Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/17



HERITAGE OF THE SCHOLAR.

For a thousand years before the Teuton appeared on the scene of civilization, the sages had been teaching in the agora of Athens and in the groves and gardens of its environs. There profound subjective philosophies were imparted to eager seekers for truth, and in the schools geometry, rhetoric, music, and gymnastics gave to the Attic youth a culture more refined than was ever possessed by any other people. The Athenians were familiar with a literature which, for purity and elegance of style, was never surpassed. The Greeks believed with Plato, that "rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly educated." There temples rose with stately column and sculptured frieze, and art fashioned marble in the images of the gods with a transcendent skill that gave an enduring name to many of its devotees.

Meantime our ancestors were wandering westward through the forests of Europe, or were dwelling for a time in thatched huts on some fertile plain, or in some inviting glade or grove. But these children of the forest, almost savages, possessed the genius of