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? 24. We will approach this side of the question by quoting the famous description of Greek education in Plato's "Protagoras," which will recall to the reader the general problem, so apt to be lost or obscured amid details. "Education and admonition commence in the very first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor are quarrelling about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand them. He cannot say or do anything without their setting forth to him that this is just and that is unjust; that this is honorable, that is dishonorable; this is holy, that is unholy; do this, and abstain from that. And if he obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of warped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners 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 steady and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the works 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, 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 gymnastics, in order that their bodies may better minister to the virtuous mind, and that the weakness of their bodies may not force them 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 which they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a stylus 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 lawgivers which 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 called to account, which is a term used not only in your country, but in many others."

? 25. With the exception of this feature, that Greek parents showed a greater apprehension for the morals of their boys, and guarded them as we should guard the morals of girls, it will be seen that the principles of education are permanent, and applicable in all ages under similar circumstances.

? 26. I think we may be justified in asserting that the study of the epic poets, especially of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," was the earliest intellectual exercise of schoolboys, and, in the case of fairly educated parents, even anticipated the learning of letters. For the latter is never spoken of as part of a mother's or of home education. Reading was not so universal or so necessary as it now is; and as it was in earlier days an accomplishment only gradually becoming an essential, its acquisition seems always to have been intrusted to a professional master, the ????????????, or grammarian in the earlier use of the word. Of course, careful parents, of the model above set forth by Protagoras, must have inculcated early lessons from poetry before that age. We may assume that books of Homer were read or recited to growing boys, and that they were encouraged or required to learn them off by heart.

Hence, when it occurs to a modern reader that the main superiority of our education over the Greek is the early training in the Scriptures--a training, alas! decaying in earnestness every day--an old Athenian or Milesian or Cean would deny the fact, and say that they, too, had an inspired volume, written for their learning, in which all the moral virtues and all the necessaries of faith were contained. The charge of objectionable passages in the old epic would doubtless be retorted by a similar charge against the old Semitic books.

? 27. It is well-nigh impossible that in the higher families throughout Greece this moral training should not have begun at home; and there must have been many Greek mothers able and anxious to help, though history is silent about them, and does not even single out individual cases, like the Roman Cornelia, where mothers influenced the moral and intellectual training of their children. Certain it is that here and there we find evidences of a strong feeling of respect to the house-mother which contrast curiously with the usual silence about women. In the "Clouds," the acme of villany in the young scapegrace who has turned sophist under Socrates' hands is to threaten violence to his mother. Here it is that Strepsiades exclaims in real horror at the result of such teaching. We also find both Plato and Cicero laying stress upon the purity of speech preserved in the conversation of cultivated women, whose conservative life and tastes rejected slang and novelty, and thus preserved the language pure and undefiled. The very opposite complaint is made concerning the paedagogues, whose often barbarous origin and rude manners were of damage to the youth.

? 28. On the question of punishments, both at home and at school, we do not find the Greeks very different from ourselves. There are not in Greek literature any such eloquent protests against corporal punishment as we find in Seneca and Quintilian. They all acknowledge the use and justice of it, and only caution against applying servile punishments to free boys. Indeed, in many later writers, such as Lucian, the severities of schoolmasters are noted; and we have among the Pompeian pictures a scene of a master flogging a boy, who is hoisted on the shoulders of another, with a third holding him up by the heels. These evidences, together with those of the later Romans, on the sounds of woe common in schools, must not be overestimated. They are probably exceptional cases made prominent for satirical purposes, and not implying any peculiar savagery in Greek above modern masters.

Most certainly the Greek schoolmaster was not harsher than the lower-class masters in many primary schools, as, for example, the Irish hedge schoolmasters described in Carleton's "Tales of the Irish Peasantry."

Unfortunately, the Greek schoolmaster, at least of elementary schools, was not generally in high repute, was evidently not highly paid, and his calling was not such as to give him either dignity or self-respect. He was accused of pedantry if he was really learned, and of bad temper if he was zealous and impatient at idleness.

? 29. The general question of the payment of teachers will be better discussed when we come to the Sophists' training of riper youth. Indeed, on the whole value of the various attacks on the teaching order in Greece, Grasberger concludes his elaborate summary of the above and many other facts with the sensible remark: "As regards the unpleasant and objectionable features, which men seem to record with special preference, the true state of the case may be the same as with the many scandals which are reported from the life of the mediaeval universities in Europe. Evil did not predominate; but the chronicler, instead of putting forward the modest virtues of diligence and of scientific earnestness, preferred to note both the faults of the teachers and the gross excesses of the students."

We may be sure that in the Greek primary schools, though we hear of one assistant sometimes, the master was required to teach all the subjects. This was so not long ago in England, and still more in Ireland, where the hedge schoolmasters, but lately supplanted by the national school system , were required, and were able, to teach classics, mathematics, and the old-fashioned English. It is, indeed, clearly presupposed in all the many bequests of pious benefactors, who leave forty or sixty pounds per annum for the payment of a single master to keep a school in some remote part of the country. And at Athens, as in the days of these bequests, there was no official or state test of a master's qualifications. Each man set up on his private account; it depended on the reputation he made whether his school was well attended. The worthy pedant in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" gives us a fair specimen of the better class of such men.

FOOTNOTES:

P. 325 C. Cf. also "Axiochus," p. 366 E: ?????? ?? ??? ??? ????????? ???????? ??????? ?????? ??????????, ?????????? ??? ???????????? ??? ??????????? ????????????, ?.?.?.

???? ?????? ??? ??????? ????????, ?? ????????, ??' ??? ?? ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ????????? ?????????. ?????? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ????????? ?????' ???????? ???? ???????? ?? ?????? ????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ???? ??????? ??????? ???????, ??? ???????? ?????????. ???' ?? ????????? ???' ?????????, ?? ???? ?? ??????????, ? ??????? ?????????? ??????, ? ????????? ?? ?????, ????????????? ??? ????????, ?? ?? ??????? ?????????. ?? ?? ??? ????? ?????????????' ? ???????? ???? ??????, ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ??? ???????????????, ?????????? ?????????? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ????????. ?? ??????????? ?? ?????????? ??? ????? ???? ??????????? ???? ??????, ???? ???? ?????? ????? ???????? ??????? ???' ?? ????? ????? ??????????? ????????, ??? ??????????? ??????? ?????? ?????????? ??? ???? ?? ???????????. ???????? ?' ?? ????????? ?????? ???? ????????? ???' ??, ???? ???? ????????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ???????? ???????? ???' ?? ??????? ??????????? ??? ????? ???? ??? ??????? ????? ?????? ??????????? ???? ????????? ????????, ???' ?? ??????? ?????????' ???? ????????? ??? ?????????, ???' ??????? ??? ??????????? ???????? ???? ???????, ???' ?????????, ???? ?????????, ???' ?????? ?? ???' ???????. ?.?.?.

Two or three stories of Spartan mothers in Plutarch form tardy and unimportant exceptions.

v. 1444 sq.

Cf. the amusing notes in Cicero's letters on a private tutor he got for his son and nephew, vi. 1, 9: "I am in love with Dionysius. The boys say he flies into furious passions. But no man could be more learned or conscientious or more devoted to you and me." Presently Cicero's tone alters, viii. 4: "Dionysius gave me impudence: you would say I had procured another Dicaearchus or Aristoxenus, and not a man that talks us all down, and is no good for teaching. But he has a good memory."

ii. p. 189.

THE MUSICAL SIDE--SCHOOLS AND THEIR APPOINTMENTS.

On the other hand, properly appointed schools in respectable towns were furnished with some taste, and according to traditional notions. As in gymnasia and palaestras, there was a shrine of the Muses or of Hermes, and the head of the institution was regarded as the priest of this shrine, at which offerings were made, so in the schools also there were statues of tutelary gods set up, and busts of heroes and other eminent men, by way of ornament as well as reminder to the boys.

We hear that the master sat on a high seat, from which he taught; the scholars often sat on the ground, as they still do in many countries, or else they stood or occupied benches round him. The pictures and descriptions extant do not point to the schools being so crowded, as appears from the accidents above cited; but this is probably a mere chance, or an omission for the artist's convenience. For though the laws quoted in AEschines' speech forbid any one save the master and boys to be present, we know that in later days this was not strictly observed, and in Theophrastus's "Characters," the Chatterbox, among other mistakes in tact, is represented going into the schools and interrupting lessons with his idle talk. We may be sure that there were no tables or desks, such furniture being unusual in Greek houses; it was the universal custom, while reading or writing, to hold the book or roll on the knee--to us an inconvenient thing to do, but still common in the East.

There are some interesting sentences, given for exercise in Greek and Latin, in the little-known "Interpretamenta" of Dositheus, now edited and explained by German scholars. The entry of the boy is thus described, in parallel Greek and Latin: "First I salute the master, who returns my salute: good-morning, master; good-morning, school-fellows. Give me my place, my seat, my stool. Sit closer. Move up that way. This is my place, I took it first." This mixture of politeness and wrangling is amusing, and, no doubt, to be found in all ages. It seems that the seats were movable. A scholium on AEschines tells us that there was a supply of water close at hand, lest the boys might suffer from thirst.

The extant pictures show that along the walls were hung up various vessels of which the use is not always plain to us. But we can clearly distinguish the necessary implements for the teaching of reading and writing, boxes for book-rolls, writing-boards, reckoning-boards with parallel grooves, and pebbles fixed in them, geometrical figures, flute-cases, and lyres. There is also late authority to show that there were notice-boards on which regulations were posted. We hear from Lucian of a notice over a sophist's door, "No philosophy to-day." The notice-board was called "the white board," being covered with chalk. We are not told how this was written on; but if the ground was black, then mere writing with the finger across the chalked surface would produce distinct characters.

THE SUBJECTS AND METHOD OF EDUCATION--THE THREE R'S.

? 35. It was very late in the history of Hellenism that any mention of the learning of foreign languages meets us. Even in the wide studies pursued at Alexandria, no systematic course in languages is ever mentioned; and people still had recourse in international business to those who happened to be born of mixed marriages, or by some other accident had been compelled to acquire a second tongue. There is, indeed, much curious evidence that the Greeks, being really bad linguists, found great difficulty in acquiring the Latin tongue, even when it became the language of the rulers of the world. Strabo notes that whenever historical treatises were composed in foreign languages, they were inaccessible to the Greeks, while the Romans did nothing but copy partially and imperfectly what the Greeks had said--a remark which might now be sarcastically applied to the relations of German and English philology. This Greek inability to learn, or contempt of, foreign languages reminds us of the French of to-day, whose language, until lately, held the place in Europe which Greek held in the Roman Empire, when every respectable person knew Greek, and when the Senate were able to receive and treat with foreign ambassadors speaking in Greek. We have above noted the danger actually threatening that children might learn Greek so early and exclusively as to speak their native tongue with a foreign accent--a state of things which the Romans would have resented strongly in their rulers--in that respect widely different from the English people of to-day. Thus the Romans attained, what the Greeks missed, the opportunity of learning grammar through the forms of a foreign language.

? 39. We pass to the teaching of elementary science. Geometry was still an advanced study, and, though in high esteem among the Greeks as one of the most elegant and perfect, seems not to have been taught in schools. Arithmetic was regarded either as the abstract science of numbers , and as such one of the most difficult of sciences, or as the art of reckoning to be employed in the ordinary affairs of life. Mercantile Greeks, like the Athenians and Ionians generally, among whom banking was well developed, must have early found this a necessity; but even in Greek art, architectural perfection was attained by a very subtle and evidently conscious application of arithmetical proportions. This was first shown in the accurate measurements of the Parthenon by Penrose, and was, no doubt, expounded in the treatise written on this building by its architect, Ictinus. In the great temple of Zeus at Olympia, the use of multiples of 7 and 5 has been shown so curiously applied by an American scholar that he suspects the application of Pythagorean symbolism by the architect Libon. But of course this was ?????????? in the strict sense, and is only here mentioned to show how the Greeks must have been led to appreciate the value of the science of numbers. Ordinary schoolboys were taught to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, as they now are, but without the advantage of our admirable system of notation.

This abacus was ascribed to Pythagoras, but was in all probability older, and derived from Egypt, where elementary science was well and widely taught from very early times. When initial letters were used for numbers, as ? for ?????, and ? for ????, combinations such as I?I meant 50. Last of all, we find in our MSS. a system of using the letters of the alphabet for numbers, preserving ? for 6, and thus reaching 10 with ?, proceeding by tens through ? , ? , etc., to ? , ? , and for 900 using ?. This notation must not be confused with the marking of the twenty-four books of the Homeric epics by the simple letters of the alphabet.

Further details as to the technical terms for arithmetical operations, and the amount to be attributed to a nation using so clumsy a notation, must be sought in professed hand-books of antiquity.

As regards geometry, all we can say is that in the days of Plato and Aristotle both these philosophers recognize not only its extraordinary value as a mental training, but also the fact that it can be taught to young boys as yet unfit for political and metaphysical studies.

? 40. Having thus disposed of the severer side of school education, we will turn to the artistic side, one very important to the Greeks, and suggestive to us of many instructive problems.

FOOTNOTES:

??????????? is the thing learned.

vi. 27.

Grasberger, ii. 224.

????????? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ??????.

All our evidence, with every possible surmise about it, may be found in Welcker's "Kleine Schriften," vol. i. p. 371 sq.

This assumption may perhaps hardly seem surprising when it still prevails among the English public as regards girls. Accordingly, a vast amount of time and brain power is wasted in the endeavor to make them play and sing, though nature has peremptorily precluded it in most cases.

The objections of the Eleatics and Platonists to the moral side of Homer and the other epic poets will be discussed in connection with the philosophic attempts at reform in higher education.

Plutarch laments his inability to master Latin, and the difficulties it presents when not acquired very early.

iii. 4, 19.

Up to the mission of Carneades and his fellows an interpreter had been necessary.

This seems to me a very important point, and I do not know how our training of boys in the strict and clear Latin grammar can ever be supplied adequately by any other means, though I have one great and recognized authority--Mr. Thring--against me, who thinks that boys should learn the logic of grammar through English analysis.

"Laws," 810--if the "Laws" be, indeed, Plato's.

Cf. Wattenbach's specimens in his plates of Greek MSS.

If we had phonetic spelling, our dialects would be preserved, as the various Greek dialects were, or as the Italian now are, and thus the history of our language in the present day might become possible to ourselves and our descendants. As it is, we are concealing from all inquiry this most interesting subject--I mean the varying pronunciation--by our absurd artificial spelling, and we are banishing local idioms by stamping them with the mark of vulgarity. This latter is the natural and right consequence of having classical models. But had we possessed the older dialects in phonetic writing, our standard would have been widened, like that of the Greeks, to include important provincial varieties.

"Wasps," 656 sq.

THE SUBJECTS AND METHOD OF EDUCATION--DRAWING AND MUSIC.

? 41. It is likely that most writers on Greek education have exaggerated the importance and diffusion of drawing as an ordinary school subject. Even in Aristotle's day it was only recognized by some people, probably theorists; and Pliny tells us that it was Pamphilus, Apelles' master, who first had it introduced at Sicyon, from which it spread over all Greece. These combined notices point to its not being general before the days of Alexander. But the theorists recognized its use and importance earlier, first and most obviously for critical purposes, that men might better judge and appreciate works of art; secondly, for that aesthetical effect which is so forgotten by us, the unconscious moulding of the mind to beauty by the close and accurate study of beautiful forms.

If we may judge from the many sketches of this sort of suburban landscape which are preserved on Pompeian walls, the proper knowledge of perspective was not even in later times diffused among ordinary artists, whose figure-painting on these walls is in every respect vastly superior. On the other hand, the figure-painting even on vases of the best epoch is so conventional that we cannot believe Greek boys were taught to draw figures with a proper knowledge of living or round models, and must assume the drawing-lessons to have been chiefly in geometrical designs.

According to AElian, there were maps of the Greek world to be had at Athens, and therefore presumably in schools, when Alcibiades was a young man; but this isolated notice, backed up by one or two allusions in Aristophanes, must not be pressed too far. The confusion between the terms for drawing and for writing utensils arises from the same materials being used in practising both--as if we used pencils only in learning to write. The same stylus which was used for writing on wax tablets was used for drawing outlines on the same; and the earliest training in drawing, if we may trust the statement of B?ttiger, was the copying of the outlines of models proposed by the master. After firmness had been attained, delicacy of outline was practised, and ultimately a fine paint, which was used to paint black and red outlines on white tables, or white on black.

? 42. Though the diffusion of drawing was late and doubtful, this was not the case with music, in its strictest sense. For its importance was such as to make it a synonym for culture in general, and to leave us doubtful in some cases whether Greek authors are speaking in this wider or the narrower sense. But it is from music proper that they all would start, as affording the central idea of education.

Here is one of the features in which Greek life is so different from ours, that there is the greatest possible difficulty in understanding it. When modern educators introduce music into boys' recreation time, and say it has important influences in humanizing them, though in this they may approach the language of Greek social reformers and statesmen, they mean something widely different. The moderns mean nothing more than this, that the practice of music is a humane and civilizing pursuit, bringing boys into the company of their sisters and lady friends, withdrawing them from coarse and harmful pursuits, and thus indirectly making them gentler and more harmless men. It is as an innocent and social source of amusement that music is now recommended. Let us put out of all account the far lower and too often vulgar pressure on girls to learn to play or sing, whether they like it or not. For here the only advantage in view is not the girl's moral or social improvement, but her advancement in life, by making her attractive in society. Such a view of musical training is quite beneath any serious notice in the present argument.

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