Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals Part 10

Le cur d'un homme vierge est un vase profond-- Lorsque la premiere eau qu'on y verse est impure, La mer y pa.s.serait sans laver la souillure; Car l'abime est immense, et la tache est au fond.

--Alfred de Musset.

The State must begin the education of children before their birth; indeed, before the marriage of their parents. It must see that only persons of robust const.i.tutions marry. Athletes are not suited for marriage, neither are weaklings. The best age for marriage is thirty-seven for a man, and eighteen for a woman. During their pregnancy women must take special care of their health, living on light food, and taking short walks. The State should make a law that they visit the temples of certain G.o.ds every day, and offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for the honor conferred upon them. They must carefully avoid all forms of emotional excitement. When defective children are born, they must be exposed or destroyed. The State must determine what number of children each married couple may have, and, if more than this number are begotten, they must be destroyed either before or after birth. "As soon as children are born, it ought to be remembered that their future strength will depend greatly upon the nourishment supplied to them." A milk diet is best, and wine must be avoided. "It is likewise of great importance that children should make those motions that are appropriate to their stage of development.... Whatever it is possible to inure children to, they ought to be subjected to from the very outset, and gradual progress to be made. Children, on account of their high natural warmth, are the proper subjects for inurement to cold. These and other points of the same nature are what ought to be attended to in the first years of the child's life. In the following years, up to the age of five, while children ought not to be subjected to any instruction or severe discipline, for fear of impeding their growth, they ought to take such exercises as shall guard their bodies from sluggishness. This may be secured by other forms of activity as well as by play. Care must be taken that their games shall be neither unrefined, laborious, nor languid. As to the conversation and stories which children are to hear, that is a matter for the attention of those officers called Guardians of Public Instruction. It ought to be seen to that all such things tend to pave the way for future avocations. Hence all games ought to be types of future studies. As to the screaming and crying of children, they are things that ought not to be prohibited, as they are in some places. They contribute to the growth of the body, by acting as a sort of gymnastics.

Just as persons engaged in hard work increase their strength by holding their breath, so children increase theirs by screaming. It is the business of the Guardians of Public Instruction to provide for their amus.e.m.e.nt generally, as well as to see that these bring them as little as possible in contact with slaves. It is, of course, natural that at this age they should learn improprieties of speech and manner from what they hear and see. As to foul language, it ought, of course, like everything else that is foul, to be prohibited in all society (for frivolous impurity of talk easily leads to impurity of action), but above all, in the society of the young, so that they may neither hear nor utter any such thing. If any child be caught uttering or doing anything that is forbidden, if he be freeborn and under the age when children are allowed to come to the public table, he ought to be disgraced and subjected to corporal punishment; if he be older, it will be sufficient to punish him with disgrace, like a slave, for having behaved like one. And if we thus prohibit all mention of improper things, with stronger reason shall we prohibit all looking at improper pictures and listening to improper narratives. It ought to be made the business of the Guardians of Public Instruction to see that there does not exist a statue or a picture representing any such thing anywhere in the State, except in the temples of those G.o.ds to whom ordinary belief ascribes a certain wantonness.... There ought to be a regulation forbidding young persons to be present at lampoons or comedies before they reach the age when they are allowed to come to the public table and partake of wine, and when education has fortified them against all possible danger from them.... We all have a preference for what we first know; for this reason everything that savors of meanness or ign.o.bility ought to be made alien to children. From the completion of their fifth year to that of their seventh, children ought to be present at the giving of the various kinds of instruction which they will afterwards have to acquire."

In this brief sketch of primary education we see that Aristotle does not depart far from the notions of Plato. It contains even the revolting features of his scheme. It a.s.sumes that the citizens--men, women, and, after a certain age, children--eat at public tables, and that education is entirely managed by the State,--the family, in this respect, being merely its agent. Some of its features, including the Guardians of Public Instruction (pa?d?????, child-herds) are plainly borrowed from Sparta.

CHAPTER VI

THE YEARS FROM SEVEN TO TWENTY-ONE

The natures that give evidence of being the n.o.blest are just those that most require education.--Socrates.

We found ourselves beneath a n.o.ble castle Encompa.s.sed seven times with lofty walls, Defended round by a fair rivulet.

O'er this we pa.s.sed as upon solid earth: Through seven gates I entered with these sages.

We came upon a meadow of fresh green.--Dante.

For this period, which Aristotle divides into two (see p. 183) by the advent of p.u.b.erty, he, in the main, accepts the course of study customary in his time. It consists, he says, of four branches,--"Letters, Gymnastics, Music, and Drawing, the last not being universal. Letters and Drawing are taught because they are useful in the ordinary business of life and for a variety of purposes, and Gymnastics because they foster manliness, whereas the purpose of Music is doubtful."

Of LETTERS Aristotle has not much to say, beyond the fact that they are necessary in the common affairs of life. He champions Homer against Plato, and goes into a long discussion to show the value of the drama.

Instead of believing, with Plato, that children should see and hear nothing that would excite their emotions, he maintains that it is only by being properly excited and "purged" that these can be trained and made subordinate to the reason. Among the pa.s.sions that obstruct the exercise of reason are fear and pity. Tragedy rouses these and then drains them off in a pleasant and harmless way. Comedy does the same thing for pleasure and laughter. In fact, he maintains that the special function of the fine arts is to act as cathartics for the different pa.s.sions. Art is ideal experience. Aristotle has left us a work on tragedy that holds the place of honor in the literature of that subject even at the present day.

DRAWING Aristotle recommends as a branch of study which develops taste and judgment in regard to the products of industrial art; but he says it should not be studied merely for its use in enabling us to choose these, or even works of fine art, correctly, but rather because it enables us to appreciate beauty of form. He adds: "The perpetual demand for what is merely useful is anything but a mark of breadth or liberality."

After thus briefly dismissing Letters and Drawing, Aristotle pa.s.ses on to Gymnastics and Music, and devotes considerable s.p.a.ce to each.

Alongside GYMNASTICS, but distinguished from them, he names PHYSICAL CULTURE (pa?d?t?????), saying that, while the former gives character to the acts of the body, the latter gives character to the body itself. The aim of gymnastic training should be neither athleticism nor ferocity, such as the Lacedaemonians cultivate in their children in the hope of making them courageous. The former is detrimental to the beauty and growth of the body; the latter misses its aim (see p. 41). "Hence n.o.bility, and not ferocity, ought to play the princ.i.p.al part among our aims in physical education. For neither a wolf nor any other wild beast ever braved a n.o.ble danger. To do that takes a n.o.ble man; and those who allow their children to go too deep into such wild exercises, and so leave them uninstructed in the necessary branches, make them, in point of fact, mere professionals, useful for the ends of the State only in a single requisite, and, as we have shown, inferior to others even in that.

"There is a general agreement, then, as to the utility of Gymnastics and to the manner in which they ought to be conducted. Up to the age of p.u.b.erty, children ought to be subjected only to the lighter exercises, and all forced dieting and violent exertions eschewed, so that no obstacle may be put to the growth of the body. It is no slight evidence of the fact that violent exercise impedes growth, that there are not more than two or three examples on record of persons' having been victorious at the Olympic games both as boys and men. The explanation of this is, that the others were robbed of their strength in their boyhood by the training they had to undergo." After the advent of p.u.b.erty, for a period of three years, the young men are apparently to have very little gymnastics, and to devote themselves a.s.siduously to letters, music, and drawing. The period following this is to be devoted to severe exercise and strict dieting, mental exertion being reduced to a minimum; "for the two kinds of exertion naturally work against each other, bodily exertion impeding the intellect, and intellectual exertion the body."

On MUSIC, as a branch of study, we have almost a disquisition from the pen of Aristotle. The question that first occupies him is, What is the use of music? Is it a recreation, an occupation for cultured leisure, or a gymnastic for the soul? It is all three, he replies, and would deserve study for the sake of any one of them. At the same time, its chief value in education lies in its third use. Music imparts a mental habit; about that there can be no doubt. For example, the songs of Olympus "render the soul enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is an affection of the soul's habit." Aristotle reasons in this way: Music is capable of affecting us with all kinds of pleasures and pains. But moral worth at bottom consists in finding pleasure in what is n.o.ble, and pain in what is ign.o.ble, that is, in a correct distribution of affection. But in good music the strains that give pleasure are attached to the ideas that are n.o.ble, and the strains that give pain to the ideas that are ign.o.ble; hence, by a natural a.s.sociation, the pleasures and pains which we find in the music attach themselves to the ideas which it accompanies. "There is nothing that we ought to learn and practice so a.s.siduously as the art of judging correctly and of taking delight in gentlemanly bearing and n.o.ble deeds. And apart from the natural manifestations of the pa.s.sions themselves, there is nothing in which we can find anger, gentleness, courage, self-control, and their opposites, as well as the other moods, so well represented as in rhythms and songs. This we all know by experience; for the moods of our souls change when we listen to such strains. But the practice which we thus receive from rhythms and songs, in rejoicing and suffering properly, brings us very near being affected in the same way by the realities themselves." Here Aristotle draws a distinction between music, which appeals to the ear, and the arts that appeal to the other senses, or rather to sight; for no art appeals to touch, taste, or smell. In the objects of art that appeal to the eye, we have expressions of pa.s.sions only in so far as they affect the body, whereas in music we have their direct expression pa.s.sing from soul to soul. Yet persons are deeply moved by statuary and painting, so much so that young people ought not to be allowed to see such works as those of Pauson. How much more then must they be moved by music! "That they are so is quite plain; for there is such an obvious difference of nature between harmonies that the listeners are affected in entirely different ways by them. By some they are thrown into a kind of mournful or grave mood, _e.g._, by what is known as the mixed Lydian; by others a sentimental turn is given to their thoughts, for example, by languid harmonies; while there is another kind that especially produces balance of feeling and collectedness. This effect is confined to the Doric harmonies. The Phrygian harmonies rouse enthusiasm. These are correct results arrived at by those thinkers who have devoted their attention to this branch of education,--results based upon actual experience. What is true of harmonies is true also of rhythms. Some of these have a steady, others a mobile, character; of the latter, again, some have coa.r.s.e, others refined, movements. From all these considerations, it is obvious that music is calculated to impart a certain character to the habit of the soul, whence it follows that it ought to be brought to bear upon children, and instruction given them in it. Musical instruction, indeed, is admirably adapted to their stage of development; for young people, just because they are young, are not fond of persisting in anything that does not give them pleasure, and music is one of the pleasant things.

There seems even to be a certain kinship between harmonies and rhythms [and the soul]; whence many philosophers hold that the soul is a harmony, or that it has harmony."

Aristotle, having thus shown that music is a proper subject of instruction, goes on to inquire "whether children ought, or ought not, to be taught music, by being taught to sing and play themselves?" His answer is well worth quoting at full length. "It is quite evident," he says, "that music will have a very much greater effect in moulding people, if they take part in the performance themselves. Indeed, it is difficult, or even impossible, for those who do not learn to do things themselves to be good judges of them when they are done. At the same time, children must have some amus.e.m.e.nt, and we may look upon Archytas'

rattle, which they give to children to spend their energies upon, and to prevent them from breaking things about the house, as a good invention.

It is useless to try to keep a young creature quiet, and, just as the rattle is the proper thing for babies, so musical instruction is the proper rattle for older children. It follows that children ought to be taught music by being made to produce it themselves, and it is not difficult to determine either what is suitable and unsuitable for different ages, or to answer those people who pretend that the study of music is something ungentlemanly. In the first place, since people must, to some extent, learn things themselves, in order to form a correct judgment about them, they ought to learn the practice of them while they are young, so that, when they grow up, they may be able to dispense with it, and yet, through their early studies, be able to judge of them correctly and take the proper delight in them. To the objections which some people raise, that music turns people into craftsmen, it is not hard to find an answer, if we consider to what extent the practice of music ought to be required of children who are being reared in the civic virtues, what songs and rhythms they ought to learn, and what instruments they ought to use--for this makes a difference. Herein lies the solution of the difficulty. The fact is, there is nothing to prevent certain kinds of music from accomplishing the end proposed.

"It is, of course, obvious that the acquisition of music ought not to be allowed to interfere with future usefulness, to impart an ign.o.ble habit to the body, or render it unfit for civic duties,--either for the immediate learning, or the subsequent exercise, of them. All the beneficial results of musical education would be attained, if, instead of going into a laborious practice, such as is required to prepare people for public exhibitions, if instead of trying to perform those marvellous feats and _tours de force_ which have lately become popular at public exhibitions, and pa.s.sed from them into education, the children were to learn just enough to enable them to take delight in n.o.ble songs and rhythms, instead of finding a mere undiscriminating pleasure in anything that calls itself music, as some of the lower animals and the bulk of slaves and children do. If so much be admitted, we need be in no doubt respecting our choice of instruments." Aristotle specially condemns the flute, and tells how it came into use, and how it was afterwards discarded, as exerting an immoral influence. "In the same way were condemned many of the older instruments, as the pectis, the barbitus, and those which tended to produce sensual pleasure in the hearers--also the septangle, the triangle, the sambuca, and all those requiring scientific manipulation." ... "We would, then, condemn all professional instruction in the nature and use of these instruments.

'Professional' we call all instruction that looks toward public exhibitions. The person who receives this pursues his art, not with a view to his own culture, but to afford a pleasure, and that a vulgar one, to other people. For this reason we hold that such practice is not proper for free men, but savors of meniality and handicraft. The aim, indeed, for which they undertake this task is an ign.o.ble one. For audiences, being vulgar, are wont to change their music, and so react upon the character of the professionals who cater to their tastes, and this again has its influence upon their bodies, on account of the motions which they are obliged to go through."

Since different kinds of music have different effects upon the habit of the soul, Aristotle next inquires what kinds are suitable for education.

"We accept," he says, "the cla.s.sification made by certain philosophers, who divide songs into ethical, practical, and enthusiastic, a.s.signing to them the different harmonies respectively, and we affirm that music is to be employed, not for one useful purpose alone, but for several; _first_, for instruction; _second_, for purgation; and _third_, for cultured leisure, for relaxation, and for recreation. It is obvious that all harmonies ought to be employed, though not all in the same way. The most ethical (_i.e._ those that most affect the _ethos_ or habit of the soul) must be employed for instruction; the practical and enthusiastic for entertainments by professional performers. For those emotions which manifest themselves powerfully in some souls are potentially present in all, with a difference in degree merely, _e.g._, pity, fear, and also enthusiasm, a form of excitement by which certain persons are very liable to be possessed. If we watch the effects of the sacred songs, we shall see that those persons are restored to a normal condition under the influence of those that solemnize the soul, just as if they had undergone medical treatment and purgation. The same thing must happen to all persons predisposed to pity, fear, or emotion generally, as well as to others in so far as they allow themselves to come within the reach of any of these; for them all there must exist some form or another of purgation and relief accompanied with pleasure. In this way those 'purgative' songs afford a harmless pleasure, and it is for this reason that there ought to be a legal enactment to the effect that performers giving public concerts should employ such harmonies and such songs. The fact is, since there are two kinds of public, the one free and cultivated, the other rude and vulgar, composed of mechanics, laborers, and the like, there must be entertainments and exhibitions to afford pastime to the latter as well as the former. As the souls of these people are, so to speak, perverted from the normal habit, so also among the harmonies there are abnormities, and among songs there are the strained and discolored; and each individual derives pleasure from that which is germane to his nature. For this reason performers must be allowed to produce this kind of music, for the benefit of this portion of the public.

"For the purposes of instruction, as has been said, we must employ ethical songs and the corresponding harmonies. Such a harmony is the Doric, as has already been remarked. We must likewise admit any other species of music that may have approved itself to such persons as have devoted attention to philosophic discussion and musical education.... In respect to the Doric harmony, it is universally admitted to be, of all harmonies, the most sedate, expressive of the most manly character.

Moreover, since our principle is, that the mean between extremes is desirable and ought to be pursued, and the Doric harmony holds this relation to other harmonies, it follows that Doric songs should be taught to young people in preference to any other. Two things, however, must be kept in view, the practicable and the befitting. I mean that we must discuss what is specially practicable for different people, as well as what is befitting. This, indeed, will depend upon the different periods of life. For example, it would not be easy for persons in the decline of life to sing the intense harmonies; for them nature suggests the languid kinds. For this reason those musicians are right who blame Socrates for having condemned the languid harmonies, as subjects of instruction, on the ground that they were intoxicating. (By this term he did not mean inebriating, in the sense that wine is inebriating,--for wine renders boisterous rather than anything else,--but languid.) The truth is, with an eye to the future, to old age, instruction ought to be given in harmonies and songs of this sort. Moreover, if there is any harmony suitable for youth, as tending to refine as well as to instruct, as is the case notably with the Lydian, it, of course, ought to be adopted. It is clear, then, that there are three distinct things to be considered in reference to education, avoidance of extremes, practicability, and appropriateness."

So much for the four branches of study which, according to Aristotle, ought to compose the curriculum of youth. We have noticed that, in his extant works, he says little about Letters and Drawing. Just what branches the former was supposed to include, he has nowhere told us directly; but I think there can be little doubt that he gave a place to Grammar, Rhetoric (including Poetics), Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, which, along with Music, make up the Seven Liberal Arts, the _Trivium_ and _Quadrivium_ of the Middle Ages. This curriculum underwent considerable changes at different times, as we can see from Philo, Teles, s.e.xtus Empiricus, St. Augustine, and others; but in Martia.n.u.s Capella it returned to its original form, and in this dominated education for a thousand years. We might perhaps draw out Aristotle's programme of secondary education thus:--

{ {Physical {Dancing (see p. 82) }Before { { Training {Deportment } p.u.b.erty.

{ { { { {Running } { { {Leaping }Before {_Practical_ { {Javelin-casting } p.u.b.erty.

{ { {Discus-throwing } { { { { {Gymnastics {Wrestling } { { {Shooting }After STUDIES: { {Marching } p.u.b.erty.

{_Creative_ {Music {Drilling } { {Drawing {Riding } { { {Grammar } { {Rhetoric }Before p.u.b.erty.

{_Theoretic_ {Dialectic } { { { {Arithmetic } { {Geometry }After p.u.b.erty.

{ {Astronomy }

CHAPTER VII

EDUCATION AFTER TWENTY-ONE

Be a.s.sured that happiness has its source, not in extensive possessions, but in a right disposition of the soul. Even in the case of the body, no one would call it fortunate for being arrayed in splendid garments; but one would do so, if it had health, and were n.o.bly developed, even without such appendages. In the same manner, we ought to ascribe happiness to the soul only when it is cultivated, and to call a man happy only if he possesses such a soul, not if he is splendidly attired outwardly, but has no worth of his own.... For those whose souls are ill-conditioned, neither wealth, nor power, nor beauty is a blessing; on the contrary, the more excessive these conditions are, the more widely and deeply do they injure their possessors, being unaccompanied with right-mindedness.--Aristotle.

Zeno used to tell a story about Crates, to this effect: One day Crates was sitting in a shoemaker's shop, reading aloud Aristotle's _Exhortation_ (to Philosophy), addressed to Themison, king of the Cyprians, in which the king is reminded that he possesses, in an exceptional degree, all the conditions of philosophy, superabundant wealth, and high position. As he was reading, the shoemaker, without interrupting his sewing, listened to him, until at last Crates said: "Philiscus, I think I will write an _Exhortation_ for you; for I see you have more of the conditions of philosophy than Aristotle has enumerated."--Teles.

At the age of twenty-one, those young men who have successfully completed the State system of training become citizens or politicians, and begin to exercise the functions of such. These are of two kinds, (1) active, practical, or executive, and (2) deliberative, theoretical, or legislative. As action must, on the one hand, be vigorous, and, on the other, guided by deliberation, which requires large experience, the functions of the State must be so arranged that the active duties fall to the young and robust, the deliberative to the elderly and mature. The distinguishing virtue of the former is fort.i.tude, with endurance or patience; that of the latter philosophy. Both equally have self-control and justice. In this way does Aristotle distribute Plato's four cardinal virtues.

When young men first become citizens, they are a.s.signed to posts of active service, civil and military, and thus study practical philosophy--Ethics and Politics--in a practical way. As they grow older, they gradually rise to posts demanding less practice and more thought, until at last they are admitted to the deliberative body, or council, when their active duties cease, and they are able to devote themselves to Speculative Philosophy or Theoretics. These men have now reached the end of life, as far as this world is concerned. They spend their days in cultured leisure, and the contemplation of divine things (?e???a). The very oldest of them, those who are most conversant with divine things, are chosen as priests, so that they may, as it were, live with the G.o.ds, and these be worthily served. Thus gradually, almost insensibly, they pa.s.s from the world of time to that of eternity; from the imperfect activity of practice, whose end is beyond itself, to the perfect energy of contemplation, which is self-sufficient and the life of G.o.d. In this way Aristotle settles the vexed question with regard to the compatibility and relative value of the practical and the contemplative life. They are necessary complements of each other. Practice is the realization of what contemplation discovers in the pure energy of G.o.d, revealing itself in the world. Thus the practical life of man glides gradually into the contemplative life of G.o.d.

Such is the highest view of man's destiny, and the way thither, that the Greeks ever reached, and it is in many ways a most attractive and inspiring one. Its defects are the defects of all that is Greek. They are two: (1) its ideal is intellectual and aesthetic,--a coordinated, harmonious whole, whereof the individual is but a part: not moral or religious--a self-surrender of the individual to the supreme will; consequently, (2) it does not provide for every human being, as such, but only for a small, select number, the fruit of the whole. Its ethics are inst.i.tutional not personal, and, indeed, the Greek never arrived at a distant conception of personality, that being possible only through the moral consciousness, which is its core. It seeks to find happiness in a correlation and balancing of individual selves, not in the independent conformity of each self to a supreme self. Hence it was that, with all its marvellous grasp and manly prudence, the ideal of Aristotle proved powerless to restore the moral unity of man, until it was absorbed in a higher.

BOOK IV

THE h.e.l.lENISTIC PERIOD

(B.C. 338-A.D. 313)

CHAPTER I

FROM ETHNIC TO COSMOPOLITAN LIFE

'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more.--Byron.

Most glorious of all the Undying, many-named, girt round with awe!

Jove, author of Nature, applying to all things the rudder of law-- Hail! Hail! for it justly rejoices the races whose life is a span To lift unto Thee their voices--the Author and Framer of Man.