Our current culture has grown out of the attitudes, ideas and institutions of ancient Greece. Academy, lyceum, gymnasium, school, educator, grammarian, and many other foundational concepts of today’s educational system were inherited from them, therefore it is understandable why the understanding of the concept of education should be sought in ancient Greece.
The idea of education greatly occupied the most famous ancient philosophers and statesmen because education was considered crucial for the survival and future of their own people.
Furthermore, it is evidenced by the fact that the Athenians and Spartans experienced their glorious periods largely during the times when legislators and their leaders encouraged changes and improvements in education, especially for children and youth. The Spartan legislator Lycurgus, the Athenian legislator Solon, and the statesman Pericles based a significant part of their reforms on improvements in education. Philosophers, especially Plato, regarded education as one of the foundations of the state, where students would be prepared for their future roles as citizens. The educators are not properly doing their job, creating a generation of ignorants and immoral people who will ruin the country.
In other words, Helenes believed that the state would be as good as its citizens, who needed to be taught to appreciate and develop virtues, while restraining and despising lower instincts in order to achieve the ideals of good and beauty for the overall progress of the community.
Sources of Greek education
Although we know little about it, Plutarch and some other ancient authors tell us that Greek tribes brought a system of values and religious beliefs to the shores of the Aegean Sea, which had mysteries as its core. It is known that mysteries were based on the relationship between teacher and student, where certain knowledge about natural laws and human’s place in the cosmos was directly passed on to those who were willing to accept a demanding way of learning and living. Festivities were intended for others, through which they could attain touch with its own tradition and deep human questions, which also served as a form of upbringing and education.
Homer’s works, which were transmitted by the Homerids through singing and recitation, were another important pillar of early Greek education. The transmission of these works emphasized the heroic, chivalrous ideal as the fundamental idea in the education of young Greek men.
The main pillars of Greek education, gymnastics and music in the classical sense, have long been cultivated, forming the ideal of the cultivated, virtue-devoted warrior and knight. Gymnastics aimed at achieving harmonious physical development, as well as building physical strength and endurance, necessary both in war and daily life.
Music in this sense was not only music, but every skill under the protection of the Muses, and it included poetry, oratory, playing instruments, singing, knowledge of myths and history, and other subjects. Music had the role of awakening inner values in a person, such as courage, honor, and wisdom. their Flies which were the measure of reputation.
To illustrate education in ancient Greece, we will give examples of two of the most significant Greek city-states.
Sparta
The rise of Sparta can be traced back to the 9th century BC, after Lycurgus introduced a new constitution that fundamentally changed all the structures in the state. Written sources mention Sparta from its earliest days as an extremely well-organized and regulated state that easily imposed itself on neighboring city-states as a leader in both war and peacetime. It is important to note that the Spartans were Dorians and that their mentality differed significantly from the Athenian Ionians. Dorians were known for their strength and endurance, as well as for promoting masculine, warrior values that gave Sparta its distinctive characteristic.
The way of thinking of the people at that time, especially of the citizens of Sparta, differed from ours in one essential question, the question of the value of the individual in society. A Spartan immensely loved his city-state, which was his homeland, the source of his identity. for the prosperity of the state and the personal pride. The fundamental goal of every free citizen’s life was to participate in public affairs and strive in every way to make Sparta stronger, more respectable, and exemplary. Virtue was reflected in all aspects of public and private life. In this sense, a Spartan would not understand the question that is often asked today, why Spartans prioritized the interests of the state over their own private interests to such an extent, as it was implied that what is good for their polis must be good for themselves as well.
Therefore, Spartans believed that education was so important that every citizen had a duty to provide the youth with the best example and teach them at every moment and in every place. Honor, as one of the supreme Spartan values, was earned through strenuous and diligent training in military and all other skills, as well as by maintaining an impeccable moral life. They considered strength of character and resilience to adverse life circumstances as necessary. The qualities of a useful and responsible member of the community.
Children only grew up in a family environment until they reached the age of seven, after which they lived in the company of their peers in small communities led by iren, young people between their twenties and thirties who stood out for their wisdom and courage. Their living conditions were modest as they were taught endurance and self-mastery from an early age. They dressed and ate simply, and slept in communal bedrooms on straw-made beds they themselves created.
Although Spartan upbringing is stereotypically associated with physical endurance, ancient authors (Plutarch, Pausanias, and Herodotus) testify that spiritual and moral education was even more important in Sparta. The ability for sharpness, clarity, and conciseness of expression was highly valued. During communal meals, older boys would test and challenge younger ones by assigning tasks that required careful consideration before a satisfying answer could be given. When going to bed after dinner, iren would command the youngsters to recount and discuss the events and lessons of the day, emphasizing values such as discipline, loyalty, and selflessness. The boy should sing, while I would ask another a question that required a thoughtful answer, for example, who is the most virtuous person in town or how does such a person behave. The boys were accustomed to making correct judgments and immediately showing interest in the behavior of adult fellow citizens. Because if one was asked who was a good citizen or who had a bad reputation, and was unable to answer, they considered it a sign of a slow and unambitious spirit. (Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Lycurgus).
For the lazy and inattentive, there was punishment, but the young ones were much more motivated by the public praise they received if they gave the correct answer. The boys also learned to use speech that condensed careful consideration into few words, achieving brevity and correctness in responses through the habit of prolonged silence. (Plutarch). This is the famous wisdom that emanates from the preserved examples of Spartan citizens’ laconic answers.
Although children and young people lived in their own community, they were not isolated from the adults. In ancient times, the neighborhoods in Sparta were not separate from the rest of the city, and respected citizens often visited their training grounds and attended games and competitions of strength and wit. By engaging them in simulated battles and disputes, they carefully studied the nature of each individual when it came to bravery and perseverance in fights. Moreover, the most outstanding people in the city chose a paidonomos, an educational supervisor who judged the justification and appropriateness of the punishments carried out by the ireni. For religious festivals, children and young people participated in events where adults could admire what they had learned, whether in the field of music or gymnastics.
Unlike Athens, girls in Sparta participated equally in gymnastic exercises, becoming harmoniously and firmly built as a result. It is said that they endured childbirth much easier than other Greek women, and this upbringing eradicated the softness and weakness typically associated with the female sex from their characters.
The common upbringing of both sexes was implemented He enjoyed himself up until the victory of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Since then, girls stopped exercising with boys, and Spartan education gained that cruel characteristic that is today associated with the concept. In the time when Greece becomes just one of the many provinces of the Roman Empire, Plutarch mentions that during his travels he encountered such phenomena that were mostly used as an attraction for travelers.
At the age of eighteen, boys would emerge from their childhood and they were called ephebes or melirenes, and from the age of twenty they were called irenes. They continued their training, participated in military campaigns and supervised, led and taught younger ones.
Spartan education was rightly valued in other Hellenic states, and Spartan educators, military leaders, and judges were highly sought after throughout ancient Greece.
Athens
Contemporaries have left enough discussions and writings about Athenian education and its educational and upbringing institutions to be able to reconstruct the entire system.
As with other Hello Helena, upbringing was based on music and gymnastics. The Athenian specificity in later periods, especially in times of peace, was less emphasis on military training, while more attention was paid to acquiring culture, performing public duties, and philosophical life. After all, the Athenians primarily left us the works of their philosophers, statesmen, and artists. Of course, this does not mean that an Athenian citizen was not prepared for military service. On the contrary, every free citizen, after completing education at the age of eighteen, spent two years in the army, and the obligation of every capable citizen was to participate in military campaigns. Famous Athenians, for example Socrates, were extremely proud of their participation and conduct in war.
Athenian schools were led by private teachers skilled in certain knowledge. They charged for their lessons, but it’s known that the state paid for the education of children whose fathers died fighting for Athens.
From an early age, Athenians were involved in gymnastics, so the education of children was strongly connected with physical activities. Up until the age of seven, the focus was mainly on physical exercise, with the aim of ensuring the child’s physical development and teaching them to endure effort. At the age of seven, official education began. The first teacher a student would have was a respected slave, known as a paidagogos, whose task was to accompany the child to school, but also to test their acquired knowledge and teach them good manners. For this purpose, even though a slave, the paidagogos was allowed to physically punish the entrusted student.
From the age of seven, learning to write, read, and count took place with a teacher called a grammatistes. Reading was taught slowly and thoroughly: first the alphabet, then syllables, followed by more complex words, and finally the difficult and rare ones. After that, reading followed, mainly Homer and other classics, along with practice in writing and recitation. Mathematics lessons consisted of learning operations with numbers and fractions. The widespread use of the abacus enabled simple multiplication and division. In addition, children learned to play the guitar and sing with a kitharistesa, who was their instructor. Through the poem, he conveyed traditional myths from Hesiod’s Theogony and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. For physical exercise, there were specially designed training grounds, palaestrae, where wrestling, running, discus throwing, javelin throwing, and other athletic disciplines were taught. These places were also known as gymnasiums. This marked the completion of basic education at the age of fourteen.
Those who wanted and were able to, moved on to higher education. This period of education was called enkyklios paideia, which means general or common education. It consisted of studying literature and mathematics. Literature was taught by a grammarian, whose role was to transmit and explain classical authors such as Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, and others. Through studying these works, students familiarized themselves with the entire Hellenic tradition and its system of values, absorbing through the verses the fundamental ideals of humanity, virtues, and chivalry. They also studied the works of historians, and later on, the speeches of great politicians and statesmen such as Demosthenes or Pericles. > Older students gradually studied philosophical works. At the same time, they were encouraged to practice writing verses themselves in order to strengthen their practical expression skills. They learned mathematics based on Pythagorean principles, which included four disciplines: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony (which, according to Pythagorean teachings, is not only present in music but permeates the entire universe through the laws of numbers, rhythm, and intervals).
At the age of eighteen, a young man became an ephebe, that is, a person entering adult life. This period lasted for two years, during which the young men engaged in military training by serving their military obligation, as well as further developing their literary, scientific, and other general cultural knowledge. Upon completion of the ephebe period, at the age of twenty, a young Athenian was expected to be a well-formed and responsible citizen, interested in public affairs and the welfare of his city.
With the arrival of sophists or traveling teachers, education in Athens lost its classical characteristics. Sophists challenged the traditional education system and introduced new methods and ideas. Young men from better households were directed towards learning logic and rhetoric as means to defeat their opponents in political battles, disregarding morality and even the truthfulness of their own arguments.
In the 5th century BC, Sokrates, deeply interested in the proper education of Athenian citizens, fiercely attacked the sophists. His greatest student, Plato, will transform all the well-known sophists into characters in his dialogues, where they usually play the role of Sokrates’ interlocutors, whom he unquestionably defeats with the power of his arguments.
Higher education in specific sciences was not greatly institutionalized, there were only a few medical schools (Hippocrates’ on the island of Kos, and later schools in Pergamon and Alexandria). These were actually centers for studying natural sciences where numerous ancient physicians gathered to deepen traditional knowledge together with their students.
Philosophical schools
The highest form of higher education was the study of philosophy. – the crown of all sciences. This education, of course, was not at all similar to today’s philosophical faculties, but it was based on a firm decision to spend one’s own lifetime in the search for truth, universal knowledge, studying the internal and external laws of nature, and to set an example through living high ideals.
In Athens, during its history, several philosophical schools operated, and the most famous ones were established under the influence of Socrates, who himself did not found a school, but had numerous disciples. As we know, Socrates spent his time in the Athenian markets, seeking to stimulate people through conversation to realize that wisdom brings the greatest good, and that living a correct internal life is mankind’s most important task. What we know about Socrates has come to us thanks to his disciples.
In 387 BC, Plato founded his own philosophical school – the Academy. One of his inspirations was the Pythagorean school, so he had it engraved on the doors of his school. There was a sign warning that anyone who did not know geometry should not enter. This school brought together the most gifted young people, not only Greeks but also foreigners who were attracted to the ideals advocated by Plato. Although this time was unfriendly to women’s higher education, it is recorded that two women attended Plato’s Academy. In his school, Plato aimed to educate young people in accordance with his philosophical and political ideals outlined in The Republic and Laws. The influence of the Academy was far-reaching, so we can thank the Academy directly for the rise of Alexandrian culture and indirectly for the emergence of the Renaissance.
Another philosophical school was founded by Antisthenes, also a disciple of Socrates, and it would become known as the Cynic school. From it emerged the eccentric Diogenes of Sinope, who became known as “Diogenes in a barrel” due to his unusual choice of residence. He expressed his contempt for material possessions through his unconventional way of life.
The third significant philosophical school that emerged was in. The Stoic school of Athens in the 4th century was founded by Zeno of Cyprus. Stoicism will reach its full bloom at the beginning of the new era, becoming the leading philosophy of the Roman Empire.
In all of these schools, the main subject of teaching was ethics as the knowledge of a person’s duties. The ancient Greeks attached great importance to the education of children and youth as one of the most important tasks of the state, applying certain forms of education that are different from today’s society. However, forms change, and what constitutes the essence of education – making a child grow into a responsible and moral member of the community – represents timeless value. It must be admitted that the embodiment of this idea is more necessary to us today than ever before.