book 7, chapter 4.

See, also, NABATHEANS; JEWS: THE EARLY HEBREW HISTORY; and AMALEKITES.

EDRED, King of Wessex, A. D. 947-955.

EDRISITES, The.

After the revolt of Moorish or Mahometan Spain from the caliphate of Bagdad, the African provinces of the Moslems assumed independence, and several dynasties became seated--among them that of the Edrisites, which founded the city and kingdom of Fez, and which reigned from A. D. 829 to 907.

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 52. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-750.

EDRISITES: End----------

EDUCATION.

EDUCATION: Ancient. Egypt.

"In the education of youth [the Egyptians] were particularly strict; and 'they knew,' says Plato, 'that children ought to be early accustomed to such gestures, looks, and motions as are decent and proper; and not to be suffered either to hear or learn any verses and songs other than those which are calculated to inspire them with virtue; and they consequently took care that every dance and ode introduced at their feasts or sacrifices should be subject to certain regulations.'"

_Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, volume 1. page 321._

"The children were educated according to their station and their future position in life. They were kept in strict subjection by their parents, and respect to old age was particularly inculcated; the children of the priests were educated very thoroughly in writing of all kinds, hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic, and in the sciences of astronomy, mathematics, etc. The Jewish deliverer Moses was educated after the manner of the priests, and the 'wisdom of the Egyptians' became a proverbial expression among the outside nations, as indicating the utmost limit of human knowledge."

_E. A. W. Budge, The Dwellers on the Nile, chapter 10._

"On the education of the Egyptians, Diodorus makes the following remarks:--'The children of the priests are taught two different kinds of writing,--what is called the sacred, and the more general; and they pay great attention to geometry and arithmetic. For the river, changing the appearance of the country very materially every year, is the cause of many and various discussions among neighbouring proprietors about the extent of their property; and it would be difficult for any person to decide upon their claims without geometrical reasoning, founded on actual observation. Of arithmetic they have also frequent need, both in their domestic economy, and in the application of geometrical theorems, besides its utility in the cultivation of astronomical studies; for the orders and motions of the stars are observed at least as industriously by the Egyptians as by any people whatever; and they keep record of the motions of each for an incredible number of years, the study of this science having been, from the remotest times, an object of national ambition with them. ... But the generality of the common people learn only from their parents or relations that which is required for the exercise of their peculiar professions, ... a few only being taught anything of literature, and those principally the better class of artificers.' Hence it appears they were not confined to any particular rules in the mode of educating their children, and it depended upon a parent to choose the degree of instruction he deemed most suitable to their mode of life and occupations, as among other civilised nations."

_Sir J. G. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, volume 1, pages 175-176._

{674}

"There is nothing like being a scribe,' the wise say; 'the scribe gets all that is upon earth.' ... The scribe is simply a man who knows how to read and write, to draw up administrative formulas, and to calculate interest. The instruction which he has received is a necessary complement of his position if he belongs to a good family, whilst if he be poor it enables him to obtain a lucrative situation in the administration or at the house of a wealthy personage. There is, therefore, no sacrifice which the smaller folk deem too great, if it enables them to give their sons the acquirements which may raise them above the common people, or at least insure a less miserable fate. If one of them, in his infancy, displays any intelligence, they send him, when about six or eight years old, to the district school, where an old pedagogue teaches him the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Towards ten or twelve years old, they withdraw him from the care of this first teacher and apprentice him to a scribe in some office, who undertakes to make him a 'learned scribe.' The child accompanies his master to his office or work-yard, and there passes entire months in copying letters, circulars, legal documents, or accounts, which he does not at first understand, but which he faithfully remembers. There are books for his use full of copies taken from well-known authors, which he studies perpetually. If he requires a brief, precise report, this is how Ennana worded one of his:--'I reached Elephantine and accomplished my mission. I reviewed the infantry and the chariot soldiers from the temples, as well as the servants and subordinates who are in the houses of Pharaoh's ... officials. As my journey is for the purpose of making a report in the presence of his Majesty, ... the course of my business is as rapid as that of the Nile; you need not, therefore, feel anxious about me.' There is not a superfluous word. If, on the other hand, a petition in a poetical style be required, see how Pentoïrit asked for a holiday. 'My heart has left me, it is travelling and does not know how to return, it sees Memphis and hastens there. Would that I were in its place. I remain here, busy following my heart, which endeavours to draw me towards Memphis. I have no work in hand, my heart is tormented. May it please the god Ptah to lead me to Memphis, and do thou grant that I may be seen walking there. I am at leisure, my heart is watching, my heart is no longer in my bosom, languor has seized my limbs; my eye is dim, my ear hardened, my voice feeble, it is a failure of all my strength. I pray thee remedy all this.' The pupil copies and recopies, the master inserts forgotten words, corrects the faults of spelling, and draws on the margin the signs or groups unskilfully traced. When the book is duly finished and the apprentice can write all the formulas from memory, portions of phrases are detached from them, which he must join together, so as to combine new formulas; the master then entrusts him with the composition of a few letters, gradually increasing the number and adding to the difficulties. As soon as he has fairly mastered the ordinary daily routine his education is ended, and an unimportant post is sought for. He obtains it and then marries, becoming the head of a family, sometimes before he is twenty years old; he has no further ambition, but is content to vegetate quietly in the obscure circle where fate has thrown him."

_G. Maspéro, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, chapter 1._

"In the schools, where the poor scribe's child sat on the same bench beside the offspring of the rich, to be trained in discipline and wise learning, the masters knew how by timely words to goad on the lagging diligence of the ambitious scholars, by holding out to them the future reward which awaited youths skilled in knowledge and letters. Thus the slumbering spark of self-esteem was stirred to a flame in the youthful breast, and emulation was stimulated among the boys. The clever son of the poor man, too, might hope by his knowledge to climb the ladder of the higher offices, for neither his birth nor position raised any barrier, if only the youth's mental power justified fair hopes for the future. In this sense, the restraints of caste did not exist, and neither descent nor family hampered the rising career of the clever. Many a monument consecrated to the memory of some nobleman gone to his long home, who during life had held high rank at the court of Pharaoh, is decorated with the simple but laudatory inscription, 'His ancestors were unknown people.' It is a satisfaction to avow that the training and instruction of the young interested the Egyptians in the highest degree. For they fully recognised in this the sole means of cultivating their national life, and of fulfilling the high civilizing mission which Providence seemed to have placed in their hands. But above all things they regarded justice, and virtue had the highest price in their eyes."

_H. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, volume 1, page 22._

EDUCATION: Babylonia and Assyria.

"The primitive Chaldeans were pre-eminently a literary people, and it is by their literary relics, by the scattered contents of their libraries, that we can know and judge them. As befitted the inventors of a system of writing, like the Chinese they set the highest value on education, even though examinations may have been unknown among them. Education, however, was widely diffused. ... Assur-bani-pal's library was open to the use and enjoyment of all his subjects, and the syllabaries, grammars, lexicons, and reading-books that it contained, show the extent to which not only their own language was studied by the Assyrians, but the dead language of ancient Accad as well. It became as fashionable to compose in this extinct tongue as it is now-a-days to display one's proficiency in Latin prose, and 'dog-Accadian' was perpetrated with as little remorse as 'dog-Latin' at the present time. One of the Babylonian cylinders found by General di Cesnola in the temple-treasure of Kurium, which probably belongs to the period of Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty, has a legend which endeavours to imitate the inscriptions of the early Accadian princes; but the very first word, by an unhappy error, betrays the insufficient knowledge of the old language possessed by its composer. Besides a knowledge of Accadian, the educated Assyrian was required to have also a knowledge of Aramaic, which had now become the 'lingua franca' of trade and diplomacy; and we find the Rabshakeh (Rab-sakki), or prime minister, who was sent against Hezekiah by Sennacherib, acquainted with Hebrew as well. {675} The grammatical and lexical works in the library of Nineveh are especially interesting, as being the earliest attempts of the kind of which we know, and it is curious to find the Hamiltonian method of learning languages forestalled by the scribes of Assur-bani-pal. In this case, as in all others, the first enquiries into the nature of speech, and the first grammars and dictionaries, were due to the necessity of comparing two languages together; it was the Accadian which forced the Semitic Assyrian or Babylonian to study his own tongue. And already in these first efforts the main principles of Semitic grammar are laid down clearly and definitely."

_A. H. Sayce, Babylonian Literature, pages 71-72._

"The Babylonians were the Chinese of the ancient world. They were essentially a reading and writing people. ... The books were for the most part written upon clay with a wooden reed or metal stylus, for clay was cheap and plentiful, and easily impressed with the wedge-shaped lines of which the characters were composed. But besides clay, papyrus and possibly also parchment were employed as writing materials. ... The use of clay for writing purposes extended, along with Babylonian culture, to the neighbouring populations of the East. ... It is astonishing how much matter can be compressed into the compass of a single tablet: The cuneiform system of writing allowed the use of many abbreviations--thanks to its 'ideographic' nature--and the characters were frequently of a very minute size. Indeed, so minute is the writing on many of the Assyrian (as distinguished from the Babylonian) tablets that it is clear not only that the Assyrian scribes and readers must have been decidedly short-sighted, but also that they must have made use of magnifying glasses. We need not be surprised, therefore, to learn that Sir A. H. Layard discovered a crystal lens, which had been turned on a lathe, upon the site of the great library of Nineveh. ... To learn the cuneiform syllabary was a task of much time and labour. The student was accordingly provided with various means of assistance. The characters of the syllabary were classified and named; they were further arranged according to a certain order, which partly depended on the number of wedges or lines of which each was composed. Moreover, what we may term dictionaries were compiled. ... To learn the signs, however, with their multitudinous phonetic values and ideographic significations, was not the whole of the labour which the Babylonian boy had to accomplish. The cuneiform system of writing, along with the culture which had produced it, had been the invention of the non-Semitic Accado-Sumerian race, from whom it had been borrowed by the Semites. In Semitic hands the syllabary underwent further modifications and additions, but it bore upon it to the last the stamp of its alien origin. On this account alone, therefore, the Babylonian student who wished to acquire a knowledge of reading and writing was obliged to learn the extinct language of the older population of the country. There was, however, another reason which even more imperatively obliged him to study the earlier tongue. A large proportion of the ancient literature, more especially that which related to religious subjects, was written in Accado-Sumerian. Even the law-cases of earlier times, which formed precedents for the law of a later age, were in the same language. In fact, Accado-Sumerian stood in much the same relation to the Semitic Babylonians that Latin has stood to the modern inhabitants of Europe. ... Besides learning the syllabary, therefore, the Babylonian boy had to learn the extinct of Accad and Sumer. ... The study of foreign tongues naturally brought with it an inquisitiveness about the languages of other people, as well as a passion for etymology. ... But there were other things besides languages which the young student in the schools of Babylonia and Assyria was called upon to learn. Geography, history, the names and nature of plants, birds, animals, and stones, as well as the elements of law and religion, were all objects of instruction. The British Museum possesses what may be called the historical exercise of some Babylonian lad in the age of Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, consisting of a list of the kings belonging to one of the early dynasties, which he had been required to learn by heart. ... A considerable proportion of the inhabitants of Babylonia could read and write. The contract tablets are written in a variety of running hands, some of which are as bad as the worst that passes through the modern post. Every legal document required the signatures of a number of witnesses, and most of these were able to write their own names. ... In Assyria, however, education was by no means so widely spread. Apart from the upper and professional classes, including the men of business, it was confined to a special body of men--the public scribes. ... There was none of that jealous exclusion of women in ancient Babylonia which characterizes the East of today, and it is probable that boys and girls pursued their studies at the same schools. The education of a child must have begun early."

_A. H. Sayce, Social Life among the Babylonians, chapter 3._

EDUCATION: China.

"It is not, perhaps, generally known that Peking contains an ancient university; for, though certain buildings connected with it have been frequently described, the institution itself has been but little noticed. It gives, indeed, so few signs of life that it is not surprising it should be overlooked. ... If a local situation be deemed an essential element of identity, this old university must yield the palm of age to many in Europe, for in its present site it dates, at most, only from the Yuen, or Mongol, dynasty, in the beginning of the fourteenth century. But as an imperial institution, having a fixed organization and definite objects, it carries its history, or at least its pedigree, back to a period far anterior to the founding of the Great Wall. Among the Regulations of the House of Chow, which flourished a thousand years before the Christian era, we meet with it already in full-blown vigor, and under the identical name which it now bears, that of Kwotszekien, or 'School for the Sons of the Empire.' It was in its glory before the light of science dawned on Greece, and when Pythagoras and Plato were pumping their secrets from the priests of Heliopolis. And it still exists, but it is only an embodiment of 'life in death:' its halls are tombs, and its officers living mummies. In the 13th Book of the Chowle (see Rites de Tcheou, traduction par Édouard Biot), we find the functions of the heads of the Kwotszekien laid down with a good deal of minuteness. {676} The presidents were to admonish the Emperor of that which is good and just, and to instruct the Sons of the State in the 'three constant virtues' and the 'three practical duties'--in other words, to give a course of lectures on moral philosophy. The vice-presidents were to reprove the Emperor for his faults (i. e., to perform the duty of official censors) and to discipline the Sons of the State in the sciences and arts--viz., in arithmetic, writing, music, archery, horsemanship and ritual ceremonies. ... The old curriculum is religiously adhered to, but greater latitude is given, as we shall have occasion to observe, to the term 'Sons of the State.' In the days of Chow, this meant the heir-apparent, princes of the blood, and children of the nobility. Under the Tatsing dynasty it signifies men of defective scholarship throughout the provinces, who purchase literary degrees, and more specifically certain indigent students of Peking, who are aided by the imperial bounty. The Kwotszekien is located in the northeastern angle of the Tartar city, with a temple of Confucius attached, which is one of the finest in the Empire. The main edifice (that of the temple) consists of a single story of imposing height, with a porcelain roof of tent-like curvature. ... It contains no seats, as all comers are expected to stand or kneel in presence of the Great Teacher. Neither does it boast anything in the way of artistic decoration, nor exhibit any trace of that neatness and taste which we look for in a sacred place. Perhaps its vast area is designedly left to dust and emptiness, in order that nothing may intervene to disturb the mind in the contemplation of a great name which receives the homage of a nation. ... In an adjacent block or square stands a pavilion known as the 'Imperial Lecture-room,' because it is incumbent on each occupant of the Dragon throne to go there at least once in his life-time to hear a discourse on the nature and responsibilities of his office. ... A canal spanned by marble bridges encircles the pavilion, and arches of glittering porcelain, in excellent repair, adorn the grounds. But neither these nor the pavilion itself constitutes the chief attraction of the place. Under a long corridor which encloses the entire space may be seen as many as one hundred and eighty-two columns of massive granite, each inscribed with a portion of the canonical books. These are the 'Stone Classics'--the entire 'Thirteen,' which formed the staple of a Chinese education, being here enshrined in a material supposed to be imperishable. Among all the Universities in the world, the Kwotszekien is unique in the possession of such a library. This is not, indeed, the only stone library extant--another of equal extent being found at Singanfu, the ancient capital of the Tangs. But, that too, was the property of the Kwotszekien ten centuries ago, when Singan was the seat of empire. The 'School for the Sons of the Empire' must needs follow the migrations of the court; and that library, costly as it was, being too heavy for transportation, it was thought best to supply its place by the new edition which we have been describing. ... In front of the temple stands a forest of columns of scarcely inferior interest. They are three hundred and twenty in number, and contain the university roll of honor, a complete list of all who since the founding of the institution have attained to the dignity of the doctorate. Allow to each an average of two hundred names, and we have an army of doctors sixty thousand strong! (By the doctorate I mean the third or highest degree.) All these received their investiture at the Kwotszekien, and, throwing themselves at the feet of its president, enrolled themselves among the 'Sons of the Empire.' They were not, however--at least the most of them were not--in any proper sense alumni of the Kwotszekien, having pursued their studies in private, and won their honors by public competition in the halls of the Civil-service Examining Board. ... There is an immense area occupied by lecture-rooms, examination-halls and lodging-apartments. But the visitor is liable to imagine that these, too, are consecrated to a monumental use--so rarely is a student or a professor to be seen among them. Ordinarily they are as desolate as the halls of Baalbec or Palmyra. In fact, this great school for the 'Sons of the Empire' has long ceased to be a seat of instruction, and degenerated into a mere appendage of the civil-service competitive examinations on which it hangs as a dead weight, corrupting and debasing instead of advancing the standard of national education."

_W. A. P. Martin, The Chinese, their Education, Philosophy and Letters, pages 85-90._

EDUCATION: Persia.

"All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were taken by the Persians--or, at any rate, by those of the leading clans--in the education of their sons. During the first five years of his life the boy remained wholly with the women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his father. After that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was exercised with other boys of his age in running, slinging stones, shooting with the bow, and throwing the javelin. At seven he was taught to ride, and soon afterward he was allowed to begin to hunt. The riding included, not only the ordinary management of the horse, but the power of jumping on and off his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow and throwing the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse was still at full gallop. The hunting was conducted by state-officers, who aimed at forming by its means in the youths committed to their charge all the qualities needed in war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat and cold, to perform long marches, to cross rivers without wetting their weapons, to sleep in the open air at night, to be content with a single meal in two days, and to support themselves occasionally on the wild products of the country, acorns, wild pears and the fruit of the terebinth tree. On days when there was no hunting they passed their mornings in athletic exercises, and contests with the bow or the javelin, after which they dined simply on the plain food mentioned above as that of the men in the early times, and then employed themselves during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not illiberal--for instance, in the pursuits of agriculture, planting, digging for roots, and the like, or in the construction of arms and hunting implements, such as nets and springes. Hardy and temperate habits being secured by this training, the point of morals on which their preceptors mainly insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of intellectual education they had but little. It seems to have been no part of the regular training of a Persian youth that he should learn to read. {677} He was given religious notions and a certain amount of moral knowledge by means of legendary poems, in which the deeds of gods and heroes were set before him by his teachers, who recited or sung them in his presence, and afterwards required him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate, to give some account of it. This education continued for fifteen years, commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the age of twenty. The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent soldier and a most accomplished horseman. ... At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed the garrison of the capital. ... Others, though liable to military service, did not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants, ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. ... For trade and commerce the Persians were wont to express extreme contempt."

_G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, volume 3, pages 238-242._

After the death of Cyrus, according to Xenophon, the Persians degenerated, in the education of their youth and otherwise. "To educate the youth at the gates of the palace is still the custom," he says; "but the attainment and practice of horsemanship are extinct, because they do not go where they can gain applause by exhibiting skill in that exercise. Whereas, too, in former times, the boys, hearing causes justly decided there, were considered by that means to learn justice, that custom is altogether altered; for they now see those gain their causes who offer the highest bribes. Formerly, also, boys were taught the virtues of the various productions of the earth, in order that they might use the serviceable, and avoid the noxious; but now they seem to be taught those particulars that they may do as much harm as possible; at least there are nowhere so many killed or injured by poison as in that country."

_Xenophon, Cyropædia and Hellenics; trans. by J. S. Watson and H. Dale, pages 284-285._

EDUCATION: Judæa.

"According to the statement of Josephus, Moses had already prescribed 'that boys should learn the most important laws, because that is the best knowledge and the cause of prosperity.' 'He commanded to instruct children in the elements of knowledge (reading and writing), to teach them to walk according to the laws, and to know the deeds of their forefathers. The latter, that they might imitate them; the former, that growing up with the laws they might not transgress them, nor have the excuse of ignorance.' Josephus repeatedly commends the zeal with which the instruction of the young was carried on. 'We take most pains of all with the instruction of children, and esteem the observance of the laws and the piety corresponding with them the most important affair of our whole life.' 'If anyone should question one of us concerning the laws, he would more easily repeat all than his own name. Since we learn them from our first consciousness, we have them, as it were, engraven on our souls; and a transgression is rare, but the averting of punishment impossible.' In like manner does Philo express himself: 'Since the Jews esteem their laws as divine revelations, and are instructed in the knowledge of them from their earliest youth, they bear the image of the law in their souls.' ... In view of all this testimony it cannot be doubted, that in the circles of genuine Judaism boys were from their tenderest childhood made acquainted with the demands of the law. That this education in the law was, in the first place, the duty and task of parents is self-evident. But it appears, that even in the age of Christ, care was also taken for the instruction of youth by the erection of schools on the part of the community. ... The later tradition that Joshua ben Gamla (Jesus the son of Gamaliel) enacted that teachers of boys ... should be appointed in every province and in every town, and that children of the age of six or seven should be brought to them, is by no means incredible. The only Jesus the son of Gamaliel known to history is the high priest of that name, about 63-65 after Christ. ... It must therefore be he who is intended in the above notice. As his measures presuppose a somewhat longer existence of boys' schools, we may without hesitation transfer them to the age of Christ, even though not as a general and established institution. The subject of instruction, as already appears from the above passages of Josephus and Philo, was as good as exclusively the law. For only its inculcation in the youthful mind, and not the means of general education, was the aim of all this zeal for the instruction of youth. And indeed the earliest instruction was in the reading and inculcation of the text of scripture. ... Habitual practice went hand in hand with theoretical instruction. For though children were not actually bound to fulfil the law, they were yet accustomed to it from their youth up."

_E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ, volume 2, pages 47-50._

In the fourth century B. C. the Council of Seventy Elders "instituted regularly appointed readings from the Law; on every sabbath and on every week day a portion from the Pentateuch was to be read to the assembled congregation. Twice a week, when the country people came up from the villages to market in the neighbouring towns, or to appeal at the courts of justice, some verses of the Pentateuch, however few, were read publicly. At first only the learned were allowed to read, but at last it was looked upon as so great an honour to belong to the readers, that everyone attempted or desired to do so. Unfortunately the characters in which the Torah was written were hardly readable. Until that date the text of the Torah had been written in the ancient style with Phœnician or old Babylonian characters, which could only be deciphered by practised scribes. ... From the constant reading of the Law, there arose among the Judæans an intellectual activity and vigour, which at last gave a special character to the whole nation. The Torah became their spiritual and intellectual property, and their own inner sanctuary. At this time there sprang up other important institutions, namely, schools, where the young men could stimulate their ardour and increase their knowledge of the Law and its teachings. The intellectual leaders of the people continually enjoined on the rising generation, 'Bring up a great many disciples.' And what they enjoined so strenuously they themselves must have assisted to accomplish. One of these religious schools (Beth-Waad) was probably established in Jerusalem. {678} The teachers were called scribes (sopherim) or wise men; the disciples, pupils of the wise (Talmude Chachamim). The wise men or scribes had a two-fold work; on the one hand they had to explain the Torah, and on the other, to make the laws applicable to each individual and to the community at large. This supplementary interpretation was called 'explanation' (Midrash); it was not altogether arbitrary, but rested upon certain rules laid down for the proper interpretation of the law. The supreme council and the houses of learning worked together, and one completed the other. A hardly perceptible, but most important movement was the result; for the descendants of the Judæans of that age were endowed with a characteristic, which they might otherwise have claimed as inborn, the talent for research and the intellectual penetration, needed for turning and returning words and data, in order to discover some new and hidden meaning."

_H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 1, chapter 20._

EDUCATION: Schools of the Prophets.

"In his [Samuel's] time we first hear of what in modern phraseology are called the Schools of the Prophets. Whatever be the precise meaning of the peculiar word, which now came first into use as the designation of these companies, it is evident that their immediate mission consisted in uttering religious hymns or songs, accompanied by musical instruments--psaltery, tabret, pipe and harp, and cymbals. In them, as in the few solitary instances of their predecessors, the characteristic element was that the silent seer of visions found an articulate voice, gushing forth in a rhythmical flow, which at once riveted the attention of the hearer. These, or such as these, were the gifts which under Samuel were now organized, if one may say so, into a system."

_Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 18._

EDUCATION: Greece.

A description of the Athenian education of the young is given by Plato in one of his dialogues: "Education," he says, "and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor are quarrelling about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand them: he cannot say or do anything without their setting forth to him that this is just and that is unjust; this is honourable, that is dishonourable; this is holy, that is unholy; do this and abstain from that. And if he obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of warped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his reading and music; and the teachers do as they are desired. And when the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what is written·, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great poets, which he reads at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them. Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children, in order that they may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of men in every part has need of harmony and rhythm. Then they send them to the master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister to the virtuous mind, and that the weakness of their bodies may not force them to play the coward in war or on any other occasion. This is what is done by those who have the means, and those who have the means are the rich; their children begin education soonest and leave off latest. When they have done with masters, the state again compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good law-givers who were of old times; these are given to the young man, in order to guide him in his conduct whether as ruler or ruled; and he who transgresses them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to account, which is a term used not only in your country, but also in many others. Now when there is all this care about virtue private and public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and doubt whether virtue can be taught?"

_Plato, Protagoras (Dialogue; trans. by Jowett, volume 1)._

The ideas of Aristotle on the subject are in the following: "There can be no doubt that children should be taught those useful things which are really necessary, but not all thing's; for occupations are divided into liberal and illiberal; and to young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will be useful to them without vulgarizing them. And any occupation, art, or science, which makes the body or soul or mind of the freeman less fit for the practice or exercise of virtue, is vulgar; wherefore we call those arts vulgar which tend to deform the body, and likewise all paid employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind. There are also some liberal arts quite proper for a freeman to acquire, but only in a certain degree, and if he attend to them too closely, in order to obtain perfection in them, the same evil effects will follow. The object also which a man sets before him makes a great difference; if he does or learns anything for his own sake or for the sake of his friends, or with a view to excellence, the action will not appear illiberal; but if done for the sake of others, the very same action will be thought menial and servile. The received subjects of instruction, as I have already remarked, are partly of a liberal and partly of an illiberal character. The customary branches of education are in number four; they are--(l) reading and writing, (2) gymnastic exercises, (3) music, to which is sometimes added (4) drawing. Of these, reading and writing and drawing are regarded as useful for the purposes of life in a variety of ways, and gymnastic exercises are thought to infuse courage. Concerning music a doubt may be raised--in our own day most men cultivate it for the sake of pleasure, but originally it was included in education, because nature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once and again, the first principle of all action is leisure. {679} Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation; and therefore the question must be asked in good earnest, what ought we to do when at leisure? Clearly we ought not to be amusing ourselves, for then amusement would be the end of life. But if this is inconceivable, and yet amid serious occupations amusement is needed more than at other times (for he who is hard at work has need of relaxation, and amusement gives relaxation, whereas occupation is always accompanied with exertion and effort), at suitable times we should introduce amusements, and they should be our medicines, for the emotion which they create in the soul is a relaxation, and from the pleasure we obtain rest. ... It is clear then that there are branches of learning and education which we must study with a view to the enjoyment of leisure, and these are to be valued for their own sake; whereas those kinds of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary, and exist for the sake of other things. And therefore our fathers admitted music into education, not on the ground either of its necessity or utility, for it is not necessary, nor indeed useful in the same manner as reading and writing, which are useful in money-making, in the management of a house-hold, in the acquisition of knowledge and in political life, nor like drawing, useful for a more correct judgment of the works of artists, nor again like gymnastic, which gives health and strength; for neither of these is to be gained from music. There remains, then, the use of music for intellectual enjoyment in leisure; which appears to have been the reason of its introduction, this being one of the ways in which it is thought that a freeman should pass his leisure. ... We are now in a position to say that the ancients witness to us; for their opinion may be gathered from the fact that music is one of the received and traditional branches of education. Further, it is clear that children should be instructed in some useful things,--for example, in reading and writing,--not only for their usefulness, but also because many other sorts of knowledge are acquired through them. With a like view they may be taught drawing, not to prevent their making mistakes in their own purchases, or in order that they may not be imposed upon in the buying or selling of articles, but rather because it makes them judges of the beauty of the human form. To be always seeking after the useful does not become free and exalted souls. ... We reject the professional instruments and also the professional mode of education in music--and by professional we mean that which is adopted in contests, for in this the performer practises the art, not for the sake of his own improvement, but in order to give pleasure, and that of a vulgar sort, to his hearers. For this reason the execution of such music is not the part of a freeman but of a paid performer, and the result is that the performers are vulgarized, for the end at which they aim is bad."

_Aristotle, Politics (Jowett's Translation), book 8._

"The most striking difference between early Greek education and ours was undoubtedly this; that the physical development of boys was attended to in a special place and by a special master. It was not thought sufficient for them to play the chance games of childhood; they underwent careful bodily training under a very fixed system, which was determined by the athletic contests of after life. ... When we compare what the Greeks afforded to their boys, we find it divided into two contrasted kinds of exercise: hunting, which was practised by the Spartans very keenly, and no doubt also by the Eleans and Arcadians, as may be seen from Xenophon's 'Tract on (Hare) Hunting'; and gymnastics, which in the case of boys were carried on in the so-caned palæstra, a sort of open-air gymnasium (in our sense) kept by private individuals as a speculation, and to which the boys were sent, as they were to their ordinary school-master. We find that the Spartans, who had ample scope for hunting with dogs in the glens and coverts of Mount Taygetus, rather despised mere exercises of dexterity in the palæstra, just as our sportsmen would think very little of spending hours in a gymnasium. But those Greeks who lived in towns like Athens, and in the midst of a thickly populated and well-cultivated country, could not possibly obtain hunting, and therefore found the most efficient substitute. Still we find them very far behind the English in their knowledge or taste for out-of-door games. ... The Greeks had no playgrounds beyond the palæstra or gymnasium; they had no playgrounds in our sense, and though a few proverbs speak of swimming as a universal accomplishment which boys learned, the silence of Greek literature on the subject makes one very suspicious as to the generality of such training. ... In one point, certainly, the Greeks agreed more with the modern English than with any other civilised nation. They regarded sport as a really serious thing. ... The names applied to the exercising-places indicate their principal uses. Palæstra means a wrestling place; gymnasium originally a place for naked exercise, but the word early lost this connotation and came to mean mere physical training. ... In order to leave home and reach the palæstra safely as well as to return, Greek boys were put under the charge of a pædagogue, in no way to be identified (as it now is) with a schoolmaster. ... I think we may be justified in asserting that the study of the epic poets, especially of the Iliad and Odyssey, was the earliest intellectual exercise of schoolboys, and, in the case of fairly educated parents, even anticipated the learning of letters. For the latter is never spoken of as part of a mother's or of home education. Reading was not so universal or so necessary as it now is. ... We may assume that books of Homer were read or recited to growing boys, and that they were encouraged or required to learn them off by heart. This is quite certain to all who estimate justly the enormous influence ascribed to Homer, and the principles assumed by the Greeks to have underlain his work. He was universally considered to be a moral teacher, whose characters were drawn with a moral intent, and for the purpose of example or avoidance. ... Accordingly the Iliad and Odyssey were supposed to contain all that was useful, not only for godliness, but for life. All the arts and sciences were to be derived (by interpretation) from these sacred texts. ... In early days, and in poor towns, the place of teaching was not well appointed, nay, even in many places, teaching in the open air prevailed. ... This was ... like the old hedge schools of Ireland, and no doubt of Scotland too. They also took advantage, especially in hot weather, of colonnades, or shady corners among public buildings, as at Winchester the summer term was called cloister-time, from a similar practice, even in that wealthy foundation, of instructing in the cloisters. On the other hand, properly appointed schools in respectable towns were furnished with some taste, and according to traditional notions. ... {680} We may be sure that there were no tables or desks, such furniture being unusual in Greek houses; it was the universal custom, while reading or writing, to hold the book or roll on the knee--to us an inconvenient thing to do, but still common in the East. There are some interesting sentences, given for exercise in Greek and Latin, in the little known 'Interpretamenta' of Dositheus, now edited and explained by German scholars. The entry of the boy is thus described, in parallel Greek and Latin: 'First I salute the master, who returns my salute: Good morning, master; good morning, school fellows. Give me my place, my seat, my stool. Sit closer. Move up that way. This is my place, I took it first.' This mixture of politeness and wrangling is amusing, and no doubt to be found in all ages. It seems that the seats were movable. ... The usual subdivision of education was into three parts; letters, ... including reading, writing, counting, and learning of the poets; music in the stricter sense, including singing and playing on the lyre; and lastly gymnastic, which included dancing. ... It is said that at Sparta the education in reading and writing was not thought necessary, and there have been long discussions among the learned whether the ordinary Spartan in classical days was able to read. We find that Aristotle adds a fourth subject to the three above named--drawing, which he thinks requisite, like music, to enable the educated man to judge rightly of works of art. But there is no evidence of a wide diffusion of drawing or painting among the Greeks, as among us. ... Later on, under the learned influences of Alexandria, and the paid professoriate of Roman days, subjects multiplied with the decline of mental vigour and spontaneity of the age, and children began to be pestered, as they now are, with a quantity of subjects, all thought necessary to a proper education, and accordingly all imperfectly acquired. This was called the encyclical education, which is preserved in our Encyclopædia of knowledge. It included,(1) grammar,(2) rhetoric, (3) dialectic, (4) arithmetic, (5) music, (6) geometry, (7) astronomy, and these were divided into the earlier Trivium, and the later Quadrivium."

_J. P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Education, chapters 3-5._

"Reading was taught with the greatest pains, the utmost care was taken with the intonation of the voice, and the articulation of the throat. We have lost the power of distinguishing between accent and quantity. The Greeks did not acquire it without long and anxious training of the ear and the vocal organs. This was the duty of the phonascus. Homer was the common study of all Greeks. The Iliad and Odyssee were at once the Bible, the Shakespeare, the Robinson Crusoe, and the Arabian Nights of the Hellenic race. Long passages and indeed whole books were learnt by heart. The Greek, as a rule, learnt no language but his own. Next to reading and repetition came writing, which was carefully taught. Composition naturally followed, and the burden of correcting exercises, which still weighs down the backs of schoolmasters, dates from these early times. Closely connected with reading and writing is the art of reckoning, and the science of numbers leads us easily to music. Plato considered arithmetic as the best spur to a sleepy and uninstructed spirit; we see from the Platonic dialogues how mathematical problems employed the mind and thoughts of young Athenians. Many of the more difficult arithmetical operations were solved by geometrical methods, but the Greeks carried the art of teaching numbers to considerable refinement. They used the abacus, and had an elaborate method of finger reckoning, which was serviceable up to 10,000. Drawing was the crowning accomplishment to this vestibule of training. By the time the fourteenth year was completed, the Greek boy would have begun to devote himself seriously to the practice of athletics."

_O. Browning, An Introduction to the History of Educational Theories, ch 1._

"It has sometimes been imagined that in Greece separate edifices were not erected as with us expressly for school-houses, but that both the didaskalos and the philosopher taught their pupils in fields, gardens or shady groves. But this was not the common practice, though many schoolmasters appear to have had no other place wherein to assemble their pupils than the portico of a temple or some sheltered corner in the street, where in spite of the din of business and the throng of passengers the worship of learning was publicly performed. ... But these were the schools of the humbler classes. For the children of the noble and the opulent spacious structures were raised, and furnished with tables, desks,--for that peculiar species of grammateion which resembled the plate cupboard, can have been nothing but a desk,--forms, and whatsoever else their studies required. Mention is made of a school at Chios which contained one hundred and twenty boys, all of whom save one were killed by the falling in of the roof. ... The apparatus of an ancient school was somewhat complicated: there were mathematical instruments, globes, maps, and charts of the heavens, together with boards whereon to trace geometrical figures, tablets, large and small, of box-wood, fir, or ivory, triangular in form, some folding with two, and others with many leaves; books too and paper, skins of parchment, wax for covering the tablets, which, if we may believe Aristophanes, people sometimes ate when they were hungry. To the above were added rulers, reed-pens, pen-cases, pen-knives, pencils, and last, though not least, the rod which kept them to the steady use of all these things: At Athens these schools were not provided by the state. They were private speculations, and each master was regulated in his charges by the reputation he had acquired and the fortunes of his pupils. Some appear to have been extremely moderate in their demands. ... The earliest task to be performed at school was to gain a knowledge of the Greek characters, large and small, to spell next, next to read. ... In teaching the art of writing their practice nearly resembled our own. ... These things were necessarily the first step in the first class of studies, which were denominated music, and comprehended everything connected with the development of the mind; and they were carried to a certain extent before the second division called gymnastics was commenced. They reversed the plan commonly adopted among ourselves, for with them poetry preceded prose, a practice which, coöperating with their susceptible temperament, impressed upon the national mind that imaginative character for which it was preëminently distinguished. {681} And the poets in whose works they were first initiated were of all the most poetical, the authors of lyrical and dithyrambic pieces, selections from whose verses they committed to memory, thus acquiring early a rich store of sentences and imagery ready to be adduced in argument or illustration, to furnish familiar allusions or to be woven into the texture of their style. ... Among the other branches of knowledge most necessary to be studied, and to which they applied themselves nearly from the outset, was arithmetic, without some inkling of which, a man, in Plato's opinion, could scarcely be a citizen at all. ... The importance attached to this branch of education, nowhere more apparent than in the dialogues of Plato, furnishes one proof that the Athenians were preëminently men of business, who in all their admiration for the good and beautiful never lost sight of those things which promote the comfort of life, and enable a man effectually to perform his ordinary duties. With the same views were geometry and astronomy pursued. ... The importance of music, in the education of the Greeks, is generally understood. It was employed to effect several purposes. First, to sooth and mollify the fierceness of the national character, and prepare the way for the lessons of the poets, which, delivered amid the sounding of melodious strings, when the soul was rapt and elevated by harmony, by the excitement of numbers, by the magic of the sweetest associations, took a firm hold upon the mind, and generally retained it during life. Secondly, it enabled the citizens gracefully to perform their part in the amusements of social life, every person being in his turn called upon at entertainments to sing or play upon the lyre. Thirdly, it was necessary to enable them to join in the sacred choruses, rendered frequent by the piety of the state, and for the due performance in old age of many offices of religion, the sacerdotal character belonging more or less to all the citizens of Athens. Fourthly, as much of the learning of a Greek was martial and designed to fit him for defending his country, he required some knowledge of music that on the field of battle his voice might harmoniously mingle with those of his countrymen, in chaunting those stirring, impetuous, and terrible melodies, called pæans, which preceded the first shock of fight. For some, or all of these reasons, the science of music began to be cultivated among the Hellenes, at a period almost beyond the reach even of tradition."

_J. A. St. John, The Hellenes, book 2, chapter 4._

"In thinking of Greek education as furnishing a possible model for us moderns, there is one point which it is important to bear in mind: Greek education was intended only for the few, for the wealthy and well-born. Upon all others, upon slaves, barbarians, the working and trading classes, and generally upon all persons spending their lives in pursuit of wealth or any private ends whatsoever, it would have seemed to be thrown away. Even well-born women were generally excluded from most of its benefits. The subjects of education were the sons of full citizens, themselves preparing to be full citizens, and to exercise all the functions of such. The duties of such persons were completely summed up under two heads, duties to the family and duties to the State, or, as the Greeks said, œconomic and political duties. The free citizen not only acknowledged no other duties besides these, but he looked down upon persons who sought occupation in any other sphere. Œconomy and Politics, however, were very comprehensive terms. The former included the three relations of husband to wife, father to children, and master to slaves and property; the latter, three public functions, legislative, administrative, and judiciary. All occupations not included under these six heads the free citizen left to slaves or resident foreigners. Money-making, in the modern sense, he despised, and, if he devoted himself to art or philosophy, he did so only for the benefit of the State."

_T. Davidson, Aristotle, book 1, chapter 4._

EDUCATION: Greek Spartan Training.

"From his birth every Spartan belonged to the state, which decided ... whether he was likely to prove a useful member of the community, and extinguished the life of the sickly or deformed infant. To the age of seven however the care of the child was delegated to its natural guardians, yet not so as to be left wholly to their discretion, but subject to certain established rules of treatment, which guarded against every mischievous indulgence of parental tenderness. At the end of seven years began a long course of public discipline, which grew constantly more and more severe as the boy approached toward manhood. The education of the young was in some degree the business of all the elder citizens; for there was none who did not contribute to it, if not by his active interference, at least by his presence and inspection. But it was placed under the especial superintendence of an officer selected from the men of most approved worth; and he again chose a number of youths, just past the age of twenty, and who most eminently united courage with discretion, to exercise a more immediate command over the classes, into which the boys were divided. The leader of each class directed the sports and tasks of his young troop, and punished their offences with military rigour, but was himself responsible to his elders for the mode in which he discharged his office. The Spartan education was simple in its objects; it was not the result of any general view of human nature, or of any attempt to unfold its various capacities: it aimed at training men who were to live in the midst of difficulty and danger, and who could only be safe themselves while they held rule over others. The citizen was to be always ready for the defence of himself and his country, at home and abroad, and he was therefore to be equally fitted to command and to obey. His body, his mind, and his character were formed for this purpose, and for no other: and hence the Spartan system, making directly for its main end, and rejecting all that was foreign to it, attained, within its own sphere, to a perfection which it is impossible not to admire. The young Spartan was perhaps unable either to read or write: he scarcely possessed the elements of any of the arts or sciences by which society is enriched or adorned: but he could run, leap, wrestle, hurl the disk, or the javelin, and wield every other weapon, with a vigour and agility, and grace which were no where surpassed. These however were accomplishments to be learnt in every Greek palæstra: he might find many rivals in all that he could do; but few could approach him in the firmness with which he was taught to suffer. From the tender age at which he left his mother's lap for the public schools, his life was one continued trial of patience. Coarse and scanty fare, and this occasionally withheld, a light dress, without any change in the depth of winter, a bed of reeds, which he himself gathered from the Eurotas, blows exchanged with his comrades, stripes inflicted by his governors, more by way of exercise than of punishment, inured him to every form of pain and hardship. ... {682} The Muses were appropriately honoured at Sparta with a sacrifice on the eve of a battle, and the union of the spear and the lyre was a favourite theme with the Laconian poets, and those who sang of Spartan customs. Though bred in the discipline of the camp, the young Spartan, like the hero of the Iliad, was not a stranger to music and poetry. He was taught to sing, and to play on the flute and the lyre: but the strains with which his memory was stored, and to which his voice was formed, were either sacred hymns, or breathed a martial spirit; and it was because they cherished such sentiments that the Homeric lays, if not introduced by Lycurgus, were early welcomed at Sparta. ... As these musical exercises were designed to cultivate, not so much an intellectual, as a moral taste; so it was probably less for the sake of sharpening their ingenuity, than of promoting presence of mind, and promptness of decision, that the boys were led into the habit of answering all questions proposed to them, with a ready, pointed, sententious brevity, which was a proverbial characteristic of Spartan conversation. But the lessons which were most studiously inculcated, more indeed by example than by precept, were those of modesty, obedience, and reverence for age and rank; for these were the qualities on which, above all others, the stability of the commonwealth reposed. The gait and look of the Spartan youths, as they passed along the streets, observed Xenophon, breathed modesty and reserve. In the presence of their elders they were bashful as virgins, and silent as statues, save when a question was put to them. ... In truth, the respect for the laws, which rendered the Spartan averse to innovation at home, was little more than another form of that awe with which his early habits inspired him for the magistrates and the aged. With this feeling was intimately connected that quick and deep sense of shame, which shrank from dishonour as the most dreadful of evils, and enabled him to meet death so calmly, when he saw in it the will of his country."

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, volume 1, chapter 8._

EDUCATION: Free-School Ideas in Greece.

"It is a prevalent opinion that common schools, as we now have them, were an American invention. No legislation, it is asserted, taxing all in order that all may be taught can be traced back further than to the early laws of Massachusetts. Those who deny this assertion are content with showing something of the sort in Scotland and Germany a generation or two before the landing of the Plymouth pilgrims. The truth is, however, that, as much of our social wit is now credited to the ancient Greeks, something of our educational wisdom ought to be. Two centuries ago John Locke, as an able political writer, was invited to draw up a code of fundamental laws for the new colony of Carolina, and in like manner, more than 2,300 years ago, Charondas, a master of a similar type in Magna Græcia, was called to a similar task. This was to frame a series of statutes for the government of a Greek colony founded about 446 B. C., in the foot of Italy. This colony was Thurii, and conspicuous among the enactments of Charondas was the following: 'Charondas made a law unlike those of lawgivers before him, for he enacted that the sons of the citizens should all learn letters (or writing) ... the city making payment to the teachers. He thought that the poor, not able to pay wages themselves, would otherwise fail of the best training. He counted writing the most important study, and with reason. Through writing, most things in life, and those the most useful, are accomplished--as ballots, epistles, laws, covenants. Who can sufficiently praise the learning of letters? ... Writing alone preserves the most brilliant utterances of wise men and the oracles of gods, nay philosophy and all culture. All these things it alone hands down to all future generations. Wherefore nature should be viewed as the source of life, but the source of living well we should consider the culture derived from writing. Inasmuch, then, as illiterates are deprived of a great good, Charondas came to their help, judging them worthy of public care and outlay. Former legislators had caused the sick to be attended by physicians at the public expense, thinking their bodies worthy of cure. He did more, for he cured souls afflicted with ignorance. The doctors of the body we pray that we may never need, while we would fain abide for ever with those who minister to the mind diseased.'--This extract is from the 'Bibliotheca Historica' of Diodorus Siculus (Book x. § 13), who was flourishing at the birth of Christ and was the most painstaking chronicler of the Augustan age. The legislation is worth notice for more than one reason. It rebukes the self-conceit of those who hold that the education of all at the charge of all is an idea born in our own time or country. It has also been strangely unnoticed by historians who ought to have kept it before the people."

_The Nation, March 24, 1892, pages 280-231._

EDUCATION: Socrates and the Philosophical Schools.

"Before the rise of philosophy, the teacher of the people had been the rhapsode, or public reciter; after that event he gradually gives place to the sophist (... one who makes wise), or, as he later with more modesty calls himself, the philosopher (... lover of wisdom). The history of Greece for centuries is, on its inner side, a history of the struggle between what the rhapsode represents and what the philosopher represents, between popular tradition and common sense on the one hand, and individual opinion and philosophy on the other. The transition from the first to the second of these mental conditions was accomplished for the world, once for all, by the Greeks."

_T. Davidson, Aristotle, book 1, chapter 5._

"There is no instance on record of a philosopher whose importance as a thinker is so closely bound up with the personality of the man as it was in the case of Socrates. ... His teaching was not of a kind to be directly imparted and faithfully handed down, but could only be left to propagate itself freely by stirring up others to a similar self·culture. ... The youth and early manhood of Socrates fall in the most brilliant period of Grecian history. Born during the last years of the Persian war, he was a near contemporary of all those great men who adorned the age of Pericles. As a citizen of Athens he could enjoy the opportunities afforded by a city, which united every means of culture by its unrivalled fertility of thought. Poverty and low birth were but slender obstacles in the Athens of Pericles. ... Socrates, no doubt, began life by learning his father's trade, ... which he probably never practised, and certainly soon gave up. {683} He considered it to be his special calling to labour for the moral and intellectual improvement of himself and others--a conviction which he felt so strongly that it appeared to him in the light of a divine revelation. Moreover he was confirmed in it by a Delphic oracle, which, of course, must not be regarded as the cause of, but rather as an additional support to his reforming zeal. ... To be independent, he tried, like the Gods, to rise superior to his wants; and by carefully practising self-denial and abstemiousness, he was really able to boast that his life was more pleasant and more free from troubles than that of the rest of mankind. Thus he was able to devote his whole powers to the service of others, without asking or taking reward; and thus he became so engrossed by his labours for his native city, that he rarely passed its boundaries or even went outside its gates. He did not, however, feel himself called upon to take part in the affairs of the state. ... Anyone convinced as he was, that care for one's own culture must precede care for public business, and that a thorough knowledge of self, together with a deep and many-sided experience, was a necessary condition of public activity, must have thought that, to educate individuals by influence, was the more pressing need, and have held that he was doing his country a better service by educating able statesmen for it, than by actually discharging a statesman's duties. Accordingly, Socrates never aimed at being anything but a private citizen. ... Just as little was he desirous of being a public teacher like the Sophists. He not only took no pay, but he gave no methodical course. He did not profess to teach, but to learn in common with others, not to force his convictions upon them, but to examine theirs; not to pass the truth that came to hand like a coin fresh from the mint, but to stir up a desire for truth and virtue, to point out the way to it, to overthrow what was spurious, and to seek out real knowledge. Never weary of talking, he was on the look out for every opportunity of giving an instructive and moral turn to the conversation. Day by day he was about in the market and public promenades, in schools and workshops, ever ready to converse with friends or strangers, with citizens and foreigners, but always prepared to lead them to higher subjects; and whilst thus in his higher calling serving God, he was persuaded that he was also serving his country in a way that no one else could do. Deeply as he deplored the decline of discipline and education in his native city, he felt that he could depend but little on the Sophists, the moral teachers of his day. The attractive powers of his discourse won for him a circle of admirers, for the most part consisting of young men of family, drawn to him by the most varied motives, standing to him in various relations, and coming to him, some for a longer, others for a shorter time. For his own part, he made it his business not only to educate these friends, but to advise them in everything, even in worldly matters. But out of this changing, and in part loosely connected, society, a nucleus was gradually formed of decided admirers,--a Socratic school, which we must consider united far less by a common set of doctrines, than by a common love for the person of Socrates."

_E. Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools, chapter 3._

"Nowhere, except in Athens, do we hear of a philosophic body with endowments, legal succession, and the other rights of a corporation. This idea, which has never since died out of the world, was due to Plato, who bequeathed his garden and appointments in the place called after the hero Hekademus, to his followers. But he was obliged to do it in the only form possible at Athens. He made it a religious foundation, on the basis of a fixed worship to the Muses. ... The head or President of Plato's 'Association of the Muses,' was the treasurer and manager of the common fund, who invited guests to their feasts, to which each member contributed his share. ... The members had, moreover, a right to attend lectures and use the library or scientific appointments, such as maps, which belonged to the school. It was this endowment on a religious basis which saved the income and position of Plato's school for centuries. ... This then is the first Academy, so often imitated in so many lands, and of which our colleges are the direct descendants. ... The school of Plato, then governed by Xenocrates, being the bequest of an Athenian citizen who understood the law, seems never to have been assailed. The schools of Epicurus and Zeno were perhaps not yet recognised. But that of Theophrastus, perhaps the most crowded, certainly the most distinctly philo-Macedonian, ... this was the school which was exiled, and which owed its rehabilitation not only to the legal decision of the courts, but still more to the large views of King Demetrius, who would not tolerate the persecution of opinion. But it was the other Demetrius, the philosopher, the pupil of Aristotle, the friend of Theophrastus, to whom the school owed most, and to whom the world owes most in the matter of museums and academies, next after Plato. For this was the man who took care, during his Protectorate of Athens in the interest of Casander, to establish a garden and 'peripatos' for the Peripatetic school, now under Theophrastus. ... It is remarkable that the Stoic school--it too the school of aliens--did not establish a local foundation or succession, but taught in public places, such as the Painted Portico. In this the Cynical tone of the Porch comes out. Hence the succession depended upon the genius of the leader."

_J. P. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, chapter 7._

An account of the Academy, the Lyceum, etc., will be found under the caption GYMNASIA.

EDUCATION: University of Athens.

"Some scholars ... may doubt if there was anything at Athens which could answer to the College Life of modern times. Indeed it must be owned that formal history is nearly silent on the subject, that ancient writers take little notice of it, and such evidences as we have are drawn almost entirely from a series of inscriptions on the marble tablets, which were covered with the ruins and the dust of ages, till one after another came to light in recent days, to add fresh pages to the story of the past. Happily they are both numerous and lengthy, and may be already pieced together in an order which extends for centuries. They are known to Epigraphic students as the records which deal with the so-called Ephebi; with the youths, that is, just passing into manhood, for whom a special discipline was provided by the State, to, fit them for the responsibilities of active life. It was a National system with a many-sided training; the teachers were members of the Civil Service; the registers were public documents, and, as such, belonged to the Archives of the State. {684} The earlier inscriptions of the series date from the period of Macedonian ascendency, but in much earlier times there had been forms of public drill prescribed for the Ephebi. ... We find from a decree, which, if genuine, dates even from the days of Pericles, that the young men of Cos were allowed by special favour to share the discipline of the Athenian Ephebi. Soon afterwards others were admitted on all sides. The aliens who had gained a competence as merchants or as bankers, found their sons welcomed in the ranks of the oldest families of Athens; strangers flocked thither from distant countries, not only from the isles of Greece, and from the coasts of the Ægean, but, as Hellenic culture made its way through the far East, students even of the Semitic race were glad to enrol their names upon the College registers, where we may still see them with the marks of their several nationalities affixed. The young men were no longer, like soldiers upon actual service, beginning already the real work of life, and on that account, perhaps, the term was shortened from the two years to one; but the old associations lasted on for ages, even in realistic Athens, which in early politics at least had made so clean a sweep. The outward forms were still preserved, the soldier's drill was still enforced, and though many another feature had been added, the whole institution bore upon its face the look rather of a Military College than of a training school for a scholar or a statesman. The College year began somewhat later than the opening of the civil year, and it was usual for all the students to matriculate together; that is, to enter formally their names upon the registers, which were copied afterwards upon the marble tablets, of which large fragments have survived. ... 'To put the gown on,' or, as we should say, 'to be a gownsman,' was the phrase which stood for being a member of the College; and the gown, too, was of black, as commonly among ourselves. But Philostratus tells us, by the way, that a change was made from black to white at the prompting of Herodes Atticus, the munificent and learned subject of the Antonines, who was for many years the presiding genius of the University of Athens. The fragment of an inscription lately found curiously confirms and supplements the writer's statement. ... The members of the College are spoken of as 'friends' and 'messmates'; and it is probable that some form of conventual life prevailed among them, without which the drill and supervision, which are constantly implied in the inscriptions, could scarcely have been enforced by the officials. But we know nothing of any public buildings for their use save the gymnasia, which in all Greek towns were the centres of educational routine, and of which there were several well known at Athens. ... The College did not try to monopolise the education of its students. It had, indeed, its own tutors or instructors, but they were kept for humbler drill; it did not even for a long time keep an organist or choirmaster of its own; it sent its students out for teaching in philosophy and rhetoric and grammar, or, in a word, for all the larger and more liberal studies. Nor did it favour any special set of tenets to the exclusion of the rest. It encouraged impartially all the schools of higher thought. ... The Head of the College held the title of Cosmetes, or of rector. ... The Rector, appointed only for a year by popular election, was no merely honorary head, but took an important part in the real work of education. He was sometimes clothed with priestly functions. ... The system of education thus described was under the control of the government throughout. ... It may surprise us that our information comes almost entirely from the inscriptions, and that ancient writers are all nearly silent on the subject. ... But there was little to attract the literary circles in arrangements so mechanical and formal; there was too much of outward pageantry, and too little of real character evolved."

_W. W. Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens, chapter 1._

_J. H. Newman, Historical Sketches, chapter 4._

The reign of the Emperor Justinian "may be signalised as the fatal epoch at which several of the noblest institutions of antiquity were abolished. He shut the schools of Athens (A. D. 529), in which an uninterrupted succession of philosophers, supported by a public stipend, had taught the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, ever since the time of the Antonines. They were, it is true, still attached to paganism, and even to the arts of magic."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire,