Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals Part 2

(_a_) That of the "Old Education," authoritative and puritanical, whose aim was the training of good citizens, G.o.d-fearing, law-abiding, patriotic, and brave.

(_b_) That of the "New Education," rationalistic and "liberal," whose aim was the training of formidable individuals, self-centred, law-despising, time-serving, and cunning.

It is in the struggle between the two systems, and in the practical triumph of the latter, that Greece loses her moral fibre; so that her citizens, weakened through sundering selfishness, fall an easy prey to the foreign invader.

II. _The h.e.l.lenistic Period_ (338 B.C.-313 A.D.). This extends from the Battle of Chaeronea, in which Greece lost her independence, to the definitive triumph of Christianity, which brought a new ideal and a new spirit into life and education. It naturally subdivides itself into two periods, (_a_) B.C. 338-146; (_b_) B.C. 146-A.D. 313.

(_a_) The Macedonian Period, during which Macedonian influence prevailed, and Greek thought and education, absorbing foreign, chiefly Oriental, elements, tended toward an encyclopaedic cosmopolitanism.

During this period, Alexandria is the centre of Greek influence.

(_b_) The Roman Period, during which, as Horace says, "Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror," and Rome became, alongside Alexandria, a diffusive centre of Greek thought, art, and education.

Between the two great periods, the h.e.l.lenic and the h.e.l.lenistic, stands the man who draws up the testament of the former and outlines the programme of the latter, the Macedonian Greek, Aristotle.

Our second distinction will lead us to treat separately, in the h.e.l.lenic period, the educational system of the three Greek races, (1) the aeolic, (2) the Doric, (3) the Ionic, the first having its chief centre at Thebes, the second at Sparta, the third at Athens. For an account of the education of the first our data are but meagre; with the main features of Spartan and Athenian education we are well acquainted. In education, as in everything, Sparta was conservative, socialistic, and aristocratic, while Athens tended to liberalism, individualism, and democracy. Hence Sparta clung desperately to the "Old Education," and almost closed her doors against art, letters, and philosophy, while Athens, dragged into the "New Education," became the home of all these.

It must always be borne in mind that, in favoring individualism and the "New Education," Athens was abandoning the h.e.l.lenic ideal, and paving the way for the cosmopolitanism of the h.e.l.lenistic period. In this latter, we shall have to distinguish between the educational systems of Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.

Our third distinction is that between individual theory and popular practice. In all epochs of their history the Greek states produced men who strove to realize in thought and imagination the ideal of their people, and to exhibit it as an aim, an encouragement, and an inspiration, in contrast with the imperfect actual. In more than one case this ideal modified the education of the following periods. Of course, such theories did not arise until practice was compelled to defend itself by producing sanctions, either in religion or in reason, and it may perhaps be affirmed that the aim of them all was to discover such sanctions for the Greek ideal. Among the many educational theorists of Greece, there are six who especially deserve to be considered: (1) Pythagoras, who in Southern Italy sought to graft on the Doric ideal a half-mystical, half-ethical theology, and a mathematical theory of the physical world; (2) Xenophon, who sought to secure the same ideal by connecting it with a monarchical form of government; (3) Plato, who sought to elevate it, and find a sanction for it in his theory of super-sensuous ideas; (4) ARISTOTLE, who presented in all its fulness the h.e.l.lenic ideal, and sought to find sanctions for it in history, social well-being, and the promise of a higher life; (5) Quintilian, who, in Rome, embodies the rhetorical or worldly education of the h.e.l.lenistic period; and (6) Plotinus, who presents an ideal of philosophical or other-worldly education, and paves the way for the triumph of Christian dogma.

BOOK II

THE h.e.l.lENIC PERIOD (B.C. 776-338)

PART I

THE "OLD EDUCATION" (B.C. 776-480)

CHAPTER I

EDUCATION FOR WORK AND FOR LEISURE

When we consider the different arts that have been discovered, and distinguish between those which relate to the necessary conditions of life and those which contribute to the free enjoyment of it (d?a????), we always consider the man who is acquainted with the latter wiser than him who is acquainted with the former, for the reason that the sciences of the latter have no reference to use.

Hence it was only when all the necessary conditions of life had been attained that those arts were discovered which have no reference either to pleasure or to the common needs of life; and this took place first in those countries where men enjoyed leisure.--Aristotle.

The free life of G.o.d is such as are our brief best moments.--_Id._

It is not fitting that the free enjoyment of life should be permitted to boys or to young persons; for the crown of perfection belongs not to the imperfect.--_Id._

Obviously, the free enjoyment of life demands not only the n.o.ble but also the pleasant; for happiness consists of these too.--_Id._

Among the Homeric Greeks, whose life was almost entirely devoted to practical pursuits, education was mainly practical, aiming to produce "a speaker of words and a doer of deeds." As civilization advanced, and higher political forms were evolved, certain cla.s.ses of men found themselves blessed with leisure which they were not inclined to devote to mere play. In order to make a worthy use of this leisure, they required a certain training in those arts which were regarded as befitting a free man. Education, accordingly, in some states, widened its scope, to include those accomplishments, which enable men to fill their hours of freedom with refined and gracious enjoyment--music and letters. Music, indeed, had been cultivated long before, not only by professional bards, but even by princes, like Achilles and Paris; this, however, was for the sake of amus.e.m.e.nt and recreation rather than of the free enjoyment of life. It had been regarded as a means, not as an end.

We must be careful, in our study of Greek life and education, not to confound play and recreation, which are for the sake of work, with the free enjoyment of life, which is an end in itself, and to which all work is but a means. "Enjoyment is the end." We shall see, as we proceed, to what momentous results this distinction leads, how it governs not only all education but all the inst.i.tutions of life, and how it finally contributes to break up the whole civilization which it determines. It may fairly be said that Greece perished because she placed the end of life in individual aesthetic enjoyment, possible only for a few and regarding only the few.

In historic Greece, music came to be an essential part of the education of every free man. Even free women learnt it. Along with music went poetry, and when this came to be written down, it was termed "letters."

As every free man came to be his own minstrel and his own rhapsode, the professional minstrel and rhapsode disappeared, and the Homeric poems even, in order to be preserved from oblivion, were committed to writing by an enlightened tyrant--Pisistratus.

The first portion of the Greek people that attained a degree of civilization demanding an education for hours of leisure, was the aeolian race, and particularly the Asiatic portion of it. Accordingly we find that all the earliest musicians and poets, didactic and lyric, are aeolians--Hesiod, Terpander, Arion, Alcaeus, Sappho, Pittacus, etc. Lesbos seems to have taken the lead in this "higher education." The last five names all belong to that island, which produced also the earliest Greek historian and prose-writer--h.e.l.lanicus. But the aeolians, though earliest in the field, were soon outstripped by the other two races, the Doric and the Ionic. aeolian education and culture never advanced beyond music and lyric poetry. It knew no drama, science, or philosophy.

The aeolians were followed, almost simultaneously, by the Dorians and Ionians, who pursued two widely divergent directions. The former borrowed the lyric education and culture of the aeolians, and produced several lyric poets of distinguished merit--Tyrtaeus, Alcman, Ibycus, Stesichorus: nay, they even advanced far enough to take the first steps in science, philosophy, and dramatic poetry. Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Sophron, Xenarchus, and Susarion were all Dorians. But the progress of the race was r.e.t.a.r.ded and finally checked by rigid political inst.i.tutions of a socialistic character, which, by suppressing individual initiative, reduced the whole to immobility.

The Ionians, on the contrary, borrowing freely from both aeolians and Dorians, and evolving ever freer and freer inst.i.tutions, carried education and culture to a point which has never been pa.s.sed, and rarely, if ever, reached, in the history of our race. And when they ceased to grow, and decay set in, this was due to exactly the opposite cause to that which stunted them among the Dorians; namely, to excessive individualism, misnamed liberty. Individualism ruined Athens.

Although education a.s.sumed different forms among different portions of the Greek race, there are certain features that seem to have been common to all these forms during the epoch of the "Old Education." Two of these deserve attention.

_First._ Education was everywhere a branch of statecraft, and the State itself was only the highest educational inst.i.tution. This was equally true whether the schools were public, as at Sparta, or private, as at Athens. Everywhere citizens.h.i.+p was a degree, conferred only upon sons of free citizens, after a satisfactory examination (d???as?a).

_Second._ The stages or grades of education were everywhere the same, although their limits were not everywhere marked by the same number of years. The first, extending usually from birth to the end of the seventh year, was that of home education; the second, extending from the beginning of the eighth year to the end of the sixteenth or, perhaps oftener, the eighteenth year, was that of school education; the third, extending from the beginning of the seventeenth or nineteenth year to the end of the twentieth (in Sparta of the thirtieth), was that of college education, or education for the duties of citizens.h.i.+p; the fourth, including the remainder of life, was that of university education, or education through the State, which then was the only university. At the beginning of the third period, the young men took their first State examination, and if they pa.s.sed it successfully, they received the degree of Cadet or Citizen-novice (?f???); but it was only at the beginning of the fourth period, and after they had pa.s.sed a second examination (d???as?a e?? ??d?a?), that they received the degree of Man and Citizen and were permitted to exercise all the functions of freemen. The State then became, in a very real sense, their _Alma Mater_.

In most states, this graded education fell only to the lot of males, the education of females stopping short with the first grade, the family, which was regarded as their only sphere. It was otherwise at Sparta, Teos, and apparently among the aeolians generally. As a consequence it is only among the aeolians and Dorians that any poetesses of note appear--Sappho, Corinna, Telesilla, etc. Although, however, woman's sphere was the family, and she was considered to have done her duty when she worthily filled the place of wife, mother, and mistress, there was nothing to prevent her from acquiring the higher education, if she chose to do so. That she did not often so choose, seems true; still there are examples of learned women even among the Athenians. The daughter of Thucydides is said to have continued his history after his death, and, whether the statement be true or not, the fact that it was made shows that the ability to write history was not regarded as impossible or surprising in a woman.

CHAPTER II

aeOLIAN OR THEBAN EDUCATION

Hesiod is the teacher of most.--Herac.l.i.tus.

When thou art dead, thou shalt lie in the earth.

Not even the memory of thee shall be Thenceforward nor forever; for thou hast No share in the Pierian roses; but Ev'n in the halls of Hades thou shalt flit, A frightened shadow, with the shadowy dead.

--Sappho (_to an uneducated woman_).

What rustic hoyden ever charms the soul, That round her ankles cannot kilt her coats?--_Id._

The aeolians appear to have been the earliest of the Greek races to make any considerable advance in culture. Their claim to Homer can hardly be sustained; but they certainly produced Hesiod, most of the greater lyric poets and poetesses, and the first historian. For a time they bade fair to lead the culture of Greece. But the promise was not fulfilled. During the palmy period of Greek history, they were not only the most uncultured and uncouth of the Greeks, but they even prided themselves upon their boorishness of speech and manner, and derided culture. In the glorious struggle in which Greece maintained the cause of culture and freedom against Persia, Thebes, then the chief centre of aeolianism, sided with the barbarian, as, indeed, was natural.

Theban education was, of course, a reflex of the character of the Theban and, indeed, of the Botian, people. Its main divisions were those of Greek education generally,--Gymnastics and Music; but the former was learnt solely for athletic purposes, and the latter mainly for use at banquets and drinking-bouts, in which the Botians found their chief delight. Letters were studied as little as at Sparta (see p. 47), and the language of the people remained harsh and unmusical. Of higher education there was hardly a trace. The sophists pa.s.sed Botia by. Even Pindar, who was by birth a Theban, and a sincerely patriotic one, sought and found recognition anywhere rather than among his own people. He did not even write in their dialect.

The reason for this backwardness on the part of the Botian aeolians lay in the fact that they lived, as a conquering race, in the midst of a people superior to them in every respect save strength, and could maintain their ascendency only by brute force. When this failed, and the conquered race, which had never forgotten Cadmus and its ancient traditions, came to the front, education and culture found their way even to Thebes. It was due to this change in political conditions that a Pindar could arise, and it was doubtless the demand for culture consequent thereupon that induced certain members of the scattered Pythagorean school (see p. 54) to seek refuge in Thebes and there devote themselves to teaching. Among these were Philolaus[1] and Lysis, the latter of whom was probably the author of the famous "Golden Words"

(see p. 57). But he has a better claim to fame than this; for he was the teacher of the bravest and most lovable man that Greece ever produced--Epaminondas.

If any enthusiastic believer in the power of education desire to fortify his cause by means of a brilliant example, he will find none superior to Epaminondas; for there can hardly be any question that it was the earnest, systematic, religious, and moral Pythagorean training which he received from the aged Lysis, whom he treated as a father, that made him what he was, and enabled him to do what he did,--which was nothing less than to place Thebes at the head of Greece. Thebes rose and fell with Epaminondas. But that was not all. It was the example of Epaminondas that kindled the ambition of Philip of Macedon, who was educated under his eye, and of his far more famous son, Alexander, who made all Greece a province of his empire. Pythagoras, Lysis, Epaminondas, Philip, Alexander--in five brief generations an earnest teacher conquers a world!

From the time of Epaminondas on, Thebes followed the ordinary course of Greek education.