Читать книгу The Age of Justinian and Theodora (Vol.1&2) - William Gordon Holmes - Страница 15

Superstition flourishes because knowledge is still the luxury of the few. By education alone can we hope to attain to the extinction of that phase of mind termed belief, or faith, which has always been inculcated as a virtue or a duty by the priest, and condemned as a vice of the intellect by the philosopher. In every age, the ability to discern the lines of demarcation which separate the known from the unknown is the initial stage of advancement; and in the training of youth, the prime object of the educator should be to confer this power on every individual; for in the uninformed minds of a great majority of mankind, fact and fancy are for the most part inextricably entangled. The efforts of authority to dispel or perpetuate error are most potent when acting on the impressionable faculties of early life. In a sane and progressive world the first conception to be engrafted in the expanding mind should be that knowledge has no foothold beyond the causeways pushed by science into the ocean of the unknown.866

I do not design to produce under this heading a lengthy disquisition on paedagogics among the Byzantines, but merely to indicate, by some broad lines, upon what stock of common knowledge the foundations of civilization rested in this age. The student of early Roman history will scarcely need to be reminded that the virtues of the Republic were not derived from the schools of art or philosophy; or that the aesthetic tastes of those blunt citizens only developed in proportion as they found themselves lords over the culture as well as over the country of the Greeks.867 Towards the middle of the second century B.C., Greek professors of literature and eloquence began to establish themselves at Rome, where they held their ground for some decades on a very precarious footing, owing to the strong disfavour with which they were regarded by those who considered the preservation of ancient manners as the salvation of the state.868 Gradually, however, the new discipline prevailed; eminent teachers were accorded recognition by the government, and before the end of the first century A.D., the privilege of maintaining at the public expense a faculty of professors to impart higher instruction to the rising generation, was granted to every town of any magnitude throughout the Empire.869 To facilitate, therefore, the prosecution of liberal studies, for such they were officially named, suitable buildings were erected in every populous centre. Architecturally, a state school comprised a handsome hall or lecture theatre, with class-rooms attached, the whole being surrounded essentially by a portico.870 The extent and decorative elaboration of these edifices depended doubtless on their local or general importance. The greater institutions, as denoted by their being the resort of a large concourse of students, were liberally provided with the adornments of painting and statuary.871 Objective instruction was given by means of tabular expositions of the subjects taught affixed to the walls of the colonnades, among which maps conveying not only geographical, but also historical information, were particularly conspicuous.872 Until the barbarian invasion of Greece by Alaric at the close of the fourth century, Athens maintained an easy pre-eminence as a centre of polite learning, and bestowed the greatest prestige on those who passed through her schools.873 The most pronounced effort for the advancement of higher education in the East at this epoch was the definite constitution of the schools of Constantinople in an Auditorum on the Capitol, almost as the counterpart of a modern University, by Theodosius II, in 425. The teaching staff of this college consisted, under their official titles, of three Orators and ten Grammarians for the Latin language; of five Sophists and ten Grammarians for the Greek tongue; of one Philosopher; and of two Jurists, thirty-one members in all.874 To insure the success of this foundation, the decree for its establishment was accompanied by an injunction against the public lecturing of professors other than those appointed to hold forth within its walls.875 A body of scriveners, technically named antiquarians, was also maintained for the multiplication of copies of manuscripts in the public libraries of the capital, which were rich in literature.876

In addition to these teachers, who were settled in various localities, the itinerant professor, who travelled from place to place delivering public harangues and taking pupils for a short course of instruction, was a feature in the life of the period. With considerable vanity they distinguished themselves by wearing a long beard, carrying a staff, and enfolding themselves in a cloak of an unusual tint.877 Rhetoricians affected a garb of scarlet or white, philosophers of gray, and physicians of blue.878 When addressing an audience, they usually presented themselves crowned with flowers, reeking with perfumes, and displaying a gold ring of remarkable size.879 The advent of these self-ordained instructors of the public into a provincial town was often the occasion of much local enthusiasm, and a throng of citizens advanced to meet them for some distance, in order to conduct them to their lodgings.880 All professors, whether in the pay of the state or otherwise, enjoyed a complete immunity from the civil duties and imposts enforced on ordinary individuals, thus presenting the singular contrast of being licensed to live in a condition of ideal freedom under a political system which restricted personal liberty at every turn.881 Such material advantages inevitably became liable to abuse through imposture, and the country was permeated by charlatans in the guise of philosophers, who coveted distinction and emolument at the easy price of a merely personal assertion of competence.882 In the fourth century this evil was scarcely checked by Imperial enactments which required that professors of every grade should procure credentials as to character and attainments from the Curia of their native place.883 The cost of education is a somewhat obscure subject, but we are justified in assuming that all the state seminaries were open gratuitously to the youth of the district; and we know that even private teachers of eminence were accustomed to remit the fees to students who were unable to pay.884

The ancients, like the moderns, assigned certain courses of instruction to pupils according to their age and the estimated development of their intelligence. As with us, the recipient of a full liberal education passed through three stages, adapted respectively to the capacity of the child, the boy, and the youth, which may be discussed under the headings of Elementary, Intermediate, and Final. To these must necessarily be added, in the case of those destined for a special vocation, a fourth stage, viz., the Professional. Their conception, however, of the periods of early life was more defined, and differed somewhat from our own, the first terminating at twelve, the second at fourteen, the third at twenty, and the fourth at twenty-five years of age.885 Primary education began at from five to seven, and the pupils were usually sent to a day-school in the charge of a slave, named a paedagogue. There they were taught to read, write, and to count; and suitable pieces were given to them to learn by rote. A wooden tablet faced with wax, upon which they scratched with a style, took the place of the modern slate or copy-book. Calculation was restricted to some simple operations of mental arithmetic, owing to the cumbersome method of figuring employed by the ancients, which did not lend itself easily to the manipulation of written numbers.886 The schoolmasters who presided over such preparatory establishments did not rank as professors, and were not accorded any privileges beyond those of ordinary citizens.887

II. At twelve the work of mental cultivation commenced seriously, and the pupil entered on the study of the seven liberal arts, viz., grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music.888 These subjects were taken in two stages, which in the West were beginning to be called the Trivium and Quadrivium.889 Two years were devoted to the Trivium, the scope of which may be apprehended from a brief summary. 1. The grammar of the period dealt with the eight parts of speech in a sufficiently exhaustive manner; conveyed some notions, often crude and erroneous, as to the derivation of words; and, in the absence of precise anatomical or acoustic science, attempted in a primitive fashion a classification of the letters and a physiology of vocalization. The construction of sentences was analyzed with considerable minuteness; and passages selected from eminent writers were set for the student to parse with an exactitude seldom called for at the present day.890 The laws of poetical metre were taught as a leading branch of the subject; and a familiarity with literature was promoted by reading the best authors, especially Homer.891 The copious Latin grammarian Priscian flourished at Constantinople under Anastasius, and his monumental work in eighteen books is still extant.892

2. In the province of dialectics it was sought to instill the art of reasoning correctly into the mind of the pupil. Thus he was introduced to the elementary principles of logic; the categories, or the modes of regarding and classifying phenomena, were explained to him; and he was exercised in the practice of accurate deduction according to the various forms of the syllogism.

3. Without a practical acquaintance with the art of rhetoric it was considered that no one could pretend to occupy any desirable position in the civil service of the Empire.893 This course was the extension and application of the two previous ones of grammar and logic, upon which it was based. The rules of composition and the arts of argument, which the ingenuity of the Greeks had unravelled and defined under a hundred apposite names, were exemplified to the student,894 who wrote extracts to dictation chosen from various illustrative authors. The sophist or rhetorician addressed his class on some stated theme, and spoke alternately on both sides of the question. The management of the voice and the use of appropriate gesture were systematically taught.895 Finally the pupils were set to compose speeches of their own and to debate among themselves on suitable subjects.896