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's souls, 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 man 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 they may not be compelled through bodily weakness 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 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 time; 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. 3. Description of an Athenian Schoolboy's Day The following description by Lucian of an Athenian schoolboy's life of a later period, but which Freeman thinks applies equally well to an earlier period, related to the details of schoolroom procedure rather than to the larger purposes, as did the preceding selection. It describes a long and a busy day for a boy, but one which must on the whole have been a very enjoyable one. It also seems to indicate that the boy attended different schools on the same day, a point which is not clear. He gets up at dawn, washes the sleep from his eyes, and puts on his cloak. Then he goes out from his father's house, his eyes fixed on the ground, not looking at any one who meets him. Behind him follow attendants and pedagogoi, bearing in their hands the implements of virtue, writing tablets or books containing the great deeds of old, or, if he is going to a music school, his well-tuned lyre. When he has labored diligently at intellectual studies, and his mind is sated with the benefits of the school curriculum, he exercises his body in liberal pursuits, riding, or hurling the javelin or spear. Then the wrestling school with its sleek, oiled pupils, labors under the midday sun, and sweats in the regular athletic contests. Then a bath, not too prolonged; then a meal, not too large, in view of afternoon school. For the school masters are waiting for him again, and the books which openly or by allegory teach him who was a great hero, who was a lover of justice and purity. With the contemplation of such virtues he waters the garden of his young soul. When evening sets a limit to his work, he pays the necessary tribute to his stomach and retires to rest, to sleep sweetly after his busy day. 4. Athenian Citizenship and the Ephebic Years Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), the great organizing Greek mind, whom Eusebius called "Nature's private secretary, dipping his pen in intellect," here describes the constitutional requirements as to citizenship at Athens, and the training of the Ephebic years, which, by his time, had been extended to three years. The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens. Registration as a member of a deme or township takes place when eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys. Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If the verdict is against him he appeals to the Helixa, and the municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally proposed for the register, the State sells him for a slave; if the judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the senate, and if any one is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine is imposed on the municipality by which he is registered. After approbation, they are called epheboi, or cadets, and the parents of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being sworn, choose three men of the tribe over forty years of age, whom they believe to be of stainless character and fitted for the superintendence of youth, and out of these the com mons in ecclesia select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians. These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the temples, march down to Piræus, where they garrison the north and south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma [about twenty cents] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols (about thirteen cents]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the commons meet in the theater and the cadets, after displaying before them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years, wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritances, or heiresses, or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When three years are completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens. 5. Sparta and Athens compared (Freeman, K. J., The Schools of Hellas, pp. 275-79, 281-82. London, 1907) This is one of the most important books ever written on Greek educational practice, and in the extracts here presented the differences in the motives and practices of Sparta and Athens are well set forth. The preceding chapters have sufficiently established, as it seems to me, that Hellenic education alike at Sparta and at Athens, in theory and in practice, aimed at producing the best possible citizen, not the best possible money-maker; it sought the good of the community, not the good of the individual. The methods and materials of education naturally differed with the conception of good citizenship held in each locality, but the ideal object was always the same. The Spartan, with his schoolboy conception of life, believed that the whole duty of man was to be brave, to be indifferent to hardships and pain, to be a good soldier, and to be always in perfect physical condition; when his Hellenic instincts needed satisfaction, he made his military drill into a musical dance and sang songs in honour of valour. Long speaking and lengthy meditation he regarded with contempt, for he preferred deeds to words and thoughts, and the essence of a situation could always be expressed in a single sentence. This Spartan conception of citizenship fixed the aim of Spartan education. Daily hardships, endless physical training, perpetual tests of pluck and endurance, were the lot of the Spartan boy. He did not learn to read or write or count; he was trained to speak only in single words or in the shortest of sentences, for what need had a Spartan of letters or of chattering? His imagination had also to be subordinated to the national ideal: his dances, his songs, his very deities, were all military. The Athenian's conception of the perfect citizen was much wider and much more difficult of attainment. Pluck and harmony of physical development did not satisfy him: there must be equal training of mind and imagination, without any sacrifice of bodily health. He demanded of the ideal citizen perfection of body, extensive mental activity and culture, and irreproachable taste. "We love and pursue wisdom, yet avoid bodily sloth; we love and pursue beauty, yet avoid bad taste and extravagance," proclaims Perikles in his summary of Athenian ideals. Consequently Athenian education was triple in its aims; its activities were divided between body, mind, and taste. The body of the young Athenian was symmetrically developed by the scientifically designed exercises of the palaistra. At eighteen the State imposed upon him two years of physical training at public cost. In after life he could exercise himself in the public gymnasia without any payment; there was no actual compulsion, except the perpetual imminence of military service, which, however, almost amounted to compulsion. As to mental instruction, every boy had to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and gain such acquaintance with the national literature as these studies involved. The other branch of primary education, playing and singing, intended to develop the musical ear and taste, was optional, but rarely neglected. The secondary education given by the Sophists, rhetors, and philosophers was only intended for the comparatively few who had wealth and leisure. Taste and imagination were cultivated in the music and art schools, but the influences of the theater, the Akropolis, the temples and public monuments, and the dances which accompanied every festival and religious occasion, were still more potent, and were exercised upon all alike. This æsthetic aspect of education was regarded as particularly important in Hellas owing to the prevalent idea that art and music had a strong influence over character. For the training of character was before all things the object of Hellenic education; it was this which Hellenic parents particularly demanded of the schoolmaster. So strongly did they believe that virtue could be taught, that they held the teacher responsible for any subsequent misdemeanour of his pupils. . . . Since the main object of the schools of Hellas was to train and mould the character of the young, it would be natural to suppose that the schoolmasters and every one else who was to come into contact with the boys were chosen with immense care, special attention being given to their reputation for virtue and conduct. At Sparta this principle was certainly observed. Education was controlled by a paidonomos, selected from the citizens of the highest position and reputation, and the teaching was given, not by hired foreigners or slaves, but by the citizens. themselves under his supervision. But then the teaching at Sparta dealt mostly with the manners and customs of the State, or with bodily or military exercises, known to every grown man, and the citizens had plenty of leisure. The Athenians were in a more difficult position. There were more subjects for the boy to learn, and some of them the parents might have neither the capacity nor the time to teach. Owing also to the day-school system at Athens and the peculiarities of Hellenic manners, the boys needed some one always at hand to take them to and from school and palaistra. Thus both paid teachers and attendants were needed. But it was also necessary not to let education become too expensive lest the poor should be unable to afford it. Consequently the paidagogoi came often to be the cheapest and most worthless slaves, and the schoolmasters as a class to be regarded with supreme contempt. No doubt careful parents chose excellent paidagogoi, schoolmasters, and paidotribai for their sons, and made the choice a matter of much deliberation: the teachers at the best schools were often men of position and repute. But that the class as a whole was regarded with contempt there can be little doubt. The children went into school as they would have gone into any other shop, with a sense of superiority, bringing with them their pets, leopards and cats and dogs, and playing with them during lesson-times. Idlers and loungers came into the schools and palaistrai, as they came into the market-booths, to chatter and look on, seriousiy interrupting the work. The schoolmasters and paidotribai at Athens were, in fact, too dependent upon their public to take a strong line, and, in spite of their power, often exercised, of inflicting corporal punishment, they seem to have been distinctly at the mercy of the pupils and their friends. The paidagogoi too, though they seem to have kept their pupils in order, were often not the right people to control a boy's conduct; they were apt to have a villainous accent, and still more villainous habits. It must be confessed that the Athenians, in their desire to make education cheap, ran a very great risk of spoiling what in their opinion was its chief object, the training of character. . . . It was the sense of duty to the State, the resolution to promote the happiness of the whole citizen-body, which made parents willing to undergo any sacrifice in order to have their sons educated in the way which would best minister to this ideal. The bills of the masters of letters and music and of the paidotribai, and the lengthy loss of the |