THE FLUTE LESSON, THE WRITING LESSON. (ABOVE A WRITING-ROLL, A FOLDED TABLET, A
RULING SQUARE, ETC.)
From the Kylix of Douris, now at Berlin (No. 2285).
Monumenti dell' Institute, ix. Plate 54.
The Athenians believed that training which aimed only at money-making, or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from intelligence, was mean and vulgar and did not deserve to be called education. True education, they held, made a child long to be a good citizen and taught him both how to rule and to obey. It must not be supposed that the Athenians despised wealth or the power of wealth. Only a wealthy state could have built the Parthenon or celebrated the great Panathenaic Festival, but the Athenians despised mere money-making, and they believed that a man's success was not to be measured by the amount of money he had made, but by the use to which he put it, and they believed that an education which taught a boy to be industrious and thrifty, to despise self-indulgence and luxury, to think straight and see clearly, would make him a better citizen than one which aimed only at making him a successful man of business. So they aimed at giving every boy a good education.
First among things, [said one of their teachers], I reckon human education. For if you begin anything whatever in the right way, the end will probably be right also. The nature of the harvest depends upon the seeds you sow. If you plant good education in a young body, it bears leaves and fruit the whole life long, and no rain or drought can destroy it.[[1]]
The Athenian boy went to school when he was seven years old. At this age he was placed in the charge of a pedagogue, a trusted slave who accompanied him when he went to school, carried his books for him, and helped him, when necessary, with his lessons. The pedagogue was also expected to keep him in good order, to teach him good manners, to answer all his many questions, and to punish him whenever he thought fit, which was probably very often.
Schools opened early, so early that Solon made a law forbidding schoolmasters to open their schools before sunrise and requiring them to be closed before sunset, so that the boys should not have to walk about the dark and empty streets. The Athenian boy, then, had to be early astir. "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 with his eyes fixed upon the ground, not looking at anyone who meets him." (A modest and unassuming appearance in public was required of every boy.) "Behind him follow attendants and pedagogues, 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."[[2]]
Arrived at the school, the pedagogue remained in an ante-room, where he waited with all the other pedagogues until morning school was over. The boy entered a larger room beyond, where he settled down to his lessons. The boys sat on low benches with their writing-tablets on their knees, and the master sat on a higher chair in front of them. Lyres and other musical instruments, a book-roll or two, or perhaps some drinking-cups hung on the walls.
Athenian boys were taught three main subjects: letters, music and gymnastics. The first thing connected with letters was to be able to read and write. The first writing lessons were given on wooden tablets covered with wax, and for a pen a stylus with a sharp metal point was used. With this stylus the letters were scratched on the wax. When a boy had learnt to write better, he was allowed to write on papyrus with a reed dipped in a kind of sticky substance which took the place of ink.
When the boy has learned his letters [we are told], 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 sitting on a bench at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become like them.[[3]]