8. The State exercised a certain control over the school by furnishing places where it might be held, by defraying the expense of examinations, by determining the number of pupils to a teacher, by fixing the limit of school hours, and by deciding upon the qualifications of teachers. And yet the choice of education was free, and its aim was the good of the individual and not the glory of the State. CHAPTER IX ATHENIAN EDUCATORS =Literature.=--_Bulkley_, Plato's Best Thoughts; _Schwegler_, History of Philosophy; _Morris_, Historical Tales; _Curtius_, History of Greece; _Lord_, Beacon Lights; _Spofford_, Library of Historical Characters; _Jowett_, The Republic of Plato; _Vogel_, Geschichte der Paedagogik; _Emerson_, Representative Men; _De Quincey_, Plato's Republic; _Hegel_, Philosophy of History. SOCRATES (B.C. 470-399) Socrates was the son of a sculptor of Athens. Though he learned his father's trade and followed it in early manhood, he relinquished it to devote himself to the study of philosophy, for which he had a natural bent. In person he was far from fulfilling the Athenian ideal of beauty, being short of stature, corpulent, with protruding eyes, upturned nose, large mouth, and thick lips. His domestic life was not happy, his wife, Xantippe, being a noted shrew. His failure to provide for the material welfare of his family, though quite natural in a man to whom all material things seemed unessential, must have sorely tried her patience. But Socrates bore her scolding with resignation. Indeed, he seemed to regard it as furnishing an opportunity to practice the philosophic patience that he preached. Socrates believed that he had a divine call to "convince men of ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, and by so doing to promote their intellectual and moral development." Like many other philosophers, he spent his time in the streets, markets, and other public places, arguing with any one who would stop to listen or converse. This manner of teaching was common in Athens, and he never lacked hearers. The whole atmosphere of the classic city was charged with the spirit of intellectual activity and philosophic discussion. Socrates did not teach positive doctrines, but assumed ignorance himself in order to convince others of ignorance. By a series of suggestive questions he would lead his pupils or opponents into admissions which finally established the truth that Socrates saw at the outset. This is known as the "Socratic Method," or the dialectical method, and this form of inductive teaching was an important contribution to education.