Plato’s educational program is set out in his most famous dialogue, the Republic. The world, he argued, has two aspects: the visible, or that which is perceived with the senses; and the nonvisible, or the intelligible, which consists of universal, eternal forms or ideas that are apprehensible only by the mind. Furthermore, the visible realm itself is subdivided into two: the realm of appearances and that of beliefs. Human experiences of so-called reality, according to Plato, are only of visible “appearances” and from these can be derived only opinions and beliefs. Most people, he argued, remain locked in this visible world of opinion; only a select few can cross into the realm of the intelligible. Through a rigorous 15-year program of higher education devoted to the study of dialectics and mathematical reasoning, this elite (“persons of gold” was Plato’s term) can attain an understanding of genuine reality, which is composed of such forms as the Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Just. Plato maintained that only those individuals who survive this program are really fit for the highest offices of the state and capable of being entrusted with the noblest of all tasks, those of maintaining and dispensing justice.
The rival school of Isocrates was much more down-to-earth and practical. It too aimed at a form of wisdom but of a much more practical order, based on working out commonsense solutions to life’s problems. In contrast to Plato, Isocrates sought to develop the quality of grace, cleverness, or finesse rather than the spirit of geometry. The program of study that he enjoined upon his pupils was more literary than scientific. In addition to gymnastics and music, its basics included the study of the Homeric classics and an extensive study of rhetoric—consisting of five or six years of theory, analysis of the great classics, imitation of the classics, and finally practical exercises.
These two parallel forms of culture and of higher education were not totally in conflict: both opposed the cynical pragmatism of the Sophists; each influenced the other. Isocrates did promote elementary mathematics as a kind of mental training or mental gymnastics and did allow for a smattering of philosophy to illumine broad questions of human life. Plato, for his part, recognized the usefulness of the literary art and philosophical rhetoric. The two traditions appear as two species of one genus; their debate, continued in each generation, enriched Classical culture without jeopardizing its unity.
Before leaving the Hellenic period, there is one other great figure to appraise—one who was a bridge to the next age, since he was the tutor of the young prince who became Alexander the Great of Macedonia. Aristotle (384–322 bce), who was one of Plato’s pupils and shared some of his opinions about education, believed that education should be controlled by the state and that it should have as a main objective the training of citizens. The last book of his Politics opens with these words:
Detail of a Roman copy (2nd century bce) of a Greek alabaster portrait bust of Aristotle, c. 325 bce; in the collection of the Roman National Museum.A. Dagli Orti/©De Agostini Editore/age fotostock
No one will doubt that the legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth.…The citizen should be moulded to suit the form of government under which he lives.
He shared some of Plato’s misgivings about democracy, but, because he was no recluse but a man of the world acquainted with public affairs, he declared his preference for limited democracy—“polity”—over other forms of government. His worldliness also led him to be less concerned with the search for ideas, in the Platonic mode, and more concerned with the observation of specific things. His urge for logical structure and classification, for systematization, was especially strong.
This systematization extended to a youth’s education. In his first phase, from birth to age seven, he was to be physically developed, learning how to endure hardship. From age seven to puberty his curriculum would include the fundamentals of gymnastics, music, reading, writing, and enumeration. During the next phase, from puberty to age 17, the student would be more concerned with exact knowledge, not only carrying on with music and mathematics but also exploring grammar, literature, and geography. Finally, in young manhood, only a few superior students would continue into higher education, developing encyclopaedic and intensely intellectual interests in the biological and physical sciences, ethics, and rhetoric, as well as philosophy. Aristotle’s school, the Lyceum, was thus much more empirical than Plato’s Academy. The Hellenistic Age
Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian empire between 334 and 323 bce abruptly extended the area of Greek civilization by carrying its eastern frontier from the shores of the Aegean to the banks of the Syr Darya and Indus rivers in Central and South Asia. Its unity rested henceforward not so much on nationality (it incorporated and assimilated Persians, Semites, and Egyptians) or on the political unity soon broken after the death of Alexander in 323 but on a common Greek way of life—the fact of sharing the same conception of man. This ideal was no longer social, communal in character, as had been that of the city-state; it now concerned man as an individual—or, better, as a person. This civilization of the Hellenistic Age has been defined as a civilization of paideia—which eventually denoted the condition of a person achieving enlightened, mature self-fulfillment but which originally signified education per se. The Greeks succeeded in preserving their distinctive national way of life amid this immense empire because, wherever numbers of them settled, they brought with them their own system of education for their youth, and they not only resisted being absorbed by the “barbarian” non-Hellenic peoples but also succeeded somewhat in spreading Greek culture to many of the alien elite. It is important to note that, although Hellenism was finally to be swept away in the Middle East by the Persian national renaissance and the invasions originating from Central Asia beginning in the 2nd century bce, it continued to flourish and even expand in the Mediterranean world under Roman domination. Hellenistic civilization and its educational pattern were prolonged to the end of antiquity and even beyond; it was to be a slow metamorphosis and not a brutal revolution that would later give birth to the civilization and education strictly called Byzantine. The institutions
Hellenistic education comprised an ensemble of studies occupying the young from age 7 to age 19 or 20. To be sure, this entire program was completed only by a minority, recruited from the rich aristocratic and urban bourgeois classes. The students were mostly boys (girls occupied only a very modest place), and of course they were usually free citizens (masters, though some slaves were given a professional education occasionally reaching a high level).
As in the preceding era, education continued to be dependent upon the city, which remained the primary frame of Greek life. To facilitate control of his empire, Alexander had commenced the process of founding a network of cities or communities organized and administered in the Greek manner. In effect, the creation of vast kingdoms did not eliminate the role of the city, even if the latter was not altogether independent; the Hellenistic state was not at all totalitarian and sought to reduce its administrative machinery to a minimum. It relied upon the cities to assume responsibility for public services, that of education in particular. The city, in turn, looked to the contributions of the richest and most generous private individuals, either by requiring them to fill magistracies and supply costly services or by appealing to their voluntary generosity; the proper functioning of the Hellenistic city presupposed the willing contributions of “benefactors.” Thus, certain educational institutions were supported—and in fact sometimes set up—by private foundations that specified exactly the use to be made of the income from their gift of capital. Many schools were private, the role of the city being limited to inspections and to the organization of athletic and musical competitions and festivals. Physical education