The methods by which boys learn to spell are the same in all ages. “When boys come together to learn their letters, they are asked what letters there are in some word or other.”[244] A certain amount of mental arithmetic seems to have been included in this stage of spelling: the pupils were asked how many letters there were in a word, as well as the order in which they were arranged.[245] But this will be discussed later.
While the boys were still unable to read, and often afterwards owing to the comparative scarcity of books, the master dictated to them the poetry which he intended them to learn by heart, and they repeated it after him.
The Kulix of Douris gives an interesting picture of either a reading or a repetition lesson.[246] On a high-backed chair sits an elderly master, holding a roll in his hand. On it is inscribed what is clearly meant to be an hexameter line from some epic poet, but Douris was not very well educated, and so the line is misspelt and will not scan. In front of the master stands a boy, behind whom sits an elderly man who is probably, as in the writing scene, a paidagogos. The master may be dictating the poem while the boy learns it by heart after him, or he may be hearing him say it. But very possibly the scene represents a reading-lesson. The attitudes of boy and master are not very convenient, if both are reading out of the same book; but this was unavoidable, for, owing to the canons of vase-painting, the figures could only be full-faced or in profile, and the front of the manuscript had to be turned in such a way as to be legible.
On the walls of the school hang a manuscript rolled up and tied with a string, and an ornamental basket. These baskets were used as bookcases, to hold the manuscript rolls. They may sometimes be seen on vases suspended over the heads of reading figures, as in the British Museum vase,[247] which represents a woman reading a scroll. The paidagogos, we may notice, is revealing his humble origin by crossing his feet, a serious offence against good manners in Hellas.
“When the boys knew their letters and were beginning to understand what was written, the masters put beside them on the benches the works of good poets for them to read, and made them learn them by heart. They chose for this purpose poets that contained many moral precepts, and narratives and praises of the heroes of old, in order that the boy might admire them and imitate them and desire to become such a man himself.”[248] It is noteworthy that Hellenic boys began at once with the very best literature to be found in their language: there was no preliminary course of childish tales. Grammar, when invented, was taught at a later stage: the boys plunged straight into literature.
The schoolmasters at Athens differed as to which was the best way of introducing boys to their national literature. The great majority held that a properly educated boy ought to be saturated in all poetry, comic and serious, hearing much of it in the reading class, and learning much of it—in fact, whole poets—by heart.[249] A minority would pick out the leading passages,[250] the “purple patches,” and certain whole speeches,[251] and put them together and have them committed to memory. Plato argued in favour of expurgated editions of passages carefully selected according to a very strict standard, since much in literature was good and much bad.[252]
Homer, of course, played the largest part in these literary studies; from early times “he was given an honourable place in the teaching of the young.”[253] Vast quantities of the Iliad and Odyssey were learnt by heart. Nikeratos, in Xenophon,[254] says: “My father, wishing me to grow up into a good man, made me learn all the lines of Homer; and now I can repeat the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey from memory.” Such prodigious feats were, no doubt, assisted by the rhapsodes, who could be heard at Athens declaiming Homer “nearly every day.”[255] The Hellenes did not let their greatest poet lie neglected, to be “revived” at long intervals. Homer was supposed to teach everything, especially soldiering and good morals. “I suppose you know,” continues Nikeratos,[256] “that Homer, the wisest of men, has written about all human matters. So whoever of you wishes to excel as a householder or public speaker or general, or desires to become like Achilles or Aias or Nestor or Odusseus, let him come to me.” Then he proceeds to show how, for example, the poet gives full directions about the proper way to drive a chariot in a race. Aristophanes[257] makes the shade of Aeschylus say, “Whence did divine Homer win his honour and renown, save from this, that he taught drill, courage, the arming of troops? Many a man of valour he trained, and our own dead hero, Lamachos. I took my print from him, and represented many deeds of valour done by a Patroklos or lion-hearted Teukros, to rouse my countrymen to model themselves upon such men, when they heard the trumpet sound.”
The great poet does not seem to have been taught pedantically; the attention of the boys was not concentrated simply on the difficulties of the Homeric vocabulary. In fact, probably they were little troubled with such points; the sense, the rhythm, and the beauty of the original do not depend upon an exact understanding of every word, as many a modern reader has discovered. In a fragment of Aristophanes,[258] a father asks his son the meaning of some hard words in Homer, such as ἀμένηνα κάρηνα and κόρυμβα; the son is quite unable to translate them, at any rate when separated from their context, and can only retort by asking his father to interpret some archaic phrases in Solon’s laws. A later comic poet[259] introduced a cook who insisted on using Homeric language, just as a modern chef writes his menu in French; the man who has hired him is ludicrously unable to understand his phrases, and has to go in search of a commentary.
Explanations and interpretations of supposed moral allegories in Homer, and lessons drawn from a close study of his characters, were very popular in Hellas, and no doubt figured in the schools.
If Homer occupied the first place in literary education, other leading authors were not neglected. All the great poets were made useful. “Orpheus taught ceremonial rites and abstinence from bloodshed, and Mousaios medicine and oracles, and Hesiod the tillage of land, the seasons of fruits and ploughing.”[260] Hesiod probably served more as a theological handbook than as a manual of agriculture; the moral precepts to Perses in the Works and Days probably also found favour with schoolmasters. The fourth-century comic poet Alexis gives an interesting catalogue of a school library.[261] Besides Orpheus, Hesiod, and Homer, who have been mentioned already, there are Epicharmos, Choirilos, the author of an epic poem on the Persian war, and what is called vaguely “tragedy,” probably meaning a selection from the great tragedians. We can see from Plato’s attacks that Aeschylus and Euripides must have been important in the schools, and we know that Athenian gentlemen were expected to be able to recite them at dinner-parties, and must therefore have learnt them by heart. The vague words “tragedy” and “comedy” are similarly used of the recitations of the boys at Teos. Various editions of moral precepts were also popular. Among these were The Precepts of Cheiron, or Cheironeia, supposed to have been given by the wise Centaur to his pupil Achilles and put into verse by Hesiod; on a vase at Berlin three boys are seen reading this work with apparent interest. The extant lines of Theognis are often supposed to represent a school edition of the poet’s works, containing the more improving portions. The lyric poets were taught at the lyre-school, and I shall discuss them later.