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

he went for instruction in physical training (R. 3).

[Illustration: FIG. 6. AN ATHENIAN INSCRIPTION

A decree of the Council and Assembly, dating from about 450 B.C. Note the difficulty of trying to read without any punctuation, and with only capital letters.]

Reading was taught by first learning the letters, then syllables, and finally words. [12] Plaques of baked earth, on which the alphabet was written, like the more modern horn-book (see Figure 130), were frequently used. [13] The ease with which modern children learn to read was unknown in Greece. Reading was very difficult to learn, as accentuation, punctuation, spacing between words, and small letters had not as yet been introduced. As a result the study required much time, [14] and much personal ingenuity had to be exercised in determining the meaning of a sentence. The inscription shown in Figure 6 will illustrate the difficulties quite well. The Athenian accent, too, was hard to acquire.

[Illustration: FIG. 7. GREEK WRITING-MATERIALS]

The pupil learned to write by first tracing, with the stylus, letters cut in wax tablets, and later by copying exercises set for him by his teacher, using the wax tablet and writing on his knee. Still later the pupil learned to write with ink on papyrus or parchment, though, due to the cost of parchment in ancient times, this was not greatly used. Slates and paper were of course unknown in Greece.

There was little need for arithmetic, and but little was taught.

Arithmetic such as we teach would have been impossible with their cumbrous system of notation. [15] Only the elements of counting were taught, the Greek using his fingers or a counting-board, such as is shown in Figure 8, to do his simple reckoning.

[Illustration: FIG. 8 A GREEK COUNTING-BOARD

Pebbles of different size or color were used for thousands, hundreds, tens, and units. Their position on the board gave them their values. The board now shows the total 15,379.]

GREAT IMPORTANCE OF READING AND LITERATURE. After the pupil had learned to read, much attention was given to accentuation and articulation, in order to secure beautiful reading. Still more, in reading or reciting, the parts were acted out. The Greeks were a nation of actors, and the recitations in the schools and the acting in the theaters gave plenty of opportunity for expression. There were no schoolbooks, as we know them. The master dictated and the pupils wrote down, or, not uncommonly, learned by heart what the master dictated. Ink and parchment were now used, the boy making his own schoolbooks. Homer was the first and the great reading book of the Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey being the Bible of the Greek people.

Then followed Hesiod, Theognis, the Greek poets, and the fables of Aesop.

[16] Reading, declamation, and music were closely interrelated. To appeal to the emotions and to stir the will along moral and civic lines was a fundamental purpose of the instruction (R. 5). A modern writer well characterizes the ancient instruction in literature in the following words:

By making the works of the great poets of the Greek people the material of their education, the Athenians attained a variety of objects difficult of attainment by any other one means. The fact is, the ancient poetry of Greece, with its finished form, its heroic tales and characters, its accounts of peoples far removed in time and space, its manliness and pathos, its directness and simplicity, its piety and wisdom, its respect for law and order, combined with its admiration for personal initiative and worth, furnished, in the hands of a careful and genial teacher, a material for a complete education such as could not well be matched even in our own day. What instruction in ethics, politics, social life, and manly bearing could not find a fitting vehicle in the Homeric poems, not to speak of the geography, the grammar, the literary criticism, and the history which the comprehension of them involved? Into what a wholesome, unsentimental, free world did these poems introduce the imaginative Greek boy! What splendid ideals of manhood and womanhood did they hold up for his admiration and imitation! From Hesiod he would learn all that he needed to know about his gods and their relation to him and his people.

From the elegiac poets he would derive a fund of political and social wisdom, and an impetus to patriotism, which would go far to make him a good man and a good citizen. From the iambic poets he would learn to express with energy his indignation at meanness, feebleness, wrong, and tyranny, while from the lyric poets he would learn the language suitable to every genial feeling and impulse of the human heart. And in reciting or singing all these, how would his power of terse, idiomatic expression, his sense of poetic beauty and his ear for rhythm and music be developed! With what a treasure of examples of every virtue and vice, and with what a fund of epigrammatic expression would his memory be furnished! How familiar he would be with the character and ideals of his nation, how deeply in sympathy with them! And all this was possible even before the introduction of letters. With this event a new era in education begins. The boy now not only learns and declaims his Homer, and sings his Simonides or Sappho; he learns also to write down their verses from dictation, and so at once to read and to write. This, indeed, was the way in which these two (to us) fundamental arts were acquired. As soon as the boy could trace with his finger in sand, or scratch with a stylus on wax, the forms of the letters, and combine them into syllables and words, he began to write poetry from his master’s dictation. The writing-lesson of to-day was the reading, recitation, or singing-lesson of tomorrow. Every boy made his own reading book, and, if he found it illegible, and stumbled in reading, he had only himself to blame. The Greeks, and especially the Athenians, laid the greatest stress on reading well, reciting well, and singing well, and the youth who could not do all three was looked upon as uncultured. Nor could he hide his want of culture, since young men were continually called upon, both at home and at more or less public gatherings, to perform their part in the social entertainment. [17]

[Illustration: FIG. 9. AN ATHENIAN SCHOOL

From a cup discovered at Caere, signed by the painter Duris, and now in the Museum of Berlin.

A LESSON IN MUSIC AND LANGUAGE Explanation: At the right is the paidagogos; he is seated, and turns his head to look at his pupil, who is standing before his master. The latter holds a writing-tablet and a stylus; he is perhaps correcting a task. At the left a pupil is taking a music lesson. On the wall are hung a roll of manuscript, a folded writing-tablet, a lyre, and an unknown cross-shaped object.

A LESSON IN MUSIC AND POETRY Explanation: At the right sits, cross-legged, the paidagogos, who has just brought in his pupil. The boy stands before the teacher of poetry and recites his lesson. The master, in a chair, holds in his hand a roll which he is unfolding, upon which we see Greek letters. Above these three figures we see on the wall a cup, a lyre, and a leather case of flutes. To the bag is attached the small box containing mouthpieces of different kinds for the flutes. Farther on a pupil is receiving a lesson in music. The master and pupil are both seated on seats without backs. The master, with head erect, looks at the pupil who, bent over his lyre, seems absorbed in his playing. Above are hanging a basket, a lyre, and a cup. On the wall is an inscription in Greek.]

THE MUSIC SCHOOL. The teacher in this school gradually separated himself from the grammatist, and often the two were found in adjoining rooms in the same school. In his functions he succeeded the wandering poet or minstrel of earlier times. Music teachers were common in all the City-States of Greece. To this teacher the boy went at first to recite his poetry, and after the thirteenth year for a special music course. The teacher was known as a citharist, and the instrument usually used was the seven-stringed lyre. This resembled somewhat our modern guitar. The flute was also used somewhat, but never grew into much favor, partly because it tended to excite rather than soothe, and partly because of the contortions of the face to which its playing gave rise. Rhythm, melody, and the feeling for measure and time were important in instruction, whose office was to soothe, purge, and harmonize man within and make him fit for moral instruction through the poetry with which their music was ever associated. Instead of being a distinct art, as with us, and taught by itself, music with the Greeks was always subsidiary to the expression of the spirit of their literature, and in aim it was for moral-training ends.

[18] Both Aristotle and Plato advocate state control of school music to insure sound moral results. Inferior as their music was to present-day music, it exerted an influence over their lives which it is difficult for an American teacher to appreciate.

[Illustration: FIG. 10. GREEK SCHOOL LESSONS

THE SINGING LESSON The boy is singing, to the accompaniment of a flute. On the wall hangs a bag of flutes.

THE LITERATURE LESSON The boy is reciting, while the teacher follows him on a roll of manuscript.]

The first lessons taught the use of the instrument, and the simple chants of the religious services were learned. As soon as the pupil knew how to play, the master taught him to render the works of the great lyric poets of Greece. Poetry and music together thus formed a single art. At thirteen a special music course began which lasted until sixteen, but which only the sons of the more well-to-do citizens attended. Every boy, though, learned some music, not that he might be a musician, but that he might be musical and able to perform his part at social gatherings and participate in the religious services of the State. Professional playing was left to slaves and foreigners, and was deemed unworthy a free man and a citizen.

Professionalism in either music or athletics was regarded as disgraceful.

The purpose of both activities was harmonious personal development, which the Greeks believed contributed to moral worth.

THE PALAESTRA; GYMNASTICS. Very unlike our modern education, fully one half of a boy’s school life, from eight to sixteen, was given to sports and games in another school under different teachers, known as the palaestra. The work began gradually, but by fifteen had taken precedence over other studies. As in music, harmonious physical development and moral ends were held to be of fundamental importance. The standards of success were far from our modern standards. To win the game was of little significance; the important thing was to do the part gracefully and, for the person concerned, well. To attain to a graceful and dignified carriage of the body, good physical health, perfect control of the temper, and to develop quickness of perception, self-possession, ease, and skill in the games were the aims—not mere strength or athletic prowess (R. 2). Only a few were allowed to train for participation in the Olympian games.

The work began with children’s games, contests in running, and ball games of various kinds. Deportment—how to get up, walk, sit, and how to achieve easy manners—was taught by the masters. After the pupils came to be a little older there was a definite course of study,