History of Education Part 7

Children sat at table with older men and listened to their conversation, but they were never allowed to speak except in answer to questions. Thus they absorbed wisdom and were incited to deeds of bravery by the stories of heroism related by their seniors.

The State furnished barracks poorly provided with the comforts of life, in which the boys slept in severe weather; at other times they slept in the open air. They were wholly separated from their homes, and completely under control of the State. The purpose was to secure strong, beautiful, and supple bodies, inured to hardship, as a preparation for the life of the soldier. The only intellectual education was music, which consisted in playing the lyre as an accompaniment to the dance.

Reading and writing were despised as being fit only for slaves.

At the age of twelve the boy exchanged the long coat for the mantle, thereby entering upon manhood. From this time until the age of thirty, much the same form of training was continued, though it became more definitely military. At thirty the Spartan youth became a citizen and was expected to marry. Girls also received gymnastic training, in many cases with the boys. The purpose of this was to develop strong and beautiful wives and mothers. The effect of this coeducation of the s.e.xes was in the highest degree salutary, impurity among women being unknown in Sparta. We have already noted the patriotism of the Spartan mother.

Woman was highly esteemed in the home. Her praises and her reproofs were alike respected, and all her opinions bore much weight.

=Criticism of Spartan Education.=--1. It produced men and women of beautiful physique.

2. It inculcated obedience, politeness, modesty, sobriety, respect for the aged, courage, and patriotism.

3. It checked luxury and extravagance.

4. On the other hand, it gave little attention to intellectual training, hence it produced few men of lasting fame.

5. Its aim was martial supremacy, and this attained, the State fell into a hasty decline because of the instability of such a foundation.

6. It excluded a large part of the inhabitants from its benefits, only the n.o.bles being included.

7. It was selfish because it trained for Sparta and not for Greece, or for humanity.

8. It taught the duty of man to the State, and not the duty of man to man.

9. It took boys at an early age away from the influences of home, thus robbing the parents of the sacred prerogative of directing the education of their offspring.

10. It produced men cruel in battle and revengeful in victory, men incapable of cultivating the arts of peace.

LYCURGUS

There is so much that is mythical and uncertain concerning Lycurgus that many have doubted whether he ever lived. Curtius, however, says, "There really lived in the ninth century B.C. a legislator of the name of Lycurgus." Lycurgus formed the const.i.tution which gave Sparta its peculiar inst.i.tutions, and which established its place in history. His laws were intended to check luxury and to inculcate the simplest habits.

Some of his important laws led to the introduction of the following customs:--

1. All the men ate at common tables, fifteen at a table.

2. Children sat at these tables, but were required to maintain silence save when addressed. They were not allowed to ask for food. The object was to teach them good manners, to inculcate implicit obedience, and to impart to them the wisdom of the Spartan fathers.

3. The food was of the simplest kind.

4. Sparta was divided into nine thousand parts, a part for each of the nine thousand citizens, or n.o.ble families. The provinces under Spartan rule were divided into thirty thousand parts, a part for each Perioeci family.

5. Iron was made the only money, so that the people could not become rich; for its great weight rendered burdensome the possession of a considerable amount.

6. All children belonged to the State, to which only soldiers were valuable, therefore weak or deformed children were cast out. Marriage was also controlled by the State.

Lycurgus exerted a great influence upon Sparta, and his laws were responsible for her peculiar political system and her resulting greatness.

PYTHAGORAS

Pythagoras, though not a Spartan, is a.s.sociated with southern Greece.

Little is known of his early life. He was born on the island of Samos, about B.C. 582. He was familiar with the Ionic philosophy, and probably visited Egypt for study, a custom common among scholars of that time. Such a visit would in part explain his knowledge of mathematics, as the Egyptians had long been masters in that science. One of his teachers was Thales, the father of philosophy. The fundamental thought of the Pythagorean philosophy was the idea of proportion and harmony.

"Through number alone, the quant.i.tative relations of things, extension, magnitude, figure (triangular, quadrangular, cubic), combination, distance, etc., obtain their peculiar character; the forms and proportions of things can all be reduced to number. Therefore, it was concluded, since without form and proportion nothing can exist, number must be the principle of things themselves, as well as the order in which they manifest themselves in the world." (Schwegler's "History of Philosophy.")

While mathematics was the central idea of his system, medicine, physics, and philosophy were also taught in his school. He did the world great service in the discovery of the so-called Pythagorean theorem in geometry, that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The Perioeci (dwellers around) were the older population of the land, who inhabited the mountains and hillsides about Sparta. They were farmers, and they also worked the mines and quarries, manufactured articles for the Spartan market, and carried on the commerce. Though freemen, they were allowed no part in the government, could not bear arms, and had to pay tribute to Sparta.

[19] The Helots were probably peasants who occupied the land about Helos, and, defeated in war, became Spartan subjects. They could not be sold or given away, but belonged to the inventory of the farm.

CHAPTER XI

ROME

=Literature.=--_Bryce_, The Holy Roman Empire; _Bury_, The Roman Empire; _Church_, Pictures from Roman Life and Story; _Clarke_, Ten Great Religions; _Gibbon_, Decline and Fall of Roman Empire; _Lord_, Beacon Lights; _Capes_, Roman Empire; _Merivale_, History of the Romans; _Shumway_, A Day in Ancient Rome; _Mommsen_, History of Rome; _Liddell_, History of Rome; _Ploetz_, Epitome of Universal History; _Gilman_, Story of Rome; _Collins_, Ancient Cla.s.sics; _Monroe_, Source Book of the History of Education.

=The Age of Augustus.=--The history of Rome covers a period of a thousand years. From the little village on the Palatine Hill Rome grew to be the mightiest empire of the world. The "Age of Augustus"

represents not only the summit of military glory, but also the highest civilization, and the n.o.blest ideals of the Roman people. It was the age of Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Livy, and Seneca. Rome was at peace with the world, and therefore had time to devote to art, literature, and other intellectual pursuits. It was during this period that Christ was born.

Like Sparta, Rome for a long time maintained her supremacy by force of arms, and therefore encouraged physical education. But when she became mistress of the world, and came in contact with the culture of the Greeks, she began to feel the need of an intellectual and aesthetic development. Accordingly it became the fashion to study Greek, to bring teachers from Athens to Rome, and to send young men to Athens to study.

The Roman Empire was therefore the medium through which Grecian culture was transmitted to the western world, and during the Augustan Age the center of learning was transferred from Athens to Rome.

Gibbon says, "The first seven centuries were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils."[20] The Augustan Age shows Rome at her best, and a study of the educational system at that time will be most fruitful for the student of pedagogy.

=Geography and History.=--We have seen that Rome began with a small territory in the center of Italy, and that province after province was added, until in the time of Augustus she ruled the world. Italy, the center of the empire, has a diversified surface, a mild climate, and a fertile soil. In the time of Augustus, the Roman Empire embraced all of the border of the Mediterranean, extended as far north as the North Sea, as far east as the Euphrates, as far south as the Sahara, and west to the Atlantic. With the great Mediterranean entirely under its control, including the seas, bays, and rivers tributary to it; with its rich territories; and with its vast population, which represented most of the enterprise and civilization of the world,--this great empire possessed wonderful advantages for the spread of Christianity, for the dissemination of intelligence, and for the improvement of the human race.

The government of the Romans was generally some form of republic, the people always being jealous of their rights. Their religion took on gross forms of idolatry, for they readily adopted and worshiped the G.o.ds of the Grecians, Egyptians, and other conquered peoples. Temples to Faith, Hope, Concord, and other virtues were erected and maintained. The Romans were very superst.i.tious. These facts have a bearing upon Christian education, and will explain some of the chief difficulties which it had to encounter.

=The Home.=--While in Athens the father had charge of the education of the boy in his early years, in Rome that duty devolved almost entirely upon the mother. In early Roman history the matron was celebrated for her virtues--fidelity to her husband, love for her children, and queenly guardianship of the sacred precincts of the home. The name of the Roman matron became a synonym of all that is n.o.ble, wifely, and motherly in the home. Without doubt the character had sadly deteriorated at the period of which we write, but there still remained with many the lofty ideals which had been fostered in earlier times.

The husband was the head of the house, but to the wife was committed the care of the children and their instruction for the first six or seven years of their lives. She taught them strict obedience and politeness, and instructed them in the "Twelve Tables of Roman Law."[21]

The mother also took great pains to teach her children correct p.r.o.nunciation. She taught them their letters, first the name and then the form, a practice which is pedagogically false, as Quintilian pointed out. She also taught them poems from the great masters. In taking pains with p.r.o.nunciation she prepared the way for later training in oratory, which was the most important study in Roman education.

Only when Rome had begun to decay did mothers commit the training of their children to nurses and slaves. When Rome was at her best, the child grew up in an atmosphere of love under direct care of the mother, who shaped his morals and guided his religious life as well as his early mental development. Around the mother centered all that was enn.o.bling and elevating in the first seven years of the child's life. The father had but little to do with this period, and did not interfere with the mother's work. His duty lay in public life; hers lay within the home, and well did she meet her responsibilities until the time of her debas.e.m.e.nt with all the other elements of Roman society.

=Elementary Education.=--At six or seven years of age the child was sent to school in charge of a slave, who carried his books and protected him from harm. This was in imitation of the practice in Athens, where the pedagogue performed a like office. But the duties of the Roman slave do not seem to have been as responsible as those of the Athenian pedagogue.

As we have seen, in Rome the mothers looked after the morals of their children with great care, and the attendant of the child to school was regarded as but little else than a servant. In some of the wealthier and more aristocratic families, however, in addition to the slave who performed the menial duties mentioned, there was also a pedagogue who attended the youth to school and to the theater, superintended his games, and, in short, accompanied him wherever he went. This pedagogue was intrusted with full power to discipline and to direct the morals of his charge. In some cases several boys were placed in the care of the same pedagogue. On the other hand, it often happened that a boy had a whole retinue of slaves, each having his special duty to perform.

The schools were in charge of _literators_, usually men of little culture and no social standing. These inst.i.tutions were public, though supported by private means. The discipline was severe, strict obedience being exacted by the teacher, who made use of the rod when he thought it necessary. The subjects taught were reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Great care was taken with p.r.o.nunciation, just as had been done in the early years under the mother's instruction. In writing, the characters were traced with the stylus on waxed tablets. Arithmetic was learned for its utility. Indeed, the whole purpose of the schools was to prepare the children for practical life. The easier poets were read, explained, and committed to memory, not so much for their content as to fit youth for public speaking. Obedience, politeness, modesty, cleanliness, and respect for teachers were virtues insisted upon. These schools, which covered the instruction of children from five to twelve years of age, did not, as already intimated, reach the very highest cla.s.ses, who preferred to employ private tutors.