FOOTNOTES
[24] Διδασκάλιον is the thing learned.
[25] vi. 27.
[26] The Greek form of our word school, though in common use, meant leisure, and only passed through its application to the leisurely discussions of philosophers into its new and opposite sense. There is some difficulty about the word παιδαγωγεῖον, which some have imagined to be a waiting-room for the pædagogue slaves—absurdly enough. It is probably a mere synonym for the schoolroom.
[27] Grasberger, ii. 224.
[ὦ φίλε παῖ] Θεωδώρηον μάθε τάξιν Ὁμήρου
ὄφρα δαεὶς πάσης μέτρον ἔχῃς σοφίας.
[29] All our evidence, with every possible surmise about it, may be found in Welcker’s “Kleine Schriften,” vol. i. p. 371 sq.
[30] 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.
[31] 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.
[32] Plutarch (“Life of Demosth.,” 2) laments his inability to master Latin, and the difficulties it presents when not acquired very early.
[33] iii. 4, 19.
[34] Up to the mission of Carneades and his fellows (155 B.C.) an interpreter had been necessary.
[35] 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.
[36] “Laws,” 810—if the “Laws” be, indeed, Plato’s.
[37] Cf. Wattenbach’s specimens in his plates of Greek MSS.
[38] 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.
[39] “Wasps,” 656 sq.
[40] These are the ordinary terms: adding = συντιθέναι, προστιθέναι; subtracting = ἀφαιρεῖν, ὑπεξαιρεῖν, Latin deducere; multiplying = πολλαπλασιάζειν, and the factors πλευρά, a geometrical conception, as in the second book of Euclid; dividing = μερίζειν: no general word for quotient is found.
CHAPTER VI.
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;[41] 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 æsthetical effect which is so forgotten by us, the unconscious moulding of the mind to beauty by the close and accurate study of beautiful forms.
The usual word ζωγραφία for painting, and ζωγράφος for drawing-master, suggests to us that figure-drawing was the early and the principal branch of the art known and taught. From the earliest times rude figures had been scratched and colored on vases, and the number of vase-painters in historical Greece must have been so considerable as to disseminate some general feeling for the art, though we hear of no amateur vase-painting, such as is in fashion among ladies of our own day. On the other hand, landscape-painting was of late growth and very imperfect development. The prominence of sculpture, even polychromatic sculpture, made its absence less felt. Owing to the old Greek habit of personifying nature, and expressing every mountain and river by its tutelary gods, we find in the great pediment sculptures of the best epoch that curious indication of the landscape by its tutelary gods—looking on calmly and unconsciously at the action of the principal figures—which is perhaps the most peculiar characteristic of all Greek art. Thus the local rivers, the Alpheus and Cladeus, are represented lying at the ends of the great eastern pediment of the temple at Olympia, witnessing the combat of Pelops and Œnomaus with no more expression of feeling than the landscape which they represent would manifest.
The earliest essays at landscape proper were, moreover, not rocks and trees, or that wild country which the Greeks never loved, but buildings and artificial grounds, with regular lines and definite design. The first attempt was made to satisfy the requirements of the theatre, and the fact that scene-painting and shade-painting (or perspective) were used as synonymous terms shows the truth of the report that Apollodorus (cir. 400 B.C.) first discovered the art of representing the straight lines of a building in depth, by a departure from that orthography in geometrical drawing which had hitherto been practised.
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 Ælian, 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 (γραφίς) 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 Böttiger, was the copying of the outlines of models proposed by the master.[42] 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 (I conceive) 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.
What has above been said will be considered a fair statement of the importance given to music by modern thinkers. And accordingly, when we find all Greek educators and theorists[43] asserting a completely different kind of importance in music, we find ourselves in presence of what is strictly an historical problem. It is not enough for the Greeks to admit that martial music has strong effects on soldiers going to battle, or that doleful music turns the mind to sadness in a solemn requiem for the dead. They went so far beyond this as to assert that by constantly playing martial music people would become martial, that by constantly playing and singing passionate and voluptuous music people became passionate and voluptuous. Consequently, the proper selection of instruments of music and of words became a subject of serious importance. The flute was cultivated at Athens till Alcibiades spurned it for distorting his handsome face, and caused it to go out of fashion at Athens. But this aversion to the Bœotian instrument was supported by the theorists on the ground that it had no moral tendency, that it was too exciting, and vague in the emotions it excited; also, that it prevented the player from singing words to his music.
But when we would infer from this that it is really the text, and not the actual music, which has the mental effect—when we are disposed to add that in our own time instrumental music is a higher and more intellectual kind of music, which has no moral effects save good ones, and that it is the libretto of the opera or the sentiment of the song which does harm—the answer from the Greek point of view is conclusive against us. Though much stress was laid upon the noble words which were sung, the music was known to have the principal effect. Plato, in a celebrated passage, even inveighs bitterly against the gross immorality and luxuriousness of all mere instrumental music, which allowed of so much ornament, so much exaggeration of expression, so much complexity of emotion, as to be wholly unsuited to his ideal state. It is, indeed, perfectly true that the intellectual effort in understanding instrumental music, at least some instrumental music, is far greater than is required for appreciating, or imagining one appreciates, a simple song. To understand a string quartet of Mendelssohn, or, still more, a symphony of Beethoven, is an intellectual task far exceeding the abilities of nine tenths of the audiences who hear them.[44] But, apart from all such intellectual strain, there is a strong though indefinable passion about this very music which has the deepest effects on minds really tuned to appreciate it.
If this be too subtle an instance, there is another so striking that it is worth mentioning on the chance of the reader’s verifying it some day for himself. The Hungarian gypsies who form the national bands are chiefly occupied at entertainments in playing for the national dance—the csárdás—tunes which have now become familiar, some of them, through the transcriptions of Liszt and Johannes Brahms. The dance consists in a gradually increasing excitement, starting from a slow and grave beginning. The change is produced merely by increase of time in often repeating the same air,[45] and also in adorning it with flourishes, which are added ad libitum and somewhat barbarously, by the members of the band according to their taste. The effect of this gradual hurrying and complicating of the same tune is inexpressibly affecting to the mind. It represents excitement, and often voluptuous excitement, to the highest degree. It would have thoroughly shocked Plato and his school.
This simpler example, though less easily verifiable to the English reader, is really more to the point, for there can be no doubt that it is owing to the increase of complication, and the growth of the intellectual combinations in music, that we have lost sight of what the Greeks thought so vital—the direct moral effects of music.
§ 43. The question remains, What did the Greeks convey by this theory? Were they talking nonsense, or was their music so different from ours that their theories have no application in our day? We cannot adopt either of these solutions, though all our researches into Greek scales, and into the scanty examples of tunes still extant, are unable to show clearly what they meant. We cannot make out why tunes in the Doric scale—a scale varying slightly from our ordinary minor scale—should be thought manly and moral, while Lydian measures—a scale like our ordinary major scales—should be thought immoral.[46] We must give up the problem of finding out a solution from the Greek scales. But this we may fairly assert, that our music, being directly descended from the old Church scales, which again were derived from the Greek, cannot be so totally different from that of the old Greeks as to warrant the inference that theirs could be moral or the reverse, and ours indifferent to morals. We may depend upon it that they did not talk nonsense, and that the general consent of all their thinking men on this curious point is well worthy of our most serious attention.
It is probable that the far greater complexity of our music, the multiplication of instruments, the development of harmony, has brought out intellectual instincts unknown to them, and so obscured the moral questions once so striking. The Chinese of the present day, who have a music far simpler than ours, mostly on the tetratonic scale, are said to speak of the moral influence of music as the Greeks did, and to put the composing and circulating of tunes under a certain control. They used to have state composers charged with this duty, in order to preserve and improve the morals of the people. Although, then, it seems that the simpler the character of a national music, the more clearly its moral effects are perceived, we only want a closer analysis to detect the same qualities in our own composers. Much of the best music we now hear is unduly exciting: it feeds vain longings, indefinite desires, sensuous regrets; and were the evidence stated in detail, the sceptical reader might be convinced that here we are far behind the Greek educators, and that we often deliberately expose our children to great moral risk by inciting them to express their semi-conscious desires in affecting music. The majority who have no soul for music may be safe enough (though this is not certain); but those whose soul speaks through their fingers, or their voice, are running a very serious danger, of which there is not the least suspicion among modern educators. To seek corroboration from the characters of leading musicians were invidious, but not without instruction.[47]
This inquiry is no digression which requires apology. It is a point in which we do not seem to have reflected as deeply as the ancients, and which is well worth discussing without pedantry or sentimentality. It is also true that the general aspect of this side of Greek education is more interesting and fruitful than the inquiry into the structures of the particular instruments they used—an antiquarian question very minutely discussed by learned historians of music, and by compilers of archæological lore. On these details we may here be brief. The subject has been exhausted by Mr. Chappell, our best historian of music.
§ 44. In education we never hear of the use of those more complicated instruments, such as the τρίγωνον, or harp, the double flute and others, which were used by professionals. On the other hand, the favorite syrinx, or pandean-pipe, was only in fashion among shepherds, and not in schools. We may assume that nothing was there admitted but the simplest form of stringed instrument, the lyre (λύρα), which was originally made by stretching strings across the inside of the back shell of a tortoise. These shells are often to be found dry and clean in river-courses through Greece. The tortoise when dead is eaten out by ants or other insects; the shells separate, and are carried away and cleaned by floods. This most primitive kind was, however, supplanted by a more elaborate form, which used the two shells of the tortoise, and fastened, in the position of its front legs, a pair of goat’s horns, which were spanned near their extremity by the ζύγον, or yoke, to which strings were drawn from the far end of the shell, over the nether surface, or breast shell, which was flat. This, with seven or at most ten strings, was the ordinary instrument used to teach Greek boys to play. The more elaborate cithara, which still survives, both in name and structure, among the Tyrolese, was a lyre with a sound-box built of thin wood or metal plates, and elongated into hollow arms (where the lyre only had horns, or solid wooden arms), so that the resonance was considerably greater. This, in the form called πηκτίς, had fifteen or more strings, and does not here concern us. The use of the bow for stringed instruments was unknown to the Greeks, but they used for playing the plectrum, which is still used by the Tyrolese for their zither.
The favorite wind-instrument was not our flute, which was called πλαγίαυλος, or “cross-played aulos,” and which was not popular, but our clarinet, the αὐλός, which was held straight, was wide at the mouth, and produced its tone by means of a vibrating tongue in the mouthpiece. The ordinary aulos was played without any artificial aid; but for the double aulos, where two reeds of different pitch were blown from the same mouthpiece, a leather bandage was tied over the player’s mouth, into which the mouthpiece was fitted. This was the most extreme form of that disfigurement of which the Greeks complained in flute-playing.
The tunes taught to boys are now lost, and we cannot hope to reproduce them. But there is good reason to think that they would not suit the developed taste of our day, and would be considered dull and even ugly. This we may infer from the few extant fragments of Greek tunes.