CHAPTER III
DORIAN OR SPARTAN EDUCATION
Go, tell at Sparta, thou that passest by,
That here, obedient to her laws, we lie.
—Simonides (Epitaph on the Three Hundred who fell at Thermopylæ).
This is a matter for which the Lacedæmonians deserve approbation: they are extremely solicitous about the education of their youth and make it a public function.—Aristotle.
The Lacedæmonians impart to their children the look of wild beasts, through the severity of the exercises to which they subject them, their notion being that such training is especially calculated to heighten courage.—Id.
These are so far behind in education and philosophy that they do not learn even letters.—Isocrates.
Old Men. We were once strong men (youths).
Men. And we are; if you will, behold.
Boys. And we shall be far superior.—Spartan Choric Anthem.
They asked no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high:
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!
So moved they calmly to their field,
Thence never to return,
Save bearing back the Spartan shield,
Or on it proudly borne!—Hemans.
There was a law that the cadets should present themselves naked in public before the ephors every ten days; and, if they were well knit and strong, and looked as if they had been carved and hammered into shape by gymnastics, they were praised; but if their limbs showed any flabbiness or softness, any little swelling or suspicion of adipose matter due to laziness, they were flogged and justiced there and then. The ephors, moreover, subjected their clothing every day to a strict examination, to see that everything was up to the mark. No cooks were permitted in Lacedæmon but flesh-cooks. A cook who knew anything else was driven out of Sparta, as physic for invalids.—Ælian.
Every rational system of education is determined by some aim or ideal more or less consciously set up. That of the Dorians, and particularly of the Spartans, may be expressed in one word—Strength, which, in the individual, took the form of physical endurance, in the State, that of self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια). A self-sufficient State, furnishing a field for all the activities and aspirations of all its citizens, and demanding their strongest and most devoted exertions—such is the Dorian ideal. It is easy to see what virtues Dorian education would seek to develop—physical strength, bravery, and obedience to the laws of the State. Among the Dorians the human being is entirely absorbed in the citizen. The State is all in all.