world's educational history, the Greeks used their religion, literature, government, and the natural activities of young men to impart an education of wonderful effectiveness. [22] The subjects we have valued so highly for training were to them unknown. They taught no arithmetic or grammar, no science, no drawing, no higher mathematics, and no foreign tongue. Music, the literature and religion of their own people, careful physical training, and instruction in the duties and practices of citizenship constituted the entire curriculum.
It was an education by doing; not one of learning from books. That it was an attractive type of education there is abundant testimony by the Greeks themselves. We have not as yet come to value physical education as did the Greeks, nor are we nearly so successful in our moral education, despite the aid of the Christian religion which they did not know. It was, to be sure, class education, and limited to but a small fraction of the total population. In it girls had no share. There were many features of Greek life, too, that are repugnant to modern conceptions. Yet, despite these limitations, the old education of Athens still stands as one of the most successful in its results of any system of education which has been evolved in the history of the world. Considering its time and place in the history of the world and that it was a development for which there were nowhere any precedents, it represented a very wonderful evolution.
1. Why are imaginative ability and many-sided natures such valuable characteristics for any people?
2. Why is the ability to make progressive changes, possessed so markedly by the Athenian Greeks, an important personal or racial characteristic?
3. Are the Athenian characteristics, stated in the middle of page 19, characteristics capable of development by training, or are they native, or both?
4. How do you explain the Greek failure to achieve political unity?
5. Would education for citizenship with us to-day possess the same defects as in ancient Greece? Why? Do we give an equivalent training?
6. Which is the better attitude for a nation to assume toward the foreigner—the Greek, or the American? Why?
7. Why does a state military socialism, such as prevailed at Sparta, tend to produce a people of mediocre intellectual capacity?
8. How do you account for the Athenian State leaving literary and musical education to private initiative, but supporting stategymnasia?
9. Would the Athenian method of instruction have been possible had all children in the State been given an education? Why?
10. How did the education of an Athenian girl differ from that of a girl in the early American colonies?
11. Why did the Greek boy need three teachers, whereas the American boy is taught all and more by one primary teacher?
12. Contrast the Greek method of instruction in music, and the purposes of the instruction, with our own.
13. How could we incorporate into our school instruction some of the important aspects of Greek instruction in music?
14. What do you think of the contentions of Aristotle and Plato that the State should control school music as a means of securing sound moral instruction?
15. Does the Greek idea that a harmonious personal development contributes to moral worth appeal to you? Why?
16. Contrast the Greek ideal as to athletic training with the conception of athletics held by an average American schoolboy.
17. Contrast the education of a Greek boy at sixteen with that of an American boy at the same age.
18. Contrast the emphasis placed on expression as a method in teaching in the schools of Athens and of the United States.
19. Do the needs of modern society and industrial life warrant the greater emphasis we place on learning from books, as opposed to the learning by doing of the Greeks?
20. Compare the compulsory-school period of the Greeks with our own. If we were to add some form of compulsory military training, for all youths between eighteen and twenty, and as a preparedness measure, would we approach still more nearly the Greek requirements?
21. Explain how the Athenian Greeks reconciled the idea of social service to the State with the idea of individual liberty, through a form of education which developed personality. Compare this with our American ideal.
22. The Greek schoolboy had no long summer vacation, as do American children. Is there any special reason why we need it more than did they?
23. Do we believe that virtue can be taught in the way the Hellenic peoples did? Do we carry such a belief into practice?
In the accompanyingBook of Readingsthe following selections are reproduced:
1. Plutarch: Ancient Education in Sparta. 2. Plato: An Athenian Schoolboy's Life. 3. Lucian: An Athenian Schoolboy's Day. 4. Aristotle: Athenian Citizenship and the Ephebic Years. 5. Freeman: Sparta and Athens compared. 6. Thucydides: Athenian Education summarized.
1. Describe and characterize the Laws which Lycurgus framed for Spartan training (1).
2. Describe and characterize the instruction of the Ireus at Sparta. Compare with the training given among the best of the American Indian tribes (1).
3. Contrast the type of education given an Athenian and a Spartan boy, as to nature and purpose and character (1 and 2).
4. What degree of State supervision of education is indicated by Plato (2)? By Freeman (5)?
5. Compare an Athenian school day as described by Lucian (3) with a school day in a modern Gary-type school.
6. Compare the Ephebic years of an Athenian youth (4) with those of a Spartan youth (1).
7. What were some of the chief defects of Athenian schools (5)?
8. What was the position of the State in the matter of the education of youth (5)?
9. What were the great merits of the Athenian educational and political system of training (6)?
(For SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES, see following chapter.)
POLITICAL EVENTS: THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREECE. The Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) has long been considered one of the "decisive battles of the world." Had the despotism of the East triumphed here, and in the subsequent campaign that ended in the defeat of the Persian fleet at Salamis (480 B.C.) and of the Persian army at Plataea (479 B.C.), the whole history of our western world would have been different. The result of the war with Persia was the triumph of this new western democratic civilization, prepared and schooled for great national emergencies by a severe but effective training, over the uneducated hordes led to battle by the autocracy of the East. This was the first, but not the last, of the many battles which western democracy and civilization has had to fight to avoid being crushed by autocracy and despotism. Marathon broke the dread spell of the Persian name and freed the more progressive Greeks to pursue their intellectual and political development. Above all it revealed the strength and power of the Athenians to themselves, and in the half-century following the most wonderful political, literary, and artistic development the world had ever known ensued, and the highest products of Greek civilization were attained. Attica had braved everything for the common cause of Greece, even to leaving Athens to be burned by the invader, and for the next fifty years she held the position of political as well as cultural preëminence among the Greek City-States. Athens now became the world center of wealth and refinement and the home of art and literature (R. 7), and her influence along cultural lines, due in part to her mastery of the sea and her growing commerce, was now extended throughout the Mediterranean world.
From 479 to 431 B.C. was the Golden Age of Greece, and during this short period Athens gave birth to more great men—poets, artists, statesmen, and philosophers—than all the world beside had produced [1] in any period of equal length. Then, largely as a result of the growing jealousy of military Sparta came that cruel and vindictive civil strife, known as the Peloponnesian War, which desolated Greece, left Athens a wreck of her former self, permanently lowered the moral tone of the Greek people, and impaired beyond recovery the intellectual and artistic life of Hellas. For many centuries Athens continued to be a center of intellectual achievement, and to spread her culture throughout a new and a different world, but her power as a State had been impaired forever by a revengeful war between those who should have been friends and allies in the cause of civilization.
TRANSITION FROM OLD TO THE NEW. As early as 509 B.C. a new constitution had admitted all the free inhabitants of Attica to citizenship, and the result was a rapid increase in the prestige, property, and culture of Athens. Citizenship was now open to the commercial classes, and no longer restricted to a small, properly born, and properly educated class. Wealth now became important in giving leisure to the citizen, and was no longer looked down upon as it had been in the earlier period. After the Peloponnesian War the predominance of Attica among the Greek States, the growth of commerce, the constant interchange of embassies, the travel overseas of Athenian citizens, and the presence of many foreigners in the State all alike led to a tolerance of new ideas and a criticism of old ones which before had been unknown. A leisure class now arose, and personal interest came to have a larger place than before, with a consequent change in the earlier conceptions as to the duty of the citizen to the State. Literature lost much of its earlier religious character, and the religious basis of morality [2] began to be replaced by that of reason. Philosophy was now called upon to furnish a practical guide for life to replace the old religious basis. A new philosophy in which "man was the measure of all things" arose, and its teachers came to have large followings. The old search for an explanation of the world of matter [3] was now replaced by an attempt to explain the world of ideas and emotions, with a resulting evolution of the sciences of philosophy, ethics, and logic. It was a period of great intellectual as well as political change and expansion, and in consequence the old education, which had answered well the needs of a primitive and isolated community, now found itself but poorly adapted to meet the larger needs of the new cosmopolitan State. [4] The result was a material change in the old education to adapt it to the needs of the new Athens, now become the intellectual center of the civilized world.
CHANGES IN THE OLD EDUCATION. A number of changes in the character of the old education were now gradually introduced. The rigid drill of the earlier period began to be replaced by an easier and a more pleasurable type of training. Gymnastics for personal enjoyment began to replace drill for the service of the State, and was much less rigid in type. The old authors, who had rendered important service in the education of youth, began to be replaced by more modern writers, with a distinct loss of the earlier religious and moral force. New musical instruments, giving a softer and more pleasurable effect, took the place of the seven-stringed lyre, and complicated music replaced the simple Doric airs of the earlier period. Education became much more individual, literary, and theoretical. Geometry and drawing were introduced as new studies. Grammar and rhetoric began to be studied, discussion was introduced, and a certain glibness of speech began to be prized. The citizen-cadet years, from sixteen to twenty, formerly devoted to rather rigorous physical training, were now changed to school work of an intellectual type.
NEW TEACHERS; THE SOPHISTS. New teachers, known as Sophists, who professed to be able to train men for a political career, [5] began to offer a more practical course designed to prepare boys for the newer type of state service. These in time drew many Ephebes into their private schools, where the chief studies were on the content, form, and practical use of the Greek language. Rhetoric and grammar before long became the master studies of this new period, as they were felt to prepare boys better for the new political and intellectual life of Hellas than did the older type of training. In the schools of the Sophists boys now spent their time in forming phrases, choosing words, examining grammatical structure, and learning how to secure rhetorical effect. Many of these new teachers made most extravagant claims for their instruction (R. 8) and drew much ridicule from the champions of the older type of education, but within a century they had thoroughly established themselves, and had permanently changed the character of the earlier Greek education.
By 350 B.C. we find that Greek school education had been differentiated into three divisions, as follows:
1.Primary education, covering the years from seven or eight to thirteen, and embracing reading, writing, arithmetic, and chanting. The teacher of this school came to be known as agrammatist.
2.Secondary education, covering the years from thirteen to sixteen, and embracing geometry, drawing, and a special music course. Later on some grammar and rhetoric were introduced into this school. The teacher of this school came to be known as agrammaticus.
3.Higher or university education, covering the years after sixteen.
THE FLOOD OF INDIVIDUALISM. This period of artistic and intellectual brilliancy of Greece following the Peloponnesian War marked the beginning of the end of Greece politically. The war was a blow to the strength of Greece from which the different States never recovered. Greece was bled white by this needless civil strife. The tendencies toward individualism in education were symptomatic of tendencies in all forms of social and political life. The philosophers—Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle—proposed ideal remedies for the evils of the State, [6] but in vain. The old ideal of citizenship died out. Service to the State became purely subordinate to personal pleasure and advancement. Irreverence and a scoffing attitude became ruling tendencies. Family morality decayed. The State in time became corrupt and nerveless. Finally, in 338 B.C., Philip of Macedon became master of Greece, and annexed it to the world empire which he and his son Alexander created. Still later, in 146 B.C., the new world power to the west, Rome, conquered Greece and made of it a Roman province.
Though dead politically, there now occurred the unusual spectacle of "captive Greece taking captive her rude conqueror," and spreading Greek art, literature, philosophy, science, and Greek ideas throughout the Mediterranean world. It was the Greek higher learning that now became predominant and exerted such great influence on the future of our world civilization. It remains now to trace briefly the development and spread of this higher learning, and to point out how thoroughly it modified the thinking of the future.
NEW SCHOOLS; SOCRATES. In the beginning each Sophist teacher was a free lance, and taught what he would and in the manner he thought best. Many of them made extraordinary efforts to attract students and win popular approval and fees. Plato represents the Sophist Protagoras as saying, with reference to a youth ambitious for success in political life, "If he comes to me he will learn that which he comes to learn." At first the instruction was largely individual, but later classes were organized. Isocrates, who lived from 436 to 338 B.C., organized the instruction for the first time into a well-graded sequence of studies, with definite aims and work (R. 8). He shifted the emphasis in instruction from training for success in argumentation, to training to think clearly and to express ideas properly. His pupils were unusually successful, and his school did much to add to the fame of Athens as an intellectual center. From his work sprang a large number of so called Rhetorical Schools, much like our better private schools and academies, offering to those Ephebes who could afford to attend a very good preparation for participation in the public life of the period.
In contrast with the Sophists, a series of schools of philosophy also arose in Athens. These in a way were the outgrowth of the work of Socrates. Accepting the Sophists' dictum that "man is the measure of all things," he tried to turn youths from the baser individualism of the Sophists of his day to the larger general truths which measure the life of a true man. In particular he tried to show that the greatest of all arts— the art of living a good life—called for correct individual thinking and a knowledge of the right. "Know thyself" was his great guiding principle. His emphasis was on the problems of everyday morality. Frankly accepting the change from the old education as a change that could not be avoided, he sought to formulate a new basis for education in personal morality and virtue, and as a substitute for the old training for service to the State. He taught by conversation, engaging men in argument as he met them in the street, and showing to them their ignorance (R. 9). Even in Athens, where free speech was enjoyed more than anywhere else in the world at that time, such a shrewd questioner would naturally make enemies, and in 399 B.C. at the age of seventy-one, he was condemned to death by the Athenian populace on the charge of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens.
[Illustration: FIG. 12 SOCRATES (469-399 B.C.)(After a marble bust in the Vatican Gallery, at Rome)]
Socrates' greatest disciple was a citizen of wealth by the name of Plato, who had abandoned a political career for the charms of philosophy, and to him we owe our chief information as to the work and aims of Socrates. In 386 B.C. he founded the Academy, where he passed almost forty years in lecturing and writing. His school, which formed a model for others, consisted of a union of teachers and students who possessed in common a chapel, library, lecture-rooms, and living-rooms. Philosophy, mathematics, and science were taught, and women as well as men were admitted.
Other schools of importance in Athens were the Lyceum, founded in 335 B.C. by a foreign-born pupil of Plato's by the name of Aristotle, who did a remarkable work in organizing the known knowledge of his time; [7] the school of the Stoics, founded by Zeno in 308 B.C.; and the school of the Epicureans, founded by Epicurus in 306 B.C. Each of these schools offered a philosophical solution of the problem of life, and Plato and Aristotle wrote treatises on education as well. Each school evolved into a form of religious brotherhood which perpetuated the organization after the death of the master. In time these became largely schools for expounding the philosophy of the founder.
[Illustration: FIG. 13. EVOLUTION OF THE GREEK UNIVERSITY]
THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS. Coincident with the founding of these schools and the political events we have previously recorded, certain further changes in Athenian education were taking place. The character of the changes in the education before the age of sixteen we have described. As a result in part of the development of the schools of the Sophists, which were in themselves only attempts to meet fundamental changes in Athenian life, the education of youths after sixteen tended to become literary, rather than physical and military. The Ephebic period of service (from eighteen to twenty) was at first reduced from two years to one, and after the Macedonian conquest, in 338 B.C., when there was no longer an Athenian State to serve or protect, the entire period of training was made optional. The Ephebic corps was now opened to foreigners, and in time became merely a fashionable semi-military group. Instead of the military training, attendance at the lectures of the philosophical schools was now required, and attendance at the rhetorical schools was optional. Later the philosophical schools were granted public support by the Athenian Assembly, professorships were created over which the Assembly exercised supervision, the rhetorical and philosophical schools were gradually merged, the study years were extended from two to six, or seven, a form of university life as regards both students and professors was developed, and what has since been termed "The University of Athens" was evolved. Figure 13 shows how this evolution took place.
As Athens lost in political power her citizens turned their attention to making their city a center of world learning. This may be said to have been accomplished by 200 B.C. Though Greece had long since become a Macedonian province, and was soon to pass under the control of Rome, the so-called University of Athens was widely known and much frequented for the next three hundred years, and continued in existence until finally closed, as a center of pagan thought, by the edict of the Roman-Christian Emperor, Justinian, in 529 A.D. Though reduced to the rank of a Roman provincial town, Athens long continued to be a city of letters and a center of philosophic and scientific instruction.
SPREAD AND INFLUENCE OF GREEK HIGHER EDUCATION. Alexander the Great rendered a very important service in uniting the western Orient and the eastern Mediterranean into a common world empire, and in establishing therein a common language, literature, philosophy, a common interest, and a common body of scientific knowledge and law. It was his hope to create a new empire, in which the distinction between European and Asiatic should pass away. No less than seventy cities were established with a view to holding his empire together. These served to spread Hellenic culture. Greek schools, Greek theaters, Greek baths, and Greek institutions of every type were to be found in practically all of them, and the Greek tongue was heard in them all. With Alexander the Great the history of Greek life, culture, and learning merges into that of the history of the ancient world. Everywhere throughout the new empire Greek philosophers and scientists, architects and artists, merchants and colonists, followed behind the Macedonian armies, spreading Greek civilization and becoming the teachers of an enlarged world. [8] "Greek cities stretched from the Nile to the Indus, and dotted the shores of the Black and the Caspian seas. The Greek language, once the tongue of a petty people, grew to be a universal language of culture, spoken even by barbarian lips, and the art, the science, the literature, the principles of politics and philosophy, developed in isolation by the Greek mind, henceforth became the heritage of many nations." [9]
Greek universities were established at Pergamum and Tarsus in Asia Minor; at Rhodes on the island of that name in the Aegean; and at the newly founded city of Alexandria in Egypt. Antioch, in Syria, became another important center of Greek influence and learning. A large library was developed at Pergamum, and it was here that writing on prepared skins of animals [10] was begun, from which the term "parchment" (originally "per- gament") comes. It was also at Pergamum that Galen (born c. 130 A.D.) organized what was then known of medical science, and his work remained the standard treatise for more than a thousand years. Rhodes became a famous center for instruction in oratory. During Roman days many eminent men, among whom were Cassius, Caesar, and Cicero, studied oratory here.
[Illustration: FIG. 14 THE GREEK UNIVERSITY WORLD]
MINGLING OF ORIENT AND OCCIDENT AT ALEXANDRIA. The most famous of all these Greek institutions, however, was the University of Alexandria, which gradually sapped Athens as a center of learning and became the intellectual capital of the world. The greatest library of manuscripts the world had ever known was collected together here. [11] It is said to have numbered over 700,000 volumes. These included Greek, Jewish, Egyptian, and Oriental works. In connection with the library was the museum, where men of letters and investigators were supported at royal expense. These two constituted an institution so like a university that it has been given that name. Alexandria became not only a great center of learning, but, still more important, the chief mingling place for Greek, Jew, Egyptian, Roman, and Oriental, and here Greek philosophy, Hebrew and Christian religion, and Oriental faith and philosophy met and mixed. It was this mingled civilization and culture, all tinged through and through with the Greek, with which the Romans came in contact as they pushed their conquering armies into the eastern Mediterranean (R. 10).
[Illustration: FIG. 15. THE KNOWN WORLD ABOUT 150 A.D. A map by Ptolemy, geographer and astronomer at Alexandria. Compare this with the map on page 4, and note the progress in geographical discovery which had been made during the intervening centuries.]
CHARACTER OF ALEXANDRIAN LEARNING. The great advances in knowledge made at Alexandria were in mathematics, geography, and science. The method of scientific investigation worked out by Aristotle at Athens was introduced and used. Instead of speculating as to phenomena and causes, as had been the earlier Greek practice, observation and experiment now became the rule. Euclid (c. 323-283 B.C.) opened a school at Alexandria as early as 300 B.C., and there worked out the geometry which is still used in our schools. Archimedes (287-212 B.C.), who studied under Euclid, made many important discoveries and advances in mechanics and physics. Eratosthenes (226-196 B.C.), librarian at Alexandria, is famous as a geographer [12] and astronomer, and made some studies in geology as well. Ptolemy (b.?; d. 168 A.D.) here completed his Mechanism of the Heavens (Syntaxis) in 138 A.D., and this became the standard astronomy in Europe for nearly fifteen hundred years, while his geography was used in the schools until well into the fifteenth century. The map of the known world, shown in Figure 15, was made by him. Hipparcus, the Newton of the Greeks, studied the heavens both at Alexandria and Rhodes, and counted the stars and arranged them in constellations. Many advances also were made in the study of medicine, the Alexandrian schools having charts, models, and dissecting rooms for the study of the human body, The functions of the brain, nerves, and heart were worked out there.
Except in science and mathematics, though, the creative ability of the earlier Greeks was now largely absent. Research, organization, and comment upon what had previously been done rather was the rule. Still much important work was done here. Books were collected, copied, and preserved, and texts were edited and purified from errors. Here grammar, criticism, prosody, and mythology were first developed into sciences. The study of archaeology was begun, and the first dictionaries were made. The translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek was begun for the benefit of the Alexandrian Jews who had forgotten their Mother tongue, this being the origin of the famousSeptuagint[13] version of the Old Testament. It is owing to these Alexandrian scholars, also, that we now possess the theory of Greek accents, and have good texts of Homer and other Greek writers.
ALEXANDRIA SAPPED IN TURN. In 30 B.C. Alexandria, too, came under Roman rule and was, in turn, gradually sapped by Rome. Greek influence continued, but the interest became largely philosophical. Ultimately Alexandria became the seat of a metaphysical school of Christian theology, and the scene of bitter religious controversies. In 330 A.D., Constantinople was founded on the site of the earlier Byzantium, and soon thereafter Greek scholars transferred their interest to it and made it a new center of Greek learning. There Greek science, literature, and philosophy were preserved for ten centuries, and later handed back to a Europe just awakening from the long intellectual night of the Middle Ages. In 640 A.D. Alexandria was taken by the Mohammedans, and the university ceased to exist. The great library was destroyed, furnishing, it is said, "fuel sufficient for four thousand public baths for a period of six months," and Greek learning was extinguished in the western world.
OUR DEBT TO HELLAS. As a political power the Greek States left the world nothing of importance. As a people they were too individualistic, and seemed to have a strange inability to unite for political purposes. To the new power slowly forming to the westward—Rome—was left the important task, which the Greek people were never able to accomplish, of uniting civilization into one political whole. The world conquest that Greece made was intellectual. As a result, her contribution to civilization was artistic, literary, philosophical, and scientific, but not political. The Athenian Greeks were a highly artistic and imaginative rather than a practical people. They spent their energy on other matters than government and conquest. As a result the world will be forever indebted to them for an art and a literature of incomparable beauty and richness which still charms mankind; a philosophy which deeply influenced the early Christian religion, and has ever since tinged the thinking of the western world; and for many important beginnings in scientific knowledge which were lost for ages to a world that had no interest in or use for science. So deeply has our whole western civilization been tinctured by Greek thought that one enthusiastic writer has exclaimed,—"Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin." [14] (R. 11)
In education proper the old Athenian education offers us many lessons of importance that we of to-day may well heed. In the emphasis they placed on moral worth, education of the body as well as the mind, and moderation in all things, they were much ahead of us. Their schools became a type for the cities of the entire Mediterranean world, being found from the Black Sea south to the Persian Gulf and westward to Spain. When Rome became a world empire the Greek school system was adopted, and in modified form became dominant in Rome and throughout the provinces, while the universities of the Greek cities for long furnished the highest form of education for ambitious Roman youths. In this way Greek influence was spread throughout the Mediterranean world. The higher learning of the Greeks, preserved first at Athens and Alexandria, and later at Constantinople, was finally handed back to the western world at the time of the Italian Revival of Learning, after Europe had in part recovered from the effects of the barbarian deluge which followed the downfall of Rome.
1. Try to picture what might have been the result for western civilization had the small and newly-developed democratic civilization of Greece been crushed by the Persians at the time they overran the Greek peninsula.
2. Do periods of great political, commercial, and intellectual expansion usually subject old systems of morality and education to severe strain? Illustrate.
3. Why was the change in the type of Athenian education during the Ephebic years a natural and even a necessary one for the new Athens?
4. Do you understand that the system of training before the Ephebic years was also seriously changed, or was the change largely a re-shaping and extension of the education of youths after sixteen?
5. Were the Sophists a good addition to the Athenian instructing force, or not? Why?
6. How may a State establish a corrective for such a flood of individualism as overwhelmed Greece, and still allow individual educational initiative and progress?
7. Do we as a nation face danger from the flood of individualism we have encouraged in the past? How is our problem like and unlike that of Athens after the Peloponnesian War?
8. What is the place in Greek life and thought of the ideal treatises on education written by Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, after the flood of individualism had set in?
9. In what ways was the conquest of Alexander good for world civilization?
10. Of what importance is it, in the history of our western civilization, that Greek thought had so thoroughly permeated the eastern Mediterranean world before Roman armies conquered the region?
11. Picture for yourself the great intellectual advances of the Greeks by contrasting the tribal preparedness-type of education of the early Greek States and the learning possessed by the scholars of the University at Alexandria.
12. Compare the spread of Greek language and knowledge throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, following the conquests of Alexander, with the spread of the English language and ideas as to government throughout the modern world.
In the accompanyingBook of Readingsthe following selections are reproduced:
7. Wilkins: Athens in the Time of Pericles.8. Isocrates: The Instruction of the Sophists.9. Xenophon: An Example of Socratic Teaching.10. Draper: The Schools of Alexandria.11. Butcher: What we Owe to Greece.
1. Characterize the many educational influences of Athens, as pictured by Wilkins (7).
2. Were the evils of the Sophist teachers, which Isocrates points out (8), natural ones? Compare with teachers of vocal training to-day.
3. What would be necessary for the proper training of one for eloquence? Could any Sophist teacher have trained anyone?
4. Would it be possible to-day for any one city to become such a center of the world's intellectual life as did Alexandria (10)? Why?
5. Could the Socratic method (9) be applied to instruction in psychology, ethics, history, and science equally well? Why? To what class of subjects is the Socratic quiz applicable?
6. How do you account for the fact that the wonderful promise of Alexandrian science was not fulfilled?
7. State our debt to the Greeks (11).
The most important references are indicated by an *
* Bevan, J. O.University Life in Olden Time.* Butcher, S. H.Some Aspects of the Greek Genius.* Davidson, Thos.Aristotle, and Ancient Educational Ideals.* Freeman, K. J.Schools of Hellas.Gulick, C. B.The Life of the Ancient Greeks.* Kingsley, Chas.Alexandria and her Schools.Laurie, S. S.Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education.* Mahaffy, J. P.Old Greek Education.Sandys, J. E.History of Classical Scholarship, vol. I.Walden, John W. H.The Universities of Ancient Greece.Wilkins, A. S.National Education in Greece in the FourthCentury, B.C.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN STATE. About the time that the Hellenes, in the City-States of the Greek peninsula, had brought their civilization to its Golden Age, another branch of the great Aryan race, which had previously settled in the Italian peninsula, had begun the creation of a new civilization there which was destined to become extended and powerful. At the beginning of recorded history we find a number of tribes of this branch of the Aryan race settled in different parts of Italy, as is shown in Figure 16. Slowly, but gradually, the smallest of these divisions, the Latins, extended its rule over the other tribes, and finally over the Greek settlements to the south and the Gauls to the north, so that by 201 B.C. the entire Italian peninsula had become subject to the City-State government at Rome.
[Illustration: FIG. 16. THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ITALY, AND THE EXTENSION OF THE ROMAN POWER In 509 B.C. Attica opened her citizenship to all free inhabitants, and half a century later the Golden Age of Greece was in full swing. By 338 B.C. Greece's glory had departed. Philip of Macedon had become master, and its political freedom was over. By 264 B.C. the center of Greek life and thought had been transferred to Alexandria, and Rome's great expansion had begun.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17. THE PRINCIPAL ROMAN ROADS]
By a wise policy of tolerance, patience, conciliation, and assimilation the Latins gradually became the masters of all Italy. Unlike the Greek City-States, Rome seemed to possess a natural genius for the art of government. Upon the people she conquered she bestowed the great gift of Roman citizenship, and she attached them to her by granting local government to their towns and by interfering as little as possible with their local manners, speech, habits, and institutions. By founding colonies among them and by building excellent military roads to them, she insured her rule, and by kindly and generous treatment she bound the different Italian peoples ever closer and closer to the central government at Rome. By a most wonderful understanding of the psychology of other peoples, new in the world before the work of Rome, and not seen again until the work of the English in the nineteenth century, Rome gradually assimilated the peoples of the Italian peninsula and in time amalgamated them into a single Roman race. In speech, customs, manners, and finally in blood she Romanized the different tribes and brought them under her leadership. Later this same process was extended to Spain, Gaul, and even to far-off Britain.
A CONCRETE, PRACTICAL PEOPLE. The Roman people were a concrete, practical, constructive nation of farmers and herdsmen (R. 14), merchants and soldiers, governors and executives. The whole of the early struggle of the Latins to extend their rule and absorb the other tribes of the peninsula called for practical rulers—warriors who were at the same time constructive statesmen and executives who possessed power and insight, energy, and personality. The long struggle for political and social rights, [1] carried on by the common people (plebeians) with the ruling class (patricians), tended early to shape their government along rough but practical lines, [2] and to elevate law and orderly procedure among the people. The later extension of the Empire to include many distant lands—how vast the Roman Empire finally became may be seen from the map on the following page—called still more for a combination of force, leadership, tolerance, patience, executive power, and insight into the psychology of subject people to hold such a vast empire together. Only a great, creative people, working along very practical lines, could have used and used so well the opportunity which came to Rome [3]
[Illustration: FIG. 18. THE GREAT EXTENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE The map shows the Roman Empire as it was by the end of the first century A.D., and the tribes shown beyond the frontier are as they were at the beginning of the fourth century A.D. It was 2500 miles, air line, from the eastern end of the Black Sea to the western coasts of Spain, 1400 miles from Rome to Palestine, and 1100 miles from Rome to northern Britain. To maintain order in this vast area Rome depended on the loyalty of her subjects, the strength of her armies, her military roads, and a messenger service by horse, yet throughout this vast area she imposed her law and a unified government for centuries.]
THE GREAT MISSION OF ROME. Had Rome tried to impose her rule and her ways and her mode of thought on her subject people, and to reduce them to complete subjection to her, as the modern German and Austrian Empires, for example, tried to do with the peoples who came under their control, the Roman Empire could never have been created, and what would have saved civilization from complete destruction during the period of the barbarian invasions is hard to see. Instead, Rome treated her subjects as her friends, and not as conquered peoples; led them to see that their interests were identical with hers; gave them large local independence and freedom in government, under her strong control of general affairs; opened up her citizenship [4] and the line of promotion in the State to her provincials; [5] and won them to the peace and good order which she everywhere imposed by the advantages she offered through a common language, common law, common coinage, common commercial arrangements, common state service, and the common treatment of all citizens of every race. [6] In consequence, the provincial was willingly absorbed into the common Roman race [7]—absorbed in dress, manners, religion, political and legal institutions, family names, and, most important of all, in language. As a result, race pride and the native tongues very largely disappeared, and Latin became the spoken language of all except the lower classes throughout the whole of the Western Empire. Only in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Hellenic tongue and the Hellenic civilization still dominated, did the Latin language make but little headway, and here Rome had the good sense not to try to impose her speech or her culture. Instead she absorbed the culture of the East, while the East accepted in return the Roman government and Roman law, and Latin in time became the language of the courts and of government.
Having stated thus briefly the most prominent characteristics of the Roman people, and indicated their great work for civilization, let us turn back and trace the development of such educational system as existed among them, see in what it consisted, how it modified the life and habits of thinking of the Roman people, and what educational organization or traditions Rome passed on to western civilization.
THE EARLY ROMANS AND THEIR TRAINING. In the early history of the Romans there were no schools, and it was not until about 300 B.C. that even primary schools began to develop. What education was needed was imparted in the home or in the field and in the camp, and was of a very simple type. Certain virtues were demanded—modesty, firmness, prudence, piety, courage, seriousness, and regard for duty—and these were instilled both by precept and example. Each home was a center of the religious life, and of civic virtue and authority. In it the father was a high priest, with power of life and death over wife and children. He alone conversed with the gods and prepared the sacrifices. The wife and mother, however, held a high place in the home and in the training of the children, the marriage tie being regarded as very sacred. She also occupied a respected position in society, and was complete mistress of the house (R. 17).
The religion of the city was an outgrowth of that of the home. Virtue, courage, duty, justice—these became the great civic virtues. Their religion, both family and state, lacked the beauty and stately ceremonial of the Greeks, lacked that lofty faith and aspiration after virtue that characterized the Hebrew and the later Christian faith, was singularly wanting in awe and mystery, and was formal and mechanical and practical [8] in character, but it exercised a great influence on these early peoples and on their conceptions of their duty to the State.
The father trained the son for the practical duties of a man and a citizen; the mother trained the daughter to become a good housekeeper, wife, and mother. Morality, character, obedience to parents and to the State, and whole-hearted service were emphasized. The boy's father taught him to read, write, and count. Stories of those who had done great deeds for the State were told, and martial songs were learned and sung. After 450 B.C. every boy had to learn the Laws of the Twelve Tables (R. 12), and be able to explain their meaning (R. 13). As the boy grew older he followed his father in the fields and in the public place and listened to the conversation of men. [9] If the son of a patrician he naturally learned much more from his father, by reason of his larger knowledge and larger contact with men of affairs and public business, than if he were the son of a plebeian. Through games as a boy, and later in the exercises of the fields and the camps, the boy gained what physical training he received. [10]
[Illustration: FIG. 19. A ROMAN FATHER INSTRUCTING HIS SON(From a Roman Sarcophagus)]
EDUCATION BY DOING. It was largely an education by doing, as was that of the old Greek period, though entirely different in character. Either by apprenticeship to the soldier, farmer, or statesman, or by participation in the activities of a citizen, was the training needed imparted. Its purpose was to produce good fathers, citizens, and soldiers. [11] Its ideals were found in the real and practical needs of a small State, where the ability to care for one's self was a necessary virtue. To be healthy and strong, to reverence the gods and the institutions of the State, to obey his parents and the laws, to be proud of his family connections and his ancestors, to be brave and efficient in war, to know how to farm or to manage a business, were the aims and ends of this early training. It produced a nation of citizens who willingly subordinated themselves to the interests of the State, [12] a nation of warriors who brought all Italy under their rule, a calculating, practical people who believed themselves destined to become the conquerors and rulers of the world, and a reserved and proud race, trained to govern and to do business, but not possessed of lofty ideals or large enthusiasms in life (Rs. 15, 16).
BEGINNINGS OF SCHOOL EDUCATION. Up to about 300 B.C. education had been entirely in the home, and in the activities of the fields and the State. It was a period of personal valor and stern civic virtue, in a rather primitive type of society, as yet but little in contact with the outside world, and little need of any other type of training had been felt. By the end of the third century B.C., the influence of contact with the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia), and the influence of the extensive conquests of Alexander the Great in the eastern Mediterranean (334-323 B.C.), had begun to be felt in Italy. By that time Greek had become the language of commerce and diplomacy throughout the Mediterranean, and Greek scholars and tradesmen had begun to frequent Rome. By 303 B.C. it seems certain that a few private teachers had set up primary schools at Rome to supplement the home training, and had begun the introduction of the pedagogue as a fashionable adjunct to attract attention to their schools. These schools, however, were only a fad at first, and were patronized only by a few of the wealthy citizens. Up to about 250 B.C., at least, Roman education remained substantially as it had been in the preceding centuries. Reading, writing, declamation, chanting, and the Laws of the Twelve Tables still constituted the subject-matter of instruction, and the old virtues continued to be emphasized.
By the middle of the third century B.C. Rome had expanded its rule to include nearly all the Italian peninsula (see Figure 16), and was transforming itself politically from a little rural City-State into an Empire, with large world relationships. A knowledge of Greek now came to be demanded both for diplomatic and for business reasons, and the need of a larger culture, to correspond with the increased importance of the State, began to be felt by the wealthier and better-educated classes. Greek scholars, brought in as captured slaves from the Greek colonies of southern Italy, soon began to be extensively employed as teachers and as secretaries.
About 233 B.C., Livius Andronicus, who had been brought to Rome as a slave when Tarentum, one of the Greek cities of southern Italy, was captured, [13] and who later had obtained his freedom, made a translation of the Odyssey into Latin, and became a teacher of Latin and Greek at Rome. This had a wonderful effect in developing schools and a literary atmosphere at Rome. TheOdysseyat once became the great school textbook, in time supplanting the Twelve Tables, and literary and school education now rapidly developed. The Latin language became crystallized in form, and other Greek works were soon translated. The beginnings of a native Latin literature were now made. Greek higher schools were opened, many Greek teachers and slaves offered instruction, and the Hellenic scheme of culture, as it had previously developed in Attica, soon became the fashion at Rome.
CHANGES IN NATIONAL IDEALS. The second century B.C. was even more a period of rapid change in all phases and aspects of Roman life. During this century Rome became a world empire, annexing Spain, Carthage, Illyria, and Greece, and during the century that followed she subjugated northern Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Gaul to the Elbe and the Danube (see Figure 18). Rome soon became mistress of the whole Mediterranean world. Her ships plied the seas, her armies and governors ruled the land. The introduction of wealth, luxuries, and slaves from the new provinces, which followed their capture, soon had a very demoralizing influence upon the people. Private and public religion and morality rapidly declined; religion came to be an empty ceremonial; divorce became common; wealth and influence ruled the State; slaves became very cheap and abundant, and were used for almost every type of service. From a land of farmers of small farms, sturdy and self-supporting, who lived simply, reared large families, feared the gods, respected the State, and made an honest living, it became a land of great estates and wealthy men, and the self-respecting peasantry were transformed into soldiers for foreign wars, or joined the rabble in the streets of Rome. [14] Wealth became the great desideratum, and the great avenue to this was through the public service, either as army commanders and governors, or as public men who could sway the multitude and command votes and influence. Manifestly the old type of education was not intended to meet such needs, and now in Rome, as previously in Athens, a complete transformation in the system of training for the young took place. The imaginative and creative Athenians, when confronted by a great change in national ideals, evolved a new type of education adapted to the new needs of the time; the unimaginative and practical Romans merely adopted that which the Athenians had created.
THE HELLENIZATION OF ROME. The result was the Hellenization of the intellectual life of Rome, making complete the Hellenization of the Mediterranean world. After the fall of Greece, in 146 B.C., a great influx of educated Greeks took place. As the Latin poet Horace expressed it:
Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror,And brought the arts to Latium.
So completely did the Greek educational system seem to meet the needs of the changed Roman State that at first the Greek schools were adopted bodily—Greek language, pedagogue, higher schools of rhetoric and philosophy, and all—and the schools were in reality Greek schools but slightly modified to meet the needs of Rome.Gymnasiawere erected, and wealthy Romans, as well as youths, began to spend their leisure in studying Greek and in trying to learn gymnastic exercises.
In time the national pride and practical sense of the Romans led them to open so-called "culture schools" of their own, modeled after the Greek. The Latin language then replaced the Greek as the vehicle of instruction, though Greek was still studied extensively, and Rome began the development of a system of private-school instruction possessing some elements that were native to Roman life and Roman needs.