"For the purposes of instruction, as has been said, we must employ ethical songs and the corresponding harmonies. Such a harmony is the Doric, as has already been remarked. We must likewise admit any other species of music that may have approved itself to such persons as have devoted attention to philosophic discussion and musical education.... In respect to the Doric harmony, it is universally admitted to be, of all harmonies, the most sedate, expressive of the most manly character. Moreover, since our principle is, that the mean between extremes is desirable and ought to be pursued, and the Doric harmony holds this relation to other harmonies, it follows that Doric songs should be taught to young people in preference to any other. Two things, however, must be kept in view, the practicable and the befitting. I mean that we must discuss what is specially practicable for different people, as well as what is befitting. This, indeed, will depend upon the different periods of life. For example, it would not be easy for persons in the decline of life to sing the intense harmonies; for them nature suggests the languid kinds. For this reason those musicians are right who blame Socrates for having condemned the languid harmonies, as subjects of instruction, on the ground that they were intoxicating. (By this term he did not mean inebriating, in the sense that wine is inebriating,—for wine renders boisterous rather than anything else,—but languid.) The truth is, with an eye to the future, to old age, instruction ought to be given in harmonies and songs of this sort. Moreover, if there is any harmony suitable for youth, as tending to refine as well as to instruct, as is the case notably with the Lydian, it, of course, ought to be adopted. It is clear, then, that there are three distinct things to be considered in reference to education, avoidance of extremes, practicability, and appropriateness."
So much for the four branches of study which, according to Aristotle, ought to compose the curriculum of youth. We have noticed that, in his extant works, he says little about Letters and Drawing. Just what branches the former was supposed to include, he has nowhere told us directly; but I think there can be little doubt that he gave a place to Grammar, Rhetoric (including Poetics), Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, which, along with Music, make up the Seven Liberal Arts, the Trivium and Quadrivium of the Middle Ages. This curriculum underwent considerable changes at different times, as we can see from Philo, Teles, Sextus Empiricus, St. Augustine, and others; but in Martianus Capella it returned to its original form, and in this dominated education for a thousand years. We might perhaps draw out Aristotle's programme of secondary education thus:—
| Studies: | - | Practical | - | Physical Training | - | Dancing (see [p. 82]) | - | Before puberty. | ||||
| Deportment | ||||||||||||
| Gymnastics | - | |||||||||||
| Running | - | Before puberty. | ||||||||||
| Leaping | ||||||||||||
| Javelin-casting | ||||||||||||
| Discus-throwing | ||||||||||||
| Wrestling | - | After puberty. | ||||||||||
| Shooting | ||||||||||||
| Marching | ||||||||||||
| Creative | - | Music | Drilling | |||||||||
| Drawing | Riding | |||||||||||
| Theoretic | - | Grammar | - | Before puberty. | ||||||||
| Rhetoric | ||||||||||||
| Dialectic | ||||||||||||
| Arithmetic | - | After puberty. | ||||||||||
| Geometry | ||||||||||||
| Astronomy | ||||||||||||
CHAPTER VII
EDUCATION AFTER TWENTY-ONE
Be assured that happiness has its source, not in extensive possessions, but in a right disposition of the soul. Even in the case of the body, no one would call it fortunate for being arrayed in splendid garments; but one would do so, if it had health, and were nobly developed, even without such appendages. In the same manner, we ought to ascribe happiness to the soul only when it is cultivated, and to call a man happy only if he possesses such a soul, not if he is splendidly attired outwardly, but has no worth of his own.... For those whose souls are ill-conditioned, neither wealth, nor power, nor beauty is a blessing; on the contrary, the more excessive these conditions are, the more widely and deeply do they injure their possessors, being unaccompanied with right-mindedness.—Aristotle.
Zeno used to tell a story about Crates, to this effect: One day Crates was sitting in a shoemaker's shop, reading aloud Aristotle's Exhortation (to Philosophy), addressed to Themison, king of the Cyprians, in which the king is reminded that he possesses, in an exceptional degree, all the conditions of philosophy, superabundant wealth, and high position. As he was reading, the shoemaker, without interrupting his sewing, listened to him, until at last Crates said: "Philiscus, I think I will write an Exhortation for you; for I see you have more of the conditions of philosophy than Aristotle has enumerated."—Teles.
At the age of twenty-one, those young men who have successfully completed the State system of training become citizens or politicians, and begin to exercise the functions of such. These are of two kinds, (1) active, practical, or executive, and (2) deliberative, theoretical, or legislative. As action must, on the one hand, be vigorous, and, on the other, guided by deliberation, which requires large experience, the functions of the State must be so arranged that the active duties fall to the young and robust, the deliberative to the elderly and mature. The distinguishing virtue of the former is fortitude, with endurance or patience; that of the latter philosophy. Both equally have self-control and justice. In this way does Aristotle distribute Plato's four cardinal virtues.
When young men first become citizens, they are assigned to posts of active service, civil and military, and thus study practical philosophy—Ethics and Politics—in a practical way. As they grow older, they gradually rise to posts demanding less practice and more thought, until at last they are admitted to the deliberative body, or council, when their active duties cease, and they are able to devote themselves to Speculative Philosophy or Theoretics. These men have now reached the end of life, as far as this world is concerned. They spend their days in cultured leisure, and the contemplation of divine things (θεωρία). The very oldest of them, those who are most conversant with divine things, are chosen as priests, so that they may, as it were, live with the gods, and these be worthily served. Thus gradually, almost insensibly, they pass from the world of time to that of eternity; from the imperfect activity of practice, whose end is beyond itself, to the perfect energy of contemplation, which is self-sufficient and the life of God. In this way Aristotle settles the vexed question with regard to the compatibility and relative value of the practical and the contemplative life. They are necessary complements of each other. Practice is the realization of what contemplation discovers in the pure energy of God, revealing itself in the world. Thus the practical life of man glides gradually into the contemplative life of God.