[719] viii. 8. 14. [720] Hence his treatise on hunting. [721] i. 2. 10. [722] i. 6. 39-40. [723] i. 3. 17. [724] Cp. the experiment which was, I believe, tried in an American school, where the boys learned the national constitution by themselves electing in due form a President, Congress, etc. [725] “The perpetual presence of masters,” according to Xenophon, “best inculcates proper modesty and discipline.” [726] i. 5. 5. [727] i. 6. 1-46. [728] iii. 1. 38. [729] διαφθείρειν [diaphtheirein], the word used in Sokrates’ accusation. [730] v. 3. 37. [731] v. 3. 46. Notice the Socratic comparison. [732] Plato, _Laws_, 694 C-D. [733] A hit at Xenophon’s _Economics_. PART III CHAPTER XI CONCLUDING ESSAY: THE SCHOOLS OF HELLAS The preceding chapters have sufficiently established, as it seems to me, that Hellenic education alike at Sparta and at Athens, in theory and in practice, aimed at producing the best possible citizen, not the best possible money-maker; it sought the good of the community, not the good of the individual. The methods and materials of education naturally differed with the conception of good citizenship held in each locality, but the ideal object was always the same. The Spartan, with his schoolboy conception of life, believed that the whole duty of man was to be brave, to be indifferent to hardships and pain, to be a good soldier, and to be always in perfect physical condition; when his Hellenic instincts needed æsthetic satisfaction, he made his military drill into a musical dance and sang songs in honour of valour. Long speaking and lengthy meditation he regarded with contempt, for he preferred deeds to words or thoughts, and the essence of a situation could always be expressed in a single sentence. This Spartan conception of citizenship fixed the aim of Spartan education. Daily hardships, endless physical training, perpetual tests of pluck and endurance, were the lot of the Spartan boy. He did not learn to read or write or count; he was trained to speak only in single words or in the shortest of sentences, for what need had a Spartan of letters or of chattering? His imagination had also to be subordinated to the national ideal: his dances, his songs, his very deities, were all military.