Education
1. Greek
The Dorians of Crete and Sparta followed a peculiar line in the matter of education.
Throughout Greece generally the State left it to private effort, but in Sparta and Crete it
came under the direct supervision of the community. At Sparta, as soon as a child was born, a
commission of the elders of its tribe had to decide whether it should be reared or exposed.
If it was weakly or deformed it was exposed in a defile of Mount Taÿgetus. Till his
seventh year a boy was left to the care of his parents. After this the
παιδονόμος, or officer presiding over the whole department of education,
assigned him to a division of children of the same age called a
βούα. Several of such
βοῦαι together formed a
troop or
ἴλη (Dor.
ἴλα).
Each
βούα was superintended by a
βουαγός, each
ἴλη by an
ἰλάρχης. Both these officers were elected from among the most promising of the
grown-up youths, and were bound to instruct the children in their exercises. The exercises
were calculated to suit the various ages of the children, and consisted in running, leaping,
wrestling, throwing the spear and the discus, as well as in a number of dances, particularly
the war dance or
πυρρίχη (q. v.). The dancing was under the
constant superintendence of the
παιδονόμος and five
βιδιαῖοι under him. The discipline was generally directed to
strengthening or hardening the body. The boys went barefoot and bareheaded, with hair cut
short, and in light clothing. From their twelfth year they wore nothing but an upper garment,
which had to last the whole year. They slept in a common room without a roof, on a litter of
hay or straw, and from their fifteenth year on rushes or reeds. Their food was extremely
simple, and not sufficient to satisfy hunger. A boy who did not want to be hungry had to
steal; if he did this cleverly he was praised, and punished if detected. Every year the
boys had to undergo a flogging at the altar of Artemis Orthia, as a test of their power to
endure bodily pain. They were whipped till the blood flowed, and deemed it a disgrace to show
any sign of suffering. (See
Bomonikes;
Diamastigosis.) Reading and writing were left to
private instructors; but music, and choral singing in particular, formed a part of the
regular discipline. The understanding was assumed to be formed by daily life in public and
the conversation of the men, to which the boys were admitted. Every Spartan boy looked up to
his seniors as his instructors and superiors, the consequence being that in Sparta the young
behaved to their elders with more modesty and respect than in any other Greek city. Besides
this, every man chose a boy or youth as his favourite. He was bound to set the boy an example
of all manly excellence, and was regarded as responsible and punishable for his
delinquencies. This public education and the performance of the regular exercises, under the
superintendence of the
βιδιαῖοι, lasted till the thirtieth
year. In the eighteenth year the boy passed into the class of youths. From the twentieth
year, when military service proper began, to the thirtieth, the youth was called an
εἴρην or
ἰρήν. He was not
regarded as a man or allowed to attend the public assembly till his thirtieth year.
The girls had an education in music and gymnastic exercises similar to that of the boys,
and at the public games and contests each sex was witness of the performances of the other.
The girls' dress was extremely simple, consisting of a sleeveless tunic reaching not quite
down to the knees and open at the sides. In this, however, there was nothing which interfered
with modesty and propriety of behaviour.
In Crete the system of education was generally similar to that of Sparta. But the public
training did not begin till the seventeenth year, when the boys of the same age joined
themselves freely into divisions called
ἀγέλαι, each led by
some noble youth, whose father was called
ἀγελάτας and
undertook the supervision of the games and exercises. It is probable that the young men
remained in this organization till their twenty-seventh year, when the law compelled them to
marry.
At Athens, as in Greece generally, the father decided whether the child should be reared or
exposed. The latter alternative seems to have been not seldom adopted, especially when the
child was a girl. If the education of a child was once fairly commenced the parents had no
power to put it out of the way. At the birth of a boy the door of the house was adorned with
a branch of olive; at the birth of a girl, with wool. On the fifth or seventh day after birth
the child underwent a religious dedication at the festival of the Amphidromia
(“running round”). It was touched with instruments of purification, and
carried several times round the burning hearth. On the tenth day came the festival of naming
the child, with sacrifice and entertainment, when the father acknowledged it as legitimate.
To the end of the sixth year the boys and girls were brought up together under female
supervision, but after this the sexes were educated apart. The girl's life was almost
entirely confined to her home: she was brought up under the superintendence of women and with
hardly anything which can be called profitable instruction. The boy was
handed over to a slave older than himself called
παιδαγωγός.
It was the slave's duty to watch the boy's outward behaviour, and to attend him, until his
boyhood was over, whenever he went out, especially to the school and the gymnasium. The laws
made some provision for the proper education of boys. They obliged every citizen to have his
son instructed in music, gymnastics, and the elements of letters (
γράμματα) —i. e. writing, reading, and arithmetic. They further
obliged the parents to teach their boys some profitable trade, in case they were unable to
leave them a property sufficient to maintain them independent. If they failed in this, they
forfeited all claim to support from the children in old age. But with schools and their
arrangements the State did not concern itself. The schools were entirely in private hands,
though they were under the eye of the police. The elementary instruction was given by the
γραμματισταί, or teachers of letters, the teacher writing
and the scholars copying. The text-books for reading were mostly poems, especially such as
were calculated to have an influence on the formation of character. The Homeric poems were
the favourite reading-book, but Hesiod, Theognis, and others were also admitted. Collections
of suitable passages from the poets were early made for the boys to copy, learn by heart, and
repeat aloud. The higher instruction given by the
γραμματικός was also of this literary character.
Mathematics were introduced into the school curriculum as early as the fifth century,
drawing not till the middle of the fourth century B.C. Instruction in music proper began
about the thirteenth year. The profound moral influence attributed to music in Greek
antiquity made this art an essential part of education. It brought with it, naturally, an
acquaintance with the masterpieces of Greek poetry. The instrument most practised was the
lyre, from its suitableness as an accompaniment to song. The flute was held in less esteem.
See
Musica.
The aim of education was supposed to be the harmonious development of mind and body alike.
Instruction in gymnastics was consequently regarded as no less essential than in music, and
began at about the same age. It was carried on in the
παλαίστρα under the
παιδοτρίβαι, who were, like
the
γραμματικοί, private, not public, instructors. The boys
began their gymnastics in the palaestra, and completed them in the gymnasia under the
superintendence of the
γυμνασταί. The
ἔφηβοι, in particular, or boys between sixteen and nineteen, practised their
exercises in the gymnasia, till, in their twentieth year, they were considered capable of
bearing arms and employed on frontier service. At this point they became liable to enlistment
for foreign service, and obtained the right of attending the meeting of the public assembly.
Towards the end of the fifth century B.C. the class of
σοφισταί, or professors of practical education, arose. These gave the young men
an opportunity of extending their education by attending lectures in rhetoric and philosophy,
but the high fees charged by the sophists had the effect of restricting this instruction to
the sons of the wealthy.
2. Roman
Among the Romans the father was free, when the new-born child was laid before him, either
to expose it, or to take it up as a sign that he meant to rear it. He had also the right of
selling his children or putting them to death. It was not till the beginning of the
third century A.D. that the exposure of children was legally accounted murder, nor did the
evil practice cease even then. If the child was to be reared, it was named, if a boy, on the
ninth day after birth, if a girl, on the eighth. The day was called
dies
lustricus, or day of purification. A sacrifice in the house, accompanied with a feast,
gave to the child's life a religious dedication. A box with an amulet was hung round the
child's neck as a protection against magic. (See
Amuletum;
Bulla.) Official lists of births
were not published until the second century after Christ. In earlier times, in the case of
boys, the name was not formally confirmed until the assumption of the
toga
virilis. The child's physical and moral education was, in old times, regularly given
at home under the superintendence of the parents, chiefly the mother. The training was
strict, and aimed at making the children strong and healthy, religious, obedient to the laws,
temperate, modest in speech and action, strictly submissive to their superiors, well-behaved,
virtuous, intelligent, and self-reliant. The girls were taught by their mothers to spin and
weave. The boys were instructed by their fathers in ploughing, sowing, reaping, riding,
swimming, boxing, and fencing; in the knowledge necessary for household management; in
reading, writing, and counting; and in the laws of the country. The Romans did not, like the
Greeks, lay stress on gymnastics, but only carried physical exercises to the point necessary
for military service. The contests and exercises took place in the Campus Martius, which,
down to the time of the Empire, was the favourite arena of the youths. The State took as
little care of mental as of physical education. If a man could not educate his children
himself, he sent them to a master. From an early time there were elementary teachers (
litteratores) at Rome, corresponding to the Greek
γραμματισταί. These were sometimes slaves, who taught in their masters' houses
for their benefit. Sometimes they were freedmen, who gave instruction either in families or
in schools (
schola or
ludus) of their own. They
received their salary monthly, but only for eight months in the year—no instruction
being given between June and November. Boys and girls were taught together. The elementary
instruction included reading, writing, and arithmetic; arithmetic being, as among the Greeks,
practised by counting on the fingers. In later times grown-up boys learned arithmetic with a
special master (
calculator), who was paid at a higher rate than the
litterator. With the duodecimal system in use arithmetic was regarded as
very difficult. (See
Numeri.) The reading-lessons
included learning the Twelve Tables by heart.
After the Second Punic War it became usual, at first in single families, and afterwards
more and more generally, to employ a
litterator, or
grammaticus, to teach Greek. The chief element in this instruction was the
explanation of Greek poets, above all of Homer, whose writings became a schoolbook among the
Romans as among the Greeks. At the same time higher instruction was given in Latin as well,
the text-books being the Latin
Odyssey of Livius Andronicus, the works of
Terence, and in later times of Vergil, Horace, and others. The exposition of these authors
gave an opportunity of communicating a variety of information. Girls were educated on the
same lines. The highest point in Roman education was attained by the
schools of the rhetoricians, which came into existence before the end of the republican age.
In these schools, as in those of the
grammatici, Greek was at first the
only language taught. Since the time when Greek literature became the highest educational
standard, boys, and sometimes girls, were taught Greek from their earliest years. They were
put into the hands of a Greek
paedagogus or a Greek female slave, and
learned the first rudiments from Greek schoolmasters. As the range of subjects widened so as
to include, among other things, music and geometry, more importance came to be attached to
scholastic education. This tendency was strengthened by the increased demand for Greek
culture which manifested itself under the Empire throughout the length and breadth of the
Western provinces. Education was carried out on stricter lines as the old system of
hometraining disappeared, mainly owing to the diffusion of an effeminate refinement and the
parents' habit of putting their children into the hands of Greek slaves.
The ordinary educational course generally concluded with a boy's sixteenth or seventeenth
year, though rhetorical instruction was sometimes continued far beyond this limit; and
towards the end of the republican age young men of intellectual ambition would often go to
Greece to enlarge their sphere of culture.
On the 17th of March, the festival of the Liberalia, boys who had reached the age of
puberty, or their fifteenth year, took off, in the presence of the Lares, their
bulla and
toga praetexta, or purpleedged toga, and put
on the unadorned
toga virilis. They were then, after a sacrifice at
home, taken by their fathers or guardians, accompanied by friends and relations, to the Forum
and enrolled in the lists of citizens. The boys were from this time, in the eyes of the law,
capable of marriage, bound to military service, and, in fact, had now entered upon their
tirocinium, which was regarded as the last stage of education. See
Tirocinium.
After the time of Vespasian the higher public instruction began to be a matter of imperial
concern. Vespasian paid away the sum of $4250 annually to the Latin and Greek rhetoricians in
Rome. Hadrian founded the Athenaeum, the first known public institution for the higher
education, with salaried teachers. (See
Athenaeum.) After his time philosophers, rhetoricians, and grammarians were publicly
appointed to lecture in all the larger cities of the Empire. They were maintained partly at
the expense of the respective communities, partly by the emperors, and enjoyed in all cases
certain immunities conferred by the State.
3. The Higher Education
In the days of the Roman Empire there existed at Athens and some of the other Greek cities
what closely corresponded to the universities of modern times. Athens had always been what
Pericles called “the school of Greece;” and in the early centuries of the
Christian era it contained an organized faculty (
χορός, συνουσία,
ἀγέλη) of accomplished professors, who lectured to a body of students drawn from
every quarter of the civilized world. The university at Athens was gradually formed as the
result of two previously existing institutions—the Ephebi (
ἔφηβοι) and the schools of the philosophers and sophists. The Ephebi, or free
Athenian youths, were in early times enrolled as a body primarily intended for the defence of
the State. They were educated both physically and mentally, and they formed the nucleus
of what afterwards became the student body of the university. Two changes in the constitution
of the Ephebi prepared the way for their transformation from a quasi-military body into a
university. These changes were
- 1. the neglect of the principle of compulsory enrollment, and
- 2. the fact that membership ceased to be confined to Athenians or even to Greeks
alone.
These changes left a body of young men, organized and regularly enrolled, free to follow
such a course of training as best suited their inclinations and capacities, and ready to be
turned to any line of study that had the advocacy of brilliant, energetic, and popular men.
The schools of the philosophers supplied the influence necessary for completing the change
from a military college to a great university.
Four schools of philosophy had, since the time of the Macedonian wars, been flourishing at
Athens. These were the Academic or Platonic School, the Peripatetic or Aristotelian School,
the Stoic School, and the Epicurean. Each of these schools from the time of its foundation
had received an endowment sufficient to maintain and perpetuate it.
Plato (q.v.) had purchased a small garden near the Eleusinian Way, in
the grove of Academé, for 3000 drachmas. His philosophic successors, Xenocrates
and Polemon, continued to teach in the same spot; their wealthy pupils and other friends of
learning added to the grounds, and bequeathed sufficient funds for the support of the
philosopher, and thus practically endowed an academic chair (
θρόνος). Later we find that the endowment of this chair had so increased that its
annual income was 7000
aurei. In like manner Aristotle (q. v.) left to
his successor, Theophrastus, the valuable property near the Ilissus; and Theophrastus, in the
will whose text has come down to us in Diogenes Laertius (v. 2, 14), completed the permanent
endowment of the Peripatetic chair. So Epicurus left his property in the Ceramicus to be the
nucleus of an endowment for his school (
Diog. Laert. xx. 10), and
the Stoics were probably in like manner made independent. Around these four schools of
philosophy which, being endowed, taught gratuitously, a multitude of teachers of rhetoric,
grammar, literature, logic, physics, and mathematics clustered, and many chairs were endowed
by the Roman emperors. The world soon learned to think of Athens as a great seat of learning
and culture, brilliant and renowned. Students flocked to her from every quarter of the world.
It appears to have been necessary to become enrolled among the Ephebi, but the scholars
selected for themselves their own instructors, and attended such lectures as they chose. The
number of these students became enormous. Theophrastus alone lectured to as many as two
thousand men. The records show the names of many foreign students, some of them being of the
Semitic race. The most noted writers of Rome had studied at this university, of whom Cicero,
Ovid, and Horace are perhaps the most brilliant names. The customs of the university may be
gathered from a perusal of the works of Aulus Gellius, Libanius (A.D. 314), and Philostratus,
author of the
Βίοι Σοφιστῶν (A.D. 250). From these
sources we learn that matriculation took place early in the year; that the students wore a
gown (
τρίβων) like that of the undergraduates at the English
universities; that they pursued athletic sports with much ardour; that at
the theatre a special gallery was reserved for them; that certificates of attendance at the
courses of lectures were required; that they were under the general direction of a president
(
κοσμητής); that fees were exacted in the shape of an
annual contribution to the university library; that breaches of discipline were punished, as
at Oxford, by fines; that the relation between student and professor was very close, so that
for a student to cease to take a course was very cutting; and that the students themselves
“touted” for the professors. “Most of the young enthusiasts for
learning,” says Gregory Nanzianzen, “become mere partisans of their
professors. They are all anxiety to get their audiences larger and their fees increased. This
they carry to portentous lengths. They post themselves over the city at the beginning of the
year; as each new comer disembarks he falls into their hands; they carry him off at once to
the house of some countryman or friend who is best at trumpeting the praises of his own
professor” (Libanius, i. 13).
Private tutors (
φύλακες) were often employed. They looked
over the students' notes, “coached” them on the subjects in which they
were most interested, and helped them at their exercises. At the end of the year there seems
to have been an examination (
δοκιμασία).
Freshmen appear to have been subject to a sort of hazing (
τελεταί). Gregory, in a funeral address over his friend Basil, recalls some of
the memories of their sport with freshmen. We find one of the professors, Proaeresius, asking
his class not to haze a new student, Eunapius, because of his feeble health. Sometimes the
inferior officers of the university were subjected to similar annoyances, and Libanius tells
of one of the tutors who was tossed in a blanket, an exercise known to the Romans as
sagatio.
Many of the coincidences between ancient and modern university life are interesting. The
following is a quotation from Libanius, who gives an account of how his classes conducted
themselves:
“I send my proctor to summon the students to my lecture, but they are in no mood
to hurry, though they ought to be. They stay outside to sing songs which we have all heard
till we are tired, or else amuse themselves with foolish merriment and jesting. This they do
until the lecture has actually begun. Then they come in and keep whispering to one another,
to the annoyance of the real students, about the races, or actresses, or opera-dancers; or
about some contest either past or future.” And he adds, very naïvely,
“I had a very different class of students once. Perhaps some one may say that the
fault is mine, and that my lectures are not as good as they used to be; but some of my best
students now do not think so; they declare solemnly that I now quite surpass myself; and that
while my lectures were always admirable, there is more in them now than there ever was
before” (i. 199).
Schools of philosophy and letters similar to those at Athens sprang up at other great
cities in the later Roman Empire—at Constantinople, at Rhodes, at Scepsis in the
Troad, Massilia (Marseilles), Tarsus, and especially at Alexandria, which last city was
definitely designed by the Ptolemies to be a centre of scientific research and investigation,
to which end they gave it a magnificent library (see
Bibliotheca), handsome buildings, and ample endowments.
Bibliography.—See Compayré,
History of Paedagogy (Eng. trans. Boston, 1886); Grasberger,
Erziehung und Unterricht im klassischen Alterthum (Würzburg,
1864-80); Eckstein,
Lateinischer und griechischer Unterricht
(Leipzig, 1887); K. Schmidt,
Geschichte der Pädagogik, vol.
i. 3d ed.
(Cöthen, 1873); W. A. Schmidt,
Geschichte der Denk-
und Glaubensfreiheit, pp. 404-448
(Berlin, 1847); Mahaffy,
Old Greek Education (London, 1882); Capes,
University Life in Ancient Athens (London, 1874); Dittenberger,
De Ephebis Atticis (Göttingen, 1863); Dumont,
Essai sur l'Ephébie Attique (Paris, 1876);
Portelette,
L'Ephébie en Grèce in
L'Instruction
Publique for December, 1878; Becker-Göll,
Charicles, ii. pp.
19 foll.; Göll's excursus on Becker's
Gallus, ii. pp. 61-114;
Marquardt,
Privatleben, pp. 80 foll.; Saalfeld,
Der Hellenismus
in Latium (Wolfenbüttel, 1883); Davidson's
Aristotle, in the “Great Educators' Series”
(N. Y.
1892); Baumeister,
Denkmäler des klassischen Alterthums, vol.
iii., s. v. “Schulen”; and in this Dictionary the articles
Alexandrian School;
Athenaeum; Geographica;
Grammatica;
Gymnasium;
Liberales Artes;
Logistica;
Ludus
Litterarius; Philosophica;
Rhetorica;
Schola; Sophistes.
