[51] Especially in his “Education of Cyrus.”
CHAPTER VIII.
HIGHER EDUCATION—THE SOPHISTS AND SOCRATES.
§ 50. As every one knows now, the real position and merits of the Sophists were first brought to light by Grote in his monumental “History of Greece.” Since the publication of that book the English scholar has learned that sophist, in early Greek history, is not synonymous with liar and villain, undermining public morals and sapping religion. Within the last few years the influence of this new view is gradually reaching the Germans, a nation not very ready to adopt, in philology at least, English opinions. But this very natural reluctance has its exceptions; for in the most important new book on the history of Greek philosophy, Zeller’s last edition, we find that, in spite of sundry reservations, the main results of Grote’s investigations are recognized and adopted.
Before I go on to appropriate from these authors that part of their account of the Sophists which belongs properly to the subject of Greek education, it is worth reflecting a moment on so very remarkable an instance of misunderstood evidence as this controversy exhibits. The main body of philologists simply followed like a flock of sheep Plato’s and Aristotle’s polemic against their own rivals. Plato inherited from Socrates a strong antipathy to these practical and often utilitarian teachers. But it was for the most part the same sort of antipathy that the solid university professor of our own day has for the successful crammer. The competition mania of the present day has created a demand for these specialists, who do not profess anything more than their special trade of passing men for examinations, and who do it admirably, and derive from it large emoluments. So the rise of democratic institutions, and the spread of international debates, made the fifth century B.C. in Greece one that required suddenly a set of practical teachers for men who practised at the bar or debated in the public assembly. We are too much in the habit of thinking that such men required training merely in rhetoric—in the way of disputing and of plausibly stating their views. They required more; they required education in general subjects, and of course not a deep education, but such a one as would enable them to talk intelligently, and make and understand allusions to the deeper questions of the day. We hear that now in America it is not an uncommon thing for men who have risen suddenly in the world, and for their wives, to send for a teacher and say, “I am now in a position to move in educated society, and to be required to speak on public affairs. My early training was entirely neglected. I want you to instruct me in the ordinary topics of the day, as well as in those points of art and science which may be serviceable for my purpose.” And such instruction, very superficial, no doubt, and inaccurate, but highly practical, is often given.
§ 51. Now, let us imagine that an intelligent Greek or other foreigner, totally unacquainted with modern journalism, were to seek for evidence of its moral value and the real benefits it confers upon us. What answer would he receive? If he applied to the journalists themselves, they would tell him that it was their object so to furnish their readers with all the current topics of instruction as to make them able to converse intelligently without any further study. They would also profess to be leaders of the moral sense of the public, praising what was of good repute, and blaming the wicked, exposing abuses, and expounding virtue. They would also claim the merit of supplying the public with arguments in favor of a disputed conclusion, so that men might be furnished with weapons to meet their intellectual adversaries. He would naturally ask, on hearing this exalted programme, whether all this was done out of pure philanthropy or with any ulterior view; more especially, whether there was any pecuniary gain attached. They would reply that they did indeed take money for their teaching—and the laborer is worthy of his hire—but they would appeal to any of their readers whether the instruction afforded was not greatly in excess of their remuneration. With this reply our stranger might perhaps be but half satisfied, and might have some suspicion that independent evidence would not come amiss; and on inquiring from thoughtful men what emoluments were to be gained by this profession, he would hear that, if successful, it was one of the most lucrative known, and that many of the contributors confessedly worked, not for the sake of conviction, but of gain. He would next inquire whether success was always in their case a test of solid merit, and would discover that, however it might be so intellectually, from a moral point of view such was not the case. The most thoughtful and candid members of our society would explain to him that, here as elsewhere, men delighted more in reading what fell in with their prejudices than what exposed them, and that by pandering to this defect, and following in the wake of public opinion, newspapers often succeeded better than by honest and fearless teaching. He would hear that almost every paper belonged to some political party, whose errors and weaknesses it felt bound to justify and protect. Furthermore, that for the sake of clearness and of brevity, as well as from a want of care to do more than please for the hour, many arguments in the daily papers were superficial and illogical, not clearing, but obscuring, the real questions at issue. He would certainly, therefore, in the course of his inquiry, come to look upon them as a class or profession; but yet, if he spoke of them as such, he might be surprised to hear himself corrected by the journalists or by their friends. They would deny that they were a distinct profession, and say with truth that all intelligent men who desired to teach were to some extent journalists, who are marked by no fixed principle, by the bonds of no special education. Even their own critics, he would hear with surprise, at times joined them and wrote to instruct the public. They were a class and not a class, a profession and not a profession; with a common object, to some extent a common method, but hardly any common principles, any direct co-operation, any common interest, to outbalance their jealous rivalry.
§ 52. Is this a fair picture of the moral side of journalism? It is obtained simply by describing, in the wake of Plato and of Mr. Grote and of Sir Alexander Grant, the old Greek Sophists. These, then, were really the Greek journalists, who, before the days of posts and printing, carried about from city to city the latest news, the most recent criticism, the most modern views of politics and of education, the newest theories on morals and on religion. It may be thought irreverent to compare St. Paul to our daily press, but I cannot better explain myself than by pointing to that most graphic scene in the Acts where the apostle arrives at Athens. He is seized by the eager and curious public as we seize the precious journal in some remote country place when we have been separated from the current of affairs for a few days. And, no doubt, they first asked him what local or political information he had brought from his previous sojourn, just as we first read the messages from Paris or London; and when this curiosity was satisfied, they began to inquire what more he had to say; and, finding that he was an ethical teacher, or sophist, they proceeded at greater leisure to enjoy the rest of his communications, just as we should turn on to the leading article, the correspondence about ritualistic innovations, or the reviews. St. Paul was taken for a sophist, and justly so in some sense, for he taught morals and religion; still more, he taught a new religion. We all know how far he differed from that class. Flippant, plausible, ingenious, sceptical, they were the idols of the public, but the aversion of those deeper minds to whom the ignorance and prejudice of the masses are not a source of material gain, but rather a grievous and galling spiritual burden.
§ 53. This is what the Greek Sophists really were, crammers not for special competitions, but for the general requirements of higher society and of political life. They crammed more or less honestly, more or less efficiently, for a generation or two. Then the want of them passed away, as we may hope the want of the modern crammer will pass away with the superstition that we can find out practical merit by mere examinations. At Athens and throughout Greece the encyclopædic teaching of the Sophists was presently carried into minute specialty by teachers of rhetoric, of dialectic, and of morals, just as the professors of geology of thirty years ago are being supplanted by special teaching in fossil anatomy, botany, and mineralogy. From the middle of the fourth century B.C. the Sophists disappear as a class altogether. It is, nevertheless, certain that they left no bad name behind them in Greece, except among the immediate followers of Plato and Aristotle; for in the second century A.D. the title was revived as one of the highest honor, and attaching to the greatest literary post in Athens.
We need not assert that these teachers were as strictly business-like as the modern coach, or that they confined themselves as strictly to their definite object. They often boasted of great performances which were beyond the reach of ordinary people, and were merely meant for display. But then their aims were far wider and more varied than those of the coach, and were not to be tested by the clear and definite result of the examination lists. Hence Plato and Socrates found it easy to pick holes in their programmes, and to accuse them of getting money under false pretences. These philosophers went further, and reviled them for taking money at all, bartering their wisdom for gold, and imparting virtue for a fee. All this was mere jealous polemic, and based on an unfair estimate of the attempt made by practical men to supply a public want. Yet even though Plato himself paints the leading Sophists as most respectable men, though we know from independent evidence that they were so, whether Plato confessed it or not, the attacks on the profession made by him and by Aristophanes—the one a radical reformer, and the other a blind conservative—have so imposed upon the learned that they have completely mistaken the real evidence on the question, and set down the arguments for the prosecution as if they were a judicial charge or a mature verdict. So powerful is the influence of literary skill, when it causes the survival of a single work amid the loss of all its fellows. Because Plato is our leading witness on the Sophists, because Aristophanes’ satire has survived, men imagine that this must be the general verdict, and set down the bias and the prejudice of an individual as the reflex of public opinion.