Education in Europe

The great poems the Iliad and the Odyssey believed by the ancient Greeks to have been composed by Homer during the eighth century B.C.E. contained the fundamental idea of Greek education, that the ideal warrior must also be eloquent. He won battles of words as well as arms. Homer made the point by inserting many formal speeches into his poems. And Greek children later memorized long sections of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

In the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. an educational program for aristocratic males of gymnastics, music, and letters developed. Then the Sophists, the first professional educators, appeared in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. to teach well-born Athenian youths between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Learning how to be an effective orator became the most important goal of education for Athenian males destined to rule. Simultaneously, a series of directives and principles that could be taught and learned replaced observation and imitation as the means to the goal. Then Isocrates (436–338 B.C.E.) added the view that the study of Greek literature and history would inculcate the right moral and civic virtues in upper-class Greek males.

Greek education reached full development in the fourth century B.C.E. The Greeks passed this form of education to the rest of the known world during the Hellenistic period, which began with the conquests of Alexander the Great (r. 336–323) and lasted through the fourth century C.E. A Greek boy attended a primary school from about age seven to fourteen and learned to read, write, do a little arithmetic, and participate in music and gymnastics. In the secondary school the student read the classics of Greek literature, especially the poet Homer and the tragic dramatist Euripides (c. 484–406 B.C.E.). He also read in whole or part other authors in the Greek literary tradition, such as the epic poets Hesiod (fl. c. 700 B.C.E.) and Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century B.C.E.), the lyric poet Callimachus (c. 305–240 B.C.E.), the tragedians Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.E.) and Sophocles (c. 496–406 B.C.E.), and the comedians Menander (342–292 B.C.E.) and Aristophanes (c. 450–c. 388 B.C.E.). He also read the histories of Herodotus (c. 484–c. 420 B.C.E.), Xenophon (428–354 B.C.E.), and Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 B.C.E.). But which texts received most attention is difficult to determine. The most important part of the secondary school curriculum was rhetoric, learning how to write and speak well. The program consisted of practice, followed by writing various kinds of works, and then constructing formal speeches according to rules. The goal was to produce the educated upper-class Greek male who could express himself well and persuade others.

The Greeks also had higher schools for those who wished to learn more in specialized branches of knowledge. Plato's Academy, founded about 380 B.C.E. and lasting until 529 C.E. albeit undergoing many changes, had no fixed curriculum. It probably emphasized extended philosophical discussions on a variety of topics, including rhetoric. The Lyceum or Peripatetic School founded in 335 by Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) began with the purpose of collecting and studying scientific research and had a strong philosophical and scientific orientation. Theophrastus (c. 370–c. 288 B.C.E.) led the Lyceum after Aristotle's death, and it endured until the third century C.E. Alexandria in Egypt became famous for its museum and library (founded c. 280 B.C.E., destroyed in or about 651 C.E.) and as a center for higher scientific learning. None of the above schools offered organized formal education. Rather, they were centers of learned men who attracted followers.