[14] It was a curious rule at the Olympic games that the competitors were even compelled to swear that they had spent a month in training at Elis, as if it mattered whether the victory was won by natural endowments only or by careful study. One would have thought that the importance of the contest would insure ample training in those who desired to win.
[15] I myself saw at the Olympic games now held at Athens, in the re-excavated stadion of Herodes, a sprint-race of two hundred yards over vine ground, cut into furrows, with dogs and people obstructing the course. Cf. Macmillan’s Magazine for September, 1876.
[16] Cf., for example, Grasberger, “Erziehung,” etc., iii. 212, quoting Cicero, “Tusc. Disp.,” ii. 23, 26.
[17] It is a perpetual and perhaps now ineradicable mistake, because we cannot see the real Athenians or Spartans of classical days, to imagine them in general like the ideal statues of the Greek artists. We find it even generally stated that beauty was the rule and ugliness the exception among them, in spite of Cicero’s complaint, when he was disillusioned by a visit to Athens: “Quotusquisque enim formosus est? Quum Athenis essem e gregibus epheborum vix singuli reperiebantur.”
CHAPTER IV.
SCHOOL DAYS—THE MUSICAL SIDE—THE SCHOOLMASTER.
§ 24. We will approach this side of the question by quoting the famous description of Greek education in Plato’s “Protagoras,”[18] which will recall to the reader the general problem, so apt to be lost or obscured amid details. “Education and admonition commence in the very first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor (παιδαγωγός) are quarrelling about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand them. He cannot say or do anything without their setting forth to him that this is just and that is unjust; that this is honorable, that is dishonorable; this is holy, that is unholy; do this, and abstain from that. And if he obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of warped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his reading and music; and the teachers do as they are desired. And when the boy has learned his letters, 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 at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate them, and desire to become like them. Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is steady and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the works of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children, in order that they may learn to be more gentle and harmonious and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm. Then they send them to the master of gymnastics, in order that their bodies may better minister to the virtuous mind, and that the weakness of their bodies may not force them to play the coward in war or on any other occasion. This is what is done by those who have the means, and those who have the means are the rich; their children begin education soonest and leave off latest. When they have done with masters, the State, again, compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a stylus for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet, and makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good lawgivers which were of old time; these are given to the young man in order to guide him in his conduct, whether as ruler or ruled; and he who transgresses them is to be corrected or called to account, which is a term used not only in your country, but in many others.”
This is the argument put by Plato into the mouth of Protagoras the sophist, to show that virtue is a thing which can be taught, and not a mere natural predisposition or a divine grace. The other locus classicus, which may be referred to in close connection with it, is the description of the traditional education given in Aristophanes’ “Clouds.”[19] The strict discipline of boys who were not allowed to utter a whisper before their elders; who were sent in troops early in the morning to school, in their single tunic, even in the deepest winter snow; who were kept at work with the music-master studying old traditional hymns, and in attitudes strictly controlled as regards modesty and decency—all this is contrasted by the poet with what he considers the corruption of the youth with florid and immoral music, their meretricious desire to exhibit their bodily and mental perfections, their luxury and sloth, their abandonment of sobriety and diligence.
There are peculiarities of Greek taste so openly alluded to in this passage that it will not bear literal translation into English, at least into a book for ordinary readers; and therefore it need only be remarked, in criticism of it, that too much stress has been laid by theorists on Greek life, both on the picture of over-anxious morality in the older time, and on the alleged immorality of the poet’s age. It is from such passages that German historians draw their very extravagant assertions of the rapid degeneracy of the Athenians under what they call the ochlocracy, which followed upon the death of Pericles. It is very easy to find in many other ages and times similar assertions of the glory of the good old times, and the degeneracy of the satirist’s own contemporaries. But there is generally no more truth in it than in the assertion of Homer that his heroes took up and threw easily great rocks which two, or five, or ten men, such as they now are, could not lift. The same sort of thing was said in poetry of the mediæval knights in comparison with modern Europe. One would imagine them of greater size and might than we are, and yet their suits of armor are seldom large enough for a man six feet high. The picture of Aristophanes is doubtless a deliberate exaggeration, and would have been readily acknowledged as such by the poet himself. But it, of course, gives us the extremes possible in real life, as he knew it, and is therefore of use in forming our ideas on the question, if we use common sense and caution.
§ 25. With the exception of this feature, that Greek parents showed a greater apprehension for the morals of their boys, and guarded them as we should guard the morals of girls, it will be seen that the principles of education are permanent, and applicable in all ages under similar circumstances.