Part 6 (2/2)
To rear a child is easy; but to teach Morals and manners is beyond our reach.
To make the foolish wise, the wicked good, That science never yet understood.
56. The Study of the Poets.--It is for the developing of the best moral and mental qualities in the lads that they are compelled to memorize long pa.s.sages of the great poets of h.e.l.las. Theoginis, with his pithy admonitions cast in semi-proverb form, the worldly wisdom of Hesiod, and of Phocylides are therefore duly flogged into every Attic schoolboy.[*] But the great text-book dwarfing all others, is Homer,--”the Bible of the Greeks,” as later ages will call it. Even in the small school we visit, several of the pupils can repeat five or six long episodes from both the ”Iliad”
and the ”Odyssey,” and there is one older boy present (an extraordinary, but by no means an unprecedented case) who can repeat BOTH of the long epics word for word.[+] Clearly the absence of many books has then its compensations. The average Athenian lad has what seems to be a simply marvelous memory.
[*]Phocylides, whose gnomic poetry is now preserved to us only in scant fragments, was an Ionian, born about 560 B.C. His verses were in great acceptance in the schools.
[+]For such an attainment see Xenophon's ”Symposium,” 3:5.
And what an admirable text-book and ”second reader” the Homeric poems are! What characters to imitate: the high-minded, pa.s.sionate, yet withal loyal and lovable Achilles who would rather fight gloriously before Troy (though death in the campaign is certain) than live a long life in ign.o.ble ease at home at Phthia; or Oysseus, the ”hero of many devices,” who endures a thousand ills and surmounts them all; who lets not even the G.o.ddess Calypso seduce him from his love to his ”sage Penelope”; who is ever ready with a clever tale, a plausible lie, and, when the need comes, a mighty deed of manly valor. The boys will all go home to-night with firm resolves to suffer all things rather than leave a comrade unavenged, as Achilles was tempted to do and n.o.bly refused, and to fight bravely, four against forty, as Odysseus and his comrades did, when at the call of duty and honor they cleared the house of the dastard suitors.
True, philosophers like Plato complain: ”Homer gives to lads very undignified and unworthy ideas of the G.o.ds”; and men of a later age will a.s.sert: ”Homer has altogether too little to say about the cardinal virtues of truthfulness and honesty.”[*] But making all allowances the ”Iliad” and ”Odyssey” are still the two grandest secular text-books the world will ever know. The lads are definitely the better for them.
[*]The virtue of unflinching HONESTY was undoubtedly the thing least cultivated by the Greek education. Successful prevarication, e.g.
in the case of Odysseus, was put at altogether too high a premium.
It is to be feared that the average Athenian schoolboy was only partially truthful. The tale of ”George Was.h.i.+ngton and the cherry tree” would never have found favor in Athens. The great Virginian would have been blamed for failing to concoct a clever lie.
Three years, according to Plato, are needed to learn the rudiments of reading and writing before the boys are fairly launched upon this study of the poets. For several years more they will spend most of their mornings standing respectfully before their master, while he from his chair reads to them from the roll of one author or another,--the pupils repeating the lines, time and again, until they have learned them, while the master interrupts to explain every nice point in mythology, in real or alleged history, or a moot question in ethics.
57. The Greeks do not study Foreign Languages.--As the boys grow older the scope of their study naturally increases; but in one particular their curriculum will seem strangely limited. THE STUDY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES HAS NO PLACE IN A GREEK COURSE OF STUDY.
That any gentleman should learn say Persian, or Egyptian (unless he intended to devote himself to distant travel), seems far more unprofitable than, in a later age, the study of say Patagonian or Papuan will appear.[*] Down at the Peiraeus there are a few s.h.i.+pmasters, perhaps, who can talk Egyptian, Ph?necian, or Babylonish.
They need the knowledge for their trade, but even they will disclaim any cultural value for their accomplishment. The euphonious, expressive, marvelously delicate tongue of h.e.l.las sums up for the Athenian almost all that is valuable in the world's intellectual and literary life. What has the outer, the ”Barbarian,” world to give him?--Nothing, many will say, but some gold darics which will corrupt his statesmen, and some spices, carpets, and similar luxuries which good h.e.l.lenes can well do without. The Athenian lad will never need to crucify the flesh upon Latin, French, and German, or an equivalent for his own Greek. Therein perhaps he may be heavily the loser, save that his own mother tongue is so intricate and full of subtle possibilities that to learn to make the full use thereof is truly a matter for lifelong education.
[*]This fact did not prevent the Greeks from having a considerable respect for the traditions and lore of, e.g., the Egyptians, and from borrowing a good many non-Greek usages and inventions; but all this could take place without feeling the least necessity for studying foreign languages.
58. The Study of ”Music.”--But the Athenian has a subst.i.tute for this omission of foreign language study: MUSIC. This is something more comprehensive than ”the art of combining tones in a manner to please the ear” [Webster]. It is practically the study of whatever will develop the n.o.ble powers of the emotions, as contrasted to the mere intellect.[*] Indeed everything which comes within the ample provinces of the nine Muses, even sober history, might be included in the term. However, for special purposes, the study of ”Music” may be considered as centering around playing instruments and singing. The teacher very likely resides in a house apart from the master of the school of letters. Aristophanes gives this picture of the good old customs for the teaching of music. ”The boys from the same section of the town have to march thinly clad and draw up in good order--though the snow be thick as meal--to the house of the harp master. There he will teach them [some famous tune] raising a mighty melody. If any one acts silly or turns any quavers, he gets a good hard thras.h.i.+ng for 'banis.h.i.+ng the Muses!'”[+]
[*]Aristotle [”Politics,” V. (or VIII.) 1] says that the literary education is to train the mind; while music, though of no practical use, ”provides a n.o.ble and liberal employment of leisure.”
[+]Aristophanes's ”The Clouds”. The whole pa.s.sage is cited in Davis's ”Readings in Ancient History,” vol. I, pp. 252-255.
Learning to sing is probably the most important item, for every boy and man ought to be able to bear his part in the great chorals which are a notable element in most religious festivals; besides, a knowledge of singing is a great aid to appreciating lyric poetry, or the choruses in tragedy, and in learning to declaim. To learn to sing elaborate solo pieces is seldom necessary,--it is not quite genteel in grown-up persons, for it savors a little too much of the professional. So it is also with instrumental music. The Greeks lack the piano, the organ, the elaborate bra.s.s instruments of a later day. Their flutes and harps, although very sweet, might seem thin to a twentieth-century critic. But one can gain considerable volume by the great NUMBER of instruments, and nearly everybody in Athens can pick at the lyre after a fas.h.i.+on. The common type of harp is the lyre, and it has enough possibilities for the average boy.
The more elaborate CITHERA is usually reserved for professionals.[*]
An Athenian lad is expected to be able to accompany his song upon his own lyre and to play in concert with his fellows.
[*]For the details of these harp types of instruments see Dictionary of Antiquities.
The other instrument in common use is the FLUTE. At its simplest, this is a mere shepherd's pipe. Anybody can make one with a knife and some rushes. Then come elaborations; two pipes are fitted together into one wooden mouthpiece. Now, we really have an instrument with possibilities. But it is not in such favor in the schools as the lyre. You cannot blow day after day upon the flute and not distort your cheeks permanently. Again the gentleman's son will avoid ”professionalism.” There are amateur flute players moving in the best society, but the more fastidious frown upon the instrument, save for hired performers.
59. The Moral Character of Greek Music.--Whether it is singing, harp playing, or flute playing, a most careful watch is kept upon the CHARACTER of the music taught the lads. The master who lets his pupils learn many soft, dulcet, languis.h.i.+ng airs will find his charges' parents extremely angry, even to depriving him of their patronage. Very soft music, in ”Lydian modes,” is counted effeminate, fit only for the women's quarters and likely to do boys no good.
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