BOOKS.
GREEK EDUCATION.*
True is a work of considerable interest, for it is well written and based on original study, while, as Dr. Verrall justly remarks in the preface, "no English book, perhaps no extant book, covers the same ground or brings together so conveniently the materials for studying the subject of Greek education." For who would not wish to learn, if it were possible, the secret of that training which made the Greeks what they were ? Unhappily, however, although Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle tell us much about the theory of education, our positive evidence as to its actual character is at best frag- mentary. Still, one thing at least may be affirmed with certainty,—that no Greek boy was ever "crammed." For him there were no dead or foreign languages to be learned; grammar hardly existed; histories were almost unknown ; Euclid was only born in 323 B.C. ; and such science as was taught scarcely went beyond some study of the Calendar. The curriculum, if so barbarous a word may be used, was simpler in Athens than it is to-day in a Board- school ; and, indeed, the Greek mind never grasped the idea that the way "to bring up boys" (ratheZeiv) was to pour know- ledge into them. Technical skill was on the whole despised and left to slaves; there were no highly specialised professions to prepare for; and the large leisure of manhood offered ample space for the real study of letters, philosophy, or art. But the boy who grew up with a frail body and an unformed character could never fitly serve the State either as a soldier or as a citizen. Healthy, agile, and vigorous he must be, and he must also have a certain settled disposition (7i8or) in close conformity with the accepted standard of what is virtuous and noble. These are the two things needful, and, compared with them, the amount of his actual knowledge is a matter of indifference.
That is the common conception of all Greece, as it is that of Republican Rome, and of the natural man in all ages. But in carrying out this common idea there VMS at least one clear divergence, answering to the marked difference which separates the hard Dorian temper from the softer, more versatile, and artistic Ionian mood, and which is exemplified for us in the two States of Athens and Sparta. The Spartan system of education, however, needs no serious consideration. It has been much praised, and, at its best, could produce that greatness of spirit which inspired "the finest of all epitaphs" & ItryeiAor AgiCE50.4401,1015 573 Tibe Keb.tefia, Tois Kftrou i1tcwrz ircietSlafroi.
But, in fact, it was not so much education as the relentless enforcement of military discipline. Spartan boys were torn from their home at the age of seven and sent "to boarding- schools," or rather to barracks. There they lived the hardest of lives, "always going barefoot, wearing a single garment winter and summer," and sleeping together "on bundles of reeds." Fighting was deliberately encouraged, "the elder men stirring up quarrels to see who was plucky " ; in order that they might learn how "to lay ambushes and forage" they were required to supplement their scanty meals by stealing; they had Prefects to fag for ; their guardians were entitled "Whip-wielders," and among the older ones it was a point of
• Schools of Hellas. By Kenneth Freeman. Edited by M. J. Benda 1L London: Macmillan and Co. [4s. net.] honour to submit to cruel scourgings at the altar of Artemis which were often fatal. Drill, dancing, a little music, a few scraps of martial poetry, some simple rules of morality, and how to express clear thoughts in fewest words,—these things they were indeed taught ; but, on the whole, Spartan education tended, as Aristotle said, to make men " beastlike," while the virtues it fostered were not unlike those which The Last of the Mohicans assigns to Uncas and Chingachgook.
At Athens, on the other hand, things were oth'erwise. For a purely military scheme of education there was substituted one which in some measure at least aimed at fitting a boy for the performance of civil duties, and even more for that wise employment of leisure which to all enlightened Greeks seemed one of the chief ends of life. Half the day, indeed, was devoted to bodily exercise ; the trainer was on an exact equality with the teacher; and the passion for athletic excellence which induced Euripides to call "the breed of athletes the worst among the countless ills of Hellas" was not likely to leave boys unaffected, while from the age of eighteen every youth spent two years in the active performance of military duties. None the less, this cult of the body never became exclusive, just because it was founded not merely on admiration for bodily strength and activity, but also on the conviction that without them trne sanity of mind is rarely possible. The Greeks had no liking for sickly or fantastic thought : such adjectives as "nervous" or "highly strung" would have been abhorrent to them, and they disliked " pale-faced " students, holding that wisdom was sturdiest when sunburnt, and that, as Hesiod says, "in the path of manhood (ciperijr) the gods have placed sweat." The trainer was therefore a necessity, but his object, Plato tells us, was "to make the body a better servant to the purpose (Stavoia) which must be good." But how is this goodness of purpose to be secured ? How is the mental and moral nature to be given a fixed bent towards whatever is pure, honest, and of good report ? First, by that discipline and "orderliness" (eimoo-aia) which, both for trainer and teacher, lies at the base of all their work, and then more directly by the formative influence of good poetry and good music. The true leaders of education, "wise men eloquent in their instructions," are to the Heltenes, not less than to the Hebrews, "such as found out musical tunes and recited verses in writing." It is an idea common to most early peoples, but the extreme importance which the Greeks assigned to music in education has never been fully explained. The dullest of us can, indeed, catch a certain moral difference between "soft Lydian airs" and that "Dorian mood" which raised "to highth of noblest temper heroes old." The most unmusical know how certain tunes or instruments induce a certain disposition of mind.- But the Greeks went far beyond this, considering that the impressions produced by music permanently modified the character, so that sober tunes will produce sobriety, while for a boy to play a jig or indulge in a shake is to introduce a wanton and instable element into his life. How strongly they held this view is fully shown in the present volume, but to discuss it would need an expert, and their judgment as to the use of poetry is at once more intelligible and more important. To mark, read, learn, and digest the best poetry, above all Homer (though on that point Plato had his fads), was held to shape and fortify the character, to fill the mind with noble images, and to quicken it with a love of all excellence. The true poet, they considered, is not only an artist but a teacher, and the best of teachers, for his lessons are conveyed in such a fair and attractive shape that they affect not only the intellect, but the imagination and the heart, so that the pupil from continual familiarity with the best and noblest thoughts will insensibly have his whole mind moulded into their likeness. Some power of reasoning he must indeed acquire, and Plato especially laid great stress on the study of pure mathematics, while the history of the Sophists shows that young men, at any rate, took a lively interest in the art of argument and the sister-study of rhetoric. Nor can boys have failed to learn a certain amount of positive facts, connected perhaps chiefly with history and the like. But in the main the one idea which underlies Athenian education is that nothing intellectual is of much concern until a solid foundation of character has been laid, and that this can largely be effected by the study of good poetry. Such a view is almost childlike in its simplicity, and could only have
developed in a race extremely sensitive to poetic influences ; nor would it be tenable at the present day, when the mass of accumulated knowledge has become so great while the leisure afforded for study during later life is usually so limited. None the less, at a time when real knowledge of good literature is becoming continually rarer in schools, when technical training and scientific manuals rank as far more important than, for instance, a sound and healthy acquaintance with the Bible, we may well consider whether this Greek idea, in spite of its imperfect character, does not yet contain a profound truth which no age and no people can neglect.
But there is one other thought with which this volume will deeply impress many readers. The value of all teaching depends in largest measure on the character and capacity of the teacher. No truth is more certain, and none has been more persistently ignored. Men repeat it with their lips, but reject it in their practice; and since the dawn of European civilisation the word " schoolmaster " has been chiefly an appellation of contempt. It was so in Greece, it was so in Rome, and it has not ceased to be so in England. "Now do I sensibly begin to feel myself a rascal," says the ejected steward in Beaumont and Fletcher, "Would I could teach a school, or beg, or lie well " ; Johnson calls keeping school "a mean employment," though he charitably adds that "no wise man will consider it in itself disgraceful"; and to-day even at Eton the mere teacher must be content to live, Mr. Benson informs us, under "a slight social disability," and to be accounted "a tiresome person." But the author of this volume might, had fate been less grudging, have redeemed his calling from some portion of its ignominy. A Craven Scholar at Cambridge, "having written the papers during con- valescence in his old nursery," he was also Senior Chancellor's Medallist in 1905, and went back to Winchester, his old school, only to die there in the next year at the age of twenty-four. Endowed with high talents and deeply interested in education, he was exactly the type of master whom our "great Schools," if they are still to deserve the name, can least easily spare. It is a type, however, which is already rare, and will daily become rarer, until we discover that in a wisely ordered State even a teacher has his proper place, and some claim to honour as a public servant.
Previous page
