Chapter CVII: Section 2 (10)

"The primitive Chaldeans were pre-eminently a literary people,
and it is by their literary relics, by the scattered contents
of their libraries, that we can know and judge them. As
befitted the inventors of a system of writing, like the
Chinese they set the highest value on education, even though
examinations may have been unknown among them. Education,
however, was widely diffused. ... Assur-bani-pal's library was
open to the use and enjoyment of all his subjects, and the
syllabaries, grammars, lexicons, and reading-books that it
contained, show the extent to which not only their own
language was studied by the Assyrians, but the dead language
of ancient Accad as well. It became as fashionable to compose
in this extinct tongue as it is now-a-days to display one's
proficiency in Latin prose, and 'dog-Accadian' was perpetrated
with as little remorse as 'dog-Latin' at the present time. One
of the Babylonian cylinders found by General di Cesnola in the
temple-treasure of Kurium, which probably belongs to the
period of Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty, has a legend which
endeavours to imitate the inscriptions of the early Accadian
princes; but the very first word, by an unhappy error, betrays
the insufficient knowledge of the old language possessed by
its composer. Besides a knowledge of Accadian, the educated
Assyrian was required to have also a knowledge of Aramaic,
which had now become the 'lingua franca' of trade and
diplomacy; and we find the Rabshakeh (Rab-sakki), or prime
minister, who was sent against Hezekiah by Sennacherib,
acquainted with Hebrew as well.
{675}
The grammatical and lexical works in the library of
Nineveh are especially interesting, as being the earliest
attempts of the kind of which we know, and it is curious to
find the Hamiltonian method of learning languages forestalled
by the scribes of Assur-bani-pal. In this case, as in all
others, the first enquiries into the nature of speech, and the
first grammars and dictionaries, were due to the necessity of
comparing two languages together; it was the Accadian which
forced the Semitic Assyrian or Babylonian to study his own
tongue. And already in these first efforts the main principles
of Semitic grammar are laid down clearly and definitely."

_A. H. Sayce, Babylonian Literature, pages 71-72._

"The Babylonians were the Chinese of the ancient world. They
were essentially a reading and writing people. ... The books
were for the most part written upon clay with a wooden reed or
metal stylus, for clay was cheap and plentiful, and easily
impressed with the wedge-shaped lines of which the characters
were composed. But besides clay, papyrus and possibly also
parchment were employed as writing materials. ... The use of
clay for writing purposes extended, along with Babylonian
culture, to the neighbouring populations of the East. ... It
is astonishing how much matter can be compressed into the
compass of a single tablet: The cuneiform system of writing
allowed the use of many abbreviations--thanks to its
'ideographic' nature--and the characters were frequently of a
very minute size. Indeed, so minute is the writing on many of
the Assyrian (as distinguished from the Babylonian) tablets
that it is clear not only that the Assyrian scribes and
readers must have been decidedly short-sighted, but also that
they must have made use of magnifying glasses. We need not be
surprised, therefore, to learn that Sir A. H. Layard
discovered a crystal lens, which had been turned on a lathe,
upon the site of the great library of Nineveh. ... To learn
the cuneiform syllabary was a task of much time and labour.
The student was accordingly provided with various means of
assistance. The characters of the syllabary were classified
and named; they were further arranged according to a certain
order, which partly depended on the number of wedges or lines
of which each was composed. Moreover, what we may term
dictionaries were compiled. ... To learn the signs, however,
with their multitudinous phonetic values and ideographic
significations, was not the whole of the labour which the
Babylonian boy had to accomplish. The cuneiform system of
writing, along with the culture which had produced it, had
been the invention of the non-Semitic Accado-Sumerian race,
from whom it had been borrowed by the Semites. In Semitic
hands the syllabary underwent further modifications and
additions, but it bore upon it to the last the stamp of its
alien origin. On this account alone, therefore, the Babylonian
student who wished to acquire a knowledge of reading and
writing was obliged to learn the extinct language of the older
population of the country. There was, however, another reason
which even more imperatively obliged him to study the earlier
tongue. A large proportion of the ancient literature, more
especially that which related to religious subjects, was
written in Accado-Sumerian. Even the law-cases of earlier
times, which formed precedents for the law of a later age,
were in the same language. In fact, Accado-Sumerian stood in
much the same relation to the Semitic Babylonians that Latin
has stood to the modern inhabitants of Europe. ... Besides
learning the syllabary, therefore, the Babylonian boy had to
learn the extinct of Accad and Sumer. ... The study of foreign
tongues naturally brought with it an inquisitiveness about the
languages of other people, as well as a passion for etymology.
... But there were other things besides languages which the
young student in the schools of Babylonia and Assyria was
called upon to learn. Geography, history, the names and nature
of plants, birds, animals, and stones, as well as the elements
of law and religion, were all objects of instruction. The
British Museum possesses what may be called the historical
exercise of some Babylonian lad in the age of Nebuchadnezzar
or Cyrus, consisting of a list of the kings belonging to one
of the early dynasties, which he had been required to learn by
heart. ... A considerable proportion of the inhabitants of
Babylonia could read and write. The contract tablets are
written in a variety of running hands, some of which are as
bad as the worst that passes through the modern post. Every
legal document required the signatures of a number of
witnesses, and most of these were able to write their own
names. ... In Assyria, however, education was by no means so
widely spread. Apart from the upper and professional classes,
including the men of business, it was confined to a special
body of men--the public scribes. ... There was none of that
jealous exclusion of women in ancient Babylonia which
characterizes the East of today, and it is probable that boys
and girls pursued their studies at the same schools. The
education of a child must have begun early."

_A. H. Sayce, Social Life among the Babylonians, chapter 3._

EDUCATION:
China.

"It is not, perhaps, generally known that Peking contains an
ancient university; for, though certain buildings connected
with it have been frequently described, the institution itself
has been but little noticed. It gives, indeed, so few signs of
life that it is not surprising it should be overlooked. ... If
a local situation be deemed an essential element of identity,
this old university must yield the palm of age to many in
Europe, for in its present site it dates, at most, only from
the Yuen, or Mongol, dynasty, in the beginning of the
fourteenth century. But as an imperial institution, having a
fixed organization and definite objects, it carries its
history, or at least its pedigree, back to a period far
anterior to the founding of the Great Wall. Among the
Regulations of the House of Chow, which flourished a thousand
years before the Christian era, we meet with it already in
full-blown vigor, and under the identical name which it now
bears, that of Kwotszekien, or 'School for the Sons of the
Empire.' It was in its glory before the light of science
dawned on Greece, and when Pythagoras and Plato were pumping
their secrets from the priests of Heliopolis. And it still
exists, but it is only an embodiment of 'life in death:' its
halls are tombs, and its officers living mummies. In the 13th
Book of the Chowle (see Rites de Tcheou, traduction par
Édouard Biot), we find the functions of the heads of the
Kwotszekien laid down with a good deal of minuteness.
{676}
The presidents were to admonish the Emperor of that which is
good and just, and to instruct the Sons of the State in the
'three constant virtues' and the 'three practical duties'--in
other words, to give a course of lectures on moral philosophy.
The vice-presidents were to reprove the Emperor for his faults
(i. e., to perform the duty of official censors) and to
discipline the Sons of the State in the sciences and
arts--viz., in arithmetic, writing, music, archery,
horsemanship and ritual ceremonies. ... The old curriculum is
religiously adhered to, but greater latitude is given, as we
shall have occasion to observe, to the term 'Sons of the
State.' In the days of Chow, this meant the heir-apparent,
princes of the blood, and children of the nobility. Under the
Tatsing dynasty it signifies men of defective scholarship
throughout the provinces, who purchase literary degrees, and
more specifically certain indigent students of Peking, who are
aided by the imperial bounty. The Kwotszekien is located in
the northeastern angle of the Tartar city, with a temple of
Confucius attached, which is one of the finest in the Empire.
The main edifice (that of the temple) consists of a single
story of imposing height, with a porcelain roof of tent-like
curvature. ... It contains no seats, as all comers are
expected to stand or kneel in presence of the Great Teacher.
Neither does it boast anything in the way of artistic
decoration, nor exhibit any trace of that neatness and taste
which we look for in a sacred place. Perhaps its vast area is
designedly left to dust and emptiness, in order that nothing
may intervene to disturb the mind in the contemplation of a
great name which receives the homage of a nation. ... In an
adjacent block or square stands a pavilion known as the
'Imperial Lecture-room,' because it is incumbent on each
occupant of the Dragon throne to go there at least once in his
life-time to hear a discourse on the nature and
responsibilities of his office. ... A canal spanned by marble
bridges encircles the pavilion, and arches of glittering
porcelain, in excellent repair, adorn the grounds. But neither
these nor the pavilion itself constitutes the chief attraction
of the place. Under a long corridor which encloses the entire
space may be seen as many as one hundred and eighty-two
columns of massive granite, each inscribed with a portion of
the canonical books. These are the 'Stone Classics'--the
entire 'Thirteen,' which formed the staple of a Chinese
education, being here enshrined in a material supposed to be
imperishable. Among all the Universities in the world, the
Kwotszekien is unique in the possession of such a library.
This is not, indeed, the only stone library extant--another of
equal extent being found at Singanfu, the ancient capital of
the Tangs. But, that too, was the property of the Kwotszekien
ten centuries ago, when Singan was the seat of empire. The
'School for the Sons of the Empire' must needs follow the
migrations of the court; and that library, costly as it was,
being too heavy for transportation, it was thought best to
supply its place by the new edition which we have been
describing. ... In front of the temple stands a forest of
columns of scarcely inferior interest. They are three hundred
and twenty in number, and contain the university roll of
honor, a complete list of all who since the founding of the
institution have attained to the dignity of the doctorate.
Allow to each an average of two hundred names, and we have an
army of doctors sixty thousand strong! (By the doctorate I
mean the third or highest degree.) All these received their
investiture at the Kwotszekien, and, throwing themselves at
the feet of its president, enrolled themselves among the 'Sons
of the Empire.' They were not, however--at least the most of
them were not--in any proper sense alumni of the Kwotszekien,
having pursued their studies in private, and won their honors
by public competition in the halls of the Civil-service
Examining Board. ... There is an immense area occupied by
lecture-rooms, examination-halls and lodging-apartments. But
the visitor is liable to imagine that these, too, are
consecrated to a monumental use--so rarely is a student or a
professor to be seen among them. Ordinarily they are as
desolate as the halls of Baalbec or Palmyra. In fact, this
great school for the 'Sons of the Empire' has long ceased to
be a seat of instruction, and degenerated into a mere
appendage of the civil-service competitive examinations on
which it hangs as a dead weight, corrupting and debasing
instead of advancing the standard of national education."

_W. A. P. Martin, The Chinese, their Education,
Philosophy and Letters, pages 85-90._

EDUCATION:
Persia.

"All the best authorities are agreed that great pains were
taken by the Persians--or, at any rate, by those of the
leading clans--in the education of their sons. During the
first five years of his life the boy remained wholly with the
women, and was scarcely, if at all, seen by his father. After
that time his training commenced. He was expected to rise
before dawn, and to appear at a certain spot, where he was
exercised with other boys of his age in running, slinging
stones, shooting with the bow, and throwing the javelin. At
seven he was taught to ride, and soon afterward he was allowed
to begin to hunt. The riding included, not only the ordinary
management of the horse, but the power of jumping on and off
his back when he was at speed, and of shooting with the bow
and throwing the javelin with unerring aim, while the horse
was still at full gallop. The hunting was conducted by
state-officers, who aimed at forming by its means in the
youths committed to their charge all the qualities needed in
war. The boys were made to bear extremes of heat and cold, to
perform long marches, to cross rivers without wetting their
weapons, to sleep in the open air at night, to be content with
a single meal in two days, and to support themselves
occasionally on the wild products of the country, acorns, wild
pears and the fruit of the terebinth tree. On days when there
was no hunting they passed their mornings in athletic
exercises, and contests with the bow or the javelin, after
which they dined simply on the plain food mentioned above as
that of the men in the early times, and then employed
themselves during the afternoon in occupations regarded as not
illiberal--for instance, in the pursuits of agriculture,
planting, digging for roots, and the like, or in the
construction of arms and hunting implements, such as nets and
springes. Hardy and temperate habits being secured by this
training, the point of morals on which their preceptors mainly
insisted was the rigid observance of truth. Of intellectual
education they had but little. It seems to have been no part
of the regular training of a Persian youth that he should
learn to read.
{677}
He was given religious notions and a certain amount of moral
knowledge by means of legendary poems, in which the deeds of
gods and heroes were set before him by his teachers, who
recited or sung them in his presence, and afterwards required
him to repeat what he had heard, or, at any rate, to give some
account of it. This education continued for fifteen years,
commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he
reached the age of twenty. The effect of this training was to
render the Persian an excellent soldier and a most
accomplished horseman. ... At fifteen years of age the Persian
was considered to have attained to manhood, and was enrolled
in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to military
service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those
of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and
these formed the garrison of the capital. ... Others, though
liable to military service, did not adopt arms as their
profession, but attached themselves to the Court and looked to
civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants, ushers,
judges, inspectors, messengers. ... For trade and commerce the
Persians were wont to express extreme contempt."

_G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient
Eastern World, volume 3, pages 238-242._

After the death of Cyrus, according to Xenophon, the Persians
degenerated, in the education of their youth and otherwise.
"To educate the youth at the gates of the palace is still the
custom," he says; "but the attainment and practice of
horsemanship are extinct, because they do not go where they
can gain applause by exhibiting skill in that exercise.
Whereas, too, in former times, the boys, hearing causes justly
decided there, were considered by that means to learn justice,
that custom is altogether altered; for they now see those gain
their causes who offer the highest bribes. Formerly, also,
boys were taught the virtues of the various productions of the
earth, in order that they might use the serviceable, and avoid
the noxious; but now they seem to be taught those particulars
that they may do as much harm as possible; at least there are
nowhere so many killed or injured by poison as in that
country."

_Xenophon, Cyropædia and Hellenics; trans. by J. S.
Watson and H. Dale, pages 284-285._

EDUCATION:
Judæa.

"According to the statement of Josephus, Moses had already
prescribed 'that boys should learn the most important laws,
because that is the best knowledge and the cause of
prosperity.' 'He commanded to instruct children in the
elements of knowledge (reading and writing), to teach them to
walk according to the laws, and to know the deeds of their
forefathers. The latter, that they might imitate them; the
former, that growing up with the laws they might not
transgress them, nor have the excuse of ignorance.' Josephus
repeatedly commends the zeal with which the instruction of the
young was carried on. 'We take most pains of all with the
instruction of children, and esteem the observance of the laws
and the piety corresponding with them the most important
affair of our whole life.' 'If anyone should question one of
us concerning the laws, he would more easily repeat all than
his own name. Since we learn them from our first
consciousness, we have them, as it were, engraven on our
souls; and a transgression is rare, but the averting of
punishment impossible.' In like manner does Philo express
himself: 'Since the Jews esteem their laws as divine
revelations, and are instructed in the knowledge of them from
their earliest youth, they bear the image of the law in their
souls.' ... In view of all this testimony it cannot be
doubted, that in the circles of genuine Judaism boys were from
their tenderest childhood made acquainted with the demands of
the law. That this education in the law was, in the first
place, the duty and task of parents is self-evident. But it
appears, that even in the age of Christ, care was also taken
for the instruction of youth by the erection of schools on the
part of the community. ... The later tradition that Joshua ben
Gamla (Jesus the son of Gamaliel) enacted that teachers of
boys ... should be appointed in every province and in every
town, and that children of the age of six or seven should be
brought to them, is by no means incredible. The only Jesus the
son of Gamaliel known to history is the high priest of that
name, about 63-65 after Christ. ... It must therefore be he
who is intended in the above notice. As his measures
presuppose a somewhat longer existence of boys' schools, we
may without hesitation transfer them to the age of Christ,
even though not as a general and established institution. The
subject of instruction, as already appears from the above
passages of Josephus and Philo, was as good as exclusively the
law. For only its inculcation in the youthful mind, and not
the means of general education, was the aim of all this zeal
for the instruction of youth. And indeed the earliest
instruction was in the reading and inculcation of the text of
scripture. ... Habitual practice went hand in hand with
theoretical instruction. For though children were not actually
bound to fulfil the law, they were yet accustomed to it from
their youth up."

_E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the time of
Jesus Christ, volume 2, pages 47-50._

In the fourth century B. C. the Council of Seventy Elders
"instituted regularly appointed readings from the Law; on
every sabbath and on every week day a portion from the
Pentateuch was to be read to the assembled congregation. Twice
a week, when the country people came up from the villages to
market in the neighbouring towns, or to appeal at the courts
of justice, some verses of the Pentateuch, however few, were
read publicly. At first only the learned were allowed to read,
but at last it was looked upon as so great an honour to belong
to the readers, that everyone attempted or desired to do so.
Unfortunately the characters in which the Torah was written
were hardly readable. Until that date the text of the Torah
had been written in the ancient style with Phœnician or old
Babylonian characters, which could only be deciphered by
practised scribes. ... From the constant reading of the Law,
there arose among the Judæans an intellectual activity and
vigour, which at last gave a special character to the whole
nation. The Torah became their spiritual and intellectual
property, and their own inner sanctuary. At this time there
sprang up other important institutions, namely, schools, where
the young men could stimulate their ardour and increase their
knowledge of the Law and its teachings. The intellectual
leaders of the people continually enjoined on the rising
generation, 'Bring up a great many disciples.' And what they
enjoined so strenuously they themselves must have assisted to
accomplish. One of these religious schools (Beth-Waad) was
probably established in Jerusalem.
{678}
The teachers were called scribes (sopherim) or wise men; the
disciples, pupils of the wise (Talmude Chachamim). The wise
men or scribes had a two-fold work; on the one hand they had
to explain the Torah, and on the other, to make the laws
applicable to each individual and to the community at large.
This supplementary interpretation was called 'explanation'
(Midrash); it was not altogether arbitrary, but rested upon
certain rules laid down for the proper interpretation of the
law. The supreme council and the houses of learning worked
together, and one completed the other. A hardly perceptible,
but most important movement was the result; for the
descendants of the Judæans of that age were endowed with a
characteristic, which they might otherwise have claimed as
inborn, the talent for research and the intellectual
penetration, needed for turning and returning words and data,
in order to discover some new and hidden meaning."

_H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 1, chapter 20._

EDUCATION:
Schools of the Prophets.

"In his [Samuel's] time we first hear of what in modern
phraseology are called the Schools of the Prophets. Whatever
be the precise meaning of the peculiar word, which now came
first into use as the designation of these companies, it is
evident that their immediate mission consisted in uttering
religious hymns or songs, accompanied by musical
instruments--psaltery, tabret, pipe and harp, and cymbals. In
them, as in the few solitary instances of their predecessors,
the characteristic element was that the silent seer of visions
found an articulate voice, gushing forth in a rhythmical flow,
which at once riveted the attention of the hearer. These, or
such as these, were the gifts which under Samuel were now
organized, if one may say so, into a system."

_Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish
Church, lecture 18._

EDUCATION:
Greece.

A description of the Athenian education of the young is given
by Plato in one of his dialogues: "Education," he says, "and
admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last
to the very end of life. Mother and nurse and father and tutor
are quarrelling about the improvement of the child as soon as
ever he is able to understand them: he cannot say or do
anything without their setting forth to him that this is just
and that is unjust; this is honourable, that is dishonourable;
this is holy, that is unholy; do this and abstain from that.
And if he obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by
threats and blows, like a piece of warped wood. At a later
stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin them to see to his
manners even more than to his reading and music; and the
teachers do as they are desired. And when the boy has learned
his letters and is beginning to understand what is written·,
as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into
his hands the works of great poets, which he reads at school;
in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and
praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is
required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or
emulate them and desire to become like them. Then, again, the
teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young
disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they
have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the
poems of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and
these they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms
quite familiar to the children, in order that they may learn
to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more
fitted for speech and action; for the life of men in every
part has need of harmony and rhythm. Then they send them to
the master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better
minister to the virtuous mind, and that the weakness of their
bodies may not force them to play the coward in war or on any
other occasion. This is what is done by those who have the
means, and those who have the means are the rich; their
children begin education soonest and leave off latest. When
they have done with masters, the state again compels them to
learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they furnish,
and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning to
write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style for
the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and
makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which
were the invention of good law-givers who were of old times;
these are given to the young man, in order to guide him in his
conduct whether as ruler or ruled; and he who transgresses
them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to
account, which is a term used not only in your country, but
also in many others. Now when there is all this care about
virtue private and public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder
and doubt whether virtue can be taught?"

_Plato, Protagoras (Dialogue; trans. by Jowett, volume 1)._

The ideas of Aristotle on the subject are in the following:
"There can be no doubt that children should be taught those
useful things which are really necessary, but not all thing's;
for occupations are divided into liberal and illiberal; and to
young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge
as will be useful to them without vulgarizing them. And any
occupation, art, or science, which makes the body or soul or
mind of the freeman less fit for the practice or exercise of
virtue, is vulgar; wherefore we call those arts vulgar which
tend to deform the body, and likewise all paid employments,
for they absorb and degrade the mind. There are also some
liberal arts quite proper for a freeman to acquire, but only
in a certain degree, and if he attend to them too closely, in
order to obtain perfection in them, the same evil effects will
follow. The object also which a man sets before him makes a
great difference; if he does or learns anything for his own
sake or for the sake of his friends, or with a view to
excellence, the action will not appear illiberal; but if done
for the sake of others, the very same action will be thought
menial and servile. The received subjects of instruction, as I
have already remarked, are partly of a liberal and partly of
an illiberal character. The customary branches of education
are in number four; they are--(l) reading and writing, (2)
gymnastic exercises, (3) music, to which is sometimes added
(4) drawing. Of these, reading and writing and drawing are
regarded as useful for the purposes of life in a variety of
ways, and gymnastic exercises are thought to infuse courage.
Concerning music a doubt may be raised--in our own day most
men cultivate it for the sake of pleasure, but originally it
was included in education, because nature herself, as has been
often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work
well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once and
again, the first principle of all action is leisure.
{679}
Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation; and
therefore the question must be asked in good earnest, what
ought we to do when at leisure? Clearly we ought not to be
amusing ourselves, for then amusement would be the end of
life. But if this is inconceivable, and yet amid serious
occupations amusement is needed more than at other times (for
he who is hard at work has need of relaxation, and amusement
gives relaxation, whereas occupation is always accompanied
with exertion and effort), at suitable times we should
introduce amusements, and they should be our medicines, for
the emotion which they create in the soul is a relaxation, and
from the pleasure we obtain rest. ... It is clear then that
there are branches of learning and education which we must
study with a view to the enjoyment of leisure, and these are
to be valued for their own sake; whereas those kinds of
knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed
necessary, and exist for the sake of other things. And
therefore our fathers admitted music into education, not on
the ground either of its necessity or utility, for it is not
necessary, nor indeed useful in the same manner as reading and
writing, which are useful in money-making, in the management
of a house-hold, in the acquisition of knowledge and in
political life, nor like drawing, useful for a more correct
judgment of the works of artists, nor again like gymnastic,
which gives health and strength; for neither of these is to be
gained from music. There remains, then, the use of music for
intellectual enjoyment in leisure; which appears to have been
the reason of its introduction, this being one of the ways in
which it is thought that a freeman should pass his leisure.
... We are now in a position to say that the ancients witness
to us; for their opinion may be gathered from the fact that
music is one of the received and traditional branches of
education. Further, it is clear that children should be
instructed in some useful things,--for example, in reading and
writing,--not only for their usefulness, but also because many
other sorts of knowledge are acquired through them. With a
like view they may be taught drawing, not to prevent their
making mistakes in their own purchases, or in order that they
may not be imposed upon in the buying or selling of articles,
but rather because it makes them judges of the beauty of the
human form. To be always seeking after the useful does not
become free and exalted souls. ... We reject the professional
instruments and also the professional mode of education in
music--and by professional we mean that which is adopted in
contests, for in this the performer practises the art, not for
the sake of his own improvement, but in order to give
pleasure, and that of a vulgar sort, to his hearers. For this
reason the execution of such music is not the part of a
freeman but of a paid performer, and the result is that the
performers are vulgarized, for the end at which they aim is
bad."

_Aristotle, Politics (Jowett's Translation), book 8._

"The most striking difference between early Greek education
and ours was undoubtedly this; that the physical development
of boys was attended to in a special place and by a special
master. It was not thought sufficient for them to play the
chance games of childhood; they underwent careful bodily
training under a very fixed system, which was determined by
the athletic contests of after life. ... When we compare what
the Greeks afforded to their boys, we find it divided into two
contrasted kinds of exercise: hunting, which was practised by
the Spartans very keenly, and no doubt also by the Eleans and
Arcadians, as may be seen from Xenophon's 'Tract on (Hare)
Hunting'; and gymnastics, which in the case of boys were
carried on in the so-caned palæstra, a sort of open-air
gymnasium (in our sense) kept by private individuals as a
speculation, and to which the boys were sent, as they were to
their ordinary school-master. We find that the Spartans, who
had ample scope for hunting with dogs in the glens and coverts
of Mount Taygetus, rather despised mere exercises of dexterity
in the palæstra, just as our sportsmen would think very little
of spending hours in a gymnasium. But those Greeks who lived
in towns like Athens, and in the midst of a thickly populated
and well-cultivated country, could not possibly obtain
hunting, and therefore found the most efficient substitute.
Still we find them very far behind the English in their
knowledge or taste for out-of-door games. ... The Greeks had
no playgrounds beyond the palæstra or gymnasium; they had no
playgrounds in our sense, and though a few proverbs speak of
swimming as a universal accomplishment which boys learned, the
silence of Greek literature on the subject makes one very
suspicious as to the generality of such training. ... In one
point, certainly, the Greeks agreed more with the modern
English than with any other civilised nation. They regarded
sport as a really serious thing. ... The names applied to the
exercising-places indicate their principal uses. Palæstra
means a wrestling place; gymnasium originally a place for
naked exercise, but the word early lost this connotation and
came to mean mere physical training. ... In order to leave
home and reach the palæstra safely as well as to return, Greek
boys were put under the charge of a pædagogue, in no way to be
identified (as it now is) with a schoolmaster. ... I think we
may be justified in asserting that the study of the epic
poets, especially of the Iliad and Odyssey, was the earliest
intellectual exercise of schoolboys, and, in the case of
fairly educated parents, even anticipated the learning of
letters. For the latter is never spoken of as part of a
mother's or of home education. Reading was not so universal or
so necessary as it now is. ... We may assume that books of
Homer were read or recited to growing boys, and that they were
encouraged or required to learn them off by heart. This is
quite certain to all who estimate justly the enormous
influence ascribed to Homer, and the principles assumed by the
Greeks to have underlain his work. He was universally
considered to be a moral teacher, whose characters were drawn
with a moral intent, and for the purpose of example or
avoidance. ... Accordingly the Iliad and Odyssey were supposed
to contain all that was useful, not only for godliness, but
for life. All the arts and sciences were to be derived (by
interpretation) from these sacred texts. ... In early days,
and in poor towns, the place of teaching was not well
appointed, nay, even in many places, teaching in the open air
prevailed. ... This was ... like the old hedge schools of
Ireland, and no doubt of Scotland too. They also took
advantage, especially in hot weather, of colonnades, or shady
corners among public buildings, as at Winchester the summer
term was called cloister-time, from a similar practice, even
in that wealthy foundation, of instructing in the cloisters.
On the other hand, properly appointed schools in respectable
towns were furnished with some taste, and according to
traditional notions. ...
{680}
We may be sure that there were no tables or desks, such
furniture being unusual in Greek houses; it was the universal
custom, while reading or writing, to hold the book or roll on
the knee--to us an inconvenient thing to do, but still common
in the East. There are some interesting sentences, given for
exercise in Greek and Latin, in the little known
'Interpretamenta' of Dositheus, now edited and explained by
German scholars. The entry of the boy is thus described, in
parallel Greek and Latin: 'First I salute the master, who
returns my salute: Good morning, master; good morning, school
fellows. Give me my place, my seat, my stool. Sit closer. Move
up that way. This is my place, I took it first.' This mixture
of politeness and wrangling is amusing, and no doubt to be
found in all ages. It seems that the seats were movable. ...
The usual subdivision of education was into three parts;
letters, ... including reading, writing, counting, and
learning of the poets; music in the stricter sense, including
singing and playing on the lyre; and lastly gymnastic, which
included dancing. ... It is said that at Sparta the education
in reading and writing was not thought necessary, and there
have been long discussions among the learned whether the
ordinary Spartan in classical days was able to read. We find
that Aristotle adds a fourth subject to the three above
named--drawing, which he thinks requisite, like music, to
enable the educated man to judge rightly of works of art. But
there is no evidence of a wide diffusion of drawing or
painting among the Greeks, as among us. ... Later on, under
the learned influences of Alexandria, and the paid
professoriate of Roman days, subjects multiplied with the
decline of mental vigour and spontaneity of the age, and
children began to be pestered, as they now are, with a
quantity of subjects, all thought necessary to a proper
education, and accordingly all imperfectly acquired. This was
called the encyclical education, which is preserved in our
Encyclopædia of knowledge. It included,(1) grammar,(2)
rhetoric, (3) dialectic, (4) arithmetic, (5) music, (6)
geometry, (7) astronomy, and these were divided into the
earlier Trivium, and the later Quadrivium."

_J. P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Education, chapters 3-5._

"Reading was taught with the greatest pains, the utmost care
was taken with the intonation of the voice, and the
articulation of the throat. We have lost the power of
distinguishing between accent and quantity. The Greeks did not
acquire it without long and anxious training of the ear and
the vocal organs. This was the duty of the phonascus. Homer
was the common study of all Greeks. The Iliad and Odyssee were
at once the Bible, the Shakespeare, the Robinson Crusoe, and
the Arabian Nights of the Hellenic race. Long passages and
indeed whole books were learnt by heart. The Greek, as a rule,
learnt no language but his own. Next to reading and repetition
came writing, which was carefully taught. Composition
naturally followed, and the burden of correcting exercises,
which still weighs down the backs of schoolmasters, dates from
these early times. Closely connected with reading and writing
is the art of reckoning, and the science of numbers leads us
easily to music. Plato considered arithmetic as the best spur
to a sleepy and uninstructed spirit; we see from the Platonic
dialogues how mathematical problems employed the mind and
thoughts of young Athenians. Many of the more difficult
arithmetical operations were solved by geometrical methods,
but the Greeks carried the art of teaching numbers to
considerable refinement. They used the abacus, and had an
elaborate method of finger reckoning, which was serviceable up
to 10,000. Drawing was the crowning accomplishment to this
vestibule of training. By the time the fourteenth year was
completed, the Greek boy would have begun to devote himself
seriously to the practice of athletics."

_O. Browning, An Introduction to the History of
Educational Theories, ch 1._

"It has sometimes been imagined that in Greece separate
edifices were not erected as with us expressly for
school-houses, but that both the didaskalos and the
philosopher taught their pupils in fields, gardens or shady
groves. But this was not the common practice, though many
schoolmasters appear to have had no other place wherein to
assemble their pupils than the portico of a temple or some
sheltered corner in the street, where in spite of the din of
business and the throng of passengers the worship of learning
was publicly performed. ... But these were the schools of the
humbler classes. For the children of the noble and the opulent
spacious structures were raised, and furnished with tables,
desks,--for that peculiar species of grammateion which
resembled the plate cupboard, can have been nothing but a
desk,--forms, and whatsoever else their studies required.
Mention is made of a school at Chios which contained one
hundred and twenty boys, all of whom save one were killed by
the falling in of the roof. ... The apparatus of an ancient
school was somewhat complicated: there were mathematical
instruments, globes, maps, and charts of the heavens, together
with boards whereon to trace geometrical figures, tablets,
large and small, of box-wood, fir, or ivory, triangular in
form, some folding with two, and others with many leaves;
books too and paper, skins of parchment, wax for covering the
tablets, which, if we may believe Aristophanes, people
sometimes ate when they were hungry. To the above were added
rulers, reed-pens, pen-cases, pen-knives, pencils, and last,
though not least, the rod which kept them to the steady use of
all these things: At Athens these schools were not provided by
the state. They were private speculations, and each master was
regulated in his charges by the reputation he had acquired and
the fortunes of his pupils. Some appear to have been extremely
moderate in their demands. ... The earliest task to be
performed at school was to gain a knowledge of the Greek
characters, large and small, to spell next, next to read. ...
In teaching the art of writing their practice nearly resembled
our own. ... These things were necessarily the first step in
the first class of studies, which were denominated music, and
comprehended everything connected with the development of the
mind; and they were carried to a certain extent before the
second division called gymnastics was commenced. They reversed
the plan commonly adopted among ourselves, for with them
poetry preceded prose, a practice which, coöperating with
their susceptible temperament, impressed upon the national
mind that imaginative character for which it was preëminently
distinguished.
{681}
And the poets in whose works they were first initiated were of
all the most poetical, the authors of lyrical and dithyrambic
pieces, selections from whose verses they committed to memory,
thus acquiring early a rich store of sentences and imagery
ready to be adduced in argument or illustration, to furnish
familiar allusions or to be woven into the texture of their
style. ... Among the other branches of knowledge most
necessary to be studied, and to which they applied themselves
nearly from the outset, was arithmetic, without some inkling
of which, a man, in Plato's opinion, could scarcely be a
citizen at all. ... The importance attached to this branch of
education, nowhere more apparent than in the dialogues of
Plato, furnishes one proof that the Athenians were
preëminently men of business, who in all their admiration for
the good and beautiful never lost sight of those things which
promote the comfort of life, and enable a man effectually to
perform his ordinary duties. With the same views were geometry
and astronomy pursued. ... The importance of music, in the
education of the Greeks, is generally understood. It was
employed to effect several purposes. First, to sooth and
mollify the fierceness of the national character, and prepare
the way for the lessons of the poets, which, delivered amid
the sounding of melodious strings, when the soul was rapt and
elevated by harmony, by the excitement of numbers, by the
magic of the sweetest associations, took a firm hold upon the
mind, and generally retained it during life. Secondly, it
enabled the citizens gracefully to perform their part in the
amusements of social life, every person being in his turn
called upon at entertainments to sing or play upon the lyre.
Thirdly, it was necessary to enable them to join in the sacred
choruses, rendered frequent by the piety of the state, and for
the due performance in old age of many offices of religion,
the sacerdotal character belonging more or less to all the
citizens of Athens. Fourthly, as much of the learning of a
Greek was martial and designed to fit him for defending his
country, he required some knowledge of music that on the field
of battle his voice might harmoniously mingle with those of
his countrymen, in chaunting those stirring, impetuous, and
terrible melodies, called pæans, which preceded the first
shock of fight. For some, or all of these reasons, the science
of music began to be cultivated among the Hellenes, at a
period almost beyond the reach even of tradition."

_J. A. St. John, The Hellenes, book 2, chapter 4._

"In thinking of Greek education as furnishing a possible model
for us moderns, there is one point which it is important to
bear in mind: Greek education was intended only for the few,
for the wealthy and well-born. Upon all others, upon slaves,
barbarians, the working and trading classes, and generally
upon all persons spending their lives in pursuit of wealth or
any private ends whatsoever, it would have seemed to be thrown
away. Even well-born women were generally excluded from most
of its benefits. The subjects of education were the sons of
full citizens, themselves preparing to be full citizens, and
to exercise all the functions of such. The duties of such
persons were completely summed up under two heads, duties to
the family and duties to the State, or, as the Greeks said,
œconomic and political duties. The free citizen not only
acknowledged no other duties besides these, but he looked down
upon persons who sought occupation in any other sphere.
Œconomy and Politics, however, were very comprehensive terms.
The former included the three relations of husband to wife,
father to children, and master to slaves and property; the
latter, three public functions, legislative, administrative,
and judiciary. All occupations not included under these six
heads the free citizen left to slaves or resident foreigners.
Money-making, in the modern sense, he despised, and, if he
devoted himself to art or philosophy, he did so only for the
benefit of the State."

_T. Davidson, Aristotle, book 1, chapter 4._

EDUCATION: Greek
Spartan Training.

"From his birth every Spartan belonged to the state, which
decided ... whether he was likely to prove a useful member of
the community, and extinguished the life of the sickly or
deformed infant. To the age of seven however the care of the
child was delegated to its natural guardians, yet not so as to
be left wholly to their discretion, but subject to certain
established rules of treatment, which guarded against every
mischievous indulgence of parental tenderness. At the end of
seven years began a long course of public discipline, which
grew constantly more and more severe as the boy approached
toward manhood. The education of the young was in some degree
the business of all the elder citizens; for there was none who
did not contribute to it, if not by his active interference,
at least by his presence and inspection. But it was placed
under the especial superintendence of an officer selected from
the men of most approved worth; and he again chose a number of
youths, just past the age of twenty, and who most eminently
united courage with discretion, to exercise a more immediate
command over the classes, into which the boys were divided.
The leader of each class directed the sports and tasks of his
young troop, and punished their offences with military rigour,
but was himself responsible to his elders for the mode in
which he discharged his office. The Spartan education was
simple in its objects; it was not the result of any general
view of human nature, or of any attempt to unfold its various
capacities: it aimed at training men who were to live in the
midst of difficulty and danger, and who could only be safe
themselves while they held rule over others. The citizen was
to be always ready for the defence of himself and his country,
at home and abroad, and he was therefore to be equally fitted
to command and to obey. His body, his mind, and his character
were formed for this purpose, and for no other: and hence the
Spartan system, making directly for its main end, and
rejecting all that was foreign to it, attained, within its own
sphere, to a perfection which it is impossible not to admire.
The young Spartan was perhaps unable either to read or write:
he scarcely possessed the elements of any of the arts or
sciences by which society is enriched or adorned: but he could
run, leap, wrestle, hurl the disk, or the javelin, and wield
every other weapon, with a vigour and agility, and grace which
were no where surpassed. These however were accomplishments to
be learnt in every Greek palæstra: he might find many rivals
in all that he could do; but few could approach him in the
firmness with which he was taught to suffer. From the tender
age at which he left his mother's lap for the public schools,
his life was one continued trial of patience. Coarse and
scanty fare, and this occasionally withheld, a light dress,
without any change in the depth of winter, a bed of reeds,
which he himself gathered from the Eurotas, blows exchanged
with his comrades, stripes inflicted by his governors, more by
way of exercise than of punishment, inured him to every form
of pain and hardship. ...
{682}
The Muses were appropriately honoured at Sparta with a
sacrifice on the eve of a battle, and the union of the spear
and the lyre was a favourite theme with the Laconian poets,
and those who sang of Spartan customs. Though bred in the
discipline of the camp, the young Spartan, like the hero of
the Iliad, was not a stranger to music and poetry. He was
taught to sing, and to play on the flute and the lyre: but the
strains with which his memory was stored, and to which his voice
was formed, were either sacred hymns, or breathed a martial
spirit; and it was because they cherished such sentiments that
the Homeric lays, if not introduced by Lycurgus, were early
welcomed at Sparta. ... As these musical exercises were
designed to cultivate, not so much an intellectual, as a moral
taste; so it was probably less for the sake of sharpening
their ingenuity, than of promoting presence of mind, and
promptness of decision, that the boys were led into the habit
of answering all questions proposed to them, with a ready,
pointed, sententious brevity, which was a proverbial
characteristic of Spartan conversation. But the lessons which
were most studiously inculcated, more indeed by example than
by precept, were those of modesty, obedience, and reverence
for age and rank; for these were the qualities on which, above
all others, the stability of the commonwealth reposed. The
gait and look of the Spartan youths, as they passed along the
streets, observed Xenophon, breathed modesty and reserve. In
the presence of their elders they were bashful as virgins, and
silent as statues, save when a question was put to them. ...
In truth, the respect for the laws, which rendered the Spartan
averse to innovation at home, was little more than another
form of that awe with which his early habits inspired him for
the magistrates and the aged. With this feeling was intimately
connected that quick and deep sense of shame, which shrank
from dishonour as the most dreadful of evils, and enabled him
to meet death so calmly, when he saw in it the will of his
country."

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, volume 1, chapter 8._

EDUCATION:
Free-School Ideas in Greece.