Glass ^.L A -7-^ OLD GREEK EDUCATION OLD GREEK EDUCATION BY J. P. MAHAFFY, M,A. FELL. AND TUTOR, TRIN. COLL., DUB. KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF THE SAVIOUR AUTHOR OF "social LIFE IN GREECE" "a HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE" "a PRIMER OF GREEK ANTIQUITIES" ETC. V h ^^WASH;^^' NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1882 v \v, .^ TO THE GREEK NATION STILL, AS OF OLD, THE PIONEER OF EDUCATION IN EASTERN EUROPE THIS LITTLE BOOK IN MEMORY OF THE YEAR 1 88 1 PREFATORY NOTE. Readers unfamiliar with Greek will find the equivalent of the Greek words cited in the nearest word printed in italics. The scope of this book precludes me from ac- knowledging individually my many obligations to other authors, both for curious facts and for learned references. CONTENTS. OIIAPTEE PAGE Introduction 1 I. Infixncy 7 II. Earlier Childhood 14 III. School Days— The Physical Side 21 IV. School Days— The Musical Side— The Schoolmaster . 32 V. Thd Musical Side — Schools and their Appointments . . 42 VI. The Subjects and Method of Education — Drawing and Music 57 VII. The Last Stage of Education— Military Training of the Ephebi ..... G9 VIII. Higher Education — The Sophists and Socrates ... 78 IX. The Rhetors— Isocrates 01 X. The Greek Theorists on Education — ^Plato and Aristotle 1)9 XL The Growth of Systematic Higher Education — Univer- sity Life at Athens 116 Index 141 GREEK EDUCATION. INTRODUCTION. § 1. We hear it often repeated that human nature is the same at all times and in all places ; and this is urged at times and places where it is so manifestly false that we feel disposed peremptorily to deny it when paraded to us as a general truth. The fact is that only in its lower activities does human nature show any remarkable uni- formity ; so far as men are mere animals, they have strong resemblances, and in savages even their minds seem to originate the same fancies in various ages and climes. But when we come to higher developments, to the spiritual element in individuals, to the social and political relations of civilized men, the pretended truism gives way more and more to the opposite truth, that mankind varies at all times and in all places. As no two individuals, when care- fully examined, are exactly alike, so no two societies of men are even nearly alike ; and at the present time there is probably no more fertile cause of political and legislative blundering than the assumption that the constitution suc- cessfully worked out by one people can be transferred by the force of a mere decree to its neio'hbors. All the recent experiments in state -reform have been based on this as- sumption, as if the transferrence of a House of Commons 2 GEEEK EDUCATION. in any real sense were not as impossible as the transferrence of Eton and of Oxford to some foreign society. Although, therefore, we cannot deny that past history contains manv fruitful lessons for the betterino- of our own time, it is not unlikely that the tendency of the pres- ent widely informed but hasty age is to exaggerate the likenesses of various epochs, and to overrate the force of analogy in social and political reasoning. Historical paral- lels are generally striking only up to a cei'tain point ; a deeper knowledge discloses elements of contrast, wide dif- ferences of motive, great variations in human feeling. § 2. But as we go back to simpler states of life, or earlier stages of development, the argument from analogy becomes stronger, and the lessons we may derive from history, though less striking, are more trustworthy. This is peculiarly the case with the problem of education as handled by civilized nations in various ages. The material to be worked upon is that simpler and fresher human nat- ure, in which varieties are due only to heredity, and not yet to the numerous artificial stimulants and restraints which every society of mature men invents for itself. The games and sports of children, all over the world, are as uniform as the weapons and designs of savages. The de- lights and disappointments of education have also remained the same, at least in many respects. The conflict of theo- retical and practical educators, and the failure of splendid schemes for the reform of society by a systematic training of youth, mark every over-ripe civilization. Here, then, if anywhere, we may gain a distinct advantage by contem- plating the problems, which we ourselves are solving, under discussion in a remote society. The more important and permanent elements will stand out clearer when freed from GREEK EDUCATION. 6 tlie interests and prejudices of our own day, and from the necessities of our own situation ; and thus we may be taught to regain freedom of judgment and escape from the iron despotism of a traditional system. For if it be the case that in no department of our life are we more thor- oughly enslaved than on the question of education, if it be true that we are obliged here to submit our children to the ignorance and prejudice of nurses, governesses, priests, pedants — all following more or less stupid traditions, and all coerced by shackles which they want either the knowl- edge or the power to break — then any inquiry which may lead us to consider freely and calmly what is right and what is not right, what is possible and what is not possible, in education cannot but have real value, apart from purely historical or learned considerations. § 3. In fact, the main object of this book is to interest men who are not classical scholars, and who are not pro- fessional educators, in the theory of education as treated by that people which is known to have done more than any other in fitting its members for the higher ends and enjoyments of life. The Greeks were far behind us in the mechanical aids to human progress; they understood not the use of electricity, or of steam, or of gunpowder, or of printing. But, in spite of this, the Greek public was far better educated than we are — nay, to some extent, because of this it was better educated. For Greek life afforded proper leisure for thorough intellectual training, and this includes first of all such political training as is strange to almost the whole of Europe ; secondly, moral training of so high a kind as to rival at times the light of revelation ; thirdly, social training to something higher than music and feasting by way of recreation ; and, fourthly, artistic train- IX 4 GREEK EDUCATION. ing, which, while it did not condescend to bad imitations of great artists, taught the public to understand and to love true, and noble ideals. Why must these great ends of education be obscured or lost by the modern wonders of discovery, which should make them more easy of attainment and wider in circula- tion ? Were the Greeks better off in education than we are, and, if so, why were they better off? or is all this al- leged Greek superiority an idle dream of the pedants, with no solid basis in facts? If it is real, can we not discover the secret of their superiority, and use it with far wider and deeper effect in our Christian society ? or is human nature of narrow and fixed capacity, and does the addition of wide ranges of positive science and of various tongues mar ir- revocably the cultivation of the pure reason and of the aes- thetic faculty ? These are the problems which will occupy the following pages, not in their abstract form ; they will be considered in close relation to the success or failure of the old Greeks in discussing and solving them. § 4. There have been only two earlier nations and one later which could compete with the Greeks in their treat- ment of this perpetual problem in human progress. We have first the Egyptian nation, which by its thorough and widely diffused culture attained a duration of national pros- perity and happiness perhaps never since equalled. Isolated from other civilized races by geographical position, by lan- guage, and in consequence by social institutions, the Egyp- tians prosecuted internal development more assiduously than is the wont of mere conquering races. The few foreign possessions acquired by the Egyptians were never assimilated, and the civilization of the Nile remained iso- lated and unique. We have reason to know that this re- GREEK EDUCATION. 5 fined social life, which is perpetuated in pictures on the monuments of the land — this large and various literature, iof which so many fragments have been recovered in our century — was not created without a diffused and systematic education. In Plato's " Laws," ^ the training of their young- children in elementary science is described as far superior to anything in Greece. But, unfortunately, the materials for any estimate of Egyptian education, in its process, are wanting. We can see plainly its great national effects ; we have even some details as to the special training in separate institutions of a learned and literary class ; but nothing more has yet been recovered. If we knew the various steps by which Moses became " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," an interesting field of compari- son would be opened to us ; and here, no doubt, we should find some of our own difficulties discussed and perhaps solved by early sages, still more by an enlightened public opinion, showing itself in the establishment of sound tra- iitions. And, no doubt, from the dense population, the subdivision of property and of labor, and the absence of a ^reat territorial aristocracy, the education of the Egyptians nust have corresponded to our middle -class and primary -i^ystems, together with special institutions for the higher Iraining of the professions and of the literary caste. § 5. If we could command our material, we mio-ht seek elsewhere for analogies to the education of our nobility and higher gentry. We know through Greek and Roman sources, as well as through the heroic poetry of the " Shah- .nameh," that the Aryan nobles who became, under Cyrus, the rulers of Western Asia, were in character, as they were in blood, allied to the Germanic chiefs and Norse Vikings, »F. 819. 6 GllEEK EDUCATION. with their love of daring adventure, their chivalry, and their intense loyalty to their appointed sovereign. In these qualities they were strangely opposed to the demo- cratic Greeks, on whom they looked with contempt, while they w^ere appreciated in return only by a few such men as Herodotus and Xenophon. Indeed, such devotion to their sovereign as made them leap overboard to lighten his ship in a storm was confounded by the Greeks with slavish submission. Oriental prostrations, and other signs of humiliation. Nevertheless, the men whom the Greeks long dared not look in the face — the conquerors of half the known world, the successful rivals of the Romans for the dominion of the East — faced death under Xerxes and , the last Darius with other feelings than those of slavish submission. Herodotus, in his interesting and sympathetic account of them, says their children's education consisted V of three things — to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth. If he had added a chivalrous loyalty to their kings like that of the French nobles in the last century, he would have completed the picture, and sketched a training which many an English gentleman considers little short of perfec- tion. § 6. The Romans are the only other ancient people who stand near enough to us to suggest an inquiry into their education. And it may be said that they combined the dignity of noble traditions with the practical instincts of a successful trading people. Hence Roman education, if carried on with system, ought of all others to correspond with that of Englishmen, who should combine the same qualities in carrying out an analogous policy, and in filling, to some extent, a similar position in the world. But so closely was all Roman culture based on Greek books and GREEK EDUCATIOI^. 7 models that, although every people must develop individ- ual features of its own — and the Romans had plenty of them, as we may see from Quintilian — any philosophical / knowledge of Roman education must depend upon a pre- vious knov^'ledge of the Greeks. In many respects the Ro- mans were a race more congenial to the Eno-Iish, and hence by us more easily understood. In the coarser and strong- er elements of human character, in directness and love of truth, in a certain contempt of aesthetics and of specula- tion, in a blunt assertion of the supremacy of practical questions, in a want of sympathy, and often a stupid igno- rance and neglect of the character and requirements of subject races, the Romans are the true forerunners of the English in history. Burdened as we are with these defects of national character, the products of the subtler and more genial, if less solid and truthful, Hellenic race are partic- ularly well worth our consideration. This has been so thoroughly recognized by thoughtful men in our genera- tion as to require no further support by argument. It only remains that each of our Hellenists should do his best, in some distinct line, to make the life of the Greeks known to us with fairness and accuracy. CHAPTER I. INFANCY. § 7. We find in Homer, especially in the " Iliad," indica- tions of the plainest kind that Greek babies were like the babies of modern Europe, equally troublesome, equally de- 2 8 GEEEK EDUCATION. lightful to their parents, equally uninteresting to the rest of society. The faraous scene in the sixth book of the "Iliad," when Hector's infant, Astyanax, screams at the sight of his father's waving crest, and the hero lays his hebuet on the ground that he may laugh and weep over the child ; the love and tenderness of Andromache, and her pathetic laments in the tw^enty- second book — are familiar to all. She foresees the hardships and unkindnesses to her orphan boy, " who was wont upon his father's knees to eat the purest marrow and the rich fat of sheep ; and w^hen sleep came upon him, and he ceased his childish play, he "VY^nld lie in the arms of his nurse, on a soft cushion, satisfied with every comfort." So, again, ^ a protecting goddess is compared to a mother keeping the flies from her sleeping infant, and a pertinacious friend^ to a little girl who, run- ning beside her mother, begs to be taken up, holding her dress and delaying her, and with tearful eyes the child keeps looking up till the mother denies her no longer. These are only stray references, and yet they speak no less clearly than if we had asked for an express answer to a direct inquiry. So we have the hesitation of the mur- derers sent to make away with the infant Cypselus, who had been foretold to portend danger to the Corinthian Herods of that day. The smile of the baby nnmans — or should we rather say unbrutes? — the first ruffian, and so the task is passed on from man to man. This story in Herodotus' is a sort of natural Greek parallel to the great Shakespearian scene, where another child sways his intend- ed torturer with an eloquence more conscious and explicit, but not, perhaps, more powerful, than the radiant smile of the Greek baby. Thus Euripides, the great master of pa- 1 A 1 30. » n 7. ^ Herod, v. 93. GREEK EDUCATION. 9 thos, represents Iphigcnia bringing her infant brother Ores- tes to plead for her with that unconsciousness of sorrow which pierces us to the heart more than the most affecting rhetoric. In modern art a little child, playing about its dead mother, and waiting with contentment for her awak- ing, is perhaps the most powerful appeal to human com- passion which we are able to conceive. On the other hand, the troubles of infancy were then as now very great. We do not, indeed, hear of croup or teething or measles or whooping-cough. But these are occasional matters, and count as nothing beside the inex- orable tyranny of a sleepless baby. For then as now mothers and nurses had a strong prejudice in favor of carrying about restless children, and so soothing them to sleep. The unpractical Plato requires that in his fabulous Republic two or three stout nurses shall be in readiness to carry about each child, because children, like game-cocks, gain spirit and endurance by this treatment ! What they really gain is a gigantic power of torturing their mothers. Most children can readily be taught to sleep in a bed, or even in an arm-chair ; but an infant once accustomed to be- ing carried about will insist upon it ; and so it came that Greek husbands were obliged to relegate their wives to an- other sleeping -room, where the nightly squalling of the furious infant might not disturb the master as well as the mistress of the house. But the Greek gentleman was able to make good his dariiaged rest by a mid-day siesta, and so required but little sleep at night. The modern father in Northern Europe, with his whole day's work and waking, is therefore in a more disadvantageous position. n) Of course, very fashionable people kept nurses, and it was the highest tone at Athens to have a Spartan nurse for JO GREEK EDUCATION. tlie infant, just as an English nnrse is sought out among foreign noblesse. We are told that these women made the child hardier, that they used less swathing and bandaging, and allowed free play for the limbs ; and this, like all the Spartan physical training, was approved of and admired by the rest of the Greek public, though its imitation was never suggested save in the unpractical speculations of Plato. Whether they also approved of a diet of marrow and mutton suet, which Homer, in the passage just cited, con- siders the luxury of princes, does not appear. As Homer was the Greek Bible— an inspired book containing perfect wisdom on all things, human and divine — there must have been many orthodox parents who followed his prescrip- tion. But we hear no approval or censure of such diet. Possibly marrow may have represented our cod-liver oil in strengthening delicate infants. But as the Homeric men fed far more exclusively on meat than their historical successors, some vegetable substitute, such as olive oil, must have been in use later on. Even within our memory mutton suet boiled in milk was commonly recommended by physicians for the delicacy now treated by cod-liver oil. The supposed strengthening of children by air and ex- posure, or by early neglect of their comforts, was as fash- ionable at Sparta as it is with many modern theorists, and it probably led in both cases to the. same result — the ex- tinction of the weak and delicate. These theorists parade the cases of survival of stout children— that is, their ex- ceptional soundness — as the effect of this harsh treatment, and so satisfy themselves that experience confirms their views. Now with the Spartans this was logical enough, for as they professed and desired nothing but physical re- GEEEK EDUCATION. 11 suits, as tliey despised intellectual qualities, and esteemed obedience to be the highest of moral ones, they were per- haps justified in their proceeding. So thoroughly did they advocate the production of healthy citizens for military purposes that they were quite content that the sickly should die. In fact, in the case of obviously weak and deformed infants, they did not hesitate to expose them in the most brutal sense, not to cold and draughts, but to the wild beasts in the mountains. § 8. This brings us to the first shocking contrast be- tween the Greek treatment of children and ours. We can- not really doubt, from the free use of the idea in Greek tragedies, in the comedies of ordinary life, and in theories of political economy, that the exposing of new-born chil- dren was not only sanctioned by public feeling, but actual- ly practised throughout Greece. Various motives com- bined to justify or to extenuate this practice. In* the first place, the infant was regarded as the property of its par- ents, indeed of its father, to an extent inconceivable to most modern Christians. The State only, whose claim overrode all other considerations, had a right, for public reasons, to interfere with the dispositions of a father. In- dividual human life had not attained what may be called tiie exaggerated value derived from sundry superstitions, which remains even after those superstitions have decayed. And, moreover, in many Greek states, the contempt for commercial pursuits, and the want of outlet for practical energy, made the supporting of large families cumbersome, or the subdivision of patrimonies excessive. Hence the prudence or the selfishness of parents did not hesitate to use an escape which modern civilization condemns as not only criminal, but as horribly cruel. How little even the 12 GKEEK EDUCATION". noblest Greek theorists felt this objection appears from the fact that Plato, the Attic Moses, sanctions infanticide ^ un- der certain circumstances or in another form, in his ideal state. In the genteel comedy it is often mentioned as a somewhat painful necessity, but enjoined by prudence. Nowhere does the agony of the mother's heart reach us through their literature, save in one illustration used by the Platonic Socrates, where he compares the anger of his pu- pils, when first confuted out of their prejudices, to the fury of a young mother deprived of her first infant. There is something horrible in the very allusion, as if in after-life Attic mothers became hardened to this treatment. We must suppose the exposing of female infants to have been not uncommon until the just retribution of barrenness fell upon the nation, and the population dwindled away by a strange atrophy. § 9. Iti the many family suits argued by the Attic ora- tors, we do not (I believe) find a case in which a large fam- ily of children is concerned. Four appears a larger num- ber than the average. Marriages between relations as close as uncle and niece, and even half-brothers and sisters, were not uncommon ; but the researches of modern science have removed the grounds for believing that this practice would tend to diminish the race. It would certainly increase any pre-existing tendency to hereditary disease; yet we do not hear of infantile diseases any more than we hear of delicate J Exposing children, instead of killing them, left open the chance that some benevolent person would save them, from pity, or avari- cious person sell them as slaves — a result which, no doubt, often occurred. Thus the parents could console their consciences with a hope that the benevolence of the gods had prevented the natural con- sequences of their inhuman act. GREEK EDUCATION. 13 infants. Plagues and epidemics were common enough, but, as already observed, we do not hear of measles, or whooping-cough, or scarlatina, or any of the other constant persecutors of our nurseries. As the learning of foreign languages was quite beneath the notions of the Greek gentleman, who rather expected all barbarians to learn his language, the habit of employing foreign nurses, so useful and even necessary to good mod- ern education, was well-nigh unknown. It would have been thought a great misfortune to any Hellenic child to be brought up speaking Thracian or Egyptian. Accord- ingly, foreign slave attendants, with their strange accent and rude manners, were not allowed to take charge of children till they were able to go to school, and had learn- ed their mother tongue perfectly. But the women's apartments, in which children were kept for the first few years, are closed so completely to us that we can but conjecture a few things about the life and care of Greek babies. A few late epigrams tell the grief of parents bereaved of their infants. Beyond this, classical literature affords us no liojht. The backwardness in cult- ure of Greek women leads us to suspect that then, as now, Greek babies were more often spoiled than is the case among the serious Northern nations. The term "Spartan mother" is, however, still proverbial ; and, no doubt, in that excep- tional State discipline was so universal and so highly es- teemed that it penetrated even to the nursery. But in the rest of Greece we may conceive the young child arriving at his schoolboy age more wilful and headstrong than most of our more watched and worried infants. Archytas, the philosopher, earned special credit for inventing the rattle, and saving much damage to household furniture by occu- pying children with this toy. 14 GEEEK EDUCATION. CHAPTER II. EARLIER CHILDHOOD. 8 10. The external circumstances determining a Greek boy's education were somewhat different from ours. We must remember that all old Greek life, except in rare cases, such as that of Elis, of which we know nothing, was dis- tinctly town life; and so, naturally, Greek schooling was day schooling, from which the children returned to the care of their parents. To hand over boys, far less girls, to the charge of a boarding-school was perfectly unknown, and would, no doubt, have been gravely censured. Orphans were placed under the care of their nearest male relative, even when their education was provided (as it was in some cases) by the State. Again, as regards the age of going to school, it would naturally be early, seeing that day schools may well include infants of tender age, and that in Greek households neither father nor mother was often able or disposed to undertake the education of the children. In- deed, we find it universal that even the knowledge of the letters, and reading, were obtained from a schoolmaster. All these circumstances would point to an early beginning of Greek school life ; whereas, on the other hand, the small number of subjects required in those days, the absence from the programme of various languages, of most exact sciences, and of general history and geography, made it unnecessary to begin so early, or work so hard, as our un- fortunate children have to do. Above all, there were no competitive examinations, except in athletics and music. GREEK EDUCATION. 15 The Greeks never thought of pronioting a man for " dead knowledge," but for his living grasp of science or of life. Owing to these causes, we find the theorists discussing, as they now do, the expediency of waiting till the age of seven before beginning serious education — some advising it, others recommending easy and half-playing lessons from an earlier period. And then, as now, we find the same curious silence on the really important fact that the exact number of years a child has lived is nothing to the point in question ; and that while one child may be too young at seven to commence work, many more may be distinctly too old. § 11. At all events, we may assume in parents the same varieties of over-anxiety, of over-indulgence, of nervousness, and of carelessness about their children ; and so it doubt- less came to pass that there was in many cases a gap be- tween infancy and school-life, which was spent in playing and doing mischief. This may be fairly inferred, not only from such anecdotes as that of Alcibiades playing with his fellows in the street,^ evidently without the protection of any psedagogue, but also from the large nomenclature of boys' games preserved to us in the glossaries of later gram- marians. These games are quite distinct from the regular exercises in the palaestra (of which we will speak presently, as form- ing a regular part of education). We have only general descriptions of them, and these either by Greek scholiasts or by modern philologists. But, in spite of the sad want of practical knowledge of games shown by both, the in- stincts of boyhood are so uniform that we can often frame a very distinct idea of the sort of amusement popular ^Plut. "Alkib.,"c. 2. 16 GREEK EDUCATION. among Greek cLildren. For young boys, games can hardly consist of anything else than either the practising of some bodily dexterity, such as hopping on one foot, higher or longer than is easy, or throwing farther with a stone ; or else some imitation of war, such as snowballing, or pulling a rope across a line, or pursuing under fixed conditions ; or, lastly, the practice of some mechanical ingenuity, such as whipping a top or shooting with marbles. So far as cli- mate or mechanical inventions have not altered our little boys' games, we find all these principles represented in Greek games. There was the hobby- or cock-horse (mXajuoj/ 7rapaf3}]pai), standing or hopping on one leg {acrKojXia^eiy), which, as the word cktkoq implies, was attempted on a skin- bottle filled with liquid and greased; blindman's-buff ()(a\»cJ7 fjLvla), in which the boy cried, "I am hunting a bracken jiy^'' and the rest answered, " You will not catch it ;" games of hide-and-seek, of taking and releasing pris- oners, of fool in the middle, of playing at king — in fact, there is probably no simple child's game now known which was not then in use. A few more details may, however, be interesting. There was a game called KwdaXia/jLog, in which the Kin'daXov was a peg of wood with a heavy end sharpened, which boys sought to strike into a softened place in the earth so that it stood upright, and knocked out the peg of a rival. This reminds us of the pegtop-splitting which still goes on in our streets. Another, called Sa-rpaKiv^a, consisted of toss- ing an oyster-shell in the air, of which one side was black- ened or moistened, and called niffht, the other dai/, or sun and rain. The boys were divided into two sides with these names, and, according as their side of the shell turned up, they pursued and took prisoners their adversaries. On GKEEK EDUCATION. 17 the other hand, eTroffTpaKiffjjioQ was making a shell skip along the surface of water by a horizontal throw, and winning by the greatest number of skips. Etc o>i2L\Xav, though a general expression for any contest, was specially applied to tossing a knuckle-bone or smooth stone so as to lie in the centre of a fixed circle, and to disturb those which were already in good positions. This was also done into a small hole {rpona). They seem to have shot dried beans from their fingers as we do marbles {(jypvyiyda). They spun coins on their edge ()(aXao-//dc). Here are two games not perhaps so universal nowadays. XlevTaXidl^eLv was a technical word for tossing up five peb- bles or astragali, and receiving them so as to make them lie on the back of the hand. MrjXoXordr], or the beetle game, consisted in flying a beetle by a long thread, and guiding him like a kite. But by way of improvement they at- tached a waxed splinter, lighted, to his tail ; and this cruelty is now practised, according to a good authority (Papaslio- tis), in Greece, and has even been known to cause serious fires.^ Tops were known under various names (/je/x/Bt^, arpofiPoc, (TrpojjtXog), one of them certainly a humming-top. So were hoops (-po)(ot). Ball-playing was ancient and diffused, even among the Homeric heroes. But as it was found very fashionable and carefully practised by both Mexicans and Peruvians at the time of the conquest, it is probably common to all civ- ilized races. We have no details left us of complicated games with balls; and the mere throwing them up and catching them one from the other, with some rhythmic mo- tion, is hardly worth all the poetic fervor shown about this » This seems to be the interpretation of " Achar." 920 sq., accord- ing to Grasberger. 18 GEEEK EDUCATION. game by the Greeks. But possibly the musical and danc- ing accompaniments were very important, in the case of grown people, and in historical times. Polhix, however — our main authority for most of these games — in one place ^ distinctly describes both football and handball. "The names," he says, " of games with balls are — tTriaKvpog^ (pai- i/tV^a, a7r6ppat,Lg, ovpavia. The first is played by two even sides, who draw a line in the centre, which they called aKvpoQ, on which they place the ball. They draw two other lines behind each side, and those who first reach the ball throw it {piKTovcriv) over the opponents, whose duty it is to catch it and return it, until one side drives the other back over their goal line." Though Pollux makes no mention of kicking, this game is evidently our football in substance. He proceeds : " (paivlr^a was called either from Phaenindes, the first discoverer, or from deceiving ((perad^eiu),''^ etc. — we need not follow his etymologies — " and airoppa^ig con- sists of making a ball bound off the ground, and sending it against a wall, counting the number of the hops accord- ing as it was returned." And as if to make the anticipa- tions of our games more curiously complete, there is cited from the history of Manuel, by the Byzantine Cinnamus (a.d. 1200), a clear description of the Canadian lacrosse, a sort of hockey played with rackets : " Certain youths, divided equally, leave in a level place, which they have be- fore prepared and measured, a ball made of leather, about the size of an apple, and rush at it, as if it were a prize lying in the middle, from their fixed starting-point (a goal). Each of them has in his right hand a racket (joa/33ov) of suitable length ending in a sort of flat bend, the middle of which is occupied by gut strings dried by seasoning, and ' ix. 103. GKEEK EDUCATION. 19 plaited together in net fashion. Each side strives to be the first to bring it to the opposite end of the ground from that allotted to them. Whenever the ball is driven by the pafi^oi (rackets) to the end of the ground, it counts as a victory." ' Two games, which were not confined to children, and which are not widely diffused, though they exist, among us, are the use of astragali, ov knuckle-bones of animals, so cut nearly square as to serve for dice ; and with these children threw for luck, the highest throw (sixes) being ac- counted the best. In later Greek art representations of Eros and other youthful figures engaged with astragali are frequent. It is to be feared that this game was an intro- duction to dice-playing, which was so common, and so often abused, that among the few specimens of ancient dice re- maining there are some false, and which were evidently loaded. The other game to which I allude is the Italian morra, the guessing instantaneously how many fingers are thrown up by the player and his adversary. It is surpris- ing how fond Southern men and boys still are of this sim- ple game, chiefly, however, for gambling purposes. There was tossing in a blanket, walking on stilts, swing- ing, leap-frog, and many other similar plaiys, which are ill- understood, and worse explained, by the learned, and of no importance to us, save as proving the general similarity of the life of little boys then as now. We know nothing about the condition of little girls of the same age, except that they specially indulged in ball- ^ I do not know whether so late an authority is valid proof for the earl}' Greek origin of n game. Most certainly the polo played at Constantinople at the same time came from an equestrian people, and not from theGreeks. 20 GKEEK EDUCATION. playing. Like our own cliildren, the girls probably joined, to a lesser degree, in tlie boys' games, and only so far as they could be carried on within-doors, in the court of the house. There are graceful representations of their swing- ing and practising our seesaw. Dolls they had in plenty, and doll-making (of clay) was quite a special trade at Athens. In more than one instance we have found in children's graves their favorite dolls, which sorrowing par- ents laid with them as a sort of keepsake in the tomb. § 12. Most unfortunately, there is hardly a word left of the nursery rhymes and of the folk-lore, which are very much more interesting than the physical amusements of children. Yet we know that such popular songs existed in plenty ; we know, too, from the early fame of ^sop's fables, from the myths so readily invented and exquisitely told by Plato, that here we have lost a real fund of beautiful and stimu- lating children's stories.^ And of course here, too, the gen- eral character of such stories throughout the hum?in race was preserved. ^ There is a possibility of recovering some of them by a careful collection of the vavapicrfMiTa of the modern Greeks, which in many cases doubtless correspond to theii' forerunners the (iavKoXrjfiaTa of the old Greeks. Stories of Mormo and Gorgo and the Empousa are still current to frighten children, as are also (about Arachova) songs about Charos (the old Charon), the ruthless genius of death. The belief in Lamia is still so common that tTrvi^ev rj Adfiia — Lamia choked it — is a common expression when a child dies suddenly. Cf. Bei/i'^eXo?, "On the Private Life of the Old Greeks," Athens, 1873. GEEEK EDUCATION. 21 CHAPTER III. SCHOOL DAYS THE PHYSICAL SIDE. § 13. The most striking difference. between early Greek education and ours was undoubtedly this, that the physi- cal development of boys was attended to in a special place and by a special master. It was not thought sufficient for them to play the chance games of childhood ; they under- went careful bodily training under a very fixed system, which was determined by the athletic contests of after- life. This feature, which excites the admiration of the modern Germans, and has given rise to an immense litera- ture, is doubtless all the more essential now that the men- tal training of our boys has become so much more trying ; and we can quite feel, when we look at the physical de- velopment of ordinary foreigners, how keenly they must envy the freedom of limb and ease of motion, not only as we see it suggested by Greek statues, but as we have it be- fore us in the ordinary sporting Englishman. But it is quite in accordance with their want of practical develop- ment, that while they write immense books about the phys- ical training of the Greeks, and the possibility of imitat- ing it in modern education, they seem quite ignorant of that side of English education at our public schools ; and yet there they might see in practice a physical education in no way inferior to that described in classical authors. I say it quite deliberately — the public -school boy, who is trained in cricket, football, and rowing, and who in his '.holidays can obtain riding, salmon -fishing, hunting, and 22 GREEK EDUCATION. shooting, enjoys a physical training which no classical days ever equalled. The athletic part of this training is enjoyed by all boys at our public schools, though the field sports at home only fall to the lot of the richer or more fortu- nate. § 14. When we compare what the Greeks afforded to their boys, we find it divided into two contrasted kinds of exercise : hunting, which was practised by the Spartans very keenly, and no doubt also by the Eleans and Arca- dians, as may be seen from Xenophon's "Tract on [Hare] Hunting;" and gymnastics, which in the case of boys were carried on in the so-called palaestra, a sort of open-air gym- nasium (in our sense) kept by private individuals as a speculation, and to which the boys were sent, as they were to their ordinary schoolmaster.^ We find that the Spartans, who had ample scope for hunting with dogs in the glens and coverts of Mount Taygetus, rather despised mere exer- cises of dexterity in the palaestra, just as our sportsmen would think very little of spending hours in a gymnasium. But those Greeks who lived in towns like Athens, and in the midst of a thickly populated and well-cultivated coun- try, could not possibly obtain hunting, and therefore found the most efficient substitute. Still, we find them very far behind the English in their ^ The exact relation of the ancient palcestra and the gymnasium has much exercised the critics. It seems phiin that the former was a private establishment, and intended for boys ; the hitter more gen- eral, and resorted to by yonng men, not only amateurs and beginners, but also more accomplished athletes. Hence the terms are often confused. In the " Tract on the Athenian State," however, the author mentions palisstras as built by the demos for its public use ; and this tract, whoever may be its author, does not date later than 415 B.C. GREEK EDUCATIOIT. 23 knowledge or taste for out-of-door games, such as cricket, football, liockey, golf, etc. — games whicli combine chance and skill, which combine strength with dexterity, and which intensely interest the players while keeping them in the open air. Yachting, though there w'ere regattas, was not in fashion in ancient Greece. Rowing, which they could have practised to their heart's content, and which was of the last importance in their naval warfare, was never thought gentlemanly, and always consigned to slaves or hirelings. There are, indeed, as above quoted from Pollux, descrip- tions of something like football and lacrosse, but the ob- scurity and rarity of any allusions to them show that they are in no sense national games. Running races round a short course was one of their chief exercises, but this is no proper out-of-door game. § 15. Accordingly, the Germans, in seeking to base their physical education on Greek lines, seem to make the cap- ital mistake of ignoring that kind of exercise for boys which vastly exceeds in value any training in gymnasia. The Eton and Harrow match at Lord's is a far more beau- tiful sight, and far better for the performers, than the boj^s' wrestling or running at Olympia. And besides the variety of exercise at a game like cricket, and the various intelli- gence and decision which it stimulates, a great part of the game lies not in the winning, but in the proper form of the play, in what the Greeks so highly prized as eurytlimy — a graceful action not merely in dancing and ball-playing, but in the most violent physical exertion. But the Greeks had no playgrounds beyond the palaestra or gymnasium ; they had no playgrounds in our sense ; and though a few proverbs speak of swimming as a universal accomplishment which boys learned, the silence of Greek 3 24 GREEK EDUCATION. literature on the subject^ makes one very suspicious as to the generality of such training. With this introduction, we may turn to some details as to the education of Greek boys in their palaestra. § 16. In one point,, certainly, the Greeks agreed more with the modern English than with any other civilized nation. They regarded sport as a really serious thing. And unless it is so regarded, it will never be brought to the national perfection to which the English have brought it, or to which the Greeks are supposed to have brought it.. And yet even in this point the Greeks regarded their sports differently from us, and from all nations who have adopted Semitic ideas in religion. Seriousness of the re- ligious kind is with us quite distinct from the seriousness of sport. With the Greeks it was not, or rather serious- ness was not with them an attribute of religion in any sense more than it was of ordinary life. They harmonized religion and sports, not by the seriousness of their sports so much as by the cheerfulness — a Semite, ancient or mod- ern, would say by the levity — of their deities ; for the gods^ too, love sport {cpikoTcaiyiiovEQ yap Ka\ ol deoi), says Plato in his " Cratylus," a remarkable and thoroughly Greek utter- ance. The greatest feasts of the gods were celebrated by intensifying human pleasures — not merely those of the palate, according to the grosser notion of the Christian Middle Ages, but sesthetical pleasures, and that of excite- ment — pleasures, not of idleness, but of keen enjoyment. § 17. The names applied to the exercising-places indicate their principal uses. Palcestra means a wrestling -place; gymnasium originally a place for naked exercise, but the 1 Herodotus, indeed (viii, 89), speaks of the generality of Greek Bailors as able to swim. GREEK EDUCATION. 25 verb early lost this connotation and came to mean mere physical training. We hear that a short race-course {dp6- fiog) was often attached to the palasstra, and short it must have been, for it was sometimes covered in (called ^i/oro'e), probably with a shed roof along the wall of the main en- closure. There is no evidence to decide the point whether the boys went to this establishment at the same age that they went to school, and at a different hour of the day, or at a different age, taking their physical and mental education separately. And even in this latter case we are left in doubt which side obtained the priority. The best authori- ties among the Germans decide on separate ages for palaes- tra and school, and put the palasstra first. But in the face of many uncertainties, and some evidence the other way, the common-sense view is preferable that both kinds of instruction were given together, though we know noth- ing about the distribution of the day, save that both are asserted to have begun very early. Even the theoretical schemes of Plato and Aristotle do not help us here, and it is one of those many points which are now lost on account of their being once so perfectly obvious and familiar. We here discuss the physical side first, because it is naturally consequent upon the home games, which have been described, and because the mental side will naturally connect itself with the higher education of more advanced years. And here, too, of the great divisions of exercises in the palaestra — wrestling and dancing^ more properly ex- ercises of strength and of grace — we will place athletics first, as the other naturally leads us on to the mental side. / § 18. In order to leave home and reach the palasstra safely as well as to return, Greek boys were put under the 26 GEEEK EDUCATION. charge of a pcedagogue, in no way to be identified (as it now is) with a schoolmaster. The text " The Jaw was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ" has suffered from this mistake. The Greek pcedagogue means merely the slave who had the charge of bringing his master's sons safely to and from school, and guarding them from mis- chief by the way. He was often old and trusty, often old and useless, always ignorant, and never respected. He was evidently regarded by young and gay boys as a great in- terference to enjoyment, insisting upon punctual hours of return, and limiting that intercourse with elder boys which was so fascinating, but also so dangerous, to Greek children. The keeper of the palsestra and trainer (TraLdorpijjr}^) was not appointed by the State, but (as already mentioned) took up the work as a private enterprise, not directed by, but under the supervision of, the State, in the way of police regulation. We have, indeed, in the speech of ^schines "Against Timarchus," very stringent laws quoted to the effect that no palaestra or school might be open before or after daylight ; that no one above boys' age might enter or re- main in the building ; and the severest penalties, even death, were imposed on the violation of these regulations. But we know that, even if true, which is very doubtful, the text of the laws here cited became a dead letter, for it was a favorite resort of elder men to see the boys exercising. Restrictions there were, of course ; a fashionable lounge could in no way serve as a strict training-school, and we know that at Sparta, even in the gymnasia, the regulation strip or go was enforced to prevent an idle crowd. § 19. There is figured on many vases, often in brilliant colors, the interior of the palaestra. It is denoted by the bearded Hermes — a rude bust of the patron god. A middle- GREEK EDUCATION. 27 aged man in a sliort mantle, or clilamys, with a rod or wand in liis Land, is watching and directing the exercises of the boys, generally a wrestling-match. We know also, from the pentathlon being once introduced at Olympia for boys, that its five exercises were those in which they were usually trained — leaping, running, throwing the discus, the spear, and wrestling. For elder boys, boxing and the pan- cratium were doubtless added, if they meant to train for public competitions, but ordinary gentlemen's sons would never undergo this special training and its hardships. In- deed, the Spartans strictly discountenanced such sports, both as likely to disfigure, and as sure to produce quarrels and ill-will. The lighter exercises were intended to make the frame hardy and the movements graceful, and were in- troduced by a thorough rubbing of the skin with olive oil, which, after the training, was scraped off with a special instrument, the orXeyy/c, as may be seen in the splendid Vatican statue of the athlete scraping his arm, the so-called Apoxyomenos, referred to as an original of Lysippus. In luxurious days they also took a bath, but this was hardly the case with ordinary boys — indeed, the water supply of Greek towns was probably scanty enough, and the nation" not given to much washing. § 20. There remain little or no details as to the exact rules of training practised in the ordinary palaestras, but we may fairly assume them to have been the same in kind (though milder in degree) as those approved for formal athletes. If w*e judge from these, we will not form a high idea of Greek training. Pausanias informs us that they trained on dry cheese, which is not surprising, as they were (like most southerns) not a very carnivorous people. But when a known athlete (Dromeus^) discovered that meat ' Van^. vi. 7, 9. 28 GREEK EDUCATION. diet was the best, tliey seem to have followed up the dis- covery by inferring that the more of a good thing the bet- ter ; and, so athletes were required to eat very large quanti- ties of meat, owing to which they were lazy and sleepy when not engaged in active work.^ We need not suppose that the diet of ordinary boys was in any way interfered with, but this particular case shows the crude notions which prevailed, and the trainer came more and more to assume the part of a dietetic doctor, as is stated by Plato. § 21. So much as to the conditions of good training; as to the performance, there are points of no less signifi- cance. All the learned Germans who write on these sub- jects notice that the Olympic races were carried oat on ^ soft sand, not on hard and springy ground, so that really good pace cannot have been a real object to Greek run- ners.'' But, what is worse, they praise their zeal and en- ergy in starting (as we see on vases) with wild swinging of their arms, in spread-eagle fashion, and encouraging them- selves with loud shouts.^ This style of running may seem very fine to a professor in his study, but will only excite ridicule among those who have ever made the least practi- ^ It was a curious rule at the Olympic games that the competitors were even compelled to swear that they had spent a month in train- ing at Elis, as if it mattered whether the victory was won by natural endowments only or by careful study. One would have thought that the importance of the contest would insure ample training in those who desired to win. ^ I myself saw at the Olympic games now held at Athens, in the re-excavated stadion of Herodes, a sprint-race of two hundred yards over vine ground, cut into furrows, with dogs and people obstructing the course. Cf. MacmillarC s Magazine for September, 1876. ^ Cf , for example, Grasberger, "Erziehung," etc., iii. 212, quot- ing Cicero, "Tusc. Disp.," ii. 23, 26. GEEEK EDUCATION. 29 cal essay, or seen any competitions. But possibly the Greeks were not so uniformly silly in tins respect as tbey are now represented by commentators, for there is pre- served on the Acropolis at Athens one little-known vase on which a running figure has the elbows held tightly back in the proper way. We may also have grave suspicions about Greek boxing, from the facts that they weighted the hand heavily with loaded gloves, and that boxers are de- scribed as men with their ears, and not with their 7ioses, j crushed. We cannot but suspect them of swinging round, and not striking straight from the shoulder. This is fur- ther proved by the use of protecting ear-caps {ajuKpuridec) in boxing, a thing which no modern boxer would dream of doing. § 22. All these hints taken together make us reasonably suspect that, as athletics, the training of the pcedoti'ibes was not what w^e should admire. But, on the other hand, the picturesque and enthusiastic descriptions of beautiful and well-trained Greek boys, coupled with the ideal figures which remain to us in Greek sculpture, prove beyond any doubt that they knew perfectly what a beautiful manly form was, and by what training it could be produced. Let us, however, not exaggerate the matter. Very few boys really equalled the ideal types of the sculptor; and if we make allowance for this, we may conclude that the finest English public-school boy is not inferior to the best Greek types in real life.^ Perhaps some advantage may have ^ It is a perpetual and perhaps now ineradicable mistake, because we cannot see the real Athenians or Spartans of classical days, to imagine them in general like the ideal statues of the Greek artists. We find it even generally stated that beauty was the rule and ugli- ness the exception among them, in spite of Cicero's complaint, when N/ 30 GREEK EDrCATION. resulted from the greater freedom of limb obtained by- naked training: and rubbino- with oil ; but the advantao-e of this over a modern flannel suit or tight athlete's dress is very small. Nevertheless, the English schoolboy is phys- ically so superior to the schoolboys of other European na- tions that we may count him, with the Greek boy, as al- most a distinct animal. What surprises us is that by regular training in the sim- plest exercises, such as running, leaping, wrestling, and throwing the discus or dart, sucli splendid results were ever attained. Or shall we say that it was not the wrest- J ling but the dancing side of Greek training which was of chief importance ? We may dismiss with a word the fab- ulous stories of athletic feats at Olympia, where a certain Chionis, a Spartan of early date (01. 28-31, dr. 660 e.g.), was said to have leaped fifty-two feet, and afterwards Phayllus of Croton fifty-five feet. We may infer, too, from the use of weights (aX-ijpeQ), that the jump was a standing one. Happily these assertions are only made by- late grammarians, and though some German critics are in- clined to extend their adoration of Greek training to this point, it will rather, witli practical readers, tend to discredit other statements made by the same authority. As we do not hear of a running jump, so we do not hear of a high jump either, at least in public games. Both may have been practised in the palaestra. The distance for a sprint-i;ace for men was two hundred yards, and somewhat shorter for boys. Their longest race at Olympia was twenty-four sta- dia (4800 yards, 2f miles), which the professors, without he was disiUusioned by a visit to Athens: " Quotusquisqiie enim formosus est ? Quum Athenis essem e gregibus epheborura vix sin- guli repeiiebantur." GREEK EDUCATION. 31 any knowledge of tlie time in wliicli it was clone, think more wonderful than the fifty-five-feet jump, but which is equalled in many English sports of the present day. § 23. Apart from the doubts here raised as to the per- fection of Greek training, let us revert, in conclusion, to the absence among elder boys of those out-of-door games, like cricket, which are so valuable for developing mental, together with physical, qualities. There is one feature in these games which the Greeks seem to have missed alto- gether, and which appears to be ignored in most German books on the reform of physical education in schools. It is that forming of clubs and teams of boys, in which they choose their own leaders, and get accustomed to self-gov- ernment and a submission to the superior will of equals, or the decision of public opinion among themselves. Plato saw long ago that the proper and peculiar intention of boys' sports was more mental than bodily improvement. But he confined himself to that part of the question which advocates the cultivation of spirit in boys as better than that which cultivates strength only. This is perfectly true, and no game is worthy the name in which spirit and intel- lio'ence cannot defeat brute streno-th. But there is little trace, save at Sparta, of any free constitution in boys' edu- cation, in which they manage their own affairs, fight out their own quarrels, and praise or censure according to a public opinion of their own. No Greek educator seems to have had an inkling of this, and the foreign theorists who have discussed educational reforms on the Greek models seem equally unaware of its importance. Yet here, if any- where, is the secret of that independence of character and self-reliance which is the backbone of the English constitu- tion and the national liberty. The Greeks were like the './" 32 GREEK EDUCATION. French and the Germans, who always imagine that the games and sports will not prosper or be properly conducted with- out the supervision of a Turnlehrer, or overseer ; and they give great exhortations to this man to sympathize with the boys and stimulate them. In England the main duty of such people is to keep out of the way and let the boys manage their own affairs. The results of the opposed sys- tems will strike any one who compares, on the one hand, the neat and well-regulated French boys of a boarding- school, walking two -and -two, with gloves on and toes turned out, along a road, followed by a master; on the other, the playgrounds of any good English school during recreation time. If the zealous and learned reformers who write books on the subject in modern Europe would take the trouble to come and see this for themselves, it might modify both their encomia on Greek training and their suggestions for their own countries. CHAPTER IV. SCHOOL DAYS THE MUSICAL SIDE THE SCHOOLMASTER. § 24. We will approach this side of the question by quoting the famous description of Greek education in Pla- to's " Protagoras," * which will recall to the reader the gen- eral problem, so apt to be lost or obscured amid details. " Education and admonition commence in the very first 1 P. 325 C. Cf. also "Axiochus," p. 3G6 E: birurav dk £(V ri^v tTCTa^Tiav cKpiKyrai [ro vi]Tnov] ttoWovq ttovovq SiavTXijaav, Tvaida- yioyoi Kai ypafifiaTicTTai Kai TraiSorpi(Sai rvpavvovvreg, k.t.X. GEEEK EDUCATION. 33 years of childliood, ar.d last to the very end of life. Moth- er and nurse and father and tutor (Trat^aywyoc) are quar- relling about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand them. He cannot say or do any- thing without their setting forth to him that this is just and that is unjust ; that this is honorable, that is dishonor- able ; this is holy, that is unholy ; do this, and abstain from that. And if he obeys, well and good ; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of Avarped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his reading and music; and the teachers do as they are de- sired. And when the boy has learned his letters, and is beginning to understand what is written, as before he un- derstood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great poets, which he reads at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate them, and desire to become like them. Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is steady and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they intro- duce him to the works of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets ; and these they set to music, and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children, in order that they may learn to be more gentle and har- monious and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action ; for the life of man in every part has need of har- mony and rhythm. Then they send them to the master of gymnastics, in order that their bodies may better minis- ter to the virtuous mind, and that the weakness of their 34 GREEK EDIJCA.TION. bodies may not force tlicm to play the coward in war or on any other occasion. This is what is done by those who hav^e the means, and those who have the means are the rich ; their children begin education soonest and leave off latest. When they have done with masters, the State, again, compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies ; and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a stylus for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet, and makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good lawgivers which were of old time; these are given to the young man in order to guide him in his conduct, whether as ruler or ruled ; and he who transgresses them is to be corrected or called to account, which is a term used not only in your country, but in many others." This is the argument put by Plato into the mouth of Protagoras the sophist, to show that virtue is a thing which can be taught, and not a mere natural predisposition or a divine grace. The other locus classicus, which may be re- referred to in close connection with it, is the description of the traditional education given in Aristophanes' " Clouds." ^ 1 961 sq. : \bS,(x> Toivvv rr^v a.p")(^aiav iraiduav, 6)Q disKeiro, OT syil) TCI SiKaia Xeyiop i'jvOovv Kai aujcppoavvrj v^vofiiaTO. TrpMTOV fxiv tSu Traidbg ^MVtjv ypv^avroQ jjLrjdsv aKovaai " elra ^a^iZav iv raiaiv o^oXq evrdicrios elg KiOapicrTov TOVQ KiojxrjraQ yufii'ovg ciBpoovQ, ks.1 Kpifivivdt] Karavicpoi. dr av TrpofiaOeTv q^cfi kSldaaKEV, toj [xrjpio fit) ^vvkxovTUQ, 7} TlaXkada TrepasTroXiv Ssivav, rj TijX'&TTopov ri (Buafia, Ivreivajxevovc riijv apfioviav, rjv ol TrarepEg Trapkdioicav. el Sb tlq clvtCjv ^iOjXoKoxivaair j) Kafi'ihiitv riva Kaii7rr]v, oiag o\ vvv rag Kara, ^piivif ravrag rag dvaKo\oKd]ii7rTOvg, GEEEK EDUCATION. 35 The strict discipline of boys who were not allowed to utter a whisper before their elders ; who were sent in troops eai-ly in the morning to school, in their single tunic, even in the deepest winter snow ; who were kept at work with the mu- sic-master studying old traditional hymns, and in attitudes strictly controlled as regards modesty and decency — all this is contrasted by the poet with what he considers the cor- ruption of the youth with florid and immoral music, their meretricious desire to exhibit their bodily and mental per- fections, their luxury and sloth, their abandonment of so- briety and diligence. There are peculiarities of Greek taste so openly alluded to in this passage that it will not bear literal translation into English, at least into a book for ordinary readers ; and therefore it need only be remarked, in criticism of it, that too much stress has been laid by theorists on Greek life, both on the picture of over-anxious morality in the older time, and on the alleged immorality of the poet's age. It is from such passages that German historians draw their very extravagant assertions of the rapid degeneracy of the Athenians under what they call the ochlocracy^ which fol- CLTreTpifSfTO TVTrrofxevog TroWdg