21. The Schools of Athens. ВЂ” The Athenian legislator,

Solon, had placed physical and intellectual training upon the

same footing. Children, he said, ought, above everything

else, to learn " to swim and to read." It seems that the

education of the body was the chief preoccupation of the

Athenian republic. While the organization of schools for

grammar and music was left to private enterprise, the State

took a part in the direction of the gymnasia. The director

of the gymnasium, or the gymnasiareh, was elected each

year by the assembly of the people. Nevertheless, Athenian

education became more and more a course in literary train-

ing, especially towards the sixth century B.C.

The Athenian child remained in the charge of a nurse and

an attendant up to his sixth or seventh year. At the age of

seven, a pedagogue, that is, a "conductor of children,"

usually a slave, was charged with the oversight of the child.

Conducted by his pedagogue, the pupil attended by turns the

school for grammar, the palestra? or school for gymnastics,

1 Montaigne, Essais, I. i. chap. xxiv.

2 The palestra was tin' school of gymnastics for children; the gym-

nasium was sot apart for adults and grown men.

20 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

and the school for music. The grammarian, who sometimes

gave his lessons in the open air, in the streets and on the

public squares, taught reading, writing, and mythology-

Homer was the boy's reading-book. Instruction in gymnas-

tics was given in connection with instruction in grammar.

It was begun in the palestra and continued in the gymnasium.

Instruction in music succeeded the training in grammar and

gymnastics. The music-master, or citharist, first taught his

pupils to sing, and then to play upon the stringed instru-

ments, the lyre and the cithara. We know what value the

Athenians attributed to music. Plato and Aristotle agree in

thinking that the rhythm and harmony of music inspire the

soul with the love of order, with harmonionsness, regularity,

and a soothing of the passions. We must recollect, more-

over, that music held a large place in the actual life of the

Greeks. The laws were promulgated in song. It was neces-

sary to sing in order to fulfil one's religious duties. It was

held that the education of Themistocles had been neglected

because he had not learned music. "We must regard the

Greeks," says Montesquieu, "в–  as a race of athletes and

fighters. Now those exercises, so proper to make men hardy

and fierce, had need of being tempered by others which could

soften the manners. Music, which affected the soul through

the organs of the body, was exactby adapted to this purpose." 1

In the elementary schools of Athens, at least at the first,

the current discipline was severe. Aristophanes, bewailing

the degeneracy of his time, recalls in these terms the good

order that reigned in the olden school: 2 —

" I will relate what was the ancient education in the happy

time when I taught (it is Justice who speaks) and when

modesty was the rule. Then the boys came out of each

1 Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, I. iv. chap. yiii.

2 Aristophanes, Clouds.

EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS. 21

street with bare heads and feet, and, regardless of rain and

snow, went together in the most perfect order towards the

school for music. There they were seated quietly and

modestly. They were not permitted to cross their legs, and

the}- learned some good songs. The master sang the song

for them slowly and with gravity. If some one took a notion

to sing with soft and studied inflections, he was severely

flogged."

22. The Schools of Rhetoric and Philosophy. —

Grammar, gymnastics, and music proper, represented the

elementary instruction of the young Athenian. But this

instruction was reserved for citizens in easy circumstances.

The poor, according to the intentions of Solon, were to

learn only reading, swimming, and a trade. The privilege

of instruction became still more exclusive in the case of the

schools of rhetoric and philosophy frequented by those of

adult years.

It would be beside our purpose to speak in this place of

the courses in literature, or to make known the methods of

those teachers of rhetoric who taught eloquence to all who

presented themselves for instruction, either in the public

squares or in the gymnasia. The sophists, those itinerant

philosophers who went from city to city offering courses at

high rates of tuition, and teaching the art of speaking on

every subject, and of making a plea for error and injustice

just as skilfully as for justice and truth, at the same time

made illustrious and disgraceful the teaching of eloquence. 1

The philosophers were more worthy of their task. Socrates,

1 The reputation of the sophists lias been considerably raised by Mr.

Grote (History of Greece, vol. VI11.). For an entertaining acconnt of a

sophist of a later age, see Pliny's /<< tters, Melmoth*s translation, Book II.,

Letter in. Sec also Blackie's Four Phases of Morals, and Ferrier's Greek

Philosophy. (P.)

22 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

Plato, and Aristotle were illustrious professors of ethics.

Socrates had no regular school, but he grouped about him

distinguished young men and initiated them into learning

and virtue. The Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aris-

totle were great schools of philosophy, real private univer-

sities, each directed by a single man. The teaching given

in these schools has traversed the ages, and has been pre-

served in imperishable books. Moreover, those illustrious

spirits of Greece have transmitted to us either methods or

general ideas which the history of pedagogy should reverently

collect, as the first serious efforts of human reflection on the

art of education.

23. Socrates : the Socratic Method. — Socrates spent

his life in teaching, and in teaching according to an original

method, which has preserved his name. He had the genius

of interrogation. To question all whom he met, either at the

gymnasium or in the streets ; to question the sophists in order

to convince them of their errors and to confound their

arrogance, and presumptuous young men in order to teach

them the truth of which they were ignorant ; to question

great and small, statesmen and masons, now Pericles and

now a shopkeeper ; to question always and everywhere in

order to compel every one to form clear ideas ; such was the

constant occupation and passion of his life. When he

allowed himself to dream of the future life, he said smilingly

that he hoped to continue in the Elysian Fields the habits of

the Athenian Agora, and still to interrogate the shades of

the mighty dead. With Socrates, conversation became an

art, and the dialogue a method. He scarcely ever employed

the didactic form, or that of direct teaching. He addressed

himself to his interlocutor, urged him to set forth his ideas,

harassed him with questions often somewhat subtile, skil-

fully led him to recognize the truth which he himself had in

EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS. 23

mind, or the rather permitted him to go off on a false route

in order finally to discover to him his error and to sport with

his confusion ; and all this with an art of wonderful analysis,

with a subtilty of reasoning pushed almost to an extreme,

and also with a great simplicity of language, and with

examples borrowed from common life, such as we are accus-

tomed to call intuitive examples.

24. The Socratic Irony. — To form an intelligible ac-

count of the Socratic method, it is necessarv to distinguish

its two essential phases. Socrates followed a double method

and sought a double end.

In the first case, he wished to make war against error and

to refute false opinions. Then he resorted to what has been

called the Socratic irony. 1 He raised a question as one

who simply desired to be instructed. If there was the

statement of an error in the reply of the respondent, Socra-

tes made no objection to it, but pretended to espouse the

ideas and sentiments of his interlocutor. Then, by questions

which were adroit and sometimes insidious, he forced him to

develop his opinions, and to display, so to speak, the whole

extent of his folly, and the next instant slylv brought him

face to face with the consequences, which were so absurd and

contradictory that he ended in losing confidence, in becoming

involved in his conclusions, and finally in making confession

of his errors.

25. Matkutics, ok the Abt of giving Birth to Ideas. —

Analogous processes constituted (he other part of the So-

cratic method, that which he himself called maieutics, or the

art of giving birth to ideas.

1 The primitive meaning of the Creek wont f i P ooveic, irony, is interroga-

tion. Socrates gave a jeering, ironical turn to his questions, ami in conse-

quence, this word lost its primary meaning, ami took the one which we

pive it at this time.

24 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

Socrates was convinced that the human mind in its normal

condition discovers certain truths through its own energies,

provided one knows how to lead it and stimulate it ; and so

he here appealed to the spontaneity of his auditor, to his

innate powers, and thus gently led him on his way by easy

transitions to the opinion which he wished to make him

admit. However, he applied this method only to the search

for truths which could either be suggested by the intuitions

of reason and common sense, or determined by a natural

induction, that is, psychological, ethical, and religious truths. 1

26. Examples of Irony and Maieutics. — We can best

give an exact idea of the Socratic method b}' means of ex-

amples. These examples are to be found in the writings of

the disciples of Socrates, as in the Dialogues of Plato, such

as the Gorgias, the Euthydemus, etc., and still better in the

Memorabilia of Xeuophon, where the thought of the master

and his manner of teaching are more faithfully reproduced

than in the bold and original compositions of Plato. While

recognizing the insufficiency of these extracts, we shall here

make two quotations, in which is displayed either his incisive,

critical spirit, or his suggestive and fruitful method: " The

thirty 7 tyrants had put many of the most distinguished citi-

zens to death, and had encouraged others to acts of injustice.

'It would surprise me,' said Socrates one day, 'if the keeper

of a flock, who had killed one part of it and had made the

1 The Socratic method for the discovery of truth can he employed only

in those cases where the pupil has the crude materials of the new knowl-

edge actually in store. Psychology, logic, ethics, mathematics, and per-

haps grammar and rhetoric, fall within the sphere of the Socratic method;

hut to apply this method of instruction to geography, history, geology, and,

in general, to suhjects where the material is inaccessihle, is palpably absurd.

The Socratic dialogue, in its negative phase, is aimed at presumption, arro-

gance, and pretentious ignorance; but it is sometimes misused to badger

and bewilder an honest and docile pupil. (P.)

EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS. 25

other part poor, would not confess that he was a bad herds-

man ; but it would surprise me still more if a man standing

at the head of his fellow-citizens should destroj' a part of

them and corrupt the rest, and were not to blush at his con-

duct and confess himself a bad magistrate.' This remark

having come to the ears of the Thirty, Critias and Charicles

sent for Socrates, showed him the law, and forbade him to

hold conversation with the young.

" Socrates inquired of them if he might be permitted to ask

questions touching what might seem obscure to him in this

prohibition. Upon their granting this permission: 'I am

prepared,' he said, 'to obey the laws, but that I may not

violate them through ignorance, I would have you clearly in-

form me whether von interdict the art of speaking because it

belongs to the number of things which are good, or because

it belongs to the number of things which are bad. In the

first case, one ought henceforth to abstain from speaking

what is good ; in the second, it is clear that the effort should

be to speak what is right.'

"Thereupon Charicles became angry, and said: 'Since

you do not understand us, we will give you something easier

to comprehend : we forbid you absolutely to hold conversa-

tion with the young.' l In order that it may be clearly seen,'

said Socrates, ' whether I depart from what is enjoined, tell

me at what age a youth becomes a man.' 'At the time

when In' is eligible to the senate, for he has not acquired

prudence till then ; so do not speak to young men who are

below the age of thirty.'

"'But if I wish to buy something of a merchant who is

below the age of thirty, may I ask him at what price he sells

it?'

"'Certainly you may ask such a question; but you are

accustomed to raise inquiries about multitudes of things

26 THE HISTORY OF TEDAGOGY.

which are perfectly well known to you ; it is this which is

forbidden.'

" ' So I must not reply to a young man who asks me where

Charicles lives, or where Critias is.' 'You may reply to such

questions,' said Charicles. ' But recollect, Socrates,' added

Critias, 'you must let alone the shoemakers, and smiths, and

other artisans, for I think they must already be very much

worn out by being so often in your mouth.'

" 'I must, therefore,' said Socrates, 'forego the illustra-

tions I draw from these occupations relative to justice, piety,

and all the virtues.' " *