8

Jocelyn Broman

Western Civilization 1

November 29, 2006

The Rational Element's Dominion

“Socrates: It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like?

Adeimantus: To be sure.(1)”

Education of some sort has always influenced humanity. Whether it was a son learning a trade from his father, or a political authority passing on knowledge to his protégé, education has been the key to life and living. Formalized education began before ancient Greece, but it was the Athenian education model that was adopted by the Romans, and would hold as the basic model from the fifth century through the fall of the Western part of the Roman Empire. As with most happenings in history, many factors contributed to the evolution of the Athenian education model. The appearance of the Sophist tutors, the democratic state of Athens, and the established competing schools of Plato and Isocrates influenced Athenian secondary education, but it was the Sophist advent that spurred the greatest growth in the development of Athenian secondary education.

Early Greek education consisted of physical education and a musical education. Physical education was first meant as exercises to keep a Greek prepared for war, and later meant to help a child prepare for athletic competitions.(2) Physical education was still practiced in the late fifth century, but its preeminence was deflated by the rising ideal of reason and philosophy. Musical education, which also included poetry and the Homeric epics, was a main part of the early life of all Greek children. This included being taught to dance and sing in a chorus. The music school therefore represented the ideal ancient aesthetic tradition foiling the newer practical and intellectual discipline of the grammar school and sophist secondary education.(3) Later periods saw physical and musical curriculum integrated into elementary education, to which reading, writing, elementary arithmetic, and elementary sciences were later added.

As Athenians became more involved in the government of the polis following the Persian Wars, education became important to the development of a citizen, and became more easily accessible to the non-aristocrat. This growth of the accessibility of education was made possible by the sophist educators that entered onto the Athenian scene. The sophists also taught the “liberal education,” which would serve to distinguish between the higher and lower classes in the coming century.(4) Grammar and rhetoric were the crowning achievements of the liberal education. A grammarian would conduct classes dealing with correct pronunciation, explanation of rare words and poetic mechanisms, etymology of words, analogy, and occasionally criticism.(5) Homer was the textbook, until the tragic and comedic plays gained acceptance among teachers. It was also common to find well known works of Greek poets in the grammarian's classroom. Grammar, however, was only the stepping stone to rhetoric.

Rhetoric, and the study thereof, was one of the most, if not the most, sought after subject for instruction. The original purpose of teachers of rhetoric was to create successful lawyers in the courts, and citizen politicians in the Assembly.(6) It was the sophists that took this art to a new level: each teacher had a specialty to teach. Isocrates founded a school for rhetoric near the Lyceum, and drew many eager students; thereby founding rhetoric as a recognized part of Greek liberal education.(7) The tradition of grammar and rhetoric would remain through the Hellenistic age and on through the Roman Empire.

After mastering grammar and rhetoric, a student could then choose an area of professional study in a specific subject. Frederick A.G. Beck identifies three traditional areas of study: medicine, teaching, and law.(8) As the sophist teachers became more popular, rhetoric was also added, which created a profession out of the political body of the polis. However, in the early fifth century, teachers for the previously discussed subjects were almost non-existent.

Here enter the Sophists: a loosely banded group of traveling teachers, selling their skills and bringing the idea of higher education into the minds of Athenians. The sophists are pictured as sellers of persuasion and holders of “anti-idealist philosophies that suited the needs of democratic societies.(9)” They offered, to those that could pay, a grooming for success in political leadership. Philosophically, they all held the same idea: the belief that knowledge with improve the character of a person.(10) The advent of the sophists spurred the greatest growth in the development of Athenian secondary education, by establishing a new way of teaching old subjects and creating an awareness of new subjects. The Sophists were the first to recognize the value and incorporate sciences; arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and acoustics, into a standard teaching system.(11)

The Sophists were also the first to actively use the medium of poetic criticism. Marrou pointed out Protagoras's remarks on trivial points of Simonides as mentioned in Protagoras by Plato.(12) This however is used as a transition into the development of the poetic critique. It became “a special kind of mental exercise, a way of studying the relationships between thought and language.(13)” Even today poetic critique, though it does not follow the style of Greek critique, allows for more creativity, and more general philosophical thought, than does the critique of prose.

Thought the sophists filled an important role in fifth century Athens, their reign of knowledge did end. “They forged new curricula and developed new fields of study related to the needs of man.(14)” The sophists used their subjects, and their command of the literary critique, to, not only, each the classic authors and the technical details of them, but also to train the mind of the student. This model of training the mind how to think rather than what to think is still seen today in the many universities of the world. The sophists “recognized themselves as heirs to the poets of antiquity.(15)” and were able to adapt themselves to the Greek culture, and change enough practices to suit their individual and philosophical differences. It was in this world that Plato and Isocrates were able to find a favorable outlook for their schools of philosophy and rhetoric.

Plato founded his school for philosophy, the Academy, in 387 B.C. The Academy's aim was the exploration of philosophy, and there was also a dabbling in the political science of the ancient world. Plato was never content to remain a theorist, and constantly answered requests for help from citizen politicians in neighboring city-states.(16) The common good of the polis was the practical end of the Academy through the training of “political technicians.(17)” Plato built the education system of the Academy to be a forum for constant searching for truth and for wisdom. He believed truth would be gained by rational knowledge: “Plato's criteria was not success but truth: hence the supreme value of true knowledge based on rigorous demonstration.(18)” Marrou also mentions the bonds of fraternity that bound the students of the Academy to each other, and to their master.(19) The Academy, however, was far from the ideal education laid out by Plato in the Republic, because the earth lacked the ideal polis.

Plato's ideal state, as described in the Republic, was based upon the system of education that provided the type of citizen needed for the ideal state. In the first stage of the ideal education, the student was to produce virtues through imitation of worthy heroes. This stage embedded the freedom of being able to control one's baser elements of the soul, and was crucial for all individuals of the ideal polis.(20) The second stage of the ideal education was to create philosophic rulers. The emphasis upon intellectual development during this stage of Plato's education elevated the philosophic ruler high above all others that seek wisdom.(21) It was in this stage that the Ideal Forms were sought, and the philosophic ruler was taught that logic will provide proof for the essence of a thing.(22) These philosophic rulers were not expected to want to serve, the draw of truth is too great, but they will serve to rule the ideal city, because they are indebted to the city for their ideal education. This was the liberal education for the elite few that Plato envisioned for the ideal polis.

The school of Isocrates represented the opposite view of ancient education: it was an orator's school. Founding his school in 393 B.C., Isocrates has always stood in the shadow of Plato. He was a teacher of oratory and a publisher of speeches; he was never a philosopher which is probably why he stayed in Plato's shadow. Isocrates desire was to form the intellectual elite of Greece as was needed in his time.(23) However, from Isocrates “emerged all those fine teachers and men of culture, noble idealists, simple moralists, lovers of fine phrases, all those fluent, voluble speakers, to whom classical antiquity owed both the qualities and the defects of its main cultural tradition.(24)” Isocrates followed the sophist tradition more closely than did Plato, and because of this impacted the ancient world in a more practical and real way. He was more concerned with the average Athenian, and molding him into a cultured individual.(25) Students were taught how to orate through practice, and the age old paths of mimicry and example.(26) Practically, Isocrates belief and reliance on the Logos (i.e. Words, Speech, in a smaller sense Truth)(27) allowed him to educate more than simply those that desired to learn philosophy: he was able to teach the citizen politicians that influenced Athens in the years to follow. And in turn those who learned from him influenced followers of their own.

Isocrates also held that mathematics and history should be added to education.(28) This marked a distinct growth in his contemporary culture, as new subjects were not elevated into secondary education on a whim; the citizens of the polis had to become used to the idea. And although rhetoric never moved in Isocrates mind from the supreme art form, he was able to introduce more preparatory education through the inclusion of mathematics and history.

The schools of the late classical period were influential on the Mediterranean world, and would influence how the Romans formed their education system. Great roman orators, such as Cicero, would attend Greek grammar schools and study under philosophers and rhetoricians that followed after Plato and Isocrates. However, despite the prestige of established schools, the roots of the schools should not be forgotten. It was the sophists who spurred the growth of the liberal arts education. Without their ideas we would never have had a Socrates, or Plato, to oppose them. Yes, the Greeks did have a sort of education before the advent of the sophists, but it was the sophists that added the primacy of grammar and rhetoric to the basic secondary education for most Athenian children. The appearance of the Sophist tutors, the democratic state of Athens, and the established competing schools of Plato and Isocrates influenced Athenian secondary education, but it was the Sophist advent that spurred the greatest growth in the development of Athenian secondary education.

(1) Scott Buchanan, ed., The Portable Plato (New York: The Viking Press, 1976), 421.

(2) H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, translated by George Lamb (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 36-37, 40.

(3) Frederick A. G. Beck, Greek Education (New York: Butler & Tanner Ltd, 1964), 127.

(4) Andrea Wilson Nightingale, “Liberal Education in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics” in Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. Yun Lee Too (Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijk Brille NV, 2001), 136.

(5) M. L. Clarke, Higher Education in the Ancient World (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), 13.

(6) Ibid., 28.

(7) Ibid., 30.

(8) Beck, 143-145.

(9) Andrew Ford, “Sophists without Rhetoric: The Arts of Speech in Fifth-Century Athens” in Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. Yun Lee Too (Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijk Brille NV, 2001), 86.

(10) Beck, 148.

(11) Marrou, 55.

(12) Ibid., 56.

(13) Ibid., 56.

(14) Beck, 186.

(15) Ibid., 187.

(16) Marrou, 64.

(17) Ibid., 65.

(18) Ibid., 66.

(19) Ibid., 67.

(20) Nightingale, 139.

(21) Ibid., 141-142.

(22) Ibid., 146-147.

(23) Marrou, 79.

(24) Ibid., 79.

(25) Ibid., 81.

(26) Ibid., 84.

(27) Ibid., 81.

(28) Ibid., 83.