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
It was usual to play on two flutes at the same time. Such a pair has
been found,[308] together with a lyre, in a tomb at Athens. The flutes
are somewhat over a foot in length, and have five holes on the upper
and one on the lower side. Each has a separate mouthpiece. Besides
this, flute-players sometimes wore a sort of leathern muzzle[309] over
their mouths; but this does not appear in the schools. The pair of
flutes were carried in a double case, made of some spotted skin; it
had a pocket on one side, to hold the mouthpieces,[310] and a cord
attached by which it could be hung up when not in use. The two flutes
seem to have corresponded to treble and bass, “male” and “female” as
Herodotos calls them. The treble was on the right, the bass on the
left.[311] Flutes could be set to different harmonies, apparently by
some rearrangement of stops. In the case of the flute, as in the case
of the lyre, individual tuition was the rule. First the master played
an air, and then the boy had to repeat it, while the master
criticised.[312] Or the master played the air on a barbitos and sang
to it, while the pupil accompanied him on the flute. This method had
two advantages. The master was able to play at the same time as the
boy, and give him instruction while playing, which the flute prevented
him from doing. The song, too, which he was enabled to sing obviated
one of the chief disadvantages of the flute: for the Hellenes objected
to instrumental music as meaningless, unless it was accompanied by
words.
There seem to have been music-schools scattered throughout Attica,
besides those established in the capital: the description of the
village boys marching off to the lyre-master’s in a snow-storm without
overcoats has already been quoted. The names of a few masters are
extant. Lampros taught Sophocles the poet.[313] Sokrates[314]
recommends Nikias to send his son to the famous Damon, who “is not
merely a first-class musician, but also just the man to be with boys
like this.” But whether these musicians kept regular schools cannot be
ascertained. Sokrates himself in his later years attended the
music-school of Konnos, and learned among the boys. “I am disgracing
Konnos the music-master,” he says, “who is still teaching me to play
the lyre. The boys who are my schoolfellows laugh at me and call
Konnos the ‘Greybeard teacher.’”[315] The same Konnos adopted the
common but iniquitous custom of bestowing his chief attention on his
more promising pupils, while neglecting the backward.[316]
Aristophanes caricatures Kleon’s school-days as follows: “The boys who
went to school with Kleon say he would often set his lyre to the
Dorian (= Gift-ian) harmony alone. Finally, the lyre-master lost his
temper and told the paidagogos to take him away, saying, “This boy
can’t learn anything but the Briberian (Dorodokisti) mode.”[317]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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