Infirm constitution, — Plato does not go so far as ordering

such to be killed, but, what amounts almost to the same

thing, — "they shall be exposed," that is, left to die. The

good of the State demands that every man be sacrificed

whose health renders him unfit for civil duties. This cruel

and implacable doctrine shocks us in the case of him whom

Montaigne calls the divine Plato, and shocks us even more

when we discover it among contemporary philosophers, whom

the inspirations of Christian charity or the feeling of human

fraternity should have preserved from such rank hcaitless-

ncss. Is it not Herbert Spencer who blames modern so-

cieties for nourishing the diseased and assisting the infirm?

30 THE HISTOEY OF PEDAGOGY.

30. Religion and Art in Education. — Plato had

formed a high ideal of the function of art in education, but

this did not prevent hira from being severe against certain

forms of art, particularly comedy and tragedy, and poetry

in general. He would have the poets expelled from the city

and conducted to the frontier, though paying them homage

with perfumes which will continue to be shed upon their

heads, and with flowers with which they will ever be crowned.

He admits no other poetry than that which reproduces the

manners and discourse of a good man, and celebrates the

brave deeds of the gods, or chants their glory. As a severe

moralist and worshipper of the divine goodness, he condemns

the poets of his time, either because they attribute to the

divinity the vices and passions of men, or because they invest

the imagination with base fears as they speak of Cocytus

and the Styx, and portray a frightful hell and gods always

mad with desire to persecute the human race. Elsewhere,

In the Laws, Plato explains his conception of religion. He

says that the religious books placed in the hands of children

should be selected with as much care as the milk of a nurse.

God is an infinite goodness who watches over men, and he

should be honored, not by sacrifices and vain ceremonies,

but by lives of justice and virtue.

For making men moral, Plato counts more upon art than

upon religious feeling. To love letters, to hold converse

with the Muses, to cultivate music and dancing, such, in the

opinion of the noble spirits of Athens, is the natural route

towards moral perfection. In their view, moral education

Is above all an education in art. The soul rises to the good

through the beautiful. "Beautiful and good" (koAos ko.1

dyatfo's) are two words constantly associated in the speech of

the Greeks. Even to-day we have much to learn from

reflections like these: "We ought," says Plato, "to seek

EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS. 31

out artists who by the power of genius can trace out the

nature of the fair and the graceful, that our young men,

dwelling, as it were, in a healthful region, may drink in good

from every quarter, whence any emanation from noble works

may strike upon their eye or their ear, like a gale wafting

health from salubrious lands, and win them imperceptibly

from their earliest years into resemblance, love, and harmony

with the true beauty of reason.

"Is it not, then, on these accounts that we attach such

supreme importance to a musical education, because rhythm

and harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul,

bring-ino- gracefulness in their train, and making a man

graceful if he be rightly nurtured ; but if not, the reverse?

and also because he that has been duly nurtured therein will

have the keenest eye for defects, whether in the failures of

art, or in the misgrowths of nature ; and feeling a most just

disdain for them, will commend beautiful objects, and gladly

receive them into his soul, and feed upon them, and grow to be

noble and good ; whereas he will rightly censure and hate all

repulsive objects, even in his childhood, before he is able to

be reasoned with ; and when reason comes, he will welcome

her most cordially who can recognize her by the instinct

of relationship, and because he has been thus nurtured? " l

31. High Intellectual Education. — In the Republic

of Plato the intellectual education of the warrior class

remains exclusively literary and aesthetic. In addition to

this, the education of the ruling class is to be scientific and

philosophic. The future magistrate, after having received

the ordinary .instruction up to the age of twenty, is to he

initiated into the abstract sciences, mathematics, geometry,

1 Republic, 401,402. I have quoted from the version of Vaughan and

Davies. (P.)

32 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

and astronomy. To this scientific education, which is to

continue for ten years, there will succeed for five years the

study of dialectics, 1 or philosophy, which develops the highest

faculty of man, the reason, and teaches him to discover,

through and beyond the fleeting appearances of the world of

sense, the eternal verities and the essence of things. But

Plato prolongs the education of his magistrates still further.

After having given them the nurture of reason and intellectual

insight, he sends them back to the cavern 2 at the aВ«;e of

thirty-five, that is, calls them back to public life, and makes

them pass through all kinds of civil and military employ-

ments, until finally, at the age of fifty, in possession of all

the endowments assured by consummate experience super-

added to profound knowledge, they are fitted to be charged

with the burdens of office. In the Republic of Plato states-

men are not improvised. And yet in this elaborate sj-stem

of instruction Plato omits two subjects of great importance.

On the one hand, he entirely omits the physical and natural

sciences, because, in his nrystic idealism, things of sense are

delusive and unreal images, and so did not appear to him

worthy of arresting the attention of the mind ; and on the

other, though coming after Herodotus, and though a con-

1 Dialectic, as used in the Republic, is neither philosophy nor logic.

I doubt whether it can he considered a subject of instruction at all. It

is rather a method or an exercise, the purpose of which is to subject

received opinions, formulated knowledge, current beliefs, etc.. to a sifting

or analysis for the purpose of distinguishing the real from the apparent,

the true from the false. The Socratic dialogues are examples of the dialectic

method. Dialectic might be defined as the method of thought proper or the

discursive reason in act. (P.)

2 See the allegory of the cavern, Republic, Book vn. In Plato's

scheme of education, knowing is to precede doing, thus following Socra-

tes ■.(Memorabilia, IV. chap, n.) and Bias (Vv£>Qi koI t6t€ Trparre), and

anticipating Bacon ("studies perfect nature, and are perfected by ex-

perience"). (P.)

EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS. 33

temporary of Thucydides, lie makes no mention of history,

doubtless through a contempt for tradition and the past.

32. The Laws. — In the Laws, the work of his old age,

Plato disavows in part the chimeras of the Republic, and

qualifies the radicalism of that earlier work. The philoso-

pher descends to the earth and really condescends to the

actual state of humanity. lie renounces the distinction of

social castes, and his very practical and very minute precepts

are applied without distinction to children of all classes. 1

First note this excellent definition of the end of education :

"A good education is that which gives to the body and to

the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they

are capable." As to methods, it seems that Plato hesitates

between the doctrine of effort and the doctrine of attractive

toil. In fact, he says on the one hand that education is a