Plato led his pupils towards intellectual research and a life of retirement; the tendency of the school was markedly aristocratic, and several of the lads became tyrants in after life. Isokrates inculcated the practical life: his teaching was meant as a preparation for success in society and politics. But as his school naturally was only for the comparatively wealthy and leisured classes, it also tended to be aristocratic; however, it produced some of the leading democratic statesmen of the day.
Besides these two great schools others grew up. It is hard to distinguish exactly between the boys who went to Isokrates in order to learn political speaking and those who went to a “logographos” like Lusias or Demosthenes to learn forensic oratory. The “logographoi” do not seem to have claimed to impart culture, but only technical instruction: they are thus on the boundary line of education. But Demosthenes went to the “logographos” Isaios to get precisely the instruction which Isokrates had refused him: so it is hard to make a clear distinction. I shall therefore give a short sketch of the “logographoi” also.[529]
By the time that these schools began to establish themselves the Sophists were beginning to die out. Times were harder in the fourth century, and fewer people had money to spend on these expensive teachers. The intellectual movement of the Periclean age had spent itself, and the desire for universal knowledge was no longer so keen. Moreover, it is quite probable that settled schools, like that of Isokrates at Athens, were forming in many of the great centres: it is known that Isokrates himself taught for a while in Chios. The great demerit of the Sophists’ teaching, namely, that it was too much in a hurry and gave no time for personal endeavour on the part of the pupil, had been recognised: and the result was that the Sophists settled down in a single place and gave continuous courses of instruction.
But a good many Sophists of the old type remained, to vex Isokrates by their criticisms and rivalries. They still came to Athens at the great festivals, and gave hurried lectures.[530] But they had not the originality of their predecessors, and people preferred to read the works of Protagoras or Gorgias for themselves to hearing them repeated as original by a lecturer. Books were already a serious rival to lecturing, and were a cause of much searching of heart to Plato: Isokrates, however, preferred to write himself and so advertise his school.
Besides the wandering Sophists there were probably a good many teachers, both of Philosophy and of Rhetoric, established permanently at Athens. Isokrates mentions casually that all the schools[531] produce only two or three first-class speakers. In his educational prospectus, Against the Sophists, he criticises these rivals freely. “They merely try to attract pupils by low fees and big promises. The speeches which they write themselves are worse than the improvisations of the wholly untrained, yet they promise to make a complete orator out of any one who comes to them; for they make no allowance for natural talent or for experience, but regard eloquence as an exact science, just like the A B C and equally communicable; whereas it is really a progressive art, where the same thing must never be said twice, and its rules must be relative to the occasion and the circumstances.”[532] It is clear that these rivals committed the serious crime of underselling Isokrates and also of issuing more attractive prospectuses; perhaps, too, they are the captious critics to whom he is always referring.
Isokrates is still more severe on various philosophical teachers; he cannot mean Plato alone, for he mentions their fees, and Plato made no charge. There must have been a large number of philosophical professors, of whom Plato was only the most brilliant. But in many points Isokrates no doubt meant his denunciations to apply to Plato also. The summary of his attack is as follows:—“They make impossible offers, promising to impart to their pupils an exact science of conduct, by means of which they will always know what to do. Yet for this science they charge only 3 or 4 μναῖ (£12 or £16), a ridiculously small sum. They try to attract pupils by the specious titles of the subjects which they claim to teach, such as Justice and Prudence. But the Justice and the Prudence which they teach are of a very peculiar sort, and they give a meaning to the words quite different from that which ordinary people give; in fact, they cannot be sure about the meaning themselves, but can only dispute about it. Although they profess to teach Justice, they refuse to trust their pupils, but make them deposit the fees with a third party before the course begins.”[533] Here we have a picture of a distinct group of ethical teachers all trying to work at that Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge, and imparting their results to pupils for low fees.
All these Professors of Ethics seem to have made Mathematics and Astronomy a part of their course, just as Plato did. “To the old Athenian education, of Letters and Music and Gymnastics, they have added a more advanced course, consisting of Geometry and Astronomy and such subjects, together with eristic dialogues,” that is, Dialectic.[534] This course seems to have been much criticised as being a mere waste of time, since it was of no practical use and the knowledge so obtained was soon forgotten in after life. But Isokrates, although these subjects played no part in his own school, was sufficiently good an educationalist to see their merits: the study of subtle and difficult matters like Astronomy and Geometry “trains a boy to keep his attention closely fixed upon the point at issue and not to allow his mind to wander; so, being practised in this way and having his wits sharpened, he will be made capable of learning more important matters with greater ease and speed.”[535] But all these unpractical, if improving, studies should be abandoned before the nineteenth year: for they dry up the human nature and make men unbusinesslike. “Some of those who have become so adept in these subjects that they teach them to others, show themselves in the practical conduct of life less wise than their pupils, not to say than their servants.”[536] Consequently, those who care to study mathematics and eristic should confine them to the years between fourteen and eighteen: and then pass on to learn rhetoric with Isokrates; the rest can come to his school as lads, as many did.
But, although he differentiated himself so carefully from what moderns would call the philosophical schools, Isokrates styled himself a teacher of philosophy quite as much as they did. To him, as to the Romans, philosophy was the art of living a practical life. “That which is of no immediate use either for speech or for action does not deserve the name of Philosophy.”[537] The true philosopher is not the dreamer who neglects what is practical and essential, but the man of the world who learns and studies subjects which will make him able to manage his household and govern his state well; for this is the object of all labour and all philosophy.[537] With this practical end in view he ridicules the metaphysical researches of “the old Sophists, of whom Demokritos said that the number of realities was infinite, and Empedokles declared for four, and Ion for not more than three, and Alkmaion for only two, and Parmenides and Melissos for one, while Gorgias asserted that nothing existed at all.”[538]
In the promises which he makes of imparting to his pupils this practical wisdom which he calls philosophy, Isokrates is characteristically cautious. An exact science, which will embrace all possible questions and circumstances which may arise in domestic and political matters, is an impossibility; men must be content with a general capacity of forming a right judgment in view of each particular case when it arises. Consequently he defines as “wise men,” σοφοί, “those whose judgment usually hits upon the right course of action,” and as “seekers after wisdom” or philosophers, φιλόσοφοι, “those who occupy themselves with those studies and pursuits from which they will most quickly obtain this practical wisdom,”[539] or capacity of forming correct judgments. But a judgment can only be formed properly after a proper deliberation: so the work of Philosophy is to practise her pupils in this deliberation.[540]
This practice is, of course, provided in the school of Isokrates; for his school was, in fact, a debating or deliberating society, in which the pupils wrote and recited carefully composed speeches on given themes, or listened to the harangues of their master. Sometimes they discussed events of the day and matters of general interest[541] at the moment; at another time their topic was some constitutional or historical question, or the comparative merits of different nations and governments.[542] At another time, as may be seen from the example of Isokrates’ own orations, they dealt with those mythical characters who were historical realities as well as sacred personages to the average Hellene, Theseus and Helen and Bousiris: this in their eyes was almost equivalent to religious instruction and they were virtually writing theological essays. No doubt also the pupils wrote and recited those “commonplaces” or short essays on general topics, composed in a most elaborate style, which ancient orators kept in stock, ready to be inserted in a speech when a suitable opening presented itself. Isokrates’ own works are particularly full of these highly finished little essays:[543] so it is at least extremely probable that he insisted upon their composition in his school. Before his pupils, too, Isokrates would recite those fine sermons of his, like the Demonikos; and effective pieces of moral exhortation they must have been.