Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals Part 3

CHAPTER III

DORIAN OR SPARTAN EDUCATION

Go, tell at Sparta, thou that pa.s.sest by, That here, obedient to her laws, we lie.

--Simonides (_Epitaph on the Three Hundred who fell at Thermopylae_).

This is a matter for which the Lacedaemonians deserve approbation: they are extremely solicitous about the education of their youth and make it a public function.--Aristotle.

The Lacedaemonians impart to their children the look of wild beasts, through the severity of the exercises to which they subject them, their notion being that such training is especially calculated to heighten courage.--_Id._

These are so far behind in education and philosophy that they do not learn even letters.--Isocrates.

OLD MEN. We _were_ once strong men (youths).

MEN. And we _are_; if you will, behold.

BOYS. And we _shall be_ far superior.--_Spartan Choric Anthem._

They asked no clarion's voice to fire Their souls with an impulse high: But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre For the sons of liberty!

So moved they calmly to their field, Thence never to return, Save bearing back the Spartan shield, Or on it proudly borne!--Hemans.

There was a law that the cadets should present themselves naked in public before the ephors every ten days; and, if they were well knit and strong, and looked as if they had been carved and hammered into shape by gymnastics, they were praised; but if their limbs showed any flabbiness or softness, any little swelling or suspicion of adipose matter due to laziness, they were flogged and justiced there and then. The ephors, moreover, subjected their clothing every day to a strict examination, to see that everything was up to the mark.

No cooks were permitted in Lacedaemon but flesh-cooks. A cook who knew anything else was driven out of Sparta, as physic for invalids.--aelian.

Every rational system of education is determined by some aim or ideal more or less consciously set up. That of the Dorians, and particularly of the Spartans, may be expressed in one word--STRENGTH, which, in the individual, took the form of physical endurance, in the State, that of self-sufficiency (a?t???e?a). A self-sufficient State, furnishing a field for all the activities and aspirations of all its citizens, and demanding their strongest and most devoted exertions--such is the Dorian ideal. It is easy to see what virtues Dorian education would seek to develop--physical strength, bravery, and obedience to the laws of the State. Among the Dorians the human being is entirely absorbed in the citizen. The State is all in all.

The Dorian ideal realized itself chiefly in two places, Crete and Sparta. Both these were repeatedly held up in ancient times as models of well-governed states, and even Plato puts the substance of his _Laws_ into the mouth of a Cretan.

About the details of Cretan education we are but poorly informed. Two things, however, we know: (1) that Lycurgus, the reputed founder of Spartan education, was held to have drawn many of his ideas from Crete, and (2) that the final result of Cretan education--and the same is true of all education that merges the man in the citizen--was, in spite of its strictness, demoralizing. The character of the people was summed up by their poet Epimenides, a contemporary of Solon's, in a famous line quoted by St. Paul, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies."

With regard to Spartan education our information is much greater, and we may therefore select it as the type of Dorian education generally.

The Peloponnesian Dorians having, through contact with the more civilized peoples whom they conquered, lost much of that rigorous discipline and unquestioning loyalty which made them formidable, were, in the ninth century B.C., becoming disorganized, so that in two of the Dorian states they were a.s.similated by the native population, the Argives and the Messenians. The same process was rapidly going on in the third state, Lacedaemon, when Lycurgus, fired with patriotic zeal, resolved to put an end to it, by restoring among his people the old Dorian military discipline. To prepare himself for this task, he visited Crete and studied its inst.i.tutions. On his return he persuaded his countrymen to submit to a "Const.i.tution," which ever afterwards went by his name. This const.i.tution included a scheme of education, whose aim was a thorough training of the whole of the free citizens, both male and female, (1) in physical endurance, and (2) in complete subordination to the State. The former was sought to be imparted by means of a rigorous and often cruel, system of gymnastics; the latter, through choric music and dancing, including military drill. Spartan education, therefore, was confined to two branches, Gymnastics and Music. Instruction in letters was confined to the merest elements. Sparta accordingly never produced a poet, an historian, an artist, or a philosopher of any note. Even the arrangers of her choruses were foreigners--Tyrtaeus, Terpander, Arion, Alcman, Thaletas, Stesichorus.

As Spartan education was nothing more or less than a training for Spartan citizenship, we must preface our account of it by a few words on the Spartan State.

The government of Sparta was in the hands of a closed aristocracy, whose sole aim was the maintenance of its own supremacy, as against (1) foreign enemies, (2) _Perioikoi_, or disfranchised native citizens, (3) Helots, or native serfs. To secure this, it formed itself into a standing army, with a strict military organization. Sparta, its one abode, was a camp; all free inhabitants were soldiers. Though they were compelled to marry, the city contained no homes. The men and, from the close of their seventh year, the boys, lived in barracks and ate at public tables (_Phiditia_). The women had but one recognized function, that of furnishing the State with citizens, and were educated solely with a view to this. No other virtue was expected of them. Aristotle tells us that "they lived in every kind of profligacy and in luxury."

Polyandry was common, and, when a woman lost all her husbands, she was often compelled to enter into relations with slaves, in order that she might not fail in her political duty.

Among a people organized on the basis of brute force, it were vain to look for any of the finer traits of human nature--gentleness, tenderness, sympathy, pity, mercy. The mercilessness and cruelty of the Spartans were proverbial. Perioikoi and Helots incurring the displeasure or suspicion of the authorities were secretly put to death, without even the form of a trial. A striking instance of such cruelty is recorded by Thucydides. The facts are thus stated by Grote (_History of Greece_, vol. ii, pp. 376-7): "It was in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War, after the Helots had been called upon for signal military efforts in various ways, ... that the ephors felt especially apprehensive of an outbreak. Anxious to single out the most forward and daring Helots, as men from whom they had most to dread, they issued proclamation that every member of that cla.s.s who had rendered distinguished services should make his claim known at Sparta, promising liberty to the most deserving. A large number of Helots came forward to claim the boon: not less than two thousand of them were approved, formally manumitted, and led in solemn procession round the temples, with garlands on their heads, as an inauguration to their coming life of freedom. But the treacherous garland only marked them out as victims for sacrifice: every man of them forthwith disappeared; the manner of their death was an untold mystery."

Spartan education was entirely conducted by the State, at the expense of the State, and for the ends of the State. It differed in this respect from nearly every other system of Greek education. It was divided into four periods, corresponding respectively to childhood, boyhood, youth, and manhood.

(_a_) CHILDHOOD.--As soon as the Spartan child came into the world, the State, through officers appointed for that purpose, sent to examine it.

If it seemed vigorous, and showed no bodily defect, it was permitted to live, and forthwith adopted by the State; otherwise it was carried to the mountains and thrown over a precipice. The children accepted by the State were for the next seven years left in charge of their mothers, but, doubtless, still under State surveillance. Just how they were trained during these years, we do not know. We can only guess that they underwent very much the same process as other Greek children, any difference being in the direction of rigor. As the details of Greek education generally will be dealt with under the head of Athens, they may be omitted here.

(_b_) BOYHOOD.--On completing his seventh year, the Spartan boy was transferred from his mother's house and care to a public barracks and the direct tuition of the State. Although the boys were in charge of a special officer (pa?d?????), who divided them into squads and companies, and arranged their exercises for them, they were nevertheless taught to regard every grown man as a teacher, and every such man was expected to correct them promptly and rigorously, whenever he saw them doing wrong. At the same time, every boy was expected to form an intimate connection with some one man, who then, to a large extent, became responsible for his conduct; and, though the choice in this matter rested with the parties concerned, it was considered a disgrace in a man, no less than in a boy, to be without such connection. Though this arrangement, it is said, often led to lamentable abuses, there can be no doubt that it admirably served the purposes of Sparta. It furnished every boy with a tutor, who, under the circ.u.mstances, could hardly fail to treat him kindly, and who was interested in making him surpa.s.s all other boys in courage and endurance. This friendly influence of teacher on pupil was something in which the Greeks at all times strongly believed, and which formed an important force in all their education. In Sparta, as in Crete and Thebes, it was legally recognized.

One of the duties of Spartan "inspirer" (e?sp???a? or e?sp?????), as he was called, was to teach his young friend (??ta?) to demean himself properly on all occasions, and to hold his tongue except when he had something very important to say. In this way it was that the young Spartans received their moral education, and acquired that effective brevity of speech which to this day we call "laconic."

The formal education of Spartan boys consisted mainly of gymnastics, music, choric dancing, and larceny. Their literary education was confined to a little reading, writing, and finger-arithmetic; everything beyond this was proscribed. And the reasons for this proscription are not difficult to discover. Sparta staked everything upon her political strength, and this involved two things, (1) equality among her free citizens, and (2) absolute devotion on their part to her interest, both of which the higher education would have rendered impossible. Education establishes among men distinctions of worth quite other than military, and gives them individual interests distinct from those of the State. It was the same reason that induced Rome, during the best period of her history, to exclude her citizens from all higher education, which is essentially individual and cosmopolitan.

The education of the Spartan boys was conducted mostly in the open air and in public, so that they were continually exposed to the cheers or scoffs of critical spectators, to whom their performances were a continual amus.e.m.e.nt of the nature of a c.o.c.k-fight. Whether the different "inspirers" betted on their own boys may be doubtful; but they certainly used every effort to make them win in any and every contest, and the "inspirer" of a "winning" boy was an envied man. The result was that many boys lost their lives amid cheers, rather than incur the disgrace of being beaten. Inasmuch as the sole purpose of gymnastics was strength and endurance; of dancing, order; and of music, martial inspiration, it is easy to see what forms these studies necessarily a.s.sumed; and we need only stop to remark that Dorian music received the unqualified approbation of all the great educational writers of antiquity,--even of Aristotle, who had only words of condemnation for Spartan gymnastics.

There was only one branch of Spartan school-education that was not conducted in public, and that was larceny. The purpose of this curious discipline was to enable its subjects to act, on occasion, as detectives and a.s.sa.s.sins among the ever discontented and rebellious Helots. How successful it was, may be judged from the incident recorded on page 45.

Larceny, when successfully carried out under difficult circ.u.mstances, was applauded; when discovered, it was severely punished. A story is told of a boy who, rather than betray himself, allowed a stolen fox, concealed under his clothes, to eat out his entrails.

In one respect Spartan education may claim superiority over that of most other Greek states: it was not confined to one s.e.x. Spartan girls, though apparently permitted to live at home, were subjected to a course of training differing from that of their brothers only in being less severe. They had their own exercise-grounds, on which they learnt to leap, run, cast the javelin, throw the discus, play ball, wrestle, dance, and sing; and there is good evidence to show that their exercises had an admirable effect upon their physical const.i.tution. That the breezy daughters of Sparta were handsomer and more attractive than the hot-house maidens of Athens, is a well-attested fact. Many Spartan women continued their athletic and musical exercises into ripe womanhood, learning even to ride spirited horses and drive chariots. If we may believe Aristotle, however, the effect of all this training upon their moral nature was anything but desirable. They were neither virtuous nor brave.

(_c_) YOUTH.--About the age of eighteen, Spartan boys pa.s.sed into the cla.s.s of _epheboi_, or cadets, and began their professional training for war. This was their business for the next twelve years, and no light business it was. For the first two years they were called _melleirenes_, and devoted themselves to learning the use of arms, and to light skirmishing. They were under the charge of special officers called _bideoi_, but had to undergo a rigid examination before the ephors every ten days (see p. 41). Their endurance was put to severe tests. Speaking of the altar of Artemis Orthia, Pausanias says: "An oracle commanded the people to imbrue the altar with human blood, and hence arose the custom of sacrificing on it a man chosen by lot. Lycurgus did away with this practice, and ordained that, instead, the cadets should be scourged before the altar, and thus the altar is covered with blood. While this is going on, a priestess stands by, holding, in her arms the wooden image (of Artemis). This image, being small, is, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, light; but, if at any time the scourgers deal too lightly with any youth, on account of his beauty or his rank, then the image becomes so heavy that the priestess cannot support it; whereupon she reproves the scourgers, and declares that she is burdened on their account. Thus the image that came from the sacrifices in the Crimea has always continued to enjoy human blood." This Artemis appears, with a bundle of twigs in her arm, next to Ares, among the Spartan divinities, on the frieze of the Parthenon. At twenty years of age, the young men became _eirenes_, and entered upon a course of study closely resembling actual warfare. They lived on the coa.r.s.est food, slept on reeds, and rarely bathed or walked. They exercised themselves in heavy arms, in shooting, riding, swimming, ball-playing, and in conflicts of the most brutal kind. They took part in complicated and exhausting dances, the most famous of which was the Pyrrhic, danced under arms. They manned fortresses, a.s.sa.s.sinated Helots, and, in cases of need, even took the field against an enemy.

(_d_) MANHOOD.--At the age of thirty, being supposed to have reached their majority, they fell into the ranks of full citizens, and took their share in all political functions. They were compelled to marry, but were allowed to visit their wives only rarely and by stealth. They sometimes had two or three children before they had ever seen their wives by daylight. When not engaged in actual war, they spent much of their time in watching the exercises of their juniors, and the rest in hunting wild boars and similar game in the mountains. Like Xenophon, they thought hunting the nearest approach to war.

Such was the education that Sparta gave her sons. That it produced strong warriors and patriotic citizens, there can be no doubt. But that is all: it produced no men. It was greatly admired by men like Xenophon and Plato, who were sick of Athenian democracy; but Aristotle estimated it at its true worth. He says: "As long as the Laconians were the only people who devoted themselves to violent exercises, they were superior to all others; but now they are inferior even in gymnastic contests and in war. Their former superiority, indeed, was not due to their training their young men in this way, but to the fact that they alone did so."

And even Xenophon, at the end of a long panegyric on the Spartan const.i.tution, is obliged to admit that already in his time it has fallen from its old worth into feebleness and corruption, and this in spite of the fact that he had his own sons educated at Sparta. When Sparta fell before the heroic and cultured Epaminondas, she fell unpitied, leaving to the world little or nothing but a warning example.

CHAPTER IV

PYTHAGORAS

Virtue and health and all good and G.o.d are a harmony.--Pythagoras.

One is the principle of all.--Philolaus the Pythagorean.

All things that are known have number.--_Id._

The principles of all virtue are three, knowledge, power, and choice. Knowledge is like sight, whereby we contemplate and judge things; power is like bodily strength, whereby we endure and adhere to things; choice is like hands to the soul, whereby we stretch out and lay hold of things.--Theages the Pythagorean.

The Doric discipline, even in Sparta, where it could exhibit its character most freely, produced merely soldiers and not free citizens or cultivated men. It was, nevertheless, in its essential features, the h.e.l.lenic ideal, and numerous attempts were made to remedy its defects and to give it permanence, by connecting it with higher than mere local and aristocratic interests. One of the earliest and most noteworthy of these was made by Pythagoras.

This extraordinary personage appears to have been born in the island of Samos in the first quarter of the sixth century B.C. Though he was born among Ionians, his family appears to have been Achaian and, to some extent, Pelasgian (Tyrrhenian), having emigrated from Phlius in the Argolid. After distinguishing himself in Ionia, he emigrated in middle life to Magna Graecia, and took up his abode in the Achaian colony of Croton, then a rich and flourishing city. The cause of his emigration seems to have been the tyranny of Polycrates, which apparently imparted to him a prejudice against Ionic tendencies in general. Whether he derived any part of his famous learning from visits to Egypt, Phnicia, Babylonia, etc., as was a.s.serted in later times, is not clear. It is not improbable that he visited Egypt, and there is good reason for believing that he became acquainted with Phnician theology through Pherecydes of Syros. That he was an omnivorous student is attested by his contemporary, Herac.l.i.tus. He was undoubtedly affected by the physical theories current in his time in Ionia, while he plainly drew his political and ethical ideas from Sparta or Crete.

Of his activity in Ionia we know little; but we may perhaps conclude that it was of the same nature as that which he afterwards displayed in Italy. Here he appeared in the triple capacity of theologian, ethical teacher, and scientist. His chief interest for us lies in the fact that he was apparently the first man in Greece, and, indeed, in the western world, who sought to establish an ethical inst.i.tution apart from the State. In this respect he bears a strong resemblance to the prophet Isaiah, who may be said to have originated the idea of a Church (see p.

133). Pythagoras' aim seems to have been to gather round him a body of disciples who should endeavor to lead a perfect life, based upon certain theological or metaphysical notions, and guided by a rule of almost monastic strictness. Like other men who have found themselves in the midst of irreverence, selfishness, and democratic vulgarity and anarchy, he believed that his time demanded moral discipline, based upon respect for authority and character, with a firm belief in future retribution, and inculcated by a careful study of the order and harmony of nature; and such discipline he strove, with all his might, to impart. Having no faith in the capacity of the State to be an instrument for his purpose, he set to work independently of it, and seems to have met with very marked success, drawing to him many of the best men and women of Southern Italy. So numerous and powerful, indeed, did his followers become that they held the balance of power in several cities, and were able to use it for the enforcement of their own principles. As these were exceedingly undemocratic, and opposed to the tendencies of the time, they finally roused bitter opposition, so that the Pythagoreans were persecuted and attempts made to exterminate them with fire and sword. In this way their political influence was broken, and their a.s.semblies suppressed; but the effect of Pythagoras' teaching was not lost. His followers, scattered abroad throughout the h.e.l.lenic world, carried his precepts and his life-ideal with them. In the following centuries they found many n.o.ble sympathizers--Pindar, Socrates, Plato, Epicharmus, etc.--and underwent many modifications, until they finally witnessed a resurrection, in the forms of Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism, after the Christian era. In these later guises, Pythagoreanism lost itself in mysticism and contemplation, turning its followers into inactive ascetics; but in its original form it seems to have been especially adapted to produce men of vigorous action and far-sighted practicality. Milo of Croton, the inimitable wrestler; Archytas of Tarentum, philosopher, mathematician, musician, inventor, engineer, general, statesman; and Epaminondas, the greatest and n.o.blest of Theban generals, were professed Pythagoreans.

We might perhaps express the aim of Pythagoras' pedagogical efforts by the one word HARMONY. Just as he found harmony everywhere in the physical world, so he strove to introduce the same into the const.i.tution of the human individual, and into the relations of individuals with each other. He may perhaps be regarded as the originator of that view of the world, of men, and of society which makes all good consist in order and proportion, a view which recommends itself strongly to idealists, and has given birth to all those social Utopias, whose static perfection seems to relieve the individual from the burden of responsibility, and which have been dangled before the eyes of struggling humanity from his days to ours. According to this view, which had its roots in Greek thought generally, the aim of education is to find for each individual his true place and to make him efficient therein. Man is made for order, and not order for man. He is born into a world of order, as is shown by the fact that number and proportion are found in everything that is known. Pythagoras, in his enthusiasm for his principle, carried his doctrine of numbers to absurd lengths, identifying them with real things; but this enthusiasm was not without its valuable results, since it is to Pythagoras and his school that we owe the sciences of geometry and music. Moreover, experience must have taught him that it is one thing to propound a theory, another to make it effective in regulating human relations. In order to accomplish the latter object, he invoked the aid of divine authority and of the doctrines of metempsychosis and future retribution. Hence his educational system had a strong religious cast, which showed itself even outwardly in the dignified demeanor and quiet self-possession of his followers.

Harmony, then, to be attained by discipline, under religious sanctions, was the aim of Pythagoras' teaching. Believing, however, that only a limited number of persons were capable of such harmony, he selected his pupils with great care, and subjected them to a long novitiate, in which silence, self-examination, and absolute obedience played a prominent part. The aim of this was to enable them to overcome impulse, concentrate attention, and develop reverence, reflection, and thoughtfulness, the first conditions of all moral and intellectual excellence. While the first care was directed to their spiritual part, their bodies were by no means forgotten. Food, clothing, and exercise were all carefully regulated on hygienic and moral principles.

Regarding the details of Pythagoras' educational system we are not well informed; but the spirit and tendency of it have been embalmed for us in the so-called _Golden Words_, which, if not due to the pen of Pythagoras himself, certainly reach back to very near his time, and contain nothing at variance with what we otherwise know of his teaching. We insert a literal version.

THE GOLDEN WORDS.

The G.o.ds immortal, as by law disposed, First venerate, and reverence the oath: Then to the n.o.ble heroes, and the powers Beneath the earth, do homage with just rites.