THOMAS DAVIDSON.
"Glenmore,"
Keene, Essex Co., N.Y.
October, 1891.
CHAPTER I
CHARACTER AND IDEAL OF GREEK EDUCATION
Nothing in excess!—Solon.
No citizen has a right to consider himself as belonging to himself; but all ought to regard themselves as belonging to the State, inasmuch as each is a part of the State; and care for the part naturally looks to care for the whole.—Aristotle.
Greek life, in all its manifestations, was dominated by a single idea, and that an æsthetic one. This idea, which worked sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, was Proportion. The Greek term for this (Logos) not only came to designate the incarnate Word of Religion, but has also supplied many modern languages with a name for the Science of Manifested Reason—Logic. To the Greek, indeed, Reason always meant ratio, proportion; and a rational life meant to him a life of which all the parts, internal and external, stood to each other in just proportion. Such proportion was threefold; first, between the different parts of the individual human being; second, between the individual and his fellows in a social whole; third, between the human, as such, and the overruling divine. The realization of this threefold harmony in the individual was called by the Greeks Worth (Ἀρετή, usually, but incorrectly, rendered Virtue). There has come down to us, from the pen of Aristotle, in whom all that was implicit in Hellenism became explicit, a portion of a pæan addressed to this ideal. It may be fitly inserted here, in a literal translation.
To Worth.
O Worth! stern taskmistress of human kind,
Life's noblest prize:
O Virgin! for thy beauty's sake
It is an envied lot in Hellas even to die,
And suffer toils devouring, unassuaged—
So well dost thou direct the spirit
To fruit immortal, better than gold
And parents and soft-eyed sleep.
For thy cause Jove-born Hercules and Leda's sons
Much underwent, by deeds
Thy power proclaiming.
For love of thee Achilles and Ajax to Hades' halls went down.
For thy dear beauty's sake Atarneus' nursling too widowed the glances of the sun.
Therefore, as one renowned for deeds and deathless, him the Muses shall exalt,
The daughters of Memory, exalting so the glory of Stranger-guarding Jove, and the honor of friendship firm.
With regard to this ideal, four things are especially noteworthy; first, that it took an exhaustive survey of man's nature and relations; second, that it called for strong, persistent, heroic effort; third, that it tended to sink the individual in the social whole and the universal order; fourth, that its aim was, on the whole, a static perfection. The first two were merits; the second two, demerits. The first merit prevented the Greeks from pursuing one-sided systems of education; the second, from trying to turn education into a means of amusement. Aristotle says distinctly, "Education ought certainly not to be turned into a means of amusement; for young people are not playing when they are learning, since all learning is accompanied with pain." The first demerit was prejudicial to individual liberty, and therefore obstructive of the highest human development; the second encouraged Utopian dreams, which, being always of static conditions, undisturbed by the toils and throes essential to progress, tend to produce impatience of that slow advance whereby alone man arrives at enduring results. To this tendency we owe such works as Plato's Republic and Xenophon's Education of Cyrus.
CHAPTER II
BRANCHES OF GREEK EDUCATION
With thee the aged car-borne Peleus sent me on the day whereon from Phthia to Agamemnon he sent thee, a mere boy, not yet acquainted with mutual war or councils, in which men rise to distinction—for this end he sent me forth to teach thee all these things, to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.—(Phœnix in) Homer.
Above all and by every means we provide that our citizens shall have good souls and strong bodies.—Lucian.
Life is the original school—life, domestic and social. All other schools merely exercise functions delegated by the family and by society, and it is not until the latter has reached such a state of complication as to necessitate a division of labor that special schools exist. Among the Homeric Greeks we find no mention of schools, and the only person recorded as having had a tutor is Achilles, who was sent away from home so early in life as to be deprived of that education which he would naturally have received from his father. In what that education consisted, we learn from the first quotation at the head of this chapter. It consisted in such training as would make the pupil "a speaker of words and a doer of deeds"—a man eloquent and persuasive in council, and brave and resolute on the field of battle. For these ends he required, as Lucian says, a good soul and a strong body.
These expressions mark the two great divisions into which Greek education at all periods fell—Mental Education and Physical Education—as well as their original aims, viz. goodness (that is, bravery) of soul and strength of body. As time went on, these aims underwent considerable changes, and consequently the means for attaining them considerable modifications and extensions. Physical education aimed more and more at beauty and grace, instead of strength, while mental education, in its effort to extend itself to all the powers of the mind, divided itself into literary and musical education.
As we have seen, the Greeks aimed at developing all the powers of the human being in due proportion and harmony. But, in course of time, they discovered that the human creature comes into the world with his powers, not only undeveloped, but already disordered and inharmonious; that not only do the germs of manhood require to be carefully watched and tended, but also that the ground in which they are to grow must be cleared from an overgrowth of choking weeds, before education can be undertaken with any hope of success. This clearing process was called by the later Greeks Katharsis, or Purgation, and played an ever-increasing part in their pedagogical systems. It was supposed to do for man's emotional nature what Medicine undertook to do for his body. The means employed were mainly music and the kindred arts, which the ancients believed to exert what we should now call a dæmonic effect upon the soul, drawing off the exciting causes of disturbing passion, and leaving it in complete possession of itself. It would hardly be too much to say that the power to exert this purgative influence on the soul was regarded by the ancients as the chief function and end of the Fine Arts. Such was certainly Aristotle's opinion.
When purgation and the twofold education of body and mind had produced their perfect work, the result was what the Greeks called Kalokagathia (καλοκἀγαθία) that is, Fair-and-Goodness. Either half of this ideal was named ἀρετή (aretê), Worth or Excellence. We are expressly told by Aristotle (Categories, chap. viii.) that the adjective to ἀρετή is σπουδαῖος (spoudaios), a word which we usually render into English by "earnest." And we do so with reason; for to the Greek, Excellence or Worth meant, above all, earnestness, genuineness, truthfulness, thoroughness, absence of frivolity.
CHAPTER III
CONDITIONS OF EDUCATION
Some