[525] Plato, Euthud. 298 D.
[526] It is not fair to condemn Polos and Thrasumachos on the score of the opinions which Plato puts into their mouths.
[527] Jebb, Attic Orators.
[528] Compare Renaissance poetry in Italy.
CHAPTER VI
SECONDARY EDUCATION: II. THE PERMANENT SCHOOLS
Athens was the place in which the fluid educational system of the Sophists would naturally begin to crystallise. Not only were the Athenians the keenest and most intellectual of the Hellenes: owing to the vast trade of their city, merchants, astronomers, inventors, poets, thinkers of all sorts, poured into it, and men of all trades and all tongues collected there. Many stayed there for a few days only, in passing; for Athens was a sort of Clapham Junction in those days. All these brought a perpetual supply of new ideas into the city, which the inhabitants were quick to assimilate.
But, possessing all the advantages of a commercial centre, Athens was free from the disadvantages. The clamour and vulgarity of trade were confined to the Peiraieus: in the gymnasia or the streets or the colonnades of Athens the philosopher and the thinker could teach and meditate in peace, in an atmosphere ennobled by her treasures of architecture and art and sculpture, which subdued the most blatant visitor, amid the literary circles which her dramatic contests attracted and encouraged. Here was an ideal spot for the meeting-place of the best minds in Hellas and the growth of a great educational system. The city was an education in itself. Perikles had called Athens the school of Hellas; the name was now to be justified in its most literal sense.
Early in the fourth century there arose established secondary schools in Athens. Plato began to teach Logic and Philosophy, Isokrates Rhetoric, not for a few weeks at a time, but permanently: their courses lasted three or four years. Characteristically, there was no State organisation or interference; Isokrates taught in his own house, near the Lukeion, Plato in his garden near Kolonos and in the Akademeia. Their pupils came from all parts of the civilised world, staying in Athens during their course of study. Plato imposed a preliminary examination in mathematics upon his pupils; Isokrates only commended a knowledge of such subjects. The students of these two schools became recognised features of Athenian life.