The History of Education Part 6

Much was done by the later Emperors to encourage these schools, and they too came to exist in almost every provincial city in the Empire. Often they were supported by the cities in which they were located. The Emperor Vespasian, about 75 A.D. began the practice of paying, from the Imperial Treasury, the salaries of grammarians and rhetoricians [27] at Rome.

Antoninus Pius, who ruled as Emperor from 138 to 161 A.D., extended payment to the provinces, gave to these teachers the privileges of the senatorial cla.s.s, and a certain number in each city were exempted from payment of taxes, support of soldiers, and obligations to military service. Other Emperors extended these special privileges (R. 26) which became the basis for the special rights afterwards granted to the Christian clergy (R. 38) and, still later, to teachers in the universities (Rs. 101-04).

UNIVERSITY LEARNING. Roman youths desiring still further training could now journey to the eastward and attend the Greek universities (see Figure 14). A few did so, much as American students in the middle of the nineteenth century went to Germany for higher study. Athens and Rhodes were most favored. Brutus, Horace, and Cicero, among others, studied at Athens; Caesar, Cicero, and Ca.s.sius at Rhodes. Later Alexandria was in favor. In a library founded in the Temple of Peace by Vespasian (ruled 69 to 79 A.D.) the University at Rome had its origin, and in time this developed into an inst.i.tution with professors in law, medicine, architecture, mathematics and mechanics, and grammar and rhetoric in both the Latin and Greek languages. In this many youths from provincial cities came to study. The lines of instruction represented nothing, however, in the way of scientific investigation or creative thought; the instruction was formal and dogmatic, being largely a further elaboration of what had previously been well done by the Greeks.

NATURE OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM DEVELOPED. Such was the educational system which was finally evolved to meet the new cultural needs of the Roman Empire. In all its foundation elements it was Greek. Having borrowed--conquered one might almost say--Greek religion, philosophy, literature, and learning, the Romans naturally borrowed also the school system that had been evolved to impart this culture. Never before or since has any people adapted so completely to their own needs the system of educational training evolved by another. To the Greek basis some distinctively Roman elements were added to adapt it better to the peculiar needs of their own people, while on the other hand many of the finer Greek characteristics were omitted entirely. Having once adopted the Greek plan, the constructive Roman mind organized it into a system superior to the original, but in so doing formalized it more than the Greeks had ever done (R. 19).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25. THE ROMAN VOLUNTARY EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, AS FINALLY EVOLVED]

That the system afforded an opportunity to wealthy Romans to obtain for their children some understanding and appreciation of the culture of the Greek world with which their Empire was now in contact, and answered fairly well the preparatory needs along political and governmental lines of those Romans who could afford to educate their boys for such careers, can hardly be doubted (R. 22). Roman writers on education, especially Cicero (R. 24) and Quintilian (R. 25), give us abundant testimony as to the value and usefulness of the system evolved in the training of orators and men for the public service. In the provinces, too, we know that the schools were very useful in inculcating Roman traditions and in helping the Romans to a.s.similate the sons of local princes and leaders. [28]

During the days of the Republic the schools were naturally more useful than after the establishment of the Empire, and especially after the later Emperors had stamped out many of the political and civic liberties for the enjoyment of which the schools prepared. On the other hand, the schools reached but a small, selected cla.s.s of youths, trained for only the political career, and cannot be considered as ever having been general or as having educated any more than a small percentage of the future citizens of the State. Many of the important lines of activity in which the Romans engaged, and which to-day are regarded as monuments to their constructive skill and practical genius, such as architectural achievements, the building of roads and aqueducts, the many skilled trades, and the large commercial undertakings, these schools did nothing to prepare youths for.

The State, unlike Athens, never required education of any one, did not make what was offered a preparation for citizenship, and made no attempt to regulate either teachers or instruction until late in the history of the Empire. Education at Rome was from the first purely a private- adventure affair, most nearly a.n.a.logous with us to instruction in music and dancing. Those who found the education offered of any value could take it and pay for it; those who did not could let it alone. A few did the former, the great ma.s.s of the Romans the latter. For the great slave cla.s.s that developed at Rome there was, of course, no education at all.

RESULTS ON ROMAN LIFE AND GOVERNMENT. Still, out of this private and tuition system of schools many capable political leaders and executives came--men who exercised great influence on the history of the State, fought out her political battles, organized and directed her government at home and in the provinces, and helped build up that great scheme of government and law and order which was Rome's most significant contribution to future civilization. [29] It was in this direction, and in practical and constructive work along engineering and architectural lines, that Rome excelled. The Roman genius for government and law and order and constructive undertakings must be cla.s.sed, in importance for the future of civilization in the world, along with the ability of Greece in literature and philosophy and art. "If," says Professor Adams, "as is sometimes said, that in the course of history there is no literature which rivals the Greek except the English, it is perhaps even more true that the Anglo- Saxon is the only race which can be placed beside the Romans in creative power and in politics." The conquest of the known world by this practical and constructive people could not have otherwise than decisively influenced the whole course of human history, and, coming at the time in world affairs that it did, the influence on all future civilization of the work of Rome has been profound. The great political fact which dominated all the Middle Ages, and shaped the religion and government and civilization of the time, was the fact that the Roman Empire had been and had done its work so well.

V. ROME'S CONTRIBUTION TO CIVILIZATION

GREECE AND ROME CONTRASTED. The contrast between the Greeks and the Romans is marked in almost every particular. The Greeks were an imaginative, subjective, artistic, and idealistic people, with little administrative ability and few practical tendencies. The Romans, on the other hand, were an unimaginative, concrete, practical, and constructive nation. Greece made its great contribution to world civilization in literature and philosophy and art; Rome in law and order and government. The Greeks lived a life of aesthetic enjoyment of the beautiful in nature and art, and their basis for estimating the worth of a thing was intellectual and artistic; to the Romans the aesthetic and the beautiful made little appeal, and their basis for estimating the worth of a thing was utilitarian. The Greeks worshiped "the beautiful and the good," and tried to enjoy life rationally and n.o.bly, while the Romans worshiped force and effectiveness, and lived by rule and authority. The Greeks thought in personal terms of government and virtue and happiness, while the Romans thought in general terms of law and duty, and their happiness was rather in present denial for future gain than in any immediate enjoyment.

As a result the Romans developed no great scholarly or literary atmosphere, as the Greeks had done at Athens, They built up no great speculative philosophies, and framed no great theories of government. Even their literature was, in part, an imitation of the Greek, though possessing many elements of native strength and beauty. They were a people who knew how to accomplish results rather than to speculate about means and ends. Usefulness and effectiveness were with them the criteria of the worth of any idea or project. They subdued and annexed an empire, they gave law and order to a primitive world, they civilized and Romanized barbarian tribes, they built roads connecting all parts of their Empire that were the best the world had ever known, their aqueducts and bridges were wonders of engineering skill, their public buildings and monuments still excite admiration and envy, in many of the skilled trades they developed tools and processes of large future usefulness, and their agriculture was the best the world had known up to that time. They were strong where the Greeks were weak, and weak where the Greeks were strong.

By reason of this difference the two peoples supplemented one another well in the work of laying the foundations upon which our modern civilization has been built. Greece created the intellectual and aesthetic ideals and the culture for our life, while Rome developed the political inst.i.tutions under which ideals may be realized and culture may be enjoyed. From the Greeks and Hebrews our modern life has drawn its great inspirations and its ideals for life, while from the Romans we have derived our ideals as to government and obedience to law. One may say that the Romans as a people specialized in government, law, order, and constructive practical undertakings, and bequeathed to posterity a wonderful inheritance in governmental forms, legal codes, commercial processes, and engineering undertakings, while the Greeks left to us a philosophy, literature, art, and a world culture which the civilized world will never cease to enjoy.

The Greeks were an imaginative, impulsive, and a joyous people; the Romans sedate, severe, and superior to the Greeks in persistence and moral force.

The Greeks were ever young; the Romans were always grown and serious men.

ROME'S GREAT CONTRIBUTION. Rome's great contribution, then, was along the lines just indicated. To this, the school system which became established in the Roman State contributed only indirectly and but little. The unification of the ancient world into one Empire, with a common body of traditions, practices, coinage, speech, and law, which made the triumph of Christianity possible; the formulation of a body of law [30] which barbarian tribes accepted, which was studied throughout the Middle Ages, which formed the basis of the legal system of the mediaeval Church, and which has largely influenced modern practice; the development of a language from which many modern tongues have been derived, and which has modified all western languages; and the perfection of an alphabet which has become the common property of all nations whose civilization has been derived from the Greek and Roman--these const.i.tute the chief contributions of Rome to modern civilization.

Roman city government, too, had been established throughout all the provincial cities, and this remained after the Empire had pa.s.sed away. The munic.i.p.al corporation, with its charter of rights, has ever since been a fixed idea in the western world. Roman law, organized into a compact code, and studied in the law schools of the Middle Ages, has modified our modern ideas and practices to a degree we scarcely realize. It was accepted by the German rulers as a permanent thing after they had overrun the Empire, and it remained as the law of the courts wherever Roman subjects were tried. Preserved and codified at Constantinople under Justinian in the sixth century, and re-introduced into western Europe when the study of law was revived in the newly founded universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Roman law has greatly modified all modern legal practices and has become the basis of the legal systems of a number of modern states. [31]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26. ORIGIN OF OUR ALPHABET The German type, like the so-called Old English (see Fig. 45), ill.u.s.trates the corruption of letter forms through the copying of ma.n.u.scripts during the Middle Ages.]

Of all the Roman contributions to modern civilization perhaps the one that most completely permeates all our modern life is their alphabet and speech. Figure 26 shows how our modern alphabet goes back to the old Roman, which they obtained from the Greek colonies in southern Italy, and which the Greeks obtained from the still earlier Phoenicians. This alphabet has become the common property of almost all the civilized world.

[32] In speech, the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian tongues go back directly to the Latin, and these are the tongues of Mexico and South America as well. The English language, which is spoken throughout a large part of the civilized world, and by one third of its inhabitants, has also received so many additions from Romanic sources that we to-day scarcely utter a sentence without using some word once used by the citizens of ancient Rome.

Among the smaller but nevertheless important contributions which we owe to Rome, and which were pa.s.sed on to mediaeval and modern Europe, should be mentioned certain practical knowledge in agriculture and the mechanic arts; many inventions and acquired skills in the arts and trades; an organized sea and land trade and commerce; cleared and improved lands, good houses, roads and bridges; great architectural and engineering remains, scattered all through the provinces; the beginnings of the transformation of the slave into the serf, from which the great body of freemen of modern Europe later were evolved; and certain educational conceptions and practices which later profoundly influenced educational methods and procedure.

How large these contributions were we shall appreciate better as we proceed with our history. Of the negative contributions, the most dangerous has been the idea of the rule of one imperial government, which has inspired the autocratic governments of modern Europe to try to imitate the world-wide rule of Imperial Rome.

THE WAY PAVED FOR CHRISTIANITY. It was the great civilizing and unifying work of the Roman State that paved the way for the next great contribution to the foundations of the structure of our modern civilization--the contribution of Christianity. Had Italy never been consolidated; had the barbarian tribes to the north never been conquered and Romanized; had Spain and Africa and the eastern Mediterranean never known the rule of Rome; had the Latin language never become the speech of the then civilized peoples; had Roman armies never imposed law and order throughout an unruly world; had Roman governors and courts never established common rights and security; had Roman munic.i.p.al government never come to be the common type in the cities of the provinces; had Roman schools in the provincial cities never trained the foreign citizen in Roman ways and to think Roman thoughts; had Rome never established free trade and intercourse throughout her Empire; had Rome never developed processes and skills in agriculture and the creative arts; had there been no Roman roads and common coinage; and had Rome not done dozens of other important things to unify and civilize Europe and reduce it to law and order, it is hard to imagine the chaos that would have resulted when the Empire gave way to the barbarian hordes which finally overwhelmed it. Where we should have been to-day in the upward march of civilization, without the work of Rome, it is impossible to say.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Contrast the Romans as a colonizing power with the modern Germans. The English. The French.

2. At what period in our national development did home education with us occupy substantially the same place as it did in Rome before 300 B.C.? In what respects was the education given boys and girls similar? Different?

3. What was the most marked advance over the Greeks in the early Roman training?

4. Contrast the education of the Athenian, Spartan, and Roman boy, during the early period in each State.

5. To what extent does early Roman education indicate the importance of the parent and of study of biography in the education of the young?

6. Was the change in character of the education of Roman youths, after the expansion of the Roman State and the establishment of world contacts, preventable, or was it a necessary evolution? Why? Have we ever experienced similar changes?

7. As a State increases in importance and enlarges its world contacts, is a correspondingly longer training and enlarged culture necessary at home?

8. What idea do you get as to the extent to which the Latinized Odyssey was read from the fact that the Latin language was crystallized in form shortly after the translation was made?

9. What does the rapid adoption of the Greek educational system, and the later evolution of a native educational system out of it, indicate as to the nature of Roman expansion?

10. Was the introduction of the Greek pedagogue as a fashionable adjunct natural? Why?

11. Why is a period of very rapid expansion in a State likely to be demoralizing? How may the demoralization incident to such expansion be antic.i.p.ated and minimized?

12. Why does the coming of large landed estates introduce important social problems? Have we the beginnings of a social problem of this type? What correctives have we that Rome did not have?

13. State the economic changes which hastened the introduction of a new type of higher training at Rome.

14. Was the h.e.l.lenization of Rome which ensued a good thing? Why?

15. How do you account for Rome not developing a state school system in the period of great national need and change, instead of leaving the matter to private initiative? Do you understand that any large percentage of youths in the Roman State ever attended any school?

16. Why do older people usually oppose changes in school work manifestly needed to meet changing national demands?

17. Compare the difficulties met with in learning to read Greek and Latin.

Either and English.

18. How do you account for the much smaller emphasis on literature and music in the elementary instruction at Rome than at Athens? How for the much larger emphasis on formal grammar in the secondary schools at Rome?

19. What subjects of study as we now know them were included in the Roman study of grammar and rhetoric?

20. How do you explain the greater emphasis placed by the Romans on secondary education than on elementary education?

21. What particular Roman need did the higher schools of oratory and rhetoric supply?

22. What does the exclusive devotion of these schools to such studies indicate as to professional opportunities at Rome?

23. How do you account for the continuance of these schools in favor, and for the aid and encouragement they received from the later Emperors, when the very nature of the Empire in large part destroyed the careers for which they trained?

24. Compare Rome and the United States in their att.i.tudes toward foreign- born peoples.

SELECTED READINGS

In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections are reproduced:

12. The Laws of the Twelve Tables.