A student's history of education

by Frank Pierrepont Graves

Thus education in early Rome was practical, and, to some extent, occupational. It was intended to produce efficiency as fathers, citizens, and soldiers. It consisted in training the youths to be healthy and strong in mind and body, and sedate and simple in their habits; to reverence the gods, their parents, the laws, and institutions; and to be courageous in war, and familiar with the traditional agriculture, or the conduct of some business. It did produce a nation of warriors and loyal citizens, but it inevitably tended to make them calculating, selfish, overbearing, cruel, and rapacious. They never possessed either lofty ideals or enthusiasm. Their training was best adapted to a small state, and became unsatisfactory when they had spread over the entire Italian peninsula. The golden age of valor and stern virtue had then largely departed, and they began unconsciously to seek a more universal culture. While such a people regarded the Greeks as visionary, just as the Greeks looked upon them as barbarians, they felt instinctively that only by absorption of the Hellenic ideals could their cosmopolitan ambitions be carried out. On the other hand, it was through the organization which the Romans were able to furnish, that the great ideals formulated by the Greeks were destined to be rendered effective and to become a matter of value and concern to civilization ever since.

The Absorption of Greek Culture.—There was a gradual infiltration of Greek culture into Rome from very early days. This received a great impulse through Spread through Alexander and Roman conquests. the conquests of Alexander (334-323 B. C.) and the absorption of Macedon by Rome (168 B. C.), but it was not until about half a century after Greece itself had become a Roman province (146 B. C.), that the Greek educational ideals and institutions can be said to have been completely absorbed by Rome. This new type of education was thus well established early in the first century B. C. It may be said to have remained almost unmodified until toward the end of the second century A. D., when political conditions at Rome became most unstable and the period of degeneracy set in. During these three centuries of Hellenized Roman education, three grades of schools resulted from the amalgamation. They were the (1) ludus or school of the litterator, as the lowest school was called; (2) the ‘grammar’ school, The schools resulting. taught by a grammaticus or litteratus; and (3) the schools of rhetoric and oratory, which furnished a somewhat higher education.

The Ludus.—The ludus, or lowest school, may possibly have existed before the process of Hellenization even began, but if it did, it must have been intended simply to supplement the more informal training of the home. Its content and methods. Whenever originated, it probably taught at first only reading, writing, and rudimentary calculation, as in the family, through the medium of historical anecdotes, ballads, religious songs, and the Twelve Tables. But as the Greek influence crept in more and more, the literary content was somewhat extended. About the middle of the third century B. C., Livius Andronicus translated the Odyssey into Latin; and a number of epics, dramas, and epigrams were soon composed after Greek models. These works, in whole or part, were introduced into the curricula of the ludi and by the beginning of the first century B. C., the Twelve Tables had been displaced by the Latinized Odyssey of Andronicus. The methods of instruction were memoriter and imitative. The names and alphabetic order of the letters were first taught without any indication of their significance or even shape, and all possible combinations of syllables were committed before any words were learned. Reading and writing were then taught by dictation, and, in tracing the letters on wax-tablets with the stylus ([Fig. 5]), the hand of the pupil was at first guided by the teacher. Calculation was learned by counting on the fingers, by means of pebbles, or upon the abacus, and eventually sums were worked upon the tablets.

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 5.—School materials from wall paintings: (a) Wax tablet and capsa, containing rolls, or books. (b) Three stili, capsa, and roll leaning against it. (c) Wax tablet, with stilus tied to it.

Fig. 6.—Scene at a ludus or Roman elementary school, taken from a fresco found at Herculaneum.

Methods so devoid of interest were naturally accompanied Discipline and teachers. by severe discipline. The rod, lash, and whip seem to have been in frequent use, and the names ordinarily applied to schoolmasters in Latin literature are suggestive of harshness and brutality. Moreover, a fresco found at Herculaneum depicts a boy held over the shoulders of another, with the master beating the victim upon the bare back ([Fig. 6]). Under these circumstances, no real qualifications were required of the teacher, and his social standing was low. The Greek custom of having the boy accompanied to and from Slaves to accompany pupils. school by a slave that was otherwise incapacitated by age or physical disability soon came to be imitated by Buildings. the Romans. When a special building was employed for the school, it was usually a mere booth or veranda, and the pupils sat on the floor or upon stones.

Grammar Schools.—The ‘grammar’ school grew out of the increasing literary work of the ludus. But, while offering a more advanced course, it would seem to belong in part at least to the elementary stage of education, especially as its work was never sharply divided from that of the ludus. The young Roman might attend both a Greek and a Latin grammar school, but, in case he did, usually went first to the former. The curriculum in each Curriculum. consisted, according to Quintilian, of ‘the art of speaking correctly’ and ‘the interpretation of the poets,’ or, in other words, of a training in grammar and literature. ‘Grammar’ may, however, have included some knowledge of philology and derivations, as well as drill on the parts of speech, inflections, syntax, and prosody, and practice in composition and paragraphing. The literary training was obtained by writing paraphrases of the best authors, textual and literary criticism, commentaries, and exercises in diction and verse-writing. Some other studies, like arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, geography, and music may also have been added in time, from the suggestions of Plato, but the Romans naturally gave them a practical bearing. Some gymnastics, mostly for Methods and discipline. military training, were often in the course. The methods in the grammar schools were somewhat better than those of the ludus, but the commentary of the teacher on the text was usually taken down verbatim by the pupil. The discipline, in consequence, was not much in advance of that of the lower schools. But the accommodations for Buildings. these secondary schools were decidedly superior, and the buildings not only possessed suitable seats for the pupils and teacher, but were even adorned with paintings and sculpture.