6. His method was the analytical. He began with things and advanced from the concrete to the abstract. The foregoing will show that Aristotle began the study of problems that still occupy the minds of educational thinkers, after more than twenty-two centuries of search for the truth. Some of the problems he discussed have found their solution, and the seed sown by the great thinker has come to fruitage. Karl Schmidt says, "Aristotle is the intellectual Alexander. Rich in experience and profound in speculation, he penetrates all parts of the universe and seeks to reduce all realities to concepts. He is the most profound and comprehensive thinker of the pre-Christian world,--the Hegel of classical antiquity,--because, like Hegel, he seeks to unify all knowledge, brings together the scattered materials of the present into one system, constructs in a wonderful intellectual temple the psychical and physical Cosmos, the universe and God, proclaims the destruction of an earlier culture epoch, and sets in motion waves in the ocean of history that are destined to influence the intellectual life of all centuries to come.... Aristotle stands for the highest intellectual summit of antiquity,--the bridge which binds the Grecian to the modern world,--the philosophical mouthpiece and the intellectual master of twenty centuries." FOOTNOTES: [17] Brother Azarias, "Essays Philosophical." CHAPTER X SPARTA =Literature.=--(See general literature for Greece.) _Sankey_, Spartan and Theban Supremacies; _Smith_, History of Greece; _Plutarch's_ Lives; _Mombert_, Great Lives; _Spofford_, Library of Historical Characters. =History.=--Sparta was the capital of Laconia, the southern province of Greece. Its inhabitants consisted of:-- 1. _Citizens_, composed of nine thousand families of nobles, who ruled the other classes. 2. _Perioeci_,[18] composed of thirty thousand families of freemen who lived in the territory surrounding Sparta, but who were subject to the nobles. 3. _Helots_,[19] about three hundred thousand in number, who were slaves. The Perioeci and the helots, with the love of freedom characteristic among the Greeks, chafed under their yoke of subjugation, and eagerly watched for opportunities for revolt. Only by an exercise of superior force could the nobles maintain their supremacy, and they were obliged to seek by martial training the strength they lacked in numbers. Hence the education of the Spartan youth was of necessity military, and every citizen was trained to become a warrior. The Spartans were dignified, austere, and of few words, "laconic" in speech. The young were expected to be silent in the presence of their elders except when addressed. They were taught to give way to their seniors, especially to old men, whenever they met upon the street or in a public place.