The pedagogue was not held in high esteem, as he was usually a slave that was unable to work, being too old or crippled. The elementary teacher, too, did not take a high, position, as there were no special qualifications, so that any one could fill the position and usually only those entered into this work who were unfitted or unprepared for other occupations, and too often as the last resort. The elementary schools were sometimes carried on in a portico or the sheltered corner of a street, but again there were good buildings and well-equipped for the times. The furniture of these buildings usually consisted of stools for the children and a seat with a back for the teacher. The Athenian boy left home at daybreak for school and he did not get back home till sunset, but this was somewhat offset by the frequent closing of the school for holidays and festivals. The discipline was quite severe, the stick and the strap being much in evidence, and yet the teachers of ancient Greece do not appear to have been more cruel than those of Europe and of the earlier days in America.

In reading, the child was first taught his letters and their sounds, next came the learning of syllables, and this was followed by the learning of words, and the learning of the sentence came at the last. After he had learned to read, the boy was given Homer and other Greek writers. The teacher would recite the selection and the pupil would then repeat it. The poems were carefully explained to the children and questions asked them after such explanation.

Paper made from the bark of the papyrus-plant and parchment were used for writing on. To write on the paper and parchment reeds, split and pointed-like pens were used. Both black and red ink were used in the writing. Such were not used by the school-boy, as he had wax tablets, which were made by covering a small, thin board with a layer of wax. The boy used an ivory or metal pencil for writing on the tablet. One end of the pencil was made pointed for this purpose and the other end was flattened so that the pupil could smooth over the wax when the tablet was to be used again. The teacher would write letters and words, which the boys copied. At times he would guide the hand of a beginner. Also sometimes the copies were made deep in the wax and the children would trace them.

There was no such thing as school education of girls and young women in Athens, no public training whatever. The Athenians held that woman's place was in the home and that she should not take part in public life. Hence, according to their ideas, the girl needed no education beyond what would be required for the life within doors, such as would fit her to perform what they considered the simple duties that would come to her as wife and mother. The education of the girl, therefore, fell solely to the mother, aided by the other women of the household. The girl was taught to sew, spin, knit, weave, etc., and sometimes she learned to read and to write and to play on the lyre and sing. It is true there were women at Athens who were educated, and some of them were most highly learned, but they were not citizens of Athens, being foreigners and known as the hetairai. These women were discussed in a previous section of this chapter, so there is no need of further statements here.

Education in Sparta and in Athens comprehended in a general way much the same, as gymnastic and music were the two basic elements. The gymnastic education consisted not only in the exercising of the muscles, but also in the training for endurance to fit the young men for the fatiguing duties of the life of a soldier. Also music was broadened to include literary and moral training as well as music in its narrower sense. If the Spartan education did crush out much of individuality with the men, yet it did allow advantages to its women as no other education, in that the public training of the girls and the taking part in public affairs by the women gave to them great opportunities for growth. If the Athenian education did allow individual expression to the men, yet in confining the women to the narrow place of the home at Athens and in not allowing them to have any part in public education and public life, it narrowed the life of the woman in Athens more than was narrowed the life of the man in Sparta. There are things to praise and things to condemn in the education of Athens as well as that of Sparta.

LITERATURE

  1. Anderson, Lewis F., History of common school education.
  2. Davidson, Thomas, The education of the Greek people.
  3. Davis, William Stearns, A day in old Athens.
  4. Dean, Amos, The history of civilization.
  5. Donaldson, James, Woman, Her position and influence in ancient Rome and Greece, and among the early Christians.
  6. Duncker, Max, History of Greece.
  7. Felton, C. C., Greece, ancient and modern.
  8. Gamble, Eliza Burt, The evolution of woman.
  9. Gardner, E. Norman, Greek athletic sports and festivals.
  10. Gardner, Ernest Arthur, Ancient Athens.
  11. Graves, Frank Pierrepont, A history of education, Before the middle ages.
  12. Guhl, E., and Koner, W., The life of the Greeks and Romans.
  13. Gulick, Charles Burton, The life of the ancient Greeks.
  14. Laurie, S. S., Historical survey of pre-Christian education.
  15. Letourneau, Ch., The evolution of marriage.
  16. Mahaffy, J. P., Old Greek education.
  17. Mahaffy, J. P., Social life in Greece.
  18. Tucker, T. G., Life in ancient Athens.

CHAPTER X
THE CHILD IN ROME

Characteristics.

"Rome was one continual city of noise and bustle. Horace had complained of the turmoil going on night and day, the scurry and crowding of the streets from whose 'torrents and tempests' he hastened to escape into the chaste solitude of the Sabine hills. But during the first century population and activity increased apace, reaching its zenith, perhaps, in the days of Martial and Juvenal. Before daybreak the bakers would be hawking their loaves, and the shepherds, coming into the town from the surrounding districts, their milk: then the infant schools would begin intoning the alphabet, and with hammer and saw the rasping workshops were set going. Creaking wagons would haul huge blocks of stone and trunks of trees, with the weight of which the ground would quake, heavily laden beasts of burden jostled the foot-passenger; on all sides jolting and knocks and trampling, a fine confusion in which pickpockets reap their advantage. Here, says Martial (100 A. D.), the money-changer clatters Nero's bad coin down on his dirty table, and there a workman is hammering Spanish gold on an anvil. A procession of raving priests of Bellona is shrieking uninterruptedly; a shipwrecked sailor, with a fragment of the wreck wrapped up in his hand, is begging alms; a Jewish lad, sent out by his mother to beg; the call of a blear-eyed peddler from the other side of the Tiber, offering sulphur matches for broken glass. Jugglers, some with trained animals (Juvenal speaks of a monkey riding a goat and swinging a spear), Marsian snake-eaters and snake-charmers are calling for spectators for their craft. Peddlers, peddling old clothes, linen and what-not, carriers of pea-flour and smoking sausages, butchers with a reeking quarter of beef, and the foot, the guts and the blood-red lung,—each, to his own screeching tune, proclaiming his own wares."[176]