2
Introduction
It is important to remember that during the period we shall be discussing in this chapter (from the ninth to the third centuries BC) there was no such country as Greece as we know it today. The area now shown on the map as Greece, as well as many hundreds of islands and large parts of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), was occupied by groups who possessed some cultural features in common but who thought of themselves as Spartans or Athenians or Cretans rather than Greeks. Only occasionally did these various city-states (and there were more than 1,000 of them) unite in the face of a common enemy, such as Persia. For most of the time, as we shall see, the Spartans and Athenians were hostile to each other and tended to emphasise their cultural differences. Nevertheless, it is possible to generalise to some extent about the Greeks: in particular, they shared a common language (with some local variations and dialects): those who did not speak Greek were termed 'barbarians' because the words they uttered sounded like 'ba..ba..ba' to the Greeks. They also had a common religion - or at least they shared the same pantheon of gods and a mythology; and they shared a great literary heritage, most importantly the Homeric tales of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which had been converted from an oral to a written form in the eighth century BC and were used for hundreds of years as educational texts for the improvement of the young.
We shall have space to compare only two of the many Hellenic nations: Sparta and Athens. The differences in their ideas on education are often very surprising. In addition, we shall make a brief reference to Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire, not least because Aristotle was Alexander's tutor.
We have started with the Greeks because their views have, fortunately, survived in written form, and because some of those views have continued to be influential for over 2,000 years. Education may be said to start to exist when some teachers cease to accept traditional beliefs automatically and begin to ask 'why?' Before that time teaching (or at least training) can exist together with learning, but what is transmitted is taken for granted: children learn occupational skills from their elders together with beliefs about the environment, but such learning is assumed to be true as part of a traditional belief system. Very often such beliefs form part of a religious or magical worldview that is sacred and unquestioned. The earliest Western philosophers, in seventh-century BC Greece, started asking questions that called for logical thought rather than mere repetition of traditional folk knowledge. Some of the questions were focused upon the natural environment. For example, Thales (624-546 BC) of Miletus (in Asia Minor) is sometimes referred to as the first philosopher. He asked questions about the nature of the universe, studied astronomy and successfully predicted an eclipse of the sun in 585 BC. The fundamental question that puzzled Thales was 'What is the world made of?' He incorrectly came to the conclusion that water was the basis of all matter. However, his importance lies not in the answer but in the fact that he found it necessary to ask a question for which the answer was derived from observation and logical reasoning rather than from myth. The educational significance of this was that the young should be taught to think and ask questions rather than be given information (true or false) to memorise.
Thales was not the only philosopher to ask such questions. He had a group of followers, known as the Milesian School, which included Anaximander (610-545 BC) who, like Thales, was an astronomer, asking scientific questions about the universe. He was also a geographer, or at least a map-maker, who produced useful charts despite being handicapped by believing the world to be flat. Another of the pre-Socratic philosophers was Heraclitus (544-483 BC) who lived some time after Thales at Ephesus. He asked similar questions to those of the Milesian School, including the nature of matter. He came to the conclusion that fire was the basic element causing all change and motion: nothing stays the same over time, everything is in a state of flux, hence his famous axiom 'it is not possible for anyone to step in the same river twice'. He was also concerned with moral questions, saying that a person's character is his destiny. Better known than any of the above is Pythagoras (580-500 BC) of Samos who combined work in philosophy and mathematics. He applied logical (mathematical) thinking to the solution of practical problems, and Pythagoras' theorem about triangles is still part of the geometry curriculum. There were many other philosophers in the Greek world. One whose name we should mention is Protagoras (485-410 BC) of Abdera who is remembered above all for his bold statement 'man is the measure of all things'. In many respects such thinkers paved the way for Socrates whose Athens, unlike Sparta, was ready to be taken into the real world of philosophy.
Sparta
The Spartans lived in that part of the Peloponnesian peninsula known as Laconia. For many centuries they were successful as warriors and brought up their male children to become good soldiers. Some hostile writers have described the whole of Sparta as a kind of military training camp. Life for all the Greeks was hard, but for young Spartans it was designed to be tough, even brutal.
Soon after birth a child was presented by his father to an official inspection committee who would permit only healthy specimens to live. Those who failed the test were disposed of, usually by being exposed on the mountainside. (Infanticide was not uncommon among the Greeks, but outside Sparta the decision was the family's, not the State's.)
When the boy was seven years old the State took over from the family, and at the age of 14 state education became total in military-style boarding schools or training camps. The boys learned the basics of literacy but most of the curriculum was dedicated to physical fitness and training for war: the ability to tolerate pain and hardship and to be self-sufficient was prized. Food was deliberately kept in short supply so that the boys would have to steal, and if they were caught stealing they would be severely whipped - not for the crime of stealing but for their lack of skill and for being caught. They remained in the camp until the age of 18 or 20 when they became soldiers, and as they approached manhood the training programme became even more harsh and militaristic. They would be required to survive in the wild on their own and might be encouraged to kill a few slaves to prove their manliness.
What was the explanation for this harsh Spartan regime? Some have blamed a ninth-century leader and law-giver named Lycurgus, but it is doubtful whether such an individual ever existed: it is more likely that the regime developed over quite a long period, from the ninth century to the seventh century BC. Most writers have agreed on two factors: first, war between the Greeks and against common enemies was frequent; and second, the Spartans had defeated the neighbouring Messenians, who outnumbered them by about ten to one, and kept these neighbours, nominally free, in a state of subordination. The Spartan style of rule was to treat their subject peoples and slaves (helots) very harshly, making them do all the hard work in fields, for example. This provided the Spartan elite with leisure time but no security, as they were always anxious that their subject peoples and slaves might rise up against them, or worse still, combine with other enemies. The Spartan solution was to use their leisure time for prolonged military training; education for young Spartan males was dominated by social structure and was little more than preparation for becoming a warrior.
Spartan educational ideas were simple and very limited. The purpose of education was training - for physical fitness and military proficiency. It was a conservative educational policy in the sense that it did not change, and it looked back to a semi-mythical golden age; it fitted a culture where foreigners were disliked and foreign trade not tolerated; Spartans were forbidden to travel outside Sparta as foreign ideas were seen to be dangerous, encouraging weakness and a desire for luxury; obedience was stressed rather than imagination, creativity or improvement. The Spartans were good athletes, winning far more than their fair share of Olympic prizes, and they had an efficient army. But was it a life worth living? Despite the harshness of Spartan society and its education system, Plato admired some aspects of the regime, especially the subordination of individual desires to the greater good of the State, a view reflected in the Republic.
Athens
The people of Athens shared some of the Spartan ideas and practices, but the differences were more important than the commonalities. One major contrast was that whereas the Spartans were suspicious of new ideas and disliked foreigners, the Athenians were seafarers and traders who admired innovation and who welcomed many aliens into their society. Admittedly the aliens were not citizens but they were respected as members of Athenian society: at the beginning of the fourth century BC, when the citizens of Athens numbered about 21,000 (counting only men), there were also some 10,000 resident foreigners as well as 20,000 slaves.
In the early days of Athenian history (ninth century BC) ideas on education were in some respects similar to those in Sparta albeit less extreme. Education was still largely physical but with a greater emphasis placed on music, poetry and general literacy. From the fifth century BC, Athenian culture developed significantly and this influenced their educational thinking and practice. A major difference was that Athenian boys were educated for democratic citizenship, as all adult Athenians were liable to be drawn, by lot, for public office, or they might need to plead a legal case in front of their fellow citizens, there being no professional lawyers to plead for them. Thus education for citizenship took the form of public speaking or rhetoric, with wealthy parents paying large sums for good training under expert teachers. From the sixth and fifth centuries BC, to precede that kind of post-school education, schools for the 7-14 age group developed and began to flourish. The male children of most citizens went to school at the age of seven and about one in ten proceeded to more advanced education at the age 14. Schools in Athens were private, although some fees might be paid by the State, and the children of more affluent parents tended to go to the better schools and remain there longer. Girls were educated at home where the training concentrated on their future role as wives and mothers while including some aspects of the boys' practical activities. The curriculum reflected the Athenian concern for physical development and music. (Music, derived from the Greek muse, included poetry and dance; poetry was intended to be accompanied by a lyre, and all were encouraged to learn to play.)
It is important to bear in mind that the key subject of rhetoric or oratory was much more than speaking clearly and grammatically, although both of these were considered very important. It amounted to presenting an argument logically and elegantly, without notes. Unscrupulous teachers might have concentrated on instructing their pupils on how to win an argument by trickery, by scoring points, or to win a case even if the evidence pointed the other way. On the other hand, the best teachers advocated honesty, and taught an ethical approach to rhetoric as well as how to exploit the beauty of language as a kind of prose poetry.
In the fifth century BC, Athens not only produced their own teachers of rhetoric but attracted many from overseas who set up schools or taught small groups in the open air. Some of these teachers have been collectively referred to as the Sophists. They developed a philosophy of a kind, although some Athenians, including Socrates, criticised many of them for their methods, their superficiality and for their lack of true principles. Others claim that the Sophists made a contribution to both philosophy and education. What they certainly succeeded in doing was creating an ethos in Athens in which discussion of crucial issues flourished. An important difference between them and philosophers like Socrates and Plato was that Sophists tended to deny absolutes such as Truth and preached a kind of moral relativism.
Athens was not perfect but it was a society in which the majority of the citizenry (which did not include women or slaves) participated in political and social life. This participation involved such educative events as attending the plays of Sophocles and Euripides, which provided a kind of adult moral education as well as being written in magnificent poetry. What concerned Plato as well as many others, including the dramatists, was that the mythological stories about the gods provided very poor role models for human behaviour. By the end of the fifth century, many, like Socrates, were looking for 'reasonable' explanations for the world and the human position within it.
Socrates (470-399 BC)
One of the paradoxes of the Greek world was that Socrates has been accepted as one of its greatest thinkers despite the fact that if he ever wrote anything it has not survived. We know about Socrates largely through the Dialogues written by Plato. We do not know how accurately Plato reported on Socrates' life and philosophical position. He may have simply used Socrates as a convenient way of expressing his own ideas, but it is likely that the earlier Dialogues reflect more of the genuine Socrates than the later writings where Plato was probably developing his own ideas. That Socrates was a real historical figure, with remarkable ideas, is beyond dispute: other writers including Xenophon (435-354 BC) have also written accounts of Socrates' life and work, though not in such detail as Plato.
One of the features of Socrates' life on which there is agreement is his style of teaching, now sometimes referred to as 'Socratic method', a system of intellectual enquiry based on questioning fundamental assumptions or beliefs. This technique involved an expression of ignorance. When the Oracle at Delphi proclaimed Socrates to be the wisest of all men, Socrates interpreted this to mean that he was wiser than those who thought they knew the answers because he knew that he did not. So when Socrates asked 'What is justice?' it was not to lead his audience to a correct definition, but to illustrate the fact that such questions did not lend themselves to simple or even complex definitions. The interesting aspect of this kind of 'teaching' was that it abandoned the notion of knowledge being acquired by the process of the transmission of ideas or information from one who knows (the teacher) to one who has space in his mind to receive it (the student), a view of education that has been difficult to transcend even in the twenty-first century. To put forward this view in the fourth century BC was truly remarkable.
The Influence of Plato (428-347 BC)
Plato's ideas on education are probably more widely discussed than any other pre-twentieth-century writer, the reason being that Plato had very clear ideas about the purposes of education which were closely connected with a social philosophy that has since been copied and adapted by many groups in a variety of countries. For example, in England after the Second World War some local education authorities adopted the practice of separating secondary school pupils into three different schools according to their performance on a test at the age of 11. Some of those who advocated this tripartite system of secondary schooling justified their practice partly by reference to Plato's Republic.
Plato's theory of education was presented in the context of a much broader question 'What is the good life?' In the Republic the answer, significantly, begins with a long discussion about the nature of justice which Plato eventually replaced by 'How are men to live their lives so as to live well?' To answer that question Plato found it necessary to embark upon an analysis of the relation between the individual and society: all individuals have needs, some of which are only satisfied in co-operation with other individuals. The answer about the good life was therefore a social question as well as a matter of personal morality; education is a basic component of a good society.
Education was seen by Plato as essentially a process of nurturing what we might now call an individual's 'human nature'. Plato's ideas on education were much influenced by the fact that Athens had experienced a good deal of social unrest and political instability by the time that Plato was writing. Plato came from an aristocratic family, one which in pre-democratic times would have been part of the ruling oligarchy. That oligarchic regime had been overturned and replaced by 'democracy'. Plato himself was never convinced that democracy could work: under an enlightened leader like Pericles (490-429 BC) democracy worked reasonably well, but after his death, Plato became very critical of the democratic leaders, who, he thought, pandered to the wishes of the masses.
Plato's Republic was a kind of Utopian recipe for a stable, just society in which the citizens could enjoy a 'good life'. Plato's central idea was that his ideal society would have three levels of citizens: the workers or men of bronze; the warriors or men of silver; and the guardians or philosopher-leaders, the men of gold. Each of these three groups would be carefully educated and trained specifically for their future roles in society. A good society was one in which all individuals played a useful part. Clearly, the education required for the guardians or rulers would be a philosophical training to help them decide on policy, and to rule wisely, whereas warriors and workers needed much more practical vocational training. In such a society everyone would know their place and everyone would be trained to do their duty according to their rank. From a very early age they would have been prepared for their adult role according to their rank. There would be different curricula for each of the three groups. (We should note that in Plato's Republic there would be no slaves, women could be guardians and the system was what we now call 'meritocratic', that is, based on ability rather than rank.)
Those who praise Plato's ideas should realise that Plato was making his recommendations for a very specific (but non-existent) community: a city-state with a simple agrarian and trading economy where there was little technology and therefore little technological change. There was no need for social mobility to promote further changes. In fact, Plato wanted to have as little change as possible: social and political stability were, for him, very high priorities along with justice, although his ideas for the Republic would have involved major changes in Athenian culture. Such a system would not be possible in a twentieth-century industrial country with a rapid rate of social and technological change. The other point that needs to be stressed is that Plato was not in favour of democracy. He believed that democracy had failed in Athens, and his Republic was an alternative, Utopian, proposal for social stability and justice - of a kind.
Plato also continued a debate that has dominated the philosophy of knowledge for centuries: Plato was an idealist who argued that the evidence of the senses was unreliable: the use of such evidence had to be reviewed critically by the mind. He agreed with Parmenides (515-450 BC) that appearance and reality are essentially different; Plato argued that knowledge or truth and what can be perceived with our senses may be contradictory. He believed that nothing in the world is 'knowable' except in so far as it corresponds to an intelligible 'reality' and reality for Plato was a set of abstract ideas: round objects could be grouped together and generalised because there is an abstract - ideal - concept of roundness as a Form. Good exists as an ideal or abstract idea in the same way. This idealist view contrasted, as we shall see, with Aristotle's realism, but they both agreed that Socrates had made two major contributions: inductive arguing and generalising. They also agreed that the prime purpose of education was to produce a better person, in terms of virtuous behaviour and service to the State.
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Alexander was the son of Philip of Macedon, an area of the Balkans that was Greek-speaking but regarded as somewhat less civilised by the Athenians and the Greeks in other more southern city-states. Philip had been a successful general who inherited the throne of Macedonia in 336 BC when he was only 20. He came to the rescue of the Greek city-states when they were threatened by the Persian Empire. Later, his son Alexander decided to invade Persia and in the process took command of a united Greek Army. He conquered Persia and also occupied Phoenicia, Palestine and Egypt. As a result of Alexander's conquests, Greek ideas were established in many parts of the world, such as Alexandria where education flourished. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor for a while and Alexander's curriculum was said to include philosophy, rhetoric, biology and medicine. Aristotle's influence on Alexander should not be exaggerated, but many writers have claimed that Alexander retained his interest in some of the subjects he had been taught by Aristotle, and it may be true that he took scholars with him on his Asian expeditions who reported back to Aristotle. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC his empire began to disintegrate with important political and cultural consequences.
Aristotle's influence on philosophy and education was, however, enormous. His scientific writings, including ideas about the human mind and how children learned were hardly challenged for hundreds of years. Aristotle was educated at Plato's Academy in Athens, remaining there for some 20 years. Later, in 336 BC, he founded his own school in Athens, the Lyceum. Although greatly indebted to Plato, Aristotle rejected one major thesis, that of idealism. Unlike Plato, he was a realist who believed that what we think depends entirely on the sensations we have experienced. This gave rise to the later interpretation, possibly misinterpretation, of his view of the mind as a blank space which needed to be filled up with educative experiences - an excuse for much bad practice throughout the centuries, including the twenty-first. Aristotle's writings (in Latin translation) were studied in medieval Spain and in schools in France set up by Charlemagne.
Like Plato, Aristotle believed that education should be controlled by the State and that the control should include school inspectors. This debate about state control has continued ever since. It would be impossible to attempt to summarise all of Aristotle's contributions to Western ideas here. We will concentrate on those that have had a direct influence on education. Like Plato, Aristotle saw education in terms of preparation for 'the good life'; education was essentially a moral process, and his writings on ethics are still worthy of study today. The study of ethics is not only close to education but also to politics: Aristotle gave us the famous definition of 'man, the political animal'. All human beings have to learn to achieve their own happiness in the context of a society in which it is essential to co-operate with others, which Aristotle saw as the major task of education. Part of the secret of human happiness, therefore, is what is now often referred to as the 'golden mean', a balanced position between two extremes: temperance is the happy mid-point between extravagance and meanness; courage is between cowardice and recklessness. Balance is always the key to happiness and adjustment to social norms. According to Aristotle, moderation in all things is in keeping with the natural laws of the universe, and with the norms of a good society.
Aristotle's Ethics1 does not present us with a working system of universal principles. Such a system would have been impossible for Aristotle because he realised that difficult ethical issues are those where principles come into conflict with each other. What he left was a set of 'roughly accurate generalisations',2 which may be superseded in time by superior principles. This has become the basis of moral education in schools in several countries.
When Alexander died in 323 BC, Aristotle, perhaps mindful of the death of Socrates, fled from Athens to Chalcis where he died a year later. His Lyceum School, however, survived for about 500 years. In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's ideas were adopted by Islamic scholars such as Avicenna (979-1037 AD) and Ibn Rushd Averroes (1126-98 AD) and were, remarkably, incorporated into Christian philosophy in the form of scholasticism. His ideas on philosophy and education also influenced many of the Renaissance reformers. We shall return to his influence in later chapters.
Cynics, Sceptics, Epicureans and Stoics
At least four kinds of philosophers emerged at about the time of Alexander: their ideas were of educational importance for many years in a variety of countries that came under Greek influence. In different ways they were all trying to make sense of a bewildering world which, particularly after the death of Alexander, seemed to be characterised by uncertainty.
Cynics
The philosophy associated with the Cynics can be dated from about 400 BC in Athens. Antisthenes (c. 455-360 BC), a pupil of Socrates, is regarded as the first of the Cynics, and he advocated a simple moral code not based on personal pleasure or happiness. The most famous of the Cynics was Diogenes (412-323 BC), who believed that individual self-sufficiency in moral behaviour should take priority over social conventions. The extreme simplicity of his life earned him the title of 'cynic': he lived like a dog rather than a human being. (Cynic originally meant 'like a dog' but is now applied to those who tend to believe the worst of others and do not trust what they say.)
Sceptics
Sceptics believed that absolute knowledge was not attainable; the most appropriate behaviour was to doubt all dogma and doctrines; peace of mind was a reasonable goal and it could best be obtained by not claiming to know anything, but to base judgments on the balance of probability. The search for certainties was a waste of time. The origin of this scepticism went back hundreds of years in Greek thought, but it was Pyrrho (365-270 BC) who developed scepticism into a philosophical school of thought.
Epicureanism
Epicurus (341-270 BC) taught in Athens from about 306 BC. His message was that the rational pursuit of happiness provided a worthy purpose in life. Epicurus taught that at a time when the fame of public life might be dangerous, it was more sensible to achieve happiness in the fulfilment of a worthwhile private life. He recommended 'living unknown' as a key to the contented life. He did not deny the existence of a god or gods, but advised that we should not rely on their intervening in our world - we must look after ourselves physically and spiritually. This independence was, of course, later to be condemned by the Christians and others. Epicureanism survived its originator and was further developed in Rome by Lucretius (99-55 BC) who wrote De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) which was an early version of atomic theory.
Stoicism
Stoicism was founded about 300 BC by Zeno (335-262 BC), a Greek born in Cyprus. Stoics believed that happiness is achieved by accepting the world as it is rather than wasting energy trying to change it. Nevertheless, they preached the brotherhood of all human beings and opposed slavery. Stoicism was a major influence on the development of Roman thought, especially that of Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) and Seneca (4 BC- 65 AD) and on Roman education (see Chapter 3). Stoics believed that we should rely completely on reason - there could be no higher authority. Stoics were also later criticised by Christians for committing the sin of thinking that human reason was superior to the authority of tradition, especially the Bible. A much later Stoic, Epictetus (55-138 AD) encouraged his followers to put the common good before individual self-interest.
Throughout this book there will be many occasions when we refer back to the ideas that were being discussed in Ancient Greece and particularly in Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Both Plato and Aristotle shaped European ideas about politics and ethics which encouraged later generations to think of education as much more than a matter of the acquisition of skills and useful information. In addition, both Plato and Aristotle established 'schools' in Athens which not only contributed in a practical way but also served as an example of teaching method. Plato's Academy survived for hundreds of years until it was closed by Justinian, for ideological reasons, in 529 AD.
Conclusion
We have already seen that Greek educational ideas of various kinds have survived into the modern world. Plato's 'Utopian' solution of different kinds of education for different levels of a meritocracy is still being argued about in Western Europe. Perhaps more significantly, the views of both Aristotle and Plato that the State should control education was disputed in the nineteenth century and opposed vigorously in the 1980s and 1990s, to such an extent that even left-wing regimes in the West have accepted partial privatisation of some educational services. Aristotle's ideas on education for citizenship were also revived in England during the implementation of a new national curriculum from the year 2000 onwards.
References
1. Aristotle, Ethics (Introduction by J. Barnes) (Penguin Classics, 1976).
2. Ibid., p.21.
Further Reading
Aristotle, Ethics (Introduction by J. Barnes) (Penguin Classics, 1976).
Marrou, H.I., A History of Education in Antiquity (Mentor, 1964).
Nettleship, R.L., The Theory of Education in Plato's Republic (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1935).
Plato, Republic (trans. by D. Lee) (Penguin Classics, 1987).
Plato, Plato's Dialogues (trans. by F.M. Cornford) (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1935).