son's services in the shop or on the farm in Attica, the break-up of family life at Sparta, must have been a sore trial to the parents and have involved many sacrifices. Yet there is no trace of grumbling. The Hellene felt that it was quite as much his duty to the State to educate her future citizens properly as it was to be ready to die in her cause, and he did both ungrudgingly. If the laws which made the teaching of letters compulsory at Athens fell into desuetude, it was only because the citizens needed no compulsion to make them do their duty. Nor had the State to pay the school bills; for every citizen, however poor, was ready to make the necessary sacrifices of personal luxuries and amusements in order to do his duty by having his children properly taught. The State only interfered to make schooling as cheap and as easy to obtain as possible. 6. Athenian Education summarized An excellent summary of the higher aims and accomplishments of Athenian education, at its best, is given by Thucydides (471400 B.C.), the Athenian historian, when he puts into the mouth of Pericles the following words: "If, then, we prefer to meet danger with a light heart but without laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habit and not enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers? Since we do not anticipate the pain, although, when the hour comes, we can be as brave as those who never allow themselves to rest; and thus, too, our city is equally admirable in peace and in war. For we are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To avow poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act and of acting too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection. And they are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger." CHAPTER II LATER GREEK EDUCATION THE Readings in this chapter deal with Greek education and Greek educational influence in the period following the Persian Wars. The long-standing menace of Persian domination had been ended, and little democratic Attica, as well as Greece as a whole, was now free to develop according to its ability and native genius. In Attica a wonderful development took place almost at once, and Athens soon became the first city in the world in the arts of peace. The picture of Athens at the height of the Golden Age of Greece given by Wilkins (7) reveals something of her marvelous achievements in art and literature. Such a development, together with the great expansion of Greek life and commerce and political relationships throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, naturally subjected the old education of the Ephebic class to serious strain, and remodeling had to take place. In the absence of any state educational system, all kinds of teachers opened schools of the newer type, offering to train for public speaking and eloquence and often making extravagant claims as to what they could accomplish. In time these new teachers organized and reduced their work to system, Isocrates being a leader in this work. In the selection given from his oration against these new-type teachers (8) we get some conception as to their pretensions, and also of his ideas as to the necessities for such training. With the breakdown of the old training as a basis for developing virtue in the State, and the rise of the new teachers aiming to train for personal success without any basis of morality underlying their work, Athens faced a serious educational crisis. This Socrates attempted to solve by founding morality on personal knowledge as to right and wrong. His practice, well illustrated by the long dialogues in The Republic of Plato, which see, and by the selection given (9), was to lead men to correct ideas by asking them questions, and by a questioning method to draw men from unconscious ignorance to conscious ignorance, and from conscious ignorance to clear and reasoned truth. Knowledge of the right, he claimed, would be followed by doing the right. That such a sharp questioner would not be popular anywhere is easily understood, and the task of reforming education on a new philosophical and ethical basis naturally proved too large for any one man. Of the two final selections, the first pictures Greek higher learning at Alexandria (10) and shows how Greek thought permeated the eastern Mediterranean world, though Greece politically was dead; while the second (11) gives a good idea of our great debt to the Greeks. 7. Athens in the Time of Pericles (Wilkins, A. S., National Education in Greece in the Fourth Century B.C. A brilliant picture of Athens in the days of her greatest glory – the Golden Age of Greece. The many non-school educational forces of the city are here well set forth. But above all things the Athenian of the time of Pericles was living in an atmosphere of unequalled genius and culture. He took his way past the temples where the friezes of Phidias seemed to breathe and struggle, under the shadow of the colonnades reared by the craft of Ictinus or Callicrates and glowing with the hues of Polygnotus, to the agora where, like his Aryan forefathers by the shores of the Caspian, or his Teutonic cousins in the forests of Germany, he was to take his part as a free man in fixing the fortunes of his country. There he would listen, with the eagerness of one who knew that all he held most dear was trembling in the balance, to the pregnant eloquence of Pericles. Or, in later times, he would measure the sober prudence of Nicias against the boisterous turbulence of Cleon, or the daring brilliance of Alcibiades. Then, as the great Dionysia came round once more with the spring-time, and the sea was open again for traffic, and from every quarter of Hellas the strangers flocked for pleasure or business, he would take his place betimes in the theater of Dionysus, and gaze from sunrise to sunset on the successive tragedies in which Sophocles, and Euripides, and Ion of Chios, were contending for the prize of poetry. Or, at the lesser festivals, he would listen to the wonderful comedies of Eupolis, Aristophanes, or the old Cratinus, with their rollicking fun and snatches of sweetest melody, their savage attacks on personal enemies and merry jeers at well-known cowards or wantons, and, underlying all, their weighty allusions and earnest political purpose. As he passed through the market-place, or looked in at one of the wrestling schools, he may have chanced to come upon a group of men in eager conversation, or hanging with breathless interest on the words of one of their number; and he may have found himself listening to an harangue of Gorgias, or to a fragment of the unsparing dialectic of Socrates. What could books do more for a man who was receiving such an education as this? It was what the student gazed on, what he heard, what he caught by the magic of sympathy, not what he read, which was the education furnished by Athens. Not by her discipline, like Sparta and Rome, but by the unfailing charm of her gracious influence, did Athens train her children. 8. The Instruction of the Sophists (Isocrates, Against the Sophists; selected) Isocrates (436-338 B.C.), was an Athenian orator and rhetorician, who was educated in the schools of the Sophists Prodicus, Protagoras, and Gorgias. In 390 B.C., after a period as an advocate, he opened a school of his own, and organized the work of the preceding Sophists into what were afterwards known as the schools of Rhetoric. In his speech, Against the Sophists, written in this same year, he attacks those who attract pupils by low fees and big promises, and sets forth the principles underlying what he proposed to do in his school a school which soon became famous throughout the Greek-speaking world. FIG. I If all those who undertake instruction, ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.) would speak the truth, nor make greater promises than they can perform, they would not be accused by the illiterate. Now, those who inconsiderately have dared to boast, have been the cause that those men seem to have reasoned better, who indulge their indolence, than such as study philosophy: for, first, who would not detest and despise those who pass their time in sophistic chicanery? who pretend, indeed, that they seek truth, but, from the beginning of their premises, labour to speak falsities; for I think it manifest to all, that the faculty of foreknowing future things is above our nature: nay, we are so far from such prudence, that Homer, who, for his wisdom, has acquired the highest fame, has sometimes introduced gods in his poem, consulting about futurity; not that he knew the nature of their minds, but that he would show to us, that this was one of those things which are impossible for man. These men are arrived at that pitch of insolence, that they endeavour to persuade the younger, that, if they will be their disciples, they shall know what is best to be done, and thereby be made happy; and, after they have erected themselves into teachers of such sublime things, they are not ashamed to ask of them four or five minæ;1 though did they sell any other possession for much less than its value, they would not hesitate to grant themselves mad. But now exposing to sale all virtue and happiness (if we will believe them); they dare argue, that, as being wise men, they ought to be the preceptors of others; yet they say, indeed, that they are not indigent of money, while, to diminish its idea, they call it pitiful gold and silver; though they require a trifling gain, and only promise to make those next to immortal, who will commence their disciples.... When therefore some of the unlearned, considering all these things, see those who profess teaching wisdom and happiness, indigent themselves of many things, requiring a small sum of their scholars, and observing contradictions in silly sentences, though they see them not in actions; professing likewise, that they know futurity, yet not capable of speaking or deliberating properly of things present; and that those are more consistent with themselves, and do more things right who follow common opinions, than those who say they are possessed of wisdom: when they see this, I say, they think such disputations mere trifles, a loss of time in idle things, and not a real improvement of the human mind. Nor is it just to blame these men only, but those likewise who profess to teach civil science to the citizens; for they also disregard truth; and think it artful, if they draw as many as possible, by the smallness of the recompense, and the greatness of their promises, and so receive something of them: and they are so stupid, and imagine others so, that though they write orations more inaccurate than some who are unlearned speak extempore, yet they promise they will make their disciples such orators, that they shall omit nothing in the nature of things; nay, that they will teach them eloquence, like grammar; not considering the nature of each, but thinking, that on account of the excellence of their promises, they will be admired, and the study of eloquence seem of higher value; not knowing, that arts render not those famous who insolently boast of them, but those who can find out and express whatever is in them. . . . Since I am advanced so far, I will speak more clearly of this topic; I say, then, it is no difficult matter to learn those forms or orders of things, by which we know how to compose orations, if any one puts himself under the care not of such as easily vaunt themselves, but such as have the real science; but, in regard of what relates to particular things, which we must first see, and mix together, and dispose in order, and, besides, 1 About $80 to $100 in our money. Isocrates charged his pupils ten mina for the course, extending over three or four years. |