O Worth! stern taskmistress of human kind, Life's noblest prize: O Virgin! for thy beauty's sake It is an envied lot in Hellas even to die, And suffer toils devouring, unassuaged-- So well dost thou direct the spirit To fruit immortal, better than gold And parents and soft-eyed sleep. For thy cause Jove-born Hercules and Leda's sons Much underwent, by deeds Thy power proclaiming. For love of thee Achilles and Ajax to Hades' halls went down. For thy dear beauty's sake Atarneus' nursling too widowed the glances of the sun. Therefore, as one renowned for deeds and deathless, him the Muses shall exalt, The daughters of Memory, exalting so the glory of Stranger-guarding Jove, and the honor of friendship firm. With regard to this ideal, four things are especially noteworthy; _first_, that it took an exhaustive survey of man's nature and relations; _second_, that it called for strong, persistent, heroic effort; _third_, that it tended to sink the individual in the social whole and the universal order; _fourth_, that its aim was, on the whole, a static perfection. The first two were merits; the second two, demerits. The first merit prevented the Greeks from pursuing one-sided systems of education; the second, from trying to turn education into a means of amusement. Aristotle says distinctly, "Education ought certainly not to be turned into a means of amusement; for young people are not playing when they are learning, since all learning is accompanied with pain." The first demerit was prejudicial to individual liberty, and therefore obstructive of the highest human development; the second encouraged Utopian dreams, which, being always of static conditions, undisturbed by the toils and throes essential to progress, tend to produce impatience of that slow advance whereby alone man arrives at enduring results. To this tendency we owe such works as Plato's _Republic_ and Xenophon's _Education of Cyrus_. CHAPTER II BRANCHES OF GREEK EDUCATION With thee the aged car-borne Peleus sent me on the day whereon from Phthia to Agamemnon he sent thee, a mere boy, not yet acquainted with mutual war or councils, in which men rise to distinction--for this end he sent me forth to teach thee all these things, to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.--(_Phœnix in_) Homer. Above all and by every means we provide that our citizens shall have good souls and strong bodies.--Lucian.