Old Greek Education

by J. P. Mahaffy

This possibility of improving intellect by careful selection was beyond Plato’s vision; he only thought of physical qualities in the arrangement of his unions. But it is one of the most remarkable points in his exclusive and aristocratic society that he makes provision for the adopting of any particularly bright child of the operative class among his guardians, so that they might benefit by the accident. The degradation of poor or unhealthy children of the higher class is also contemplated.

His arrangement of the years of education is as follows: It is divided into three parts. Beginning with the learning of proper myths and tales, it proceeds to easy gymnastic, followed by music and poetry, with reading, writing, arithmetic, and some elementary mathematics, all of which occupy from the seventh to the eighteenth year, and thus correspond to our schooling. Then comes military training up to the twentieth year—a division to which we, who have no conscription, have no analogy, as the Germans have. Next follows the second division of higher studies in pure and applied mathematics for ten years, and the third in metaphysic for five years. These are, of course, quite wide of any practical scheme, and are intended to form those philosophic rulers who will regard their whole life here as a preparation for a higher sphere.

§ 66. His views on the details of music and gymnastic were not materially different from those of the practical educators which we have discussed, save that he proposes to train his guardian class with more detail and circumstance than were possible for any ordinary public.

He is unpractical, and even absurd, in his curious prudery about the tales and legends which children are to learn. He objects to Homer, to the tragedies, still more to the comedies, and, no doubt, to the folk-lore of the day, as inculcating base and immoral views of the gods and their relations to men. Fairy tales are always to represent God as one and as perfectly good. He even goes so far—but here he can hardly be in earnest—as to recommend that children shall learn by heart his laws instead of poetry and myths![57] Throughout all his remarks on this subject, he evidently ignores the culture of the imagination as such, which we recognize as so important that we even tolerate or overlook immoralities or manifest fictions in aiming at this kind of amusement and culture of children. Indeed, it is certain that when children are taught fairy tales as such, the immoral acts of real life, such as robbery and murder, are only accessories to the imaginary life, in which there is generally some rude justice.

Even apart from this particular question, we find all through Plato’s theory of education a very mischievous dislike of any liberty of opinion, or liberty of life, in the youth of his State. He goes so far in the “Laws” as to make heresy of opinion penal, and to punish with imprisonment those who will not conform to the doctrines of the lawgiver. If there be anything which would tempt us to reject the “Laws,” as not the genuine work of Socrates’ disciple, it is this strange narrowness of view, which makes Grote argue that the actual Athens of Plato’s day was superior to the ideal he constructed. But doctrinaires of all ages hate human liberty. Nor do the Greeks ever seem to have been forced by the pressure of circumstances to mark off the close of formal education by a fixed period, like our graduation at a university, when the young man is expected to strike out into the world and henceforth educate himself in practical life.

§ 67. The educational book of Aristotle’s “Politics” (VII. in the now received order) is a mere fragment, which suggests many problems, and solves but few. Even with the help of some important corrections from the “Ethics,” we find it the narrow and old-fashioned scheme of a pedant Greek, written with admiration for the artificial discipline of Sparta, and unable to understand even the far more splendid Hellenic ideal sketched by Thucydides in his speech of Pericles. We know, however, from the “Ethics” that he felt the essential importance of family ties between husband and wife, between parents and children. Hence he rejects Plato’s proposal of abolishing the family, and insists that the ideal State must consist of households in the strict sense. But, on the other hand, he quite agrees with Plato’s view that the social and moral aspects of marriage are by no means inconsistent with a strict supervision of the producing of healthy children by the State. He foreshadowed the state of things anticipated above, when husband and wife will still feel the deep sanctity and thorough loyalty of their relation, and yet not leave to mere accident the most important product, nay, the only product, so far as the State is concerned, of their union. He is just as careful as Plato in recommending care of unborn children by attention to their mothers’ air and exercise. He is still more ruthless in advocating the destruction, either before or after birth, of illegitimate offspring. Neither can he, any more than Plato, imagine an ideal state capable of such expansion as to contain a great people, nor can he dispense with disabilities for most of its members, such as slaves and operatives.

He does not contemplate the very long and elaborate after-training of Plato’s guardians, for he does not conceive this world as a preparation for another, but as an end in itself. And it is probably for this reason that he is so superior to Plato in analyzing the function of refined recreation, and the ennoblement of leisure by æsthetic pleasures. Thus he sees that music is to be utilized as a recreation for youth, as well as for a moral engine of education. He has explained in his “Poetic” that dramatic poetry is not mere fiction, to be banished from the ideal State as teaching falsehood or depicting crime, but a representation of human life deeper and more philosophic than history, inasmuch as history only widens the intellect, while the drama also purifies the emotions of the spectator. It may even be argued that history widens the intellect only so far as it is conceived as a drama—a development of human character—and not as a mere recitation of facts.

While he does not enounce so clearly as Plato that gymnastics are mainly a training for the character, he sets his face against that physical training which studies nothing but the development of muscle, on the ground that, if at all excessive, it defeats its own object by engendering an unhealthy state; and that, as we cannot work the body and the mind together with any severity, it must generally coincide with ignorance or with an illiterate life. Even the Spartan military training, which was opposed by them to athletic training, falls under his censure.

He will not concede, with Plato, the equality in kind of the sexes, but thinks the functions of women are distinct in kind from those of men, and therefore not to be perfected by adopting the same training. Thus he is, on the whole, tamer and more conservative, but also less suggestive, than his great master.

§ 68. The main value of his fragment on education is that it shows how thoroughly the subject had been discussed in his day. Thus, after determining that the civic side of the citizen is all-important, and that, therefore, all education must be public and the same for all, as in Sparta, he proceeds thus with his argument:[58] “What, then, is education, and how are we to educate? For there is as yet no agreement on the point; all men are not of the same opinion as to what the young should learn either with a view to perfection or to the best life; nor is it agreed whether education is to aim at the development of the intellect or the moral character. Nay, more; from the ordinary standpoint the matter is quite confused, and it is not clear to anybody whether we are to train in what leads to virtue, in what is useful for ordinary life, or in abstract science. All these alternatives have their advocates. Again, as regards what leads to virtue, there is no general consent, for since men do not agree in what they honor as such, of course they cannot agree about the training to obtain it. As regards what is useful for life, it is obvious that there are certain indispensable things which must be taught, and it is equally clear that there are others which must not. All occupations are divided into those which a free man should practise and those which he should not, and, therefore, this affords us a limitation in the learning of useful arts.” He goes on to show that no trade is gentlemanly if it injuriously affects the body, or enslaves the mind by being practised for hire. Even the fine arts, if studied in this way, or professionally, are to him an unworthy occupation, and are only to be pursued in youth as a recreation or æsthetic training; so that in middle life men may be competent judges of such productions, and either better able to enjoy them (as in music), or less likely to be deceived (as in the purchase of works of art). Having applied these principles to athletics, about which he says little save in recommendation of moderation, and against any professional training, he turns to the question of music, on which we have already given the views which he held in common with the most serious Greek educators. On this subject, too, there was controversy. He has before him three theories: is it mere amusement (παιδία), or an engine of education (παιδεία), or an æsthetic pleasure (διαγωγή)?[59] Perhaps we have dwelt too long on these theories, but it seemed desirable to give the reader the locus classicus on the Hellenic theory of music, which was discussed above ([§ 43]), and which, in spite of all our studies of Greek life, is still quite strange and incredible to modern theorists in education.