Part 213

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; translated 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, chapter 1._