tive one followed. The immorality of the sophists, then, was a nega- Their immotive one, to be found in their exaltation of the individual. The rality a nega. individual now found a place distinct from and above his life as a citizen. From the point of view of the Old Greek, the sophist tendency was an immoral one. From the point of view of modern thought it is seen to be a necessary critical stage, destructive of the old, but clearing the ground and even laying the foundation for the new. a perma tional At best, the work of the sophist, which as defined by Socrates Represented was to teach young men "to think, speak, and act," had no nent change unworthy motive and was no insignificant service to the state. in educaOnly in two respects, to which the modern world can hardly methods object since both are accepted in modern education, can the sophists as a class be held to be teachers of immorality. "They did believe that morality and wisdom could be taught theoretically, whereas in the Old Greek education these had been the products of a practical training in certain activities. And they did hold that the basis of morality was to be found within one's own intellectual and moral being. Morality was to be based on reason and not, as in the old period, upon custom and tradition, as revealed in their religious thought and institutional life. Nevertheless these very views did much to encourage the tendency to unrestricted individualism and contributed much to the demoralization of Athens. The term sophist continued in use for many generations. Even in the Christian centuries it was applied to the teachers in the universities as practically synonymous with the modern term professor. Yet the sophist in the original sense, as a teacher attached to no institution and to no one locality, and as one who professed to give instruction on all subjects, was characteristic of only about a century. Resulting Changes in Education. In Content. The pe- Education riod of higher education from sixteen to eighteen, hitherto became devoted to physical training and informal instruction in po- lectual litical duties, was now devoted more to a purely intellectual training. In private rooms, on the street, or in the gymnasia, Later use of term so phist more intel the sophists collected this body of students, imparted the knowedge, and gave the rhetorical training desired. While the sophists drew largely from the ranks of the ephebes, their greatest influence was exerted upon those who had entered the period of young manhood. Literature, studied from the point of view of form rather than from that of content and for the purpose of pleasing and persuading the multitude, now came to be the basis of study. To the sophists is due the formulation of the grammatical and rhetorical study of language and literature. Most of them wrote treatises on some phase of language study. In the music school the same emphasis was laid on literary study. Later didactic poets, offering opportunity for "hairsplitting" dialectics, were introduced. The tendency to introduce new musical instruments, the flute and the cithara with an increased number of strings, and new types of music, aiming more at subjective, pleasurable effects, indicates the tendency to allow individual pleasures and desires to control. In a similar way the introduction of the warm bath and the relaxation of the severity of the physical exercises in the palæstra indicate the growing love of ease. The extent to which these changes would develop individualism is evident.1 In Method. With an increased emphasis upon study of form, with the growing importance of intellectual acuteness in discrimination between words, with the enlarged rewards for mere showy effectiveness, the old emphasis on training in moral habit as the basal part of education was replaced by the exaltation of instruction. The study of grammar and rhetoric, soon to be followed by that of other subjects, reversed the old order of method and made of their education a process of theoretical instruction. Education became more distinctly a school process looking toward intellectual and practical, that is, individual ends. 1 For concrete details, see The Clouds of Aristophanes in Monroe, Source Book in the History of Education for the Greek and Roman Period, pp. 66–91. the results The Results of the New Education, both in the century of Two views transition and in the following period of complete dominance, were naturally of a twofold character. If one looks solely upon the darker side and is guided by the strictures of Plato, Aristophanes, and the conservatives, it was a period of extravagance in customs, of license in action, and of skepticism, irreverence and anarchy in belief. If, on the other hand, one tempers the views of these critics by what is gained inferentially from their own writings and more directly from writers less renowned, as is done by Grote (Chapter 67), it was a period of the greatest enlightenment in opinions, of moderation in policy, and of attainment in all the higher aspirations of life. In fact, as characteristic of a period of greatest freedom, both results might have been true. With its attendant benefits and its unavoidable evils the Both classes absolute freedom of learning and of teaching, the "Lern-und of effects Lehrfreiheit," which is the ideal of modern higher education, was an actual realization in this period. Such evils are the necessary price to be paid for such blessings. With Athens, however, since such freedom attended not only learning and thought, but prevailed in the world of moral conduct, of political activities, and of the religious life as well, the cost was a heavy one and was paid to the uttermost. THE GREEK EDUCATIONAL THEORISTS. The Problem of the Educational Theorists was identical with the problem of educational theorists at the present. This problem is to for mulate an educational ideal that will provide for institutional loyalty or social service, and at the same time permit or even necessitate the fullest development of personality; to organize an education on the institutional side so as to render this aim possible of realization by all; and to construct appropriate) methods of instruction and training. The occasion for the work of the Greek educational theorists was the conflict between the New Greek education and the Old. The educational problem was similar to that of to-day. A few generations ago the content of education was almost wholly religious, and moral conduct necessary Similarity of educa tional problem then and now Moral char acter to be produced by instruction and based o rationality 1 Relation of Socrates' was regulated by a code of ethics based upon the authority of revelation. Now religious instruction and material are banished from the schools, and moral conduct must be developed through schoolroom instruction and rational training. In one respect the theorists agreed with the New Greek educators. They held the ideals as well as the process of the Old Greek education to be wholly inadequate. In another respect they agreed with the conservatives who rejected the New. They held the negative attitude of the sophists to be wholly inadequate and believed that some general moral bonds must be furnished. The attitude of the sophists toward knowledge was of the same negative and destructive character as their attitude toward moral principles. Along with the ancient standards of conduct, the previous conception of knowledge had come to be looked upon as antiquated and false, so that the sophists despaired of the attainment of any satisfactory interpretation of reality, of the universe, or of life. Socrates (469-399) first stated the problem of the conflict statement of between the Old and the New Greek education, between social the problem and individual interests, and somewhat vaguely formulated the principles of solution. He accepted as his starting point the basal principle of the sophist teaching, "Man is the measure of all things." This he did in no superficial sense. If man is the measure of all things, the first obligation which man must assume is to know himself. Knowledge vs. opinion as the basis of conduct Within the consciousness of the individual, within the moral nature of man, according to this new teacher, is to be found the determination of the aims of life and of the purpose of education. Not, however, in this consciousness as mere opinion. A characteristic of this age was the dominance of opinion. Questions relating to natural phenomena, natural forces, political policy, economic procedure, moral principles, were all thrown into the arena of public discussion. As questions relating to the operation of economic laws, of jurisprudence, of finance, are often settled nowadays by popular vote, so it was then, under the is virtue influence of the sophists, with a much wider list of subjects. "Come now, whether do you think that Jupiter always rains fresh rain on each occasion, or that the sun draws from below the same water back again," proposes Strepsiades in The Clouds as a fertile and typical subject for the exchange of opinion. Against this sway of opinion Socrates set himself with all the force | |of his wonderful personality. As opposed to the purely individualistic basis of opinion, Socrates held that knowledge possessed universal validity. From this basis he arrived at his fundamental principle, "Knowledge is virtue." By guiding Knowledge conduct by those ideas that possess universal validity, instead of by mere opinion, one lives the virtuous life. The aim of education, then, was not to give the offhand information that, combined with superficial brilliancy of speech, constituted the ideal of the sophists. It was to give knowledge to the individual by developing in him the power of thought. Every individual has within himself the power of knowing and appreciating such truths as those of fidelity, of honesty, of truthfulness, of honor, of friendship, of wisdom, of virtue, or has the possibility of acquiring this power. This is the phase of knowledge in which Socrates was interested, the knowledge which is derived from one's own experience and which is the basis of right conduct. of knowledge The Socratic Method. The teachings of Socrates had two Development D The first of these was to demonstrate that knowledge through diapurposes. lies at the basis of all virtuous action; the second was to indicate lectic that knowledge was to be developed by each individual from his own experience by means of the dialectic method. Knowledge, he held, is the prerequisite of free action; it is the basis of right action in all the arts. This is preeminently true of the highest of all arts, the art of right living. Such knowledge, Socrates held, was to be gained not from the mere opinion of the individual, but only by a search for that which was common to all and was universally valid. But the individual is unable without training to discover that which possesses universal validity in his own experience and in |