[206] Athen. 604 a-b.
CHAPTER III
ATHENS AND THE REST OF HELLAS:
PRIMARY EDUCATION
We have seen that Primary Education in Hellas consisted of letters and music, with a contemporary training in gymnastics; to which triple course was added, late in the fourth century, drawing and painting. How the day was divided between mental and physical training is unknown—probably, like everything else, this varied with the taste of the individual—but the following sketch from Lucian,[207] although it belongs to a much later date, may perhaps give some idea of a schoolboy’s day:—
“He gets up at dawn, washes the sleep from his eyes, and puts on his cloak. Then he goes out from his father’s house, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, not looking at any one who meets him. Behind him follow attendants and paidagogoi, bearing in their hands the implements of virtue, writing-tablets or books containing the great deeds of old, or, if he is going to a music-school, his well-tuned lyre.
“When he has laboured diligently at intellectual studies, and his mind is sated with the benefits of the school curriculum, he exercises his body in liberal pursuits, riding or hurling the javelin or spear. Then the wrestling-school with its sleek, oiled pupils, labours under the mid-day sun, and sweats in the regular athletic contests. Then a bath, not too prolonged; then a meal, not too large, in view of afternoon school. For the schoolmasters are waiting for him again, and the books which openly or by allegory teach him who was a great hero, who was a lover of justice and purity. With the contemplation of such virtues he waters the garden of his young soul. When evening sets a limit to his work, he pays the necessary tribute to his stomach and retires to rest, to sleep sweetly after his busy day.”
The school hours were naturally arranged to suit the times of Hellenic meals, for which the boys returned home. The ordinary arrangement was a light breakfast at daybreak, a solid meal at mid-day, and supper at sunset. So the schools opened at sunrise.[208] Solon enacted that they should not open earlier. They closed in time to allow the boys to return home to lunch,[209] opened again in the afternoon, and closed before sunset.[210] How many of the intermediate hours were spent in work,[211] and what intervals there were, is unknown. There was, of course, no weekly rest on Sundays; but festivals, which were whole holidays, were numerous throughout Hellas, and, in Alexandria at any rate, on the 7th and 20th of every month the schools were closed, these days being sacred to Apollo.[212] There were also special school festivals, such as that of the Muses, and holidays in commemoration of benefactors; thus Anaxagoras left a bequest to Klazomenai, on condition that the day of his death should be celebrated annually by a holiday in the schools.[213] It must also be remembered that one of the three branches of Primary Education in Hellas would be called play in England: an afternoon spent in running races, jumping, wrestling, or riding would not be regarded as work by an English schoolboy. Music, too, is usually learned during play-hours in an English school. Even Letters, when the elementary stage was past, meant reciting, reading, or learning by heart the literature of the boy’s own language, and most of it not stiff literature by any means, but such fascinating fairy-tales as are found in Homer. There is little trace of Hellenic boys creeping unwillingly to school: their lessons were made eminently attractive.
Of the fees which were paid to schoolmasters little is known. An amusing passage in Lucian,[214] dealing with the under-world, describes those who had been kings or satraps upon earth as reduced in the future state “to beggary, and compelled by poverty either to sell kippers or to teach the elements of reading and writing.” From this it may be inferred that elementary schoolmasters did not make much money by their fees. This inference is supported by the fact that even the poorest Athenians managed to send their sons to such schools. Plato in the Laws reserves the profession for foreigners, thus suggesting that it was neither well paid nor highly esteemed. To call a man a schoolmaster was almost an insult; Demosthenes, abusing Aischines, says, “You taught letters, I went to school.”[215] The weakness of the masters’ position may be seen too from the extreme contempt with which their pupils seem to have treated them. The boys bring their pets—cats and dogs and leopards—into school, and play with them under the master’s chair. Theophrastos,[216] in describing the characteristics of the mean man, says that “he does not send his children to school all the month of Anthesterion” (that is, from the middle of February to the middle of March) “on account of the number of feasts.” The school-bills were paid by the month, and, since boys did not go to school on the great festivals, and Anthesterion contained many such days, the mean parent thought he would not get his money’s worth for this particular month, and so withdrew his boys while it lasted.
Mean parents also deducted from the fees in proportion, if their sons were absent from school owing to ill-health for a day or two;[217] but this was not usually done. The bills were paid on the 30th of each month.[218] Schoolmasters apparently had some difficulty in getting their bills paid at all; according to Demosthenes’ statement, his bills were never paid, owing to the fraudulent behaviour of his guardian Aphobos.[219]