Call Plato next.[197] “In a democratic state the schoolmaster is afraid of his pupils and flatters them, and the pupils despise both schoolmaster and paidagogos. The young expect the same treatment as the old, and contradict them and quarrel with them. In fact, seniors have to flatter their juniors, in order not to be thought morose old dotards.”
The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. The old regime had strictly forbidden luxury. Warm baths had been regarded as unmanly, and were even coupled with drunkenness by Hermippos.[198] The boys had only worn a single garment, the sleeveless chiton, a custom which survived till late times in Sparta and Crete; but at Athens they began to wear the ἱμάτιον or overcoat as well. Xenophon, blaming parents “in the rest of Hellas” (i.e. elsewhere than in Sparta), says: “They make their boy’s feet soft by giving him shoes, and pamper his body with changes of clothes; they also allow him as much food as his stomach can contain.”[199] Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over the paidagogoi and schoolmasters. Alkibiades even smacked a literature-master. A similar change came over the position of children in England during the latter half of the nineteenth century. If Maria Edgeworth could have met a modern child, she would have uttered quite Aristophanic diatribes against the decay of good manners.
With this change went a more serious matter, a change of tone. Whether the old days were as moral as the conservatives supposed, may be doubted; but the atmosphere of Periclean and Socratic Athens, as represented by all its literary lights, was certainly most unsuitable for the young. Perhaps general morality was no worse, but the immorality was no longer concealed from the children. The old laws which had excluded unsuitable company from the schools and palaistrai were neglected, and these educational buildings became the resort of all the fashionable loungers of Athens.
The preference given to conversation over exercise was a feature of the age. In part, it was a preference for intellectual as against purely physical education. The free discussion with children of ethical subjects probably ceased with the death of Sokrates; this can hardly be regretted, if Plato’s evidence as to the nature of Socratic dialogues is to be believed. From the importance which Plato gives to gymnastics as a corrective to exclusive μουσική even in the education of his highly intellectual Philosopher-Kings, we may suspect that the revolt against excessive athletics at Athens, of which Euripides had been the leader, had gone too far, and that a reaction was needed. Certainly the Athenians do not distinguish themselves for pluck or energy in the fourth century: in Platonic phrase, the temper of their resolution had been melted away by their exclusive devotion to intellectual and artistic pursuits.
Let me close this subject, however, with a more pleasing picture of that αἰδώς or modesty at which the older education had aimed. It is taken from the midst of that brilliant but corrupt Socratic Athens.[200] Young Autolukos had won the boys’ contest for the pankration at the great Panathenaic festival. As a treat, Kallias, a friend of his father, had taken him to the horse-races, and afterwards invited him out to dinner with his father Lukon: such a dignity was rarely accorded to an Athenian boy.
The boy sits at table, while the grown men recline. Some one asked him what he was most proud of—“Your victory, I suppose?” He blushed and said, “No, I’m not.” Every one was delighted to hear his voice, for he had not said a word so far. “Of what then?” some one asked. “Of my father,” replied the boy, and cuddled up against him.
These shy, blushing boys were a feature of the age. The stricter parents, knowing the dangers which surrounded their sons, tried to keep them entirely from any knowledge or experience of the world.
* * * * *
As far as can be discovered from the somewhat fragmentary evidence, the Athenian type of education was prevalent throughout the civilised Hellenic world, with the exception of Crete and Lakedaimon, which had systems of their own. Xenophon, in praising the Spartan system and contrasting it with that which was prevalent in neighbouring countries, ascribes to what he calls “the rest of Hellas” educational customs and arrangements exactly similar to those which are found to have existed at Athens. His statement is borne out by other evidence. Chios certainly had a School of Letters before 494 B.C.; for a building of this sort collapsed in that year, destroying all but one of the 120 pupils.[201] Boiotia, byword for stupidity, had schools even in the smaller towns. A small place like Mukalessos had more than one; for a detachment of wild Thracian mercenaries in the pay of Athens fell upon the town at daybreak one morning during the Peloponnesian War, and entering “the largest school in the place,” killed all the boys.[202] Arkadia had an equally bad reputation; yet, according to Polubios,[203] in every Arcadian town the boys were compelled by law to learn to sing. Troizen must have had schools in 480, when she provided them for her Athenian guests. Aelian vouches for schools in Lesbos,[204] Pausanias[205] for a school of sixty boys in Astupalaia in 496 B.C. The poet Sophocles dined with a master of letters whose school was either in Eretria or Eruthrai.[206] The inscriptions show that before the third century there were flourishing schools in most of the islands.
Gymnastic education must have gone on in every Hellenic city, for the athletic victors at the great games come from every part. Musical training too was required for the dancing and singing which were universal throughout Hellas; but how far the lyre was taught must remain doubtful. In Boiotia the flute replaced the lyre in the schools. But it may be taken for granted that letters, some sort of music, and gymnastics were taught in every part of civilised Hellas, with the possible exception that letters may not have been taught at Sparta.