Chapter 22

THE OLD GREEK EDUCATION

I. GREECE AND ITS PEOPLE

THE LAND. Ancient Greece, or Hellas as the Greeks called their homeland, was but a small country. The map given below shows the Aegean world superimposed on the States of the old Northwest Territory, from which it may be seen that the Greek mainland was a little less than half as large as the State of Illinois. Greece proper was about the size of the State of West Virginia, but it was a much more mountainous land. No spot in Greece was over forty miles from the sea. Attica, where a most wonderful intellectual life arose and flourished for centuries, and whose contributions to civilization were the chief glory of Greece, was smaller than two average-size Illinois counties, and about two thirds the size of the little State of Rhode Island. [1] The country was sparsely populated, except in a few of the City-States, and probably did not, at its most prosperous period, contain much more than a million and a half of people-- citizens, foreigners, and slaves included.

The land was rough and mountainous, and deeply indented by the sea. The climate and vegetation were not greatly unlike the climate and vegetation of Southern California. Pine and fir on the mountain-slopes, and figs, olives, oranges, lemons, and grapes on the hillsides and plains below, were characteristic of the land. Fishing, agriculture, and the raising of cattle and sheep were the important industries. A temperate, bracing climate, short, mild winters, and a long, dry summer gave an opportunity for the development of this wonderful civilization. Like Southern California or Florida in winter, it was essentially an out-of-doors country. The high mountains to the rear, the sun-steeped skies, and the brilliant sea in front were alike the beauty of the land and the inspiration of the people. Especially was this true of Attica, which had the seashore, the plain, the high mountains, and everywhere magnificent views through an atmosphere of remarkable clearness. A land of incomparable beauty and charm, it is little wonder that the Greek citizen, and the Athenian in particular, took pride in and loved his country, and was willing to spend much time in preparing himself to govern and defend it.

THE GOVERNMENT. Politically, Greece was composed of a number of independent City-States of small size. They had been settled by early tribes, which originally held the land in common. Attica, with its approximately seven hundred square miles of territory, was an average-size City-State. The central city, the surrounding farming and grazing lands, and the coastal regions all taken together, formed the State, the citizens of which--city-residents, farmers, herdsmen, and fishermen--controlled the government. There were in all some twenty of these City-States in mainland Greece, the most important of which were Attica, of which Athens was the central city; Laconia, of which Sparta was the central city; and Boeotia, of which Thebes was the central city. Some of the States developed democracies, of which class Athens became the most notable example, while some were governed as oligarchies. Of all the different States but few played any conspicuous part in the history of Greece. Of these few Attica stands clearly above them all as the leader in thought and art and the most progressive in government. Here, truly, was a most wonderful people, and it is with Attica that the student of the history of education is most concerned. The best of all Greece was there.

The little City-States of Greece, as has just been said, were independent States, just like modern nations. While all the Greeks regarded themselves as tribes of a single family, descended from a common ancestor, Hellen, and the bonds of a common race, language, and religion tended to unite them into a sort of brotherhood, the different City-States were held apart by their tribal origins, by narrow political sympathies, and by petty laws. A citizen of one city, for example, was an alien in another, and could not hold property or marry in a city not his own. Such attitudes and laws were but natural, the time and age considered.

Sometimes, in case of great danger, as at the time of the Persian invasions (492-479 B.C.), a number of the States would combine to form a defensive league; at other times they made war on one another. The federal principle, such as we know it in the United States in our state and national governments, never came into play. At different times Athens, Sparta, and Thebes aspired to the leadership of Greece and tried to unite the little States into a Hellenic Nation, but the mutual jealousies and the extreme individualism of the people, coupled with the isolation of the States and the difficulties of intercommunication through the mountain passes, stood in the way of any permanent union. [2] What Rome later accomplished with relative ease and on a large scale, Greece was unable to do on even a small scale. A lack of capacity to unite for coöperative undertakings seemed to be a fatal weakness of the Greek character.

THE PEOPLE. The Greeks were among the first of the European peoples to attain to any high degree of civilization. Their story runs back almost to the dawn of recorded history. As early as 3500 B.C. they were in an advanced stone age, and by 2500 B.C. had reached the age of bronze. The destruction of Homer's Troy dates back to 1200 B.C., and the Homeric poems to 1100 B.C., while an earlier Troy (Schliemann's second city) goes back to 2400 B.C. This history concerns the mainland of Asia Minor. By 1000 B.C. the southern peninsula of Greece had been colonized, between 900 and 800 B.C. Attica and other portions of upper Greece had been settled, and by 650 B.C. Greek colonization had extended to many parts of the Mediterranean. [3]

The lower part of the Greek peninsula, known as Laconia, was settled by the Dorian branch of the Greek family, a practical, forceful, but a wholly unimaginative people. Sparta was their most important city. To the north were the Ionic Greeks, a many-sided and a highly imaginative people. Athens was their chief city. In the settlement of Laconia the Spartans imposed themselves as an army of occupation on the original inhabitants, whom they compelled to pay tribute to them, and established a military monarchy in southern Greece. The people of Attica, on the other hand, absorbed into their own body the few earlier settlers of the Attic plain. They also established a monarchy, but, being a people more capable of progress, this later evolved into a democracy. The people of Attica were in consequence a somewhat mixed race, which possibly in part accounts for their greater intellectual ability and versatility. [4]

It accounts, though, only in part. Climate, beautiful surroundings, and contact with the outside world probably also contributed something, but the real basis underneath was the very superior quality of the people of Attica. In some way, just how we do not know, these people came to be endowed with a superior genius and the rather unusual ability to make those progressive changes in living and government which enabled them to make the most of their surroundings and opportunities, and to advance while others stood still. Far more than other Greeks, the people of Attica were imaginative, original, versatile, adaptable, progressive, endowed with rare mental ability, keenly sensitive to beauty in nature and art, and possessed of a wonderful sense of proportion and a capacity for moderation in all things. Only on such an assumption can we account for their marvelous achievements in art, philosophy, literature, and science at this very early period in the development of the civilization of the world.

CLASSES IN THE POPULATION. Greece, as was the ancient world in general, was built politically on the dominant power of a ruling class. In consequence, all of course could not become citizens of the State, even after a democracy had been evolved. Citizenship came with birth and proper education, and, before 509 B.C., foreigners were seldom admitted to privileges in the State. Only a male citizen might hold office, protect himself in the courts, own land, or attend the public assemblies. Only a citizen, too, could participate in the religious festivals and rites, for religion was an affair of the ruling families of the State. In consequence, family, religion, and citizenship were all bound up together, and education and training were chiefly for citizenship and religious (moral) ends.

Even more, citizenship everywhere in the earlier period was a degree to be attained to only after proper education and preliminary military and political training. This not only made some form of education necessary, but confined educational advantages to male youths of proper birth. There was of course no purpose in educating any others. [5] From Figure 4 it will be seen what a small percentage of the total population this included. Education in Greece was essentially the education of the children of the ruling class to perpetuate the rule of that class.

Attica almost alone among the Greek States adopted anything approaching a liberal attitude toward the foreign-born; in Sparta, and generally elsewhere in Greece, they were looked upon with deep suspicion. As a result most of the foreign residents of Greece were to be found in Athens, or its neighboring port city (the Piraeus), attracted there by the hospitality of the people and the intellectual or commercial advantages of these cities. After Athens had become the center of world thought, many foreigners took up their residence in the city because of the importance of its intellectual life. Foreigners, though, they remained up to 509 B.C. (See page 40.) Only rarely before this date, and then only for some conspicuous act of patriotism, and by special vote of the citizens, was a foreigner admitted to citizenship. Unlike Rome, which received those of alien birth freely into its citizenship, and opened up to them large opportunities of every kind, the Greeks persistently refused to assimilate the foreign-born. Regarding themselves as a superior people, descended from the gods, they held themselves apart rather exclusively as above other peoples. This kept the blood pure, but, from the standpoint of world usefulness, it was a serious defect in Greek life. [6]

Beneath both citizens and foreign residents was a great foundation mass of working slaves, who rendered all types of menial and intellectual services. Sailors, household servants, field workers, clerks in shops and offices, accountants, and pedagogues were among the more common occupations of slaves in Greece. Many of these had been citizens and learned men of other City-States or countries, but had been carried off as captives in some war. This was a common practice in the ancient world, slavery being the lot of alien conquered people almost without exception. The composition of Attica, just before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.) is shown in Figure 4. The great number of slaves and foreigners is clearly seen, even though the citizenship had by this time been greatly extended. In Sparta and in other City-States somewhat similar conditions prevailed as to numbers [7] but there the slaves (Helots) occupied a lower status than in Athens, being in reality serfs, tied to and being sold with the land, and having no rights which a citizen was bound to respect.

Education, then, being only for the male children of citizens, and citizenship a degree to be attained to on the basis of education and training, let us next see in what that education consisted, and what were its most prominent characteristics and results.

II. EARLY EDUCATION IN GREECE

Some form of education that would train the son of the citizen for participation in the religious observances and duties of a citizen of the State, and would prepare the State for defense against outward enemies, was everywhere in Greece recognized as a public necessity, though its provision, nature, and extent varied in the different City-States. We have clear information only as to Sparta and Athens, and will consider only these two as types. Sparta is interesting as representing the old Greek tribal training, from which Sparta never progressed. Many of the other Greek City-States probably maintained a system of training much like that of Sparta. Such educational systems stand as undesirable examples of extreme state socialism, contributed little to our western civilization, and need not detain us long. It was Athens, and a few other City-States which followed her example, which presented the best of Greece and passed on to the modern world what was most valuable for civilization.

1. _Education in Sparta_

THE PEOPLE. The system of training which was maintained in Sparta was in part a reflection of the character of the people, and in part a result of its geographical location. A warlike people by nature, the Spartans were for long regarded as the ablest fighters in Greece. Laconia, their home, was a plain surrounded by mountains. They represented but a small percentage of the total population, which they held in subjection to them by their military power. [8] The slaves (Helots) were often troublesome, and were held in check by many kinds of questionable practices. Education for citizenship with the Spartans meant education for usefulness in an intensely military State, where preparedness was a prerequisite to safety. Strength, courage, endurance, cunning, patriotism, and obedience were the virtues most highly prized, while the humane, literary, and artistic sentiments were neglected (R. I). Aristotle well expressed it when he said that "Sparta prepared and trained for war, and in peace rusted like a sword in its scabbard."

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. At birth the child was examined by a council of elders (R. I), and if it did not appear to be a promising child it was exposed to die in the mountains. If kept, the mother had charge of the child until seven if a boy, and still longer if a girl. At the beginning of the eighth year, and until the boy reached the age of eighteen, he lived in a public barrack, where he was given little except physical drill and instruction in the Spartan virtues. His food and clothing were scant and his bed hard. Each older man was a teacher. Running, leaping, boxing, wrestling, military music, military drill, ball-playing, the use of the spear, fighting, stealing, and laconic speech and demeanor constituted the course of study. From eighteen to twenty was spent in professional training for war, and frequently the youth was publicly whipped to develop his courage and endurance. For the next ten years--that is, until he was thirty years old--he was in the army at some frontier post. At thirty the young man was admitted to full citizenship and compelled to marry, though continuing to live at the public barrack and spending his energies in training boys (R. 1). Women and girls were given gymnastic training to make them strong and capable of bearing strong children. The family was virtually suppressed in the interests of defense and war. [9] The intellectual training consisted chiefly in committing to memory the Laws of Lycurgus, learning a few selections from Homer, and listening to the conversation of the older men.

As might naturally be supposed, Sparta contributed little of anything to art, literature, science, philosophy, or government. She left to the world some splendid examples of heroism, as for example the sacrifice of Leonidas and his Spartans to hold the pass at Thermopylae, and a warning example of the brutalizing effect on a people of excessive devotion to military training. It is a pleasure to turn from this dark picture to the wonderful (for the time) educational system that was gradually developed at Athens.

2. _The old Athenian education_

SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS. Athenian education divides itself naturally into two divisions--the old Athenian training which prevailed up to about the time of the close of the Persian Wars (479 B.C.) and was an outgrowth of earlier tribal observances and practices, and later Athenian education, which characterized the period of maximum greatness of Athens and afterward. We shall describe these briefly, in order.

The state military socialism of Sparta made no headway in more democratic Attica. The citizens were too individualistic, and did their own thinking too well to permit the establishment of any such plan. While education was a necessity for citizenship, and the degree could not be obtained without it, the State nevertheless left every citizen free to make his own arrangements for the education of his sons, or to omit such education if he saw fit. Only instruction in reading, writing, music, and gymnastics were required. If family pride, and the sense of obligation of a parent and a citizen were not sufficient to force the father to educate his son, the son was then by law freed from the necessity of supporting his father in his old age. The State supervised education, but did not establish it.

The teachers were private teachers, and derived their livelihood from fees. These naturally varied much with the kind of teacher and the wealth of the parent, much as private lessons in music or dancing do to-day. As was common in antiquity, the teachers occupied but a low social position (R. 5), and only in the higher schools of Athens was their standing of any importance. Greek literature contains many passages which show the low social status of the schoolmaster. [10] Schools were open from dawn to dark. The school discipline was severe, the rod being freely used both in the school and in the home. There were no Saturday and Sunday holidays or long vacations, such as we know, but about ninety festival and other state holidays served to break the continuity of instruction (R. 3). The schoolrooms were provided by the teachers, and were wholly lacking in teaching equipment, in any modern sense of the term. However, but little was needed. The instruction was largely individual instruction, the boy coming, usually in charge of an old slave known as a _pedagogue_, to receive or recite his lessons. The teaching process was essentially a telling and a learning-by-heart procedure.

For the earlier years there were two schools which boys attended--the music and literary school, and a school for physical training. Boys probably spent part of the day at one school and part at the other, though this is not certain. They may have attended the two schools on alternate days. From sixteen to eighteen, if his parents were able, the boy attended a state-supported _gymnasium_, where an advanced type of physical training was given. As this was preparatory for the next two years of army service, the _gymnasia_ were supported by the State more as preparedness measures than as educational institutions, though they partook of the nature of both.

EARLY CHILDHOOD. As at Sparta the infant was examined at birth, but the father, and not a council of citizens, decided whether or not it was to be "exposed" or preserved. Three ceremonies, of ancient tribal origin, marked the recognition and acceptance of the child. The first took place five days after birth, when the child was carried around the family hearth by the nurse, followed by the household in procession. This ceremony, followed by a feast, was designed to place the child forever under the care of the family gods. On the tenth day the child was named by the father, who then formally recognized the child as his own and committed himself to its rearing and education. The third ceremony took place at the autumn family festival, when all children born during the preceding year were presented to the father's clansmen, who decided, by vote, whether or not the boy or girl was the legitimate and lawful child of Athenian parents. If approved, the child's name was entered on the registry of the clan, and he might then aspire to citizenship and inherit property from his parent (R. 4).

Up to the age of seven both boys and girls grew up together in the home, under the care of the nurse and mother, engaging in much the same games and sports as do children anywhere. From the first they were carefully disciplined for good behavior and for the establishment of self-control (R. 3). After the age of seven the boy and girl parted company in the matter of their education, the girl remaining closely secluded in the home (women and children were usually confined to the upper floor of the house) and being instructed in the household arts by her mother, while the boy went to different teachers for his education. Probably many girls learned to read and write from their mothers or nurses, and the daughters of well- to-do citizens learned to spin, weave, sew, and embroider. Music was also a common accomplishment of women. [11]

THE SCHOOL OF THE GRAMMATIST. A Greek boy, unlike a modern school child, did not go to one teacher. Instead he had at least two teachers, and sometimes three. To the _grammatist_, who was doubtless an evolution from an earlier tribal scribe, he went to learn to read and write and count. The grammatist represented the earliest or primary teacher. To the music teacher, who probably at first taught reading and writing also, he went for his instruction in music and literature. Finally, to the _palaestra_ he went for instruction in physical training (R. 3).

Reading was taught by first learning the letters, then syllables, and finally words. [12] Plaques of baked earth, on which the alphabet was written, like the more modern horn-book (see Figure 130), were frequently used. [13] The ease with which modern children learn to read was unknown in Greece. Reading was very difficult to learn, as accentuation, punctuation, spacing between words, and small letters had not as yet been introduced. As a result the study required much time, [14] and much personal ingenuity had to be exercised in determining the meaning of a sentence. The inscription shown in Figure 6 will illustrate the difficulties quite well. The Athenian accent, too, was hard to acquire.

The pupil learned to write by first tracing, with the stylus, letters cut in wax tablets, and later by copying exercises set for him by his teacher, using the wax tablet and writing on his knee. Still later the pupil learned to write with ink on papyrus or parchment, though, due to the cost of parchment in ancient times, this was not greatly used. Slates and paper were of course unknown in Greece.

There was little need for arithmetic, and but little was taught. Arithmetic such as we teach would have been impossible with their cumbrous system of notation. [15] Only the elements of counting were taught, the Greek using his fingers or a counting-board, such as is shown in Figure 8, to do his simple reckoning.

GREAT IMPORTANCE OF READING AND LITERATURE. After the pupil had learned to read, much attention was given to accentuation and articulation, in order to secure beautiful reading. Still more, in reading or reciting, the parts were acted out. The Greeks were a nation of actors, and the recitations in the schools and the acting in the theaters gave plenty of opportunity for expression. There were no schoolbooks, as we know them. The master dictated and the pupils wrote down, or, not uncommonly, learned by heart what the master dictated. Ink and parchment were now used, the boy making his own schoolbooks. Homer was the first and the great reading book of the Greeks, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ being the Bible of the Greek people. Then followed Hesiod, Theognis, the Greek poets, and the fables of Aesop. [16] Reading, declamation, and music were closely interrelated. To appeal to the emotions and to stir the will along moral and civic lines was a fundamental purpose of the instruction (R. 5). A modern writer well characterizes the ancient instruction in literature in the following words:

By making the works of the great poets of the Greek people the material of their education, the Athenians attained a variety of objects difficult of attainment by any other one means. The fact is, the ancient poetry of Greece, with its finished form, its heroic tales and characters, its accounts of peoples far removed in time and space, its manliness and pathos, its directness and simplicity, its piety and wisdom, its respect for law and order, combined with its admiration for personal initiative and worth, furnished, in the hands of a careful and genial teacher, a material for a complete education such as could not well be matched even in our own day. What instruction in ethics, politics, social life, and manly bearing could not find a fitting vehicle in the Homeric poems, not to speak of the geography, the grammar, the literary criticism, and the history which the comprehension of them involved? Into what a wholesome, unsentimental, free world did these poems introduce the imaginative Greek boy! What splendid ideals of manhood and womanhood did they hold up for his admiration and imitation! From Hesiod he would learn all that he needed to know about his gods and their relation to him and his people. From the elegiac poets he would derive a fund of political and social wisdom, and an impetus to patriotism, which would go far to make him a good man and a good citizen. From the iambic poets he would learn to express with energy his indignation at meanness, feebleness, wrong, and tyranny, while from the lyric poets he would learn the language suitable to every genial feeling and impulse of the human heart. And in reciting or singing all these, how would his power of terse, idiomatic expression, his sense of poetic beauty and his ear for rhythm and music be developed! With what a treasure of examples of every virtue and vice, and with what a fund of epigrammatic expression would his memory be furnished! How familiar he would be with the character and ideals of his nation, how deeply in sympathy with them! And all this was possible even before the introduction of letters. With this event a new era in education begins. The boy now not only learns and declaims his Homer, and sings his Simonides or Sappho; he learns also to write down their verses from dictation, and so at once to read and to write. This, indeed, was the way in which these two (to us) fundamental arts were acquired. As soon as the boy could trace with his finger in sand, or scratch with a stylus on wax, the forms of the letters, and combine them into syllables and words, he began to write poetry from his master's dictation. The writing-lesson of to-day was the reading, recitation, or singing-lesson of to-morrow. Every boy made his own reading book, and, if he found it illegible, and stumbled in reading, he had only himself to blame. The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, laid the greatest stress on reading well, reciting well, and singing well, and the youth who could not do all three was looked upon as uncultured. Nor could he hide his want of culture, since young men were continually called upon, both at home and at more or less public gatherings, to perform their part in the social entertainment. [17]

THE MUSIC SCHOOL. The teacher in this school gradually separated himself from the grammatist, and often the two were found in adjoining rooms in the same school. In his functions he succeeded the wandering poet or minstrel of earlier times. Music teachers were common in all the City- States of Greece. To this teacher the boy went at first to recite his poetry, and after the thirteenth year for a special music course. The teacher was known as a _citharist_, and the instrument usually used was the seven-stringed lyre. This resembled somewhat our modern guitar. The flute was also used somewhat, but never grew into much favor, partly because it tended to excite rather than soothe, and partly because of the contortions of the face to which its playing gave rise. Rhythm, melody, and the feeling for measure and time were important in instruction, whose office was to soothe, purge, and harmonize man within and make him fit for moral instruction through the poetry with which their music was ever associated. Instead of being a distinct art, as with us, and taught by itself, music with the Greeks was always subsidiary to the expression of the spirit of their literature, and in aim it was for moral-training ends. [18] Both Aristotle and Plato advocate state control of school music to insure sound moral results. Inferior as their music was to present-day music, it exerted an influence over their lives which it is difficult for an American teacher to appreciate.

The first lessons taught the use of the instrument, and the simple chants of the religious services were learned. As soon as the pupil knew how to play, the master taught him to render the works of the great lyric poets of Greece. Poetry and music together thus formed a single art. At thirteen a special music course began which lasted until sixteen, but which only the sons of the more well-to-do citizens attended. Every boy, though, learned some music, not that he might be a musician, but that he might be musical and able to perform his part at social gatherings and participate in the religious services of the State. Professional playing was left to slaves and foreigners, and was deemed unworthy a free man and a citizen. Professionalism in either music or athletics was regarded as disgraceful. The purpose of both activities was harmonious personal development, which the Greeks believed contributed to moral worth.

THE PALAESTRA; GYMNASTICS. Very unlike our modern education, fully one half of a boy's school life, from eight to sixteen, was given to sports and games in another school under different teachers, known as the palaestra. The work began gradually, but by fifteen had taken precedence over other studies. As in music, harmonious physical development and moral ends were held to be of fundamental importance. The standards of success were far from our modern standards. To win the game was of little significance; the important thing was to do the part gracefully and, for the person concerned, well. To attain to a graceful and dignified carriage of the body, good physical health, perfect control of the temper, and to develop quickness of perception, self-possession, ease, and skill in the games were the aims--not mere strength or athletic prowess (R. 2). Only a few were allowed to train for participation in the Olympian games.

The work began with children's games, contests in running, and ball games of various kinds. Deportment--how to get up, walk, sit, and how to achieve easy manners--was taught by the masters. After the pupils came to be a little older there was a definite course of study, which included, in succession: (1) leaping and jumping, for general bodily and lung development; (2) running contests, for agility and endurance; (3) throwing the discus, [19] for arm exercise; (4) casting the javelin, for bodily poise and coördination of movement, as well as for future use in hunting; (5) boxing and wrestling, for quickness, agility, endurance, and the control of the temper and passions. Swimming and dancing were also included for all, dancing being a slow and graceful movement of the body to music, to develop grace of motion and beauty of form, and to exercise the whole human being, body and soul. The minuet and some of our folk- dancing are our nearest approach to the Greek type of dancing, though still not like it. The modern partner dance was unknown in ancient Greece.

The exercises were performed in classes, or in small groups. They took place in the open air, and on a dirt or sandy floor. They were accompanied by music--usually the flute, played by a paid performer. A number of teachers looked after the boys, examining them physically, supervising the exercises, directing the work, and giving various forms of instruction.

THE GYMNASIAL TRAINING, SIXTEEN TO EIGHTEEN. Up to this point the education provided was a private and a family affair. In the home and in the school the boy had now been trained to be a gentleman, to revere the gods, to be moral and upright according to Greek standards, and in addition he had been given that training in reading, writing, music, and athletic exercises that the State required parents to furnish. It is certain that many boys, whose parents could ill afford further expense for schooling, were allowed to quit the schools at from thirteen to fifteen. Those who expected to become full citizens, however, and to be a part of the government and hold office, were required to continue until twenty years of age. Two years more were spent in schooling, largely athletic, and two years additional in military service. Of this additional training, if his parents chose and could afford it, the State now took control.

For the years from sixteen to eighteen the boy attended a state _gymnasium_, of which two were erected outside of Athens by the State, in groves of trees, in 590 B.C. Others were erected later in other parts of Greece. Figure 11 shows the ground plan of one of these _gymnasia_, and a study of the explanation of the plan will reveal the nature of these establishments. The boy now had for teachers a number of gymnasts of ability. The old exercises of the _palaestra_ were continued, but running, wrestling, and boxing were much emphasized. The youth learned to run in armor, while wrestling and boxing became more severe. He also learned to ride a horse, to drive a chariot, to sing and dance in the public choruses, and to participate in the public state and religious processions.

Still more, the youth now passed from the supervision of a family pedagogue to the supervision of the State. For the first time in his life he was now free to go where he desired about the city; to frequent the streets, market-place, and theater; to listen to debates and jury trials, and to witness the great games; and to mix with men in the streets and to mingle somewhat in public affairs. He saw little of girls, except his sisters, but formed deep friendships with other young men of his age. [20] Aside from a requirement that he learn the laws of the State, his education during this period was entirely physical and civic. If he abused his liberty he was taken in hand by public officials charged with the supervision of public morals. He was, however, still regarded as a minor, and his father (or guardian) was held responsible for his public behavior.

THE CITIZEN-CADET YEARS, EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY. The supervision of the State during the preceding two years had in a way been joint with that of his father; now the State took complete control. At the age of eighteen his father took him before the proper authorities of his district or ward in the city, and presented him as a candidate for citizenship. He was examined morally and physically, and if sound, and if the records showed that he was the legitimate son of a citizen, his name was entered on the register of his ward as a prospective member of it (R. 4). His long hair was now cut, he donned the black garb of the citizen, was presented to the people along with others at a public ceremony, was publicly armed with a spear and a shield, and then, proceeding to one of the shrines of the city, on a height overlooking it, he solemnly took the Ephebic oath:

I will never disgrace these sacred arms, nor desert my companion in the ranks. I will fight for temples and public property, both alone and with many. I will transmit my fatherland, not only not less, but greater and better, than it was transmitted to me. I will obey the magistrates who may at any time be in power. I will observe both the existing laws and those which the people may unanimously hereafter make, and, if any person seek to annul the laws or to set them at naught, I will do my best to prevent him, and will defend them both alone and with many. I will honor the religion of my fathers. And I call to witness Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, and Hegemone.

He was now an _Ephebos_, or citizen-cadet, with still two years of severe training ahead of him before he could take up the full duties of citizenship. The first year he spent in and near Athens, learning to be a soldier. He did what recruits do almost everywhere--drill, camp in the open, learn the army methods and discipline, and march in public processions and take part in religious festivals. This first year was much like that of new troops in camp being worked into real soldiers. At the end of the year there was a public drill and inspection of the cadets, after which they were sent to the frontier. It was now his business to come to know his country thoroughly--its topography, roads, springs, seashores, and mountain passes. He also assisted in enforcing law and order throughout the country districts, as a sort of a state constabulary or rural police. At the end of this second year of practical training the second examination was held, the cadet was now admitted to full citizenship, and passed to the ranks of a trained citizen in the reserve army of defense, as does a boy in Switzerland to-day (R. 4).

RESULTS UNDER THE OLD GREEK SYSTEM. Such was the educational system which was in time evolved from the earlier tribal practices of the citizens of old Athens. If we consider Sparta as representing the earlier tribal education of the Greek peoples, we see how far the Athenians, due to their wonderful ability to make progress, were able to advance beyond this earlier type of preparation for citizenship (R. 5). Not only did Athens surpass all Greece, but, for the first time in the history of the world, we find here, expressing itself in the education of the young, the modern western, individualistic and democratic spirit, as opposed to the deadening caste and governmental systems of the East. Here first we find a free people living under political conditions which favored liberty, culture, and intellectual growth, and using their liberty to advance the culture and the knowledge of the people (R. 6).

Here also we find, for the first time, the thinkers of the State deeply concerned with the education of the youth of the State, and viewing education as a necessity to make life worth living and secure the State from dangers, both within and without. To prepare men by a severe but simple and honest training to fear the gods, to do honest work, to despise comfort and vice, to obey the laws, to respect their neighbors and themselves, and to reverence the wisdom of their race, was the aim of this old education. The schooling for citizenship was rigid, almost puritanical, but it produced wonderful results, both in peace and in war. [21] Men thus trained guided the destinies of Athens during some two centuries, and the despotism of the East as represented by Persia could not defeat them at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.

THE SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM. The simplicity of the curriculum was one of its marked features. In a manner seldom witnessed in the world's educational history, the Greeks used their religion, literature, government, and the natural activities of young men to impart an education of wonderful effectiveness. [22] The subjects we have valued so highly for training were to them unknown. They taught no arithmetic or grammar, no science, no drawing, no higher mathematics, and no foreign tongue. Music, the literature and religion of their own people, careful physical training, and instruction in the duties and practices of citizenship constituted the entire curriculum.

It was an education by doing; not one of learning from books. That it was an attractive type of education there is abundant testimony by the Greeks themselves. We have not as yet come to value physical education as did the Greeks, nor are we nearly so successful in our moral education, despite the aid of the Christian religion which they did not know. It was, to be sure, class education, and limited to but a small fraction of the total population. In it girls had no share. There were many features of Greek life, too, that are repugnant to modern conceptions. Yet, despite these limitations, the old education of Athens still stands as one of the most successful in its results of any system of education which has been evolved in the history of the world. Considering its time and place in the history of the world and that it was a development for which there were nowhere any precedents, it represented a very wonderful evolution.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why are imaginative ability and many-sided natures such valuable characteristics for any people?

2. Why is the ability to make progressive changes, possessed so markedly by the Athenian Greeks, an important personal or racial characteristic?

3. Are the Athenian characteristics, stated in the middle of page 19, characteristics capable of development by training, or are they native, or both?

4. How do you explain the Greek failure to achieve political unity?

5. Would education for citizenship with us to-day possess the same defects as in ancient Greece? Why? Do we give an equivalent training?

6. Which is the better attitude for a nation to assume toward the foreigner--the Greek, or the American? Why?

7. Why does a state military socialism, such as prevailed at Sparta, tend to produce a people of mediocre intellectual capacity?

8. How do you account for the Athenian State leaving literary and musical education to private initiative, but supporting state _gymnasia_?

9. Would the Athenian method of instruction have been possible had all children in the State been given an education? Why?

10. How did the education of an Athenian girl differ from that of a girl in the early American colonies?

11. Why did the Greek boy need three teachers, whereas the American boy is taught all and more by one primary teacher?

12. Contrast the Greek method of instruction in music, and the purposes of the instruction, with our own.

13. How could we incorporate into our school instruction some of the important aspects of Greek instruction in music?

14. What do you think of the contentions of Aristotle and Plato that the State should control school music as a means of securing sound moral instruction?

15. Does the Greek idea that a harmonious personal development contributes to moral worth appeal to you? Why?

16. Contrast the Greek ideal as to athletic training with the conception of athletics held by an average American schoolboy.

17. Contrast the education of a Greek boy at sixteen with that of an American boy at the same age.

18. Contrast the emphasis placed on expression as a method in teaching in the schools of Athens and of the United States.

19. Do the needs of modern society and industrial life warrant the greater emphasis we place on learning from books, as opposed to the learning by doing of the Greeks?

20. Compare the compulsory-school period of the Greeks with our own. If we were to add some form of compulsory military training, for all youths between eighteen and twenty, and as a preparedness measure, would we approach still more nearly the Greek requirements?

21. Explain how the Athenian Greeks reconciled the idea of social service to the State with the idea of individual liberty, through a form of education which developed personality. Compare this with our American ideal.

22. The Greek schoolboy had no long summer vacation, as do American children. Is there any special reason why we need it more than did they?

23. Do we believe that virtue can be taught in the way the Hellenic peoples did? Do we carry such a belief into practice?

SELECTED READINGS

In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections are reproduced:

1. Plutarch: Ancient Education in Sparta. 2. Plato: An Athenian Schoolboy's Life. 3. Lucian: An Athenian Schoolboy's Day. 4. Aristotle: Athenian Citizenship and the Ephebic Years. 5. Freeman: Sparta and Athens compared. 6. Thucydides: Athenian Education summarized.

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

1. Describe and characterize the Laws which Lycurgus framed for Spartan training (1).

2. Describe and characterize the instruction of the Ireus at Sparta. Compare with the training given among the best of the American Indian tribes (1).

3. Contrast the type of education given an Athenian and a Spartan boy, as to nature and purpose and character (1 and 2).

4. What degree of State supervision of education is indicated by Plato (2)? By Freeman (5)?

5. Compare an Athenian school day as described by Lucian (3) with a school day in a modern Gary-type school.

6. Compare the Ephebic years of an Athenian youth (4) with those of a Spartan youth (1).

7. What were some of the chief defects of Athenian schools (5)?

8. What was the position of the State in the matter of the education of youth (5)?

9. What were the great merits of the Athenian educational and political system of training (6)?

(For SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES, see following chapter.)