The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

NATURE OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM DEVELOPED. Such was the educational system which was finally evolved to meet the new cultural needs of the Roman Empire. In all its foundation elements it was Greek. Having borrowed—conquered one might almost say—Greek religion, philosophy, literature, and learning, the Romans naturally borrowed also the school system that had been evolved to impart this culture. Never before or since has any people adapted so completely to their own needs the system of educational training evolved by another. To the Greek basis some distinctively Roman elements were added to adapt it better to the peculiar needs of their own people, while on the other hand many of the finer Greek characteristics were omitted entirely. Having once adopted the Greek plan, the constructive Roman mind organized it into a system superior to the original, but in so doing formalized it more than the Greeks had ever done (R. 19).

[Illustration: FIG. 25. THE ROMAN VOLUNTARY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, AS FINALLY
EVOLVED]

That the system afforded an opportunity to wealthy Romans to obtain for their children some understanding and appreciation of the culture of the Greek world with which their Empire was now in contact, and answered fairly well the preparatory needs along political and governmental lines of those Romans who could afford to educate their boys for such careers, can hardly be doubted (R. 22). Roman writers on education, especially Cicero (R. 24) and Quintilian (R. 25), give us abundant testimony as to the value and usefulness of the system evolved in the training of orators and men for the public service. In the provinces, too, we know that the schools were very useful in inculcating Roman traditions and in helping the Romans to assimilate the sons of local princes and leaders. [28] During the days of the Republic the schools were naturally more useful than after the establishment of the Empire, and especially after the later Emperors had stamped out many of the political and civic liberties for the enjoyment of which the schools prepared. On the other hand, the schools reached but a small, selected class of youths, trained for only the political career, and cannot be considered as ever having been general or as having educated any more than a small percentage of the future citizens of the State. Many of the important lines of activity in which the Romans engaged, and which to-day are regarded as monuments to their constructive skill and practical genius, such as architectural achievements, the building of roads and aqueducts, the many skilled trades, and the large commercial undertakings, these schools did nothing to prepare youths for. The State, unlike Athens, never required education of any one, did not make what was offered a preparation for citizenship, and made no attempt to regulate either teachers or instruction until late in the history of the Empire. Education at Rome was from the first purely a private- adventure affair, most nearly analogous with us to instruction in music and dancing. Those who found the education offered of any value could take it and pay for it; those who did not could let it alone. A few did the former, the great mass of the Romans the latter. For the great slave class that developed at Rome there was, of course, no education at all.

RESULTS ON ROMAN LIFE AND GOVERNMENT. Still, out of this private and tuition system of schools many capable political leaders and executives came—men who exercised great influence on the history of the State, fought out her political battles, organized and directed her government at home and in the provinces, and helped build up that great scheme of government and law and order which was Rome's most significant contribution to future civilization. [29] It was in this direction, and in practical and constructive work along engineering and architectural lines, that Rome excelled. The Roman genius for government and law and order and constructive undertakings must be classed, in importance for the future of civilization in the world, along with the ability of Greece in literature and philosophy and art. "If," says Professor Adams, "as is sometimes said, that in the course of history there is no literature which rivals the Greek except the English, it is perhaps even more true that the Anglo- Saxon is the only race which can be placed beside the Romans in creative power and in politics." The conquest of the known world by this practical and constructive people could not have otherwise than decisively influenced the whole course of human history, and, coming at the time in world affairs that it did, the influence on all future civilization of the work of Rome has been profound. The great political fact which dominated all the Middle Ages, and shaped the religion and government and civilization of the time, was the fact that the Roman Empire had been and had done its work so well.

V. ROME'S CONTRIBUTION TO CIVILIZATION

GREECE AND ROME CONTRASTED. The contrast between the Greeks and the Romans is marked in almost every particular. The Greeks were an imaginative, subjective, artistic, and idealistic people, with little administrative ability and few practical tendencies. The Romans, on the other hand, were an unimaginative, concrete, practical, and constructive nation. Greece made its great contribution to world civilization in literature and philosophy and art; Rome in law and order and government. The Greeks lived a life of aesthetic enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art, and their basis for estimating the worth of a thing was intellectual and artistic; to the Romans the aesthetic and the beautiful made little appeal, and their basis for estimating the worth of a thing was utilitarian. The Greeks worshiped "the beautiful and the good," and tried to enjoy life rationally and nobly, while the Romans worshiped force and effectiveness, and lived by rule and authority. The Greeks thought in personal terms of government and virtue and happiness, while the Romans thought in general terms of law and duty, and their happiness was rather in present denial for future gain than in any immediate enjoyment.

As a result the Romans developed no great scholarly or literary atmosphere, as the Greeks had done at Athens, They built up no great speculative philosophies, and framed no great theories of government. Even their literature was, in part, an imitation of the Greek, though possessing many elements of native strength and beauty. They were a people who knew how to accomplish results rather than to speculate about means and ends. Usefulness and effectiveness were with them the criteria of the worth of any idea or project. They subdued and annexed an empire, they gave law and order to a primitive world, they civilized and Romanized barbarian tribes, they built roads connecting all parts of their Empire that were the best the world had ever known, their aqueducts and bridges were wonders of engineering skill, their public buildings and monuments still excite admiration and envy, in many of the skilled trades they developed tools and processes of large future usefulness, and their agriculture was the best the world had known up to that time. They were strong where the Greeks were weak, and weak where the Greeks were strong.

By reason of this difference the two peoples supplemented one another well in the work of laying the foundations upon which our modern civilization has been built. Greece created the intellectual and aesthetic ideals and the culture for our life, while Rome developed the political institutions under which ideals may be realized and culture may be enjoyed. From the Greeks and Hebrews our modern life has drawn its great inspirations and its ideals for life, while from the Romans we have derived our ideals as to government and obedience to law. One may say that the Romans as a people specialized in government, law, order, and constructive practical undertakings, and bequeathed to posterity a wonderful inheritance in governmental forms, legal codes, commercial processes, and engineering undertakings, while the Greeks left to us a philosophy, literature, art, and a world culture which the civilized world will never cease to enjoy. The Greeks were an imaginative, impulsive, and a joyous people; the Romans sedate, severe, and superior to the Greeks in persistence and moral force. The Greeks were ever young; the Romans were always grown and serious men.

ROME'S GREAT CONTRIBUTION. Rome's great contribution, then, was along the lines just indicated. To this, the school system which became established in the Roman State contributed only indirectly and but little. The unification of the ancient world into one Empire, with a common body of traditions, practices, coinage, speech, and law, which made the triumph of Christianity possible; the formulation of a body of law [30] which barbarian tribes accepted, which was studied throughout the Middle Ages, which formed the basis of the legal system of the mediaeval Church, and which has largely influenced modern practice; the development of a language from which many modern tongues have been derived, and which has modified all western languages; and the perfection of an alphabet which has become the common property of all nations whose civilization has been derived from the Greek and Roman—these constitute the chief contributions of Rome to modern civilization.

Roman city government, too, had been established throughout all the provincial cities, and this remained after the Empire had passed away. The municipal corporation, with its charter of rights, has ever since been a fixed idea in the western world. Roman law, organized into a compact code, and studied in the law schools of the Middle Ages, has modified our modern ideas and practices to a degree we scarcely realize. It was accepted by the German rulers as a permanent thing after they had overrun the Empire, and it remained as the law of the courts wherever Roman subjects were tried. Preserved and codified at Constantinople under Justinian in the sixth century, and re-introduced into western Europe when the study of law was revived in the newly founded universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Roman law has greatly modified all modern legal practices and has become the basis of the legal systems of a number of modern states. [31]