Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 1897, Vol. 28
Greek system of education. The Greeks sought, above all, to secure the harmonious development of soul and body. Hazset'a, therefore, consisted of nova-uni and yupvaa?mj. The term uovmmj, employed in the broad sense, comprehended first, 7pa'uua'm or wrappa'nmj, the study of reading, writing, and literature, and second, uovozmj in the narrower sense, music with its companion art of dancing.1 In these branches was comprehended the liberal education of the best period of Athenian history. When such studies as arithmetic, geome try, astronomy, geography, and drawing were taken up, they continued for a long time to be pursuits of the few, and the educational ideal of the nation remained unchanged. Before we pronounce such a conception of education as belonged to the Greeks and such a curriculum narrow, we must consider a point of the utmost importance for the present discussion, namely, how fundamentally unlike our own was the object which they had in view. This is nowhere better stated than by Plato in the few words rj 8' e'rri 'puxzl povo'uaj (rep. 376 That is, education had to do rather with the moral and spir itual part of man, than with the intellectual. Its aim was primarily ethical training and development, not mental acqui sition.2 A consideration for the aesthetic side of education, though of later growth and always regarded as of secondary importance, went hand in hand with the predominating ethical purpose. It is fairly said, therefore, that Die gewo'lmliclze gn'eclzzls'clze E rzielz u u g can 7 beiu U u to rricltt iu Vie! W isseu, vielme/zr eiue Bild'ung cles Siuues uua' der Gesinnung (gras berger, Vol. II., p. This is preeminently true down to the close of the Peloponnesian war, when the so-called prae tical branches mentioned above began to claim their place in the system of instruction, though they never displaced the older subjects of study. The great function of education continued to be to make good rather than wise citizens.
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