Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/250

216 In the nursery, the boy was taught the beautiful myths and stories of the national mythology. At about seven he entered school, being led to and from the place of training by an old slave, who bore the name of pedagogue, which in Greek means a guide or leader of boys—not a teacher. His studies were grammar, music, and gymnastics, the aim of the course being to secure a symmetrical development of mind and body alike.

Grammar included reading, writing, and arithmetic; music, which embraced a wide range of mental accomplishments, trained the boy to appreciate the masterpieces of the great poets, to contribute his part to the musical diversions of private entertainments, and to join in the sacred choruses and in the pæan of the battle-field. The exercises of the palestræ and the gymnasia trained him for the Olympic contests, or for those sterner hand-to-hand battle-struggles, in which so much depended upon personal strength and dexterity.

Upon reaching maturity, the youth was enrolled in the list of citizens. But his graduation from school was his " commencement " in a much more real sense than with the average modern graduate. Never was there a people besides the Greeks whose daily life was so emphatically a discipline in liberal culture. The schools of the philosophers, the debates of the popular assembly, the practice of the law-courts, the religious processions, the representations of an unrivalled stage, the Panhellenic games—all these were splendid and efficient educational agencies, which produced and maintained a standard of average intelligence and culture among the citizens of the Greek cities that probably has never been attained among any other people on the earth. Freeman, quoted approvingly by Mahaffy, says that "the average intelligence of the assembled Athenian citizens was higher than that of our [the English] House of Commons."

Social Position of Woman.—Woman's social position in ancient Greece may be defined in general as being about half-way between Oriental seclusion and Western freedom. Her main duties were to cook and spin, and to oversee the domestic slaves, of whom she