The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

was through the public service, either as army commanders and governors, or as public men who could sway the multitude and command votes and influence. Manifestly the old type of education was not intended to meet such needs, and now in Rome, as previously in Athens, a complete transformation in the system of training for the young took place. The imaginative and creative Athenians, when confronted by a great change in national ideals, evolved a new type of education adapted to the new needs of the time; the unimaginative and practical Romans merely adopted that which the Athenians had created.

 

THE HELLENIZATION OF ROME. The result was the Hellenization of the intellectual life of Rome, making complete the Hellenization of the Mediterranean world. After the fall of Greece, in 146 B.C., a great influx of educated Greeks took place. As the Latin poet Horace expressed it: Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror, And brought the arts to Latium.

 

So completely did the Greek educational system seem to meet the needs of the changed Roman State that at first the Greek schools were adopted bodily—Greek language, pedagogue, higher schools of rhetoric and philosophy, and all—and the schools were in reality Greek schools but slightly modified to meet the needs of Rome. Gymnasia were erected, and wealthy Romans, as well as youths, began to spend their leisure in studying Greek and in trying to learn gymnastic exercises.

 

In time the national pride and practical sense of the Romans led them to open so-called “culture schools” of their own, modeled after the Greek.

The Latin language then replaced the Greek as the vehicle of instruction, though Greek was still studied extensively, and Rome began the development of a system of private-school instruction possessing some elements that were native to Roman life and Roman needs.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 20. CATO THE ELDER (234-149 B.C.)]

 

STRUGGLE AGAINST, AND FINAL VICTORY. That this great change in national ideals and in educational practice was accepted without protest should not be imagined. Plutarch and other writers appealed to the family as the center for all true education. Cato the elder, who died in 149 B.C., labored hard to stem the Hellenic tide. He wrote the first Roman book on education, in part to show what education a good citizen needed as an orator, husbandman, jurist, and warrior, and in part as a protest against Hellenic innovations. In 167 B.C., the first library was founded in Rome, with books brought from Greece by the conqueror Paulus Emilius. In 161

B.C., the Roman Senate directed the Praetor to see “that no philosophers or rhetoricians be suffered in Rome” (R. 20 a), but the edict could not be enforced. In 92 B.C., the Censors issued an edict expressing their disapproval of such schools (R. 20 b). By 100 B.C., the Hellenic victory was complete, and the Graeco-Roman school system had taken form. In 27

B.C., Rome ceased to be a Republic and became an Empire, and under the Emperors the professors of the new learning were encouraged and protected, higher schools were established in the provinces, literature and philosophy were opened as possible careers, and the Greek language, literature, and learning were spread, under Roman imperial protection, to every corner of the then civilized world. This victory of Hellenic thought and learning at Rome, viewed in the light of the future history of the civilization of the world, was an event of large importance.

 

IV. THE SCHOOL SYSTEM AS FINALLY ESTABLISHED

 

THE LUDUS, OR PRIMARY SCHOOL. The elementary school, known as the ludus, or ludus literarum, the teacher of which was known as a ludi magister, was the beginning or primary school of the scheme as finally evolved. This corresponded to the school of the Athenian grammatist, and like it the instruction consisted of reading, writing, and counting. These schools were open to both sexes, but were chiefly frequented by boys. They were entered at the age of seven, sometimes six, and covered the period up to twelve. Reading and writing were taught by much the same methods as in the Greek schools, and approximately the same writing materials were used.

Something of the same difficulty was experienced also in mastering the reading art (R. 21). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Greek historian who lived in Rome for twenty-two years, during the first century B.C., has left us a clear description of the Roman method of teaching reading: When we learned to read was it not necessary at first to know the name of the letters, their shape, their value in syllables, their differences, then the words and their case, their quantity long or short, their accent, and the rest?

 

Arrived at this point we began to read and write, slowly at first and syllable by syllable. Some time afterwards, the forms being sufficiently engraved on our memory, we read more cursorily, in the elementary book, then in all sorts of books, finally with incredible quickness and without making any mistake.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 21. ROMAN WRITING-MATERIALS.

Inkstand, pen, letter, box of manuscripts, wax tablets, stylus.]

 

Writing seems rather to have followed reading, and, as in the Greek schools, the pupils copied down from dictation and made their own books (_dictata_). Literature received no such emphasis in the elementary schools of Rome as in those of the Greeks, and the palaestra of the Greeks was not reproduced at Rome.

 

Due in part to the practical character of the Roman people, to the established habit of keeping careful household accounts, to the difficulties of their system of calculation, [15] to the practice of finger reckoning, and to the vast commercial and financial interests that the Romans formed throughout the world which they conquered, arithmetic became a subject of fundamental importance in their schools, and much time was given to securing perfection in calculation and finger reckoning. [16]

Hence it occupied a place of large importance in the primary school. An abacus or counting-board was used, similar to the one shown in Figure 22, and Horace mentions a bag of stones (_calculi_) as a part of a schoolboy’s equipment.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 22. A ROMAN COUNTING-BOARD.

Pebbles were used, those nearest the numbered dividing partition being counted. Each pebble above when moved downward counted five of those in the same division below. The board now shows 8,760,254.]

 

THE LUDI MAGISTER. The ludi magister at Rome held a position even less enviable than that held by the grammatist at Athens. “The starveling Greek,” who was glad to barter his knowledge for the certainty of a good dinner, was sneered at by many Roman writers. Many slaves were engaged in this type of instruction, bringing in fees for their owners. It was not regarded as of importance that the teachers of these schools be of high grade. The establishment of and attendance at these primary schools was wholly voluntary, and the children in them probably represented but a small percentage of those of school age in the total population. These schools became quite common in the Italian cities, and in time were found in the provincial cities of the Empire as well. They remained, however, entirely private-adventure undertakings, the State doing nothing toward encouraging their establishment, supervising the instruction in them, or requiring attendance at them. They were in no sense free schools, nor were the prices for instruction fixed, as in our private schools of to-day.

Instead, the pupil made a present to the master, usually at some understood rate, though some masters left the size of the fee to the liberality of their pupils. [17] The pedagogue, copied from Greece, was nearly always an old or infirm slave of the family.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 23. A ROMAN PRIMARY SCHOOL(_Ludus_) (From a fresco found at Herculaneum). This shows a school held in a portico of a house.]

 

The schools were held anywhere—in a portico (see Figure 23), in a shed or booth in front of a house, in a store, or in a recessed corner shut in by curtains. A chair for the master, benches for the pupils, an outer room for cloaks and for the pedagogues to wait in, and a bundle of rods (_ferula_) constituted the necessary equipment. The pupils brought with them boxes containing writing-materials, book-rolls, and reckoning-stones.

Schools began early in the morning, pupils in winter going with lanterns to their tasks. There was much flogging of children, and in Martial we find an angry epigram which he addressed to a schoolmaster who disturbed his sleep (R. 23 a).

 

THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS. Secondary or Latin grammar schools, under a grammaticus, and covering instruction from the age of twelve to sixteen, had become clearly differentiated from the primary schools under a ludi magister by the time of the death of Cato, 149 B.C. At first this higher instruction began in the form of private tutors, probably in the homes of the wealthy, and Greek was the language taught. By the beginning of the first century B.C., however, Latin secondary schools began to arise, and in time these too spread to all the important cities of the Empire.

Attendance at them was wholly voluntary, and was confined entirely to the children of the well-to-do classes. The teachers were Greeks, or Latins who had been trained by the Greeks. Each teacher taught as he wished, but the schools throughout the Empire came to be much the same in character.

The course of study consisted chiefly of instruction in grammar and literature, the purpose being to secure such a mastery of the Latin language and Greek and Latin literatures as might be most helpful in giving that broader culture now recognized as the mark of an educated man, and in preparing the young Roman to take up the life of an orator and public official (R. 24). Both Greek and Latin secondary schools were in existence, and Quintilian, the foremost Roman writer on educational practice, recommends attendance at the Greek school first.

 

Grammar was studied first, and was intended to develop correctness in the use of speech. With its careful study of words, phonetic changes, drill on inflections, and practice in composing and paragraphing, this made a strong appeal to the practical Roman and became a favorite study.

Literature followed, and was intended to develop an appreciation for literary style, elevate thought, expand one’s knowledge, and, by memorization and repetition, to train the powers of expression. The method practiced was much as follows: The selection was carefully read first by the teacher, and then by the pupils. [18] After the reading the selection was gone over again and the historical, geographical, and mythological allusions were carefully explained by the teacher. [19] The text was next critically examined, to point out where and how it might be improved and its expressions strengthened, and much paraphrasing of it was engaged in.

Finally the study of the selection was rounded out by a judgment—that is, a critical estimate of the work, a characterization of the author’s style, and a resume of his chief merits and defects. The foundations were here laid for Grammar and Rhetoric as the great studies of the Middle Ages.

 

Homer and Menander were the favorite authors in Greek, and Vergil, Horace, Sallust, and Livy in Latin, with much use of Aesop’s Fables for work in composition. The pupils made their own books from dictation, though in later years educated slave labor became so cheap that the copying and sale of books was organized into a business at Rome, and it was possible for the children of wealthy parents to own their own books. Grammar, composition, elocution, ethics, history, mythology, and geography were all comprehended in the instruction in grammar and literature in the secondary schools. A little music was added at times, to help the pupil intone his reading and declamation. A little geometry and astronomy