Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B. C.Freeman, Kenneth J. (Kenneth John)
History
Schools of Hellas: An Essay on the Practice and Theory of Ancient Greek Education from 600 to 300 B. C.
Freeman, Kenneth J. (Kenneth John)
Education, Greek
Through his mother, a daughter of Dr. Horace Dobell, of Harley Street,
London, he was also a great-nephew of the poet Sydney Dobell; and thus
he may well have derived that poetic feeling which distinguished a
number of verses found among his papers, since printed for private
circulation.
His School and University career was uniformly successful. At
Winchester he won prizes in many subjects and several tongues, and
carried off the Goddard Scholarship, the intellectual blue ribbon, at
the age of sixteen.
At Cambridge he was Browne University Scholar in 1903, and in the
first “division” of the Classical Tripos in 1904, in which year he
also won the Craven Scholarship. The senior Chancellor’s medal fell to
him in the following year.
There is no need to enumerate his other distinctions, but the epigram
with which he won the Browne Medal in 1903 is so beautiful in itself
and so true an epitome of the boy and the man, that I am tempted to
quote it here:
ξεῖνε, καλὸν τὸ ζῆν καταγώγιόν ἐστιν ἅπασιν,
[xeine, kalon to zên katagôgion estin hapasin],
νηπυτίους γὰρ ὅμως νυκτιπλανεῖς τε φιλεῖ,
[nêpytious gar homôs nyktiplaneis te philei],
δῶρα χαριζόμενον φιλίας καὶ τερπνὸν ἔρωτα
[dôra charizomenon philias kai terpnon erôta]
καὶ πόνον εὔανδρον φροντίδα τ’ οὐρανίαν·
[kai ponon euandron phrontida t’ ouranian];
τρυχομένους δ’ ἤδη κοιμᾷ τὸν ἀκήρατον ὕπνον
[trychomenous d’ êdê koima ton akêraton hypnon]
πέμπει δ’ ὥστε λαθεῖν οἰκάδ’ ἐληλυθότας.
[pempei d’ hôste lathein oikad’ elêlythotas].
He was always an optimist, who regarded life as a “fair Inn,” which
provided much good cheer. Shyness and ill-health limited sadly the
range of his friends, but not his capacity and desire for
“friendship.” “Manly toil,” both physical and intellectual, was dear
to his soul: thus, though no great athlete, he was an ardent Volunteer
both at School and College, and declared that, had he not chosen the
teacher’s profession, he would have wished to be a soldier: he writes
of Sparta and Xenophon with evident sympathy. Also he fought and won
many an intellectual battle against great odds; to quote one instance,
he wrote the papers for his Craven Scholarship while convalescent in
his old nursery. His poems, to complete the parallel, may justly be
described as the “aspiring thoughts” of a singularly pure and reverent
heart.
It is a simple, uneventful record: six happy years as a Winchester
Scholar; three as a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge; one year of
travel and study, mainly devoted to the subject of Education, which
always had a special attraction for him; and lastly, one year, the
happiest of his life, when he returned to teach at his old school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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