In the dances here mentioned, the flute is the instrument employed, and this the player could not accompany with his voice. But in the Athenian schools, in the old time, the flute, and all music without words, were tabooed. There can be no doubt, therefore, that in these the orchestic performances were accompanied by the lyre, the player on which sang in words what the dancers danced. It is obvious that in such performances the musical (literary) and gymnastic branches of education came in for about equal shares. Dancing exercised the whole human being, body and soul, and exercised them in a completely harmonious way. It is this harmony, this rhythmic movement of the body in consonance with the emotions of the soul and the purposes of the intelligence, that is grace (χάρις). Hence, while the Greeks relied upon gymnastics to impart strength and firmness to the body, they looked to dancing for courtliness and grace. Plato places the two on the same footing, as parts of a single discipline.
The fact that the two divisions of education met in dancing seems to prove what I surmised above, viz. that they were conducted within the same precincts; in which case we may suppose that, while the dancing exercises took place in the palæstra, the music was supplied by the music master. We know that the chorus-leader was a public officer, appointed by the demos, and had to be over forty years old. In any case, it is curious enough to think that Athenian, and, generally, Greek, education culminated in dancing. But this was a perfectly logical result; for the chorus is the type of Greek social life, as we see most clearly in the Republic of Plato. It hardly needs to be pointed out that the supreme form of Greek art, the drama, was but a development of the Bacchic or Dionysiac chorus. This development consisted in the separation of the music from the pantomime, and the assignment of the former to the chorus, which no longer danced, but walked, and of the latter to the actors, who added the dialogue to it. Greek life was divided into three parts—civil, military, religious. Music and letters were a preparation for the first, gymnastics for the second, and dancing for the third. Dancing formed a prominent part in Greek worship, and it may be doubted whether free Athenians ever danced except "before the gods "—ἐν ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς προσόδοις, as Xenophon says.
Two things still remain to be considered with regard to Athenian schools, (1) grading, (2) holidays. With respect to the former, the practice probably differed at different times; but we seem to be justified in assuming that, at the time of which I am speaking, there were but two grades, boys (παῖδες) and youths (νεανίσκοι). These are mentioned by Plato, in the Lysis, as celebrating the Hermæa together in a palæstra. The first grade would include the boys from seven to eleven years of age; the second, those from eleven to fifteen. As to holidays, they seem to have been simply the feast-days of the greater gods, when business of every sort was suspended. Such days amounted to about ninety annually.
(3) College Education.
About the time when he was blossoming into manhood, that is, some time between his fourteenth and his sixteenth year, the Athenian boy of the olden time was transferred from the private school and palæstra, which belonged to the family side of life, to the gymnasium, which belonged to the State, and in which he received the education calculated to fit him for the duties of a citizen. Having, in the family and the school, been trained to be a gentleman (καλοκἀγαθός), he must now be trained to be a citizen, capable of exercising legislative, judicial, and military functions. The State saw to it that he received this training, if his parents chose and could afford it.
In the time of Solon, about b.c. 590, two great gymnasia, the Academy and Cynosarges, were erected in the midst of extensive groves outside the city walls. These groves were afterwards surrounded with high walls, furnished with seats and other conveniences, and turned into city parks. The Academy, which lay to the northwest of the city, in the valley of the Cephisus, and was under the patronage of Athena, was the resort of the full-blooded citizens, while Cynosarges, situated to the east of the city, near the foot of Lycabettus, was assigned to those who had foreign blood in their veins, that is, who had only one parent of pure Athenian stock. This gymnasium was under the patronage of Heracles, whose worship always implies the presence of a foreign and vanquished element. These were the only two gymnasia belonging to Athens before the time of Pericles. They were, probably, destroyed by the Persians in 480, and had afterwards to be rebuilt, and the groves replanted.
While the children of nearly all the free citizens of Athens attended the school and the palæstra, it is clear that only the youth of the wealthier classes attended the gymnasium. One result of this was that the government and offices of the State fell exclusively into the hands of those classes; and it was perhaps just in order to make this division, without introducing any class-law, that the shrewd Solon established the gymnasia, which thus became a bulwark against democracy.
As soon as the Athenian youth was transferred to the gymnasium, he passed from under the charge of the pedagogue, who represented the family, and came under the direct surveillance of the State. He was now free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer, and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus, at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now learnt to ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age, a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the Greeks,—Plato, Aristotle, etc.,—and why love, in the modern sense, plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the State encroached upon the family. Plato's Republic was only the logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palæstra were continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into the pentathlon—running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling, boxing—which formed the programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions. During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the reeve of his demos (ward or village), as a candidate for independent citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him, along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian oath of citizenship (see [p. 61]). He was now technically an ephēbos, cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs, and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses (φρούρια) that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the public festivals. At the end of the year, all the ephēboi of one year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the assembled people (ἀπεδείξαντο τῷ δήμῳ περὶ τὰς τάξεις[3]), after which they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as rural gendarmerie (περίπολοι), scouring the country in all directions. They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks, springs, etc., (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life, indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (Alpini) of the Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great heights. That during this time the ephēboi should have taken any part in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination (δοκιμασία εἰς ἄνδρας), after which they were full members of the State.
(4) University Education.