MUSIC-SCHOOL SCENES
From a Hudria in the British Museum (E 171).
After such revelations of Hellenic educational methods, it is natural to suppose that the ingenious devices by which the “Egyptians,”[281] according to Plato, “make simple arithmetic into a game” for their children, were really used in Attica. One of these devices[282] was as follows. The master took, say, sixty apples. First he divided them among two boys, who were made to count their share, thirty each; then among three boys, twenty each; then among four, fifteen each; then among five, twelve each; and then among six, ten each. This would teach the system of factors. Then, again, a real or imaginary competition in boxing or wrestling[283] was arranged, say in a class of nine. The boys would work out, by actual experiment, how many fights would be necessary, if each boy had to fight all the others one by one, and how many if a system of rounds and byes was introduced. This might even teach Permutations and Combinations.
In another case a number of bowls, some containing mixed coins, gold, silver, and bronze, some all of one sort, would be handed round the class. The boys would have to count them, add and subtract them, and so on. Thus they would learn addition and subtraction of money, and would also gain a clear knowledge of the national coinage.
Plato was immensely impressed with the educational value of Arithmetic. “Those who are born with a talent for it,” he says, “are quick at all learning; while even those who are slow at it, have their general intelligence much increased by studying it.”[284] “No branch of education is so valuable a preparation for household management and politics, and all arts and crafts, sciences and professions, as arithmetic; best of all, by some divine art, it arouses the dull and sleepy brain, and makes it studious, mindful, and sharp.”[285]
The question of the more advanced stages of Mathematics, which were taught to older boys, may be left for the chapter on Secondary Education.
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The chief and often the sole instrument taught in the music school was the seven-stringed lyre,[286] with a large sounding-board originally made of a tortoise’s shell.[287] It might be played either with the hand or else with the “plektron” or striker; the boy Lusis had learnt to do either.[288] The boys were also taught how to tighten and relax the strings by turning the pegs till the proper degree of tension was obtained. They brought their own lyre with them from home, the paidagogos carrying it behind his charge. This was a wise regulation from the master’s point of view; for the boys seem to have usually ruined these instruments by their early efforts.[289] Like the piano, the lyre required great delicacy of touch and very agile fingers, and these qualities could only be obtained by continual practice.[290]
As would naturally be expected, individual tuition was usual in the lyre-school; instrumental music cannot be learnt in class. The vases make this point quite clear. The master has a single boy seated in front of him; both hold lyres in their hands, to which they are singing, the words of the song being sometimes represented by a string of little dots. In [Plate IV.], on the left of this group, a boy is coming up to take his turn, lyre in hand, while behind him stands his paidagogos, leaning on a reading-desk and following his charge with his eyes. On the right is a boy just taking up his flute-case and preparing to depart, while another sits in the corner, wrapped in his cloak, waiting for his turn to take a lesson. In [Plate III.],[291] the master is playing a barbitos and apparently singing, while the pupil plays the flute. On the left is a flute-master playing, and a pupil just leaving him, flute in hand. Another pupil, with a lyre, is waiting to take a lesson from the master in the centre, and is amusing himself meanwhile by playing with an animal that is probably a leopard,[291] like that which figures in [Plate IV.] Another pet, a dog, is howling in disgust at the music. On the right, a pupil with a flute is advancing to take a lesson from the flute-master in front of him. Behind him follows a young man, who may be an elder brother replacing the customary paidagogos for the nonce, or an admirer. In the background sits a small child, sucking his thumb, probably the younger brother of one of the pupils, who has come, in accordance with Aristotle’s advice, to look on, although still too young to learn.
PLATE IV.