Aristotle and Ancient Educational IdealsDavidson, Thomas
Philosophy
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals
Davidson, Thomas
Aristotle, 384 BC-322 BC; Education, Greek
In the dances here mentioned, the flute is the instrument employed, and
this the player could not accompany with his voice. But in the Athenian
schools, in the old time, the flute, and all music without words, were
tabooed. There can be no doubt, therefore, that in these the orchestic
performances were accompanied by the lyre, the player on which sang in
words what the dancers danced. It is obvious that in such performances
the musical (literary) and gymnastic branches of education came in for
about equal shares. Dancing exercised the whole human being, body and
soul, and exercised them in a completely harmonious way. It is this
harmony, this rhythmic movement of the body in consonance with the
emotions of the soul and the purposes of the intelligence, that is
_grace_ (χάρις). Hence, while the Greeks relied upon gymnastics to
impart strength and firmness to the body, they looked to dancing for
courtliness and grace. Plato places the two on the same footing, as
parts of a single discipline.
The fact that the two divisions of education met in dancing seems to
prove what I surmised above, viz. that they were conducted within the
same precincts; in which case we may suppose that, while the dancing
exercises took place in the palæstra, the music was supplied by the
music master. We know that the chorus-leader was a public officer,
appointed by the demos, and had to be over forty years old. In any case,
it is curious enough to think that Athenian, and, generally, Greek,
education culminated in dancing. But this was a perfectly logical
result; for the chorus is the type of Greek social life, as we see most
clearly in the _Republic_ of Plato. It hardly needs to be pointed out
that the supreme form of Greek art, the drama, was but a development of
the Bacchic or Dionysiac chorus. This development consisted in the
separation of the music from the pantomime, and the assignment of the
former to the chorus, which no longer danced, but walked, and of the
latter to the actors, who added the dialogue to it. Greek life was
divided into three parts--civil, military, religious. Music and letters
were a preparation for the first, gymnastics for the second, and dancing
for the third. Dancing formed a prominent part in Greek worship, and it
may be doubted whether free Athenians ever danced except "before the
gods "--ἐν ταῖς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς προσόδοις, as Xenophon says.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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