A student's history of education — Inside the Classic

etoric, and out of them universities sprang up. Then Greek culture and education spread throughout the world.

[Sidenote: First development of individuality appeared among Greeks.]

=Progressive Nature of Greek Education.=--Real educational progress began with the Greeks. In their training gradually appeared considerable regard for individuality. They were the first people whose outlook seems to have been toward the future rather than the past, and they first made a serious attempt to promote human development in accordance with a remote ideal progressively revealed. As a result, they not only gave a wonderful impetus to educational practice in their own time, but ever since then the world has had constant recourse to them for inspiration and counsel. While this intellectual emancipation did not appear to any extent before its development among the Athenians in the middle of the fifth century B. C., well-planned systems of education existed in Greece several centuries before this and paved the way for the system in Athens during the Age of Pericles.

[Sidenote: Service to state the object.]

[Sidenote: Exposure of sickly infants.]

[Sidenote: Barracks training of boys.]

=Spartan Education: Its Aim and Early Stages.=--Among the states of ancient Greece, Sparta possessed the earliest education of which we have any extended information. Its citizens dwelt in the midst of hostile peoples they had subjugated, and this made it necessary to produce a race of hardy and patriotic warriors. Strength, courage, and obedience to the laws were held as the aim of education. The Spartan educational system was intended to serve the state, and the rights of the individual were given little or no consideration. State control began with birth. The infant was immediately inspected by a council of elders, and, if he were sickly or deformed, he was ‘exposed’ to die in the mountains; but if he appeared physically promising, he was formally adopted by the state and left with his mother for rearing until seven. At that age the boys were placed in charge of a state officer and ate and slept in a kind of public barracks. Here their life became one of constant drill and discipline. In addition to hard beds, scanty clothing, and little food, they were given a graded course in gymnastics. Besides ball-playing, dancing, and the _pentathlum_--running, jumping, throwing the discus, casting the javelin, and wrestling--the exercises included boxing, and even the brutal _pancratium_, in which any means of overcoming one’s antagonist--kicking, gouging, and biting, as well as wrestling and boxing--was permitted.

[Sidenote: Little intellectual or moral training.]

The Spartan boys, however, received only a little informal training in the way of intellectual education. They simply committed to memory and chanted the laws of Lycurgus and selections from Homer, and they listened to the conversation of the older men during the meals at the common table, and were themselves exercised in giving concise and sensible answers to questions put to test their wisdom. Every adult was also required to choose as his constant companion or ‘hearer’ a youth to whom he might become an ‘inspirer.’

[Sidenote: Military training.]

=Training in Youth and Manhood: Results.=--When a youth reached eighteen, he began the distinctive study of warfare. For two years he was trained in the use of arms and skirmishing, and every ten days had his courage and his physique tested by being whipped before the altar of Artemis. Then he regularly entered the army, and for ten years guarded some border fortress and lived upon the coarsest of fare. When he became thirty, he was considered a man and forced to marry at once, but even then he could visit his wife only clandestinely and was still obliged to live in common with the boys and assist in their training.

[Sidenote: Similar education of girls.]

The education of women was very like that of the men. While the girls were allowed to live at home, they were given a similar physical training in the hope that they would become the mothers of sturdy sons. Thus the Spartan education was shaped entirely with reference to the welfare of the state. Their educational system served well its purpose of creating strong warriors and devoted citizens, but it failed to make for the highest manhood. Sparta developed practically no art, literature, or philosophy, and produced little that tended to promote civilization. She has left to the world little but examples of heroism and foolhardiness alike.

[Sidenote: Two types of schools: (1) the _palaestra_, furnishing physical training; (2) the _didascaleum_, furnishing music, reading, and writing.]

[Sidenote: The _paedagogus_.]

=Old Athenian Education: Its Aim and Early Training.=--For many centuries the Athenian education was not unlike the Spartan in promoting the welfare of the state without much consideration of individual interests. But even in early days Athens felt that the state was best served when the individual secured the most complete personal development. Hence, the Athenian boys began to receive at seven years of age two kinds of training,--(1) the _pentathlum_ and other physical exercises in the palaestra (Fig. 3) or exercising ground, and (2) singing and playing upon the flute or lyre, and reading and writing at the _didascaleum_ (Fig. 4.) or music school. After the boy had learned his letters by tracing them in the sand, he was taught to copy verses and selections from well-known authors, at first upon wax-tablets with a stylus, and later upon parchment with pen and ink. It was, moreover, necessary for the pupils in singing to be taught the rhythm and melody, and to understand the poem so as to bring out its meaning. Hence the explanations and interpretations given by the teachers brought in all the learning of the times, and the moral and intellectual value of the studies must have been much greater than would be suggested by the meagerness of the course. Some moral training and discipline were also given the boy by a slave called the _paedagogus_, who conducted him to school and carried his lyre and other appurtenances. This functionary was often advanced in years or incapacitated for other duties by physical disability.

(Reproduced from illustrations taken from old vases by Freeman in his _Schools of Hellas_.)

[Sidenote: Advanced physical training in _gymnasia_, and ephebic course in military duties.]

=Training for the Youth.=--At fifteen the Athenian boy might take physical training of a more advanced character at one of the exercising grounds just outside Athens, which were known as _gymnasia_. He was now permitted to go wherever he wished and become acquainted with public life through first-hand contact. When eighteen the youth took the oath of loyalty to Athens, and for two years as an _ephebus_ or cadet continued his education with a course in military duties. The first year he spent in the neighborhood of Athens and formed part of the city garrison, but in the second year he was transferred to some fortress on the frontier. At twenty the young man became a citizen, but even then his training continued through the drama, architecture, sculpture, and art that were all about him.

[Sidenote: Women given little training.]

[Sidenote: Resemblance of old Athenian education to Spartan.]

=Effect of the Old Athenian Education.=--Little attention was, however, given by the Athenians to the education of woman. It was felt that her duties demanded no knowledge beyond ordinary skill in household affairs. With this exception, the Athenian education was superior to the Spartan in allowing greater opportunity for individual development and in furnishing a more rounded training. Nevertheless, until about the middle of the fifth century B. C., while differing considerably in degree from Sparta, Athens may be grouped with that country as adhering to the ‘old’ education, where the individual was subordinated to the good of the social whole.

[Sidenote: Extreme individualism in new Athenian education.]

=Causes and Character of the New Athenian Education.=--This characterization is, of course, in contrast to Greek education in the ‘new’ period, which is represented by Athens alone. This later type of education was probably somewhat the result of the gradual rise of democratic ideals in Athens, but a more immediate set of factors grew out of the Persian wars (492-479 B. C.). This extended conflict with a powerful Oriental people, possessing a well-organized but widely different body of traditions tended to broaden the views of the Athenians greatly, and the ensuing political and commercial intercourse with a variety of dependent states and nations in the Delian League, together with social contact with the foreigners from every land that were thronging the streets of Athens, led even more directly to a reconstruction of practices and beliefs. A rapid transition in the old traditions took place and society seems for a time to have been sadly disorganized. The old was shattered, and while new ideals were being constructed, a groping ensued. Although the latitude given the individual was destined, as always, to produce progress in the long run, and was of great ultimate service to the world, more immediately a low ebb in morals at Athens resulted. Individualism ran riot. Education reflected the conditions of the period. Its ideals became more and more individualistic. The times demanded a training that would promote the happiness of the individual with little consideration for the welfare of the state as a whole. The old education seemed narrow and barren of content; and there arose a desire for all sorts of knowledge that might contribute to one’s advancement, whether it increased his social usefulness or not. Skill in debate and public speaking was especially sought, because of the unusual opportunity for personal achievement in politics.

[Sidenote: Study of grammatical and rhetorical subtleties, in the place of the old education.]

=The Sophists and Their Training.=--To meet these new demands, a set of teachers known as the _sophists_ came into prominence. They professed to train young men for a political career, and some of them even claimed to teach any subject whatsoever, or how to defend either side of an argument. These pretensions, together with their charging a fee for their services, contrary to Athenian custom, seriously offended the more conservative of the citizens of Athens. But many of the first sophists afforded an honest and careful training. The effect of their teaching was especially felt by the adolescents in the _gymnasium_ stage of education, since they were ambitious to distinguish themselves politically. The physical training that had hitherto dominated the gymnasium course gave way to a study of grammatical and rhetorical subtleties, and whenever a sophist appeared in the street, market-place, or house, the young men crowded about him to borrow from his store of experience and wisdom, and acquire his method of argument. To a less degree the same influence was felt in the lower schools and by the cadets and younger citizens. The exercises of the palaestra were no longer as rigorous, and existed for the sake of individual health and pleasure rather than for the making of citizens. The literary work of the didascaleum came to include, besides the Homeric epics, a wide range of didactic, reflective, and lyric poetry, with a superabundance of discussions. In music the old patriotic and religious songs sung to the simple Doric airs and accompanied upon the seven-stringed lyre, were replaced by rhythms of great difficulty, like the Lydian and Phrygian, and by complicated instruments of all sorts.

[Sidenote: Reaction from the old subordination of the individual to the state.]

=Their Extreme Individualism.=--All this inroad upon the time honored curriculum shows how fully the sophists embodied the individualism of the times. Although they held no body of doctrine common to them all, they were generally at one in their position of extreme individualism. They often went so far as to insist that there could not safely be any universal criteria in knowledge or morals; that no satisfactory interpretation of life could be made for all, but that every fact and situation should be subject to the judgment of the individual. No doubt the formula attributed to Protagoras, “Man (i. e. the individual) is the measure of all things, both of the seen and the unseen,” would have expressed the attitude common to most of them. They but carried to its legitimate conclusion the complete reaction from the old ideal of subordination of the individual to the state.

[Sidenote: The attitude of Pythagoras and Aristophanes;]

[Sidenote: and of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.]

=The Reactionaries and the Mediators.=--Meanwhile, the conservative element was making its usual attempt to adjust the unsettled conditions by suggesting a return to the old. Various schemes had been advanced, even before the sophists had come into prominence. Of these the most complete plan was that of Pythagoras (about 580-500 B. C.). By adopting an analogy from the ‘harmony’ of the celestial bodies and from the relation of the powers in the individual to each other, he arranged a definite hierarchy in society, so that each member should have his proper place, and complete harmony and social order should ensue. As the influence of the sophists began to be felt, later representatives of the reactionary movement, such as the matchless caricaturist, Aristophanes (445-380 B. C.), began to appear and inveigh against the new conditions. But the social process can never move backward, and reconstruction on some higher plane was needed to overcome the destructive tendencies of the times. To furnish this, was the task set themselves by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Like the sophists, they recognized that the traditional beliefs and sanctions, the old social order, and the former ideals and content of education, had been outlived, and that the individual could not find truth and morality through an institutional system. At the same time they felt that the extreme individualism of the sophists was too negative a basis upon which to build, and that a more socialized standard of knowledge and morality must be sought.

[Sidenote: ‘Knowledge’ versus ‘opinion’.]

[Sidenote: The ‘dialectic’ of Socrates.]

=The Method of Socrates.=--This mediating effort was begun by Socrates (469-399 B. C.). While he started with the formula of Protagoras, he maintained that the ‘man’ indicated thereby was not the individual, but mankind as a whole. It is not the peculiar view of any individual that represents the truth, but the knowledge that is the same for everyone. The former, which the sophists considered ‘knowledge,’ Socrates held to be only ‘opinion,’ and declared that the reason men think so differently is because each sees but one side of the truth. He believed that everyone could get at universal knowledge by stripping off individual differences and laying bare the essentials upon which all men are agreed. He conceived it to be the mission of the philosopher or teacher to enable the individual to do this, and he endeavored to deal with the mind of all those with whom he came in contact, so that they would form valid conclusions. By his method, known as the _dialectic_, or ‘conversational,’ he first encouraged the individual to make a definite statement of his belief, and then, through a set of clever questions, caused the person to develop his thought, until he became so involved in manifest contradictions that he was forced to admit that his view had been imperfectly formed. He thus caused the individual to see that the view he had first expressed was mere ‘opinion’ and but a single phase of the universal truth. As Socrates further held that morality consists in right knowledge and made no distinction between the knowledge of an action and the impulse to perform it, he strove through his methods of developing knowledge to harmonize the individual welfare with that of the social group.

[Sidenote: In the _Republic_ government was to be by the intellectual class.]

[Sidenote: Early education.]

[Sidenote: Cadet training.]

=Plato’s System of Education for the Three Classes of Society.=--But the believers in the old traditions and institutional morality felt that Socrates was atheistic and immoral. They persuaded Athens to give him the hemlock, and thus destroyed the man who might have proved her savior. A pupil, Plato (427-347 B. C.), undertook to continue his work, but his aristocratic birth and temperament caused him to underestimate the intelligence of the masses. He held that they were incapable of attaining to ‘knowledge’--that they possessed only ‘opinion.’ In his most famous dialogue, _The Republic_, he endeavors to show that the ideal state can exist only when the entire control of the government is entrusted to the ‘philosophers,’ or intellectual class, who alone possess ‘real knowledge.’ Those who are to compose the three classes of society Plato would have selected during the educational process on the basis of their ability. For all boys up to eighteen years of age he prescribes an education similar to that in vogue in the palaestra, didascaleum, and gymnasium, except that he would somewhat expurgate the literary element, and would confine the musical training to the simpler melodies and instruments. The youths who prove capable of going beyond this lower education are next to take up the cadet training between eighteen and twenty, but those who are incapable of further education are to be relegated to the industrial class. During the cadet period are to be determined those capable of going on with the higher education of philosophers, while those who here reach their limit become members of the military class.

[Sidenote: Higher education for philosophers:]

[Sidenote: (1) mathematical subjects;]

[Sidenote: (2) dialectic.]

As Athenian education did not extend beyond the twentieth year, Plato is here obliged to invent a new course of study that will enable the future philosophers to acquire the habit of speculation. This additional course, he declares, should also be graded, in order that a further test of intellectual and moral qualities may be made. Arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, music, and astronomy, are to occupy the first ten years of the course. These subjects, however, are not to be studied for calculation or practical purposes of any sort, but entirely from the standpoint of theory or the universal relations underlying them, since only thus can they furnish a capacity for abstract thought. After this, at thirty, the young men who can go no further, are to be placed in the minor offices of the state, while those who have shown themselves capable of the study of dialectic, go on with that subject for five years longer. It then becomes the duty of these highest philosophers to guide and control the state until they have reached the age of fifty, when they may be allowed to retire.

[Sidenote: Return to subordination of the individual;]

[Sidenote: neglect of human will;]

[Sidenote: failure to see all human traits in each individual;]

[Sidenote: no means of evolution.]

=The Weakness of Plato’s System.=--Thus, where Socrates found the basis of universal truth in everyone, Plato held that only one class of people, the most intellectual, could attain to real knowledge. He, therefore, maintained that the philosophers should absolutely guide the conduct of the state, and that education should be organized with that in view. Plato’s ideal state would thus become a sort of intellectual oligarchy, and in a way was a return to the old principle of subordinating the individual to society. _The Republic_ thus quite neglected human will as a factor in society and assumed that men can be moved about in life like pieces upon the chess board. Plato failed to see, too, that each individual really possesses all human characteristics. The workers have reason, and the philosophers have passions, and a human being is not a man unless all these functions are his. But even if his scheme had been a happy one, the treatise provided no method of evolution from current conditions, and if it were further granted that this order of things could be established at once. Plato put the ban upon all innovation or change, and so closed the door to progress.

[Sidenote: _The Laws_ offered a more practical and traditional system of education.]

Hence _The Republic_ was viewed as a visionary conception, and had no immediate effect upon education or any other institution of Athens. So in his declining years, without denying _The Republic_ as ideal, he wrote the more practical dialogue known as _The Laws_. In it he welded elements from the educational systems of Sparta and older Athens, and reverted to traditions and ideals not dissimilar to the doctrines of Pythagoras. He replaced the philosophers with priests, an hereditary ruler, a superintendent of education, and various other officials; and the course of study reached its height with the subject of mathematics, while dialectic was not mentioned.

[Sidenote: Model for later Utopias.]

[Sidenote: The ‘quadrivium’ and ‘formal discipline.’]