The History of Education Part 2

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 partic.i.p.ate 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 coordination 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 pa.s.sions. 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 cla.s.ses, 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 G.o.ds, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. II. GROUND-PLAN OF THE GYMNASIUM AT EPHESOS, IN ASIA MINOR _Explanation:_ A, B, C, pillared corridors, or portico; D, an open s.p.a.ce, possibly a palaestra, evidently intended to supply the peristylium; E, a long, narrow hall used for games of ball; F, a large hall with seats; G, in which was suspended a sack filled with chaff for the use of boxers; H, where the young men sprinkled themselves with dust; I, the cold bath; K, where the wrestling-master anointed the bodies of the contestants; L, the cooling-off room; M, the furnace-room; N, the vapor bath; 0, the dry- sweating apartment; P, the hot bath; Q, Q', rooms for games, for the keepers, or for other uses; R, R', covered stadia, for use in bad weather; S, S, S, S, S, rows of seats, looking upon T, the uncovered _stadium_; U, groves, with seats and walks among the trees; V, V', recessed seats for the use of philosophers, rhetoricians, and others.]

For the years from sixteen to eighteen the boy attended a 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 partic.i.p.ate in the public state and religious processions.

Still more, the youth now pa.s.sed 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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 citizens.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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 citizens.h.i.+p. 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, seash.o.r.es, and mountain pa.s.ses. He also a.s.sisted 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 citizens.h.i.+p, and pa.s.sed 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 citizens.h.i.+p (R. 5). Not only did Athens surpa.s.s 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 G.o.ds, 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 citizens.h.i.+p 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 citizens.h.i.+p const.i.tuted 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, cla.s.s 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 citizens.h.i.+p with us to-day possess the same defects as in ancient Greece? Why? Do we give an equivalent training?

6. Which is the better att.i.tude for a nation to a.s.sume 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 h.e.l.lenic 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 Citizens.h.i.+p and the Ephebic Years.

5. Freeman: Sparta and Athens compared.

6. Thucydides: Athenian Education summarized.

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS