best times the whole of the literary and scientific education was called simply "letters" (γράμματα). As late as the time of Plato letters seem to have been considered a part of Music, and to have been taught by the same teacher as the latter; but Aristotle already distinguishes the two. It is extremely probable that the introduction of letters was the immediate cause of the establishment of schools for youth; for we find no mention of them prior to that event.

(5) The introduction of letters was closely followed by the rise of Philosophy, or the reflective spirit. Up to about the year 600 b.c., the Greeks, like the rest of the world, lived by habit, tradition, and prescription, handed on, with little or no criticism, from generation to generation. Their ideal world was shaped by the works of Homer and Hesiod. "Hesiod is the teacher of most," says Heraclitus. About the date named, however, society having advanced to a condition of organization which made possible a leisure class, there begins to appear a new spirit, destined to revolutionize, not only Greece, but the whole world. Armed with a what? a which? a why? and a wherefore? it no longer blindly accepts the world of nature and man, but calls upon it to give an account of itself. Science, philosophy, and art are the result.

At first the new spirit turns to nature with a what?; but, gradually discovering that the answer to this brings no complete explanation of the world, it propounds its other questions. It thus arrives at a consciousness of four distinguishable elements in the constitution of things,—four causes (αἴτια, αἰτίαι), as they were termed,—(1) matter, (2) form, (3) efficiency, (4) end or aim. At the same time, and by the same process, it is forced to a recognition of the presence of reason (λόγος) and intelligence (νοῦς) in the world, since form, efficiency, and aim all presuppose both. It is thus compelled to turn from nature to man, and man's mind, as the highest known expression of reason and intelligence, and to devote itself to the consideration of spirit, as alone promising any true explanation of the world. The process is a slow and difficult one, and the history of it is the history of Greek science, philosophy, and art.

Before the rise of philosophy, the teacher of the people had been the rhapsode, or public reciter; after that event he gradually gives place to the sophist (σοφιστής, one who makes wise), or, as he later with more modesty calls himself, the philosopher (φιλόσοφος, lover of wisdom). The history of Greece for centuries is, on its inner side, a history of the struggle between what the rhapsode represents and what the philosopher represents, between popular tradition and common sense on the one hand, and individual opinion and philosophy on the other. The transition from the first to the second of these mental conditions was accomplished for the world, once for all, by the Greeks, and the turning-point in the process is marked by

(6) The Persian Wars (b.c. 490-479). The victories gained in these at Marathon, Salamis, and Platææ, victories the most brilliant that history records, exerted a most powerful influence upon the thought and life of the Greeks. The consciousness of having, with their small numbers, over and over again, both by land and by sea, discomfited and crushed the countless hosts of an empire which for generations had threatened their peace and liberty, made them at once feel the superiority of their own characters and civil institutions to those of the Persians, and draw a clear line of demarcation between Greek and barbarian. From this point on, they felt themselves to be a chosen people, a nation destined by the gods to rule all others. "The soul of Greece had conquered the bulk of Persia." Persia was bulk and body; Greece was soul and spirit. This conviction appears at once in all the departments of Greek life. In the sphere of art we may instance the Prometheia of Æschylus and the Parthenon. In the former, what does the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus mean but the conflict between Greek spirituality, intellect, and freedom, on the one hand, and barbarian materiality, instinct, and thraldom or necessity, on the other? And what is the latter but a matchless pæan in stone to Divine Wisdom, as the conqueror of brute force? In the sphere of thought, we find Parmenides, Anaxagoras and, above all, Socrates (born ten years after the second Persian War), turning consciously to the study of spirit. "To be and to think are the same thing," says the first of these: "All things were confused; then Mind came and reduced them to order," says the second; "Know thyself" is the chosen motto of the third. In the political sphere we find the Athenians trying to make the State an instrument of intelligence and virtue, and insisting upon education as a means thereto. Other and less desirable results followed from the Persian Wars; but these can be better stated and estimated in another connection.

Such were the chief causes that contributed to transform the simple patriarchal State of the Homeric Greeks, with its purely practical education at home and in the field, into the free polity of the Greeks of the days of Miltiades, Themistocles, and Æschylus, with its complicated institutions and manifold education. It has seemed better to enumerate these causes than to try to trace the steps of the transformation itself. Indeed this would have been a hopeless task, owing to the lack of historical data.

CHAPTER VI

EPOCHS IN GREEK EDUCATION

When they (our ancestors) began to enjoy leisure for thought, as the result of easy circumstances, and to cherish more exalted ideas with respect to worth, and especially when, in the period before and after the Persian Wars, they came to entertain a high opinion of themselves, on account of their achievements, they pursued all kinds of education, making no distinction, but beating about generally.—Aristotle.

In treating of Greek education subsequent to the introduction of letters and the establishment of schools, we shall be obliged, in the interest of clearness, to make three distinctions:—

(1) Between the educational systems of different periods.

(2) Between the educational systems of different peoples and states.

(3) Between the education actually imparted in the various states, and that recommended by theorists or philosophers.

In pursuance of the first, it will be convenient first to distinguish two main periods, the Hellenic, and the Hellenistic, and then to subdivide these into minor periods.

I. The Hellenic Period (776-338 b.c.). This includes, roughly speaking, the whole historic life of free Greece, from the date of the first Olympiad to that of the absorption of Greece into the Macedonian Empire. It naturally subdivides itself into two periods, (a) 776-450; (b) 450-338.

(a) That of the "Old Education," authoritative and puritanical, whose aim was the training of good citizens, god-fearing, law-abiding, patriotic, and brave.

(b) That of the "New Education," rationalistic and "liberal," whose aim was the training of formidable individuals, self-centred, law-despising, time-serving, and cunning.

It is in the struggle between the two systems, and in the practical triumph of the latter, that Greece loses her