Greek Education Generally.—As for the girls of the house, they were brought up to see and hear as little as possible. They only went out upon a few state occasions, and knew how to work wool and weave, as well as to cook. We may fairly infer that the great majority of them could not read or write. The boys, on the contrary, were subjected to the most careful education, and on no point did the Greek law-givers and philosophers spend more care than in the proper training, both physical and mental, of their citizens. The modern system, however, of public school training was not practiced anywhere save at Sparta, where a state schoolmaster (paidonomos) was appointed, and all the Spartan boys taken out of the control of their parents. They lived together under the care of elder boys, as well as masters, so that the system of monitors, and even that of fagging, was in ordinary practice. They were encouraged to fight out their disputes, and were much given to sports and athletic amusements, just like our schoolboys. But the public school training and discipline lasted much longer at Sparta than among us, and embraced the university period, as well as the school period, of life.
In the other states of Greece, which were chiefly towns, or suburbs of towns, the system of day schools was universal, and the boys went to and from home under the charge of a special slave, chosen because he was no longer fit for hard work. He was called the boy’s leader, or pedagogue (paidagogos), a word which never meant schoolmaster among the Greeks, though it is so rendered in our English Bible (Gal. iii. 24). The discipline of boys was severe, and they were constantly watched and repressed, nor were they allowed to frequent the crowded market place. Corporal punishment was commonly applied to them, and the quality most esteemed in boys was a blushing shyness and modesty, hardly equalled by the girls of our time. Nevertheless Plato speaks of the younger boys as the most sharp-witted, insubordinate, and unmanageable of animals.
Of Schools and Schoolmasters.—It does not seem that the office of schoolmaster was thought very honorable, except of course in Sparta, where he was a sort of Minister of Education. It was, as with us, a matter of private speculation, but controlled by police regulations that the school should open and close with sunrise and sunset and that no grown men should be allowed to go in and loiter there. The infant-school teachers, who merely taught children their letters (grammatodidaskolos), were of a low class in society, sometimes even teaching in open air, like the old hedge schoolmasters in Ireland. The more advanced teaching of reading and writing was done by the grammatikos, whose house was called, like that of philosophers and rhetoricians, schole, a place of leisure. For the physical and the æsthetic side we have still to mention the trainer (paidotribes) and the teacher of music (kitharistes), the former of whom taught in the palæstra the exercises and sports afterward carried on by the full-grown citizens in the gymnasia, which were a feature in all Greek towns. The teachers of riper youth stood in social position above the mere teachers of letters, but beneath the professors of rhetoric and philosophy (sophists). These latter performed the functions of college tutors at our universities, and completed the literary side of Greek education. The fees paid to the various teachers were in proportion to their social importance. Some of the sophists made great fortunes, and exacted very high fees; the mere schoolmasters are spoken of as receiving a miserable pittance.
Of what they Taught.—The Greeks never thought of making foreign languages a matter of study, and contented themselves with learning to read and write their own. In so doing the schoolmasters used as text-books the works of celebrated epic or elegiac poets, above all Homer, and then the proverbial philosophy of Hesiod, Solon, Phocylides, and others, so that the Greek boy read the great classics of his language at an early age. He was required to learn much of them by heart, especially when books were scarce; and his teacher pointed out the moral lessons either professedly or accidentally contained in these poets. Thus they stood in the place of our Bible and hymns in education. All this was grammatike, which with music and gymnastics, made up the general education of the Greeks. It excluded the elementary arithmetic of our “three R’s,” and included what they do not, a gentlemanly cultivation in music and field sports. It is very doubtful whether swimming was included, though Herodotus speaks of the Greeks generally as being able to swim. There is, however, evidence that from the fourth century B. C. onwards both elementary geometry and arithmetic, and also drawing, were ordinarily taught.
As regards music every Greek boy (like modern young ladies) either had or was supposed to have a musical ear, and he was accordingly taught either the harp or the flute, and with it singing. Here again the lyric poems of the greatest poets were taught him, and the Greek music always laid the greatest stress on the words. Aristotle and others complain that amateurs were spending too much time on the practising of difficult music, and we know from the musical treatises preserved to us that the Greeks thought and taught a great deal more about musical theory and the laws of sound than we do. The Greek tunes preserved are not pleasing, but we know that they used the strictest and most subtle principles in tuning instruments, and understood harmony and discord as well as we do. Great Athenians, like Cimon, were often able to sing and accompany themselves on the harp, or lyre as we should rather call it. The Greeks laid great stress on the moral effects of music, especially as regards the performer, and were very severe in their censure of certain styles of music. They distinguished their scales as modes, and are said to have put far greater stress on keys than we do, calling some manly and warlike (Dorian), others weak and effeminate, or even immoral (Mixo-Lydian). The modern Chinese have the same beliefs about the moral effects of music. The Greeks had their keynote in the middle of the scale, and used chiefly the minor scale of our music. They had different names and signs for the notes of the various octaves which they used, and also different signs for vocal and for instrumental music.
Gymnastics.—Among the various exercises taught were those in fashion in the public contests in the games—throwing the discus, running, and wrestling, and those of use in war—throwing the dart, managing the sword and shield, and riding. Boxing was not highly esteemed, and seems not to have been properly understood by the Greeks, who would have had no chance against an English prize-fighter. The severest contest was the pancration, where the combatants, who were naked and unarmed, were allowed to use any violence they liked to overcome their adversary. It was therefore a combination of boxing, wrestling, and kicking, with occasional biting and gouging by way of additional resource. We hear of a wonderful jumping feat by Phayllus of Croton, who leaped forty-four feet; but as he probably jumped down-hill, and used artificial aids, we can not be sure that it was more than can be done now-a-days. The Spartans specially forbad boxing and the pancration, because the vanquished was obliged to confess his defeat and feel ashamed; and they did not tolerate professional trainers. All the special exercises for developing muscle practised in our gymnasia seem to have been known, and they were all practised naked, as being sunburnt was highly valued. The Greeks smeared themselves first with oil and then with sand before their exercises, and cleaned themselves with a scraper or strigil, or in later days by taking a bath.
Customs on Coming of Age.—Most Greek states seem to have wished to free young men as soon as possible from the control of their parents. Hence, having passed the age of boyhood, when they were called children (paides), they were made epheboi, or “men of age,” at the age of sixteen or eighteen, when they were enrolled solemnly in the list of citizens. This was done at Athens with a religious service, and with a solemn oath on the part of the youth, who declared his allegiance to the laws and to the religion of his city, and promised to defend it against all enemies and seditions. He was then enrolled on the list of his deme or parish, and this roll was called the lexiarchikon grammateion. He was then competent to join in debate at the assembly, to plead in court, to marry, and perform all the duties of citizenship. It is not clear how he stood as regards his father, except that, if the latter became unable to manage his affairs, the son could have him so declared by an action in court, and so become the owner during his father’s life. Before the young men settled down, they were employed for two years in outlying garrison duty and in patrolling the frontiers of the land, during which time they were called peripoloi. This gave them the necessary training for war, and made them acquainted with the bounds of their country. Many remains of these frontier forts which were once garrisoned by the youth of Athens still survive in Attica.
The Servants of the House.—These were of course slaves, with the exception of some field laborers, and of nurses in times of depression and distress, when some free women went out for hire. To these cases we may add the cook, who was not an inmate of the house before the Macedonian time, but was hired for the day when wanted for a dinner party. All the rest were slaves, and were very numerous in every respectable household. The principal sorts of servants were as follows: There was a general steward, a butler who had charge of the store-room and cellar, a marketing slave, a porter, baking and cooking slaves for preparing the daily meals, an attendant upon the master in his walks, and this was an indispensable servant, a nurse, an escort for the children, and a lady’s maid. In richer houses there was also a groom or mule-boy. This list shows a sub-division of labor more like the habits of our East-Indian families than those of ordinary households in England. I have spoken above of the purchasing and value of these slaves. If faithful, they were often made free, especially by the will of their master on his death-bed, but they did not become citizens. They remained in the position of resident aliens under the patronage of their former master or his representatives.
In proportion as the free population of Greece diminished the freeing of slaves became more and more common, until it actually appears to have been the leading feature in the life of the small towns. Thousands of inscriptions recording this setting free of individual slaves are still found, and on so many various stones, even tombstones, that it almost appears as if material for recording had failed them by reason of the quantity of these documents. The same increase of liberation was a leading feature in the Roman empire, but there the freedman obtained the right and position of a citizen, which was not the case in Greece. The most enlightened moralists of both countries exhorted benevolence toward slaves, and the frequent freeing of them as the duty of humane masters, but none of these writers ever dreamt of the total abolishing of slavery, which they all held to be an institution ordained by nature. This seems also the view of the early Christian writers, who nowhere condemn the principle of slavery as such.