Читать книгу The History of Education - Ellwood Patterson Cubberley - Страница 32

THE HELLENIZATION OF ROME. The result was the Hellenization of the intellectual life of Rome, making complete the Hellenization of the Mediterranean world. After the fall of Greece, in 146 B.C., a great influx of educated Greeks took place. As the Latin poet Horace expressed it:

Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror,

And brought the arts to Latium.

So completely did the Greek educational system seem to meet the needs of the changed Roman State that at first the Greek schools were adopted bodily—Greek language, pedagogue, higher schools of rhetoric and philosophy, and all—and the schools were in reality Greek schools but slightly modified to meet the needs of Rome. Gymnasia were erected, and wealthy Romans, as well as youths, began to spend their leisure in studying Greek and in trying to learn gymnastic exercises.

In time the national pride and practical sense of the Romans led them to open so-called "culture schools" of their own, modeled after the Greek. The Latin language then replaced the Greek as the vehicle of instruction, though Greek was still studied extensively, and Rome began the development of a system of private-school instruction possessing some elements that were native to Roman life and Roman needs.

[Illustration: FIG. 20. CATO THE ELDER (234–149 B.C.)]

STRUGGLE AGAINST, AND FINAL VICTORY. That this great change in national ideals and in educational practice was accepted without protest should not be imagined. Plutarch and other writers appealed to the family as the center for all true education. Cato the elder, who died in 149 B.C., labored hard to stem the Hellenic tide. He wrote the first Roman book on education, in part to show what education a good citizen needed as an orator, husbandman, jurist, and warrior, and in part as a protest against Hellenic innovations. In 167 B.C., the first library was founded in Rome, with books brought from Greece by the conqueror Paulus Emilius. In 161 B.C., the Roman Senate directed the Praetor to see "that no philosophers or rhetoricians be suffered in Rome" (R. 20 a), but the edict could not be enforced. In 92 B.C., the Censors issued an edict expressing their disapproval of such schools (R. 20 b). By 100 B.C., the Hellenic victory was complete, and the Graeco-Roman school system had taken form. In 27 B.C., Rome ceased to be a Republic and became an Empire, and under the Emperors the professors of the new learning were encouraged and protected, higher schools were established in the provinces, literature and philosophy were opened as possible careers, and the Greek language, literature, and learning were spread, under Roman imperial protection, to every corner of the then civilized world. This victory of Hellenic thought and learning at Rome, viewed in the light of the future history of the civilization of the world, was an event of large importance.