EPOCHS IN GREEK EDUCATION

When they (our ancestors) began to enjoy leisure for thought, as the result of easy circumstances, and to cherish more exalted ideas with respect to worth, and especially when, in the period before and after the Persian Wars, they came to entertain a high opinion of themselves, on account of their achievements, they pursued all kinds of education, making no distinction, but beating about generally.—Aristotle.

In treating of Greek education subsequent to the introduction of letters and the establishment of schools, we shall be obliged, in the interest of clearness, to make three distinctions:—

(1) Between the educational systems of different periods.

(2) Between the educational systems of different peoples and states.

(3) Between the education actually imparted in the various states, and that recommended by theorists or philosophers.

In pursuance of the first, it will be convenient first to distinguish two main periods, the Hellenic, and the Hellenistic, and then to subdivide these into minor periods.

I. The Hellenic Period (776-338 b.c.). This includes, roughly speaking, the whole historic life of free Greece, from the date of the first Olympiad to that of the absorption of Greece into the Macedonian Empire. It naturally subdivides itself into two periods, (a) 776-450; (b) 450-338.

(a) That of the "Old Education," authoritative and puritanical, whose aim was the training of good citizens, god-fearing, law-abiding, patriotic, and brave.

(b) That of the "New Education," rationalistic and "liberal," whose aim was the training of formidable individuals, self-centred, law-despising, time-serving, and cunning.

It is in the struggle between the two systems, and in the practical triumph of the latter, that Greece loses her moral fibre; so that her citizens, weakened through sundering selfishness, fall an easy prey to the foreign invader.

II. The Hellenistic Period (338 b.c.-313 a.d.). This extends from the Battle of ChÆronea, in which Greece lost her independence, to the definitive triumph of Christianity, which brought a new ideal and a new spirit into life and education. It naturally subdivides itself into two periods, (a) b.c. 338-146; (b) b.c. 146-a.d. 313.

(a) The Macedonian Period, during which Macedonian influence prevailed, and Greek thought and education, absorbing foreign, chiefly Oriental, elements, tended toward an encyclopÆdic cosmopolitanism. During this period, Alexandria is the centre of Greek influence.

(b) The Roman Period, during which, as Horace says, "Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror," and Rome became, alongside Alexandria, a diffusive centre of Greek thought, art, and education. Between the two great periods, the Hellenic and the Hellenistic, stands the man who draws up the testament of the former and outlines the programme of the latter, the Macedonian Greek, Aristotle.

Our second distinction will lead us to treat separately, in the Hellenic period, the educational system of the three Greek races, (1) the Æolic, (2) the Doric, (3) the Ionic, the first having its chief centre at Thebes, the second at Sparta, the third at Athens. For an account of the education of the first our data are but meagre; with the main features of Spartan and Athenian education we are well acquainted. In education, as in everything, Sparta was conservative, socialistic, and aristocratic, while Athens tended to liberalism, individualism, and democracy. Hence Sparta clung desperately to the "Old Education," and almost closed her doors against art, letters, and philosophy, while Athens, dragged into the "New Education," became the home of all these. It must always be borne in mind that, in favoring individualism and the "New Education," Athens was abandoning the Hellenic ideal, and paving the way for the cosmopolitanism of the Hellenistic period. In this latter, we shall have to distinguish between the educational systems of Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.

Our third distinction is that between individual theory and popular practice. In all epochs of their history the Greek states produced men who strove to realize in thought and imagination the ideal of their people, and to exhibit it as an aim, an encouragement, and an inspiration, in contrast with the imperfect actual. In more than one case this ideal modified the education of the following periods. Of course, such theories did not arise until practice was compelled to defend itself by producing sanctions, either in religion or in reason, and it may perhaps be affirmed that the aim of them all was to discover such sanctions for the Greek ideal. Among the many educational theorists of Greece, there are six who especially deserve to be considered: (1) Pythagoras, who in Southern Italy sought to graft on the Doric ideal a half-mystical, half-ethical theology, and a mathematical theory of the physical world; (2) Xenophon, who sought to secure the same ideal by connecting it with a monarchical form of government; (3) Plato, who sought to elevate it, and find a sanction for it in his theory of super-sensuous ideas; (4) Aristotle, who presented in all its fulness the Hellenic ideal, and sought to find sanctions for it in history, social well-being, and the promise of a higher life; (5) Quintilian, who, in Rome, embodies the rhetorical or worldly education of the Hellenistic period; and (6) Plotinus, who presents an ideal of philosophical or other-worldly education, and paves the way for the triumph of Christian dogma.

BOOK II

THE HELLENIC PERIOD (b.c. 776-338)