Book V, Chapter I, 13

The teachers who instructed young people in music or military exercises do not seem to have been paid or even appointed by the state, either in Rome or even in Athens, the Greek republic whose laws and customs we know best. The state required every free citizen to prepare to defend it in war and therefore to learn military exercises. But it left him to learn them from whatever teachers he could find and seems to have provided nothing for the purpose except a public field or exercise ground where he could practice and perform them.

In the early days of both Greek and Roman republics, the other parts of education seem to have consisted of learning to read, write, and calculate according to the arithmetic of the time. Wealthier citizens often seem to have learned these skills at home from a household tutor, generally a slave or freedman; poorer citizens learned them in the schools of teachers who taught for a living. These parts of education were left entirely to each child's parents or guardians. The state does not appear ever to have supervised or directed them. A law of Solon, however, freed children from the obligation to support parents who had failed to teach them a profitable trade or occupation.

As society grew more refined and philosophy and rhetoric became fashionable, the better-off began sending their children to the schools of philosophers and rhetoricians to learn these fashionable subjects. But the schools received no public support. For a long time they were merely tolerated. Demand for philosophy and rhetoric remained so small that the first professional teachers of either subject could not find continuous work in a single city and had to travel from place to place. Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many others lived this way. As demand grew, schools of philosophy and rhetoric became permanent, first in Athens and then in several other cities. Yet the state seems never to have encouraged them beyond assigning some a particular place to teach, something private benefactors sometimes did as well. It seems to have assigned the Academy to Plato, the Lyceum to Aristotle, and the Portico to Zeno of Citta, founder of the Stoics. Epicurus, however, bequeathed his gardens to his own school. Until around the time of Marcus Antoninus, no teacher appears to have received a public salary or any earnings beyond the honoraria or fees paid by students. The bounty that philosophical emperor bestowed on one philosophy teacher, as Lucian tells us, probably lasted no longer than the emperor's life. There was nothing comparable to the privileges of graduation; attendance at any of these schools was not required for permission to practice any particular trade or profession. If belief in their usefulness could not attract students, the law neither compelled anyone to attend nor rewarded anyone for having attended. Teachers had no jurisdiction over their pupils and no authority except that natural authority which superior virtue and ability invariably win from the young toward those entrusted with part of their education.

At Rome, the study of civil law formed part of the education not of most citizens but of certain families. Young people who wished to learn the law, however, had no public school to attend. Their only way of studying it was to spend time with relatives and friends reputed to understand it. It may be worth noting that, although many laws of the twelve tables were copied from the laws of ancient Greek republics, law never appears to have developed into a science in any ancient Greek republic. In Rome it became one very early, and brought considerable distinction to citizens reputed to understand it. In the ancient Greek republics, especially Athens, ordinary courts consisted of large, and therefore unruly, crowds that often decided cases almost at random, or according to the dictates of clamor, faction, and party spirit. The disgrace of an unjust judgment, shared among five hundred, a thousand, or fifteen hundred people—for some courts were that large—could weigh little on any individual. In Rome, by contrast, the chief courts consisted of either a single judge or a small number of judges, whose reputations, especially as they always deliberated in public, would inevitably suffer greatly from a rash or unjust decision. In doubtful cases, such courts would naturally seek refuge from blame in the example or precedent of judges who had sat before them, in their own court or another. This regard for practice and precedent necessarily shaped Roman law into the orderly and systematic form in which it has come down to us; the same regard has had the same effect on the laws of every other country where it has existed. The superior character of the Romans compared with the Greeks, so often remarked by Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was probably due more to the better constitution of their courts than to any cause those authors suggest. Romans are said to have been distinguished especially by their greater respect for an oath. But people accustomed to swear oaths only before a diligent and well-informed court would naturally take greater care over what they swore than people accustomed to swear before unruly, disorderly assemblies.

It will readily be admitted that the Greeks' and Romans' abilities in civil and military affairs were at least equal to those of any modern nation. Our prejudice may rather lead us to overrate them. Yet except in military exercises, the state seems to have made no effort to cultivate these great abilities; I cannot believe that the Greeks' musical education contributed much to their development. It seems, however, that teachers were available to instruct the better-off in these nations in every art and science that the circumstances of their society made it necessary or convenient for them to learn. Demand for such instruction produced, as it always does, the talent to provide it; the competition inevitably stirred by unrestricted rivalry seems to have brought that talent to a very high degree of perfection. In the attention they aroused, the command they gained over their listeners' opinions and principles, and their ability to impart a particular tone and character to those listeners' conduct and conversation, ancient philosophers seem to have far surpassed any modern teachers. Today the diligence of public teachers is corrupted to varying degrees by circumstances that make them more or less independent of success and reputation in their professions. Their salaries also put a private teacher trying to compete with them in the same position as a merchant trading without a bounty against merchants who receive a substantial one. If he sells at nearly the same price, he cannot earn the same profit; poverty and beggary, if not bankruptcy and ruin, will inevitably follow. If he tries to charge much more, he will likely find so few customers that his condition will scarcely improve. In many countries, moreover, the privileges of graduation are necessary, or at least extremely useful, to most members of the learned professions—that is, to the great majority of those who need a learned education. But these privileges can be obtained only by attending the lectures of public teachers. Even the most conscientious attendance on the ablest private teacher does not always confer any right to claim them. For these reasons the private teacher of a science commonly taught in universities is generally regarded today as belonging to the very lowest rank of learned people. A person of real ability could scarcely find a more humiliating or less profitable use for it. The endowments of schools and colleges have thus not only corrupted the diligence of public teachers but made it nearly impossible for good private teachers to exist.

Without public educational institutions, no system or science would be taught unless there was some demand for it, or the circumstances of the time made learning it necessary, convenient, or at least fashionable. A private teacher could never profit from teaching either a discredited, antiquated system within a recognized useful science, or a science universally considered a useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems and sciences survive only in educational corporations whose prosperity and revenue are largely independent of their diligence. Without public educational institutions, a gentleman who had diligently and capably completed the fullest education his times were believed to offer could not enter the world utterly ignorant of everything commonly discussed among gentlemen and people engaged in the world.

There are no public institutions for women's education, and consequently nothing useless, absurd, or fanciful in their ordinary course of education. They learn what their parents or guardians judge necessary or useful, and nothing else. Every part of that education plainly serves some useful purpose: either enhancing their natural personal attractions or training their minds in reserve, modesty, chastity, and economy, so that they are likely to become mistresses of a household and to behave properly once they do. Throughout her life a woman gains some convenience or advantage from every part of her education. A man seldom gains any convenience or advantage, at any stage of life, from some of the most laborious and troublesome parts of his.

Should the public, then, pay no attention to the education of the people? Or, if it should pay some, which parts of education should it attend to for the different ranks of society, and how should it do so?

In some circumstances, the condition of society necessarily places most individuals in situations that naturally develop in them, without government intervention, almost all the abilities and virtues that society requires or perhaps even permits. In other circumstances, society does not place most individuals in such situations, and some intervention by government is needed to prevent the great body of the people from falling into almost complete corruption and degradation.

As the division of labor advances, the work of the great majority of those who live by labor—that is, the great body of the people—comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, often only one or two. Yet the ordinary occupations of most people necessarily shape their understanding. A person who spends his entire life carrying out a few simple operations whose results are always, or nearly always, the same has no reason to exert his understanding or exercise his ingenuity to overcome difficulties that never arise. He naturally loses the habit of such exertion and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as a human being can become. Mental torpor makes him incapable not only of enjoying or taking part in rational conversation but also of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender feeling, and consequently of judging properly even many ordinary duties of private life. He is entirely incapable of judging his country's great and far-reaching interests; and unless special pains are taken to make him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending it in war. The uniformity of his settled life naturally weakens his courage and makes him recoil from the irregular, uncertain, adventurous life of a soldier. It even impairs his physical energy, leaving him unable to apply his strength with vigor and perseverance to any work except the trade in which he was trained. His skill in that particular trade thus appears to be acquired at the cost of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. Yet in every advanced and civilized society this is the condition into which the laboring poor—the great body of the people—must inevitably fall unless the government takes steps to prevent it.

It is otherwise in the societies commonly called barbarous: those of hunters, shepherds, and even farmers practicing the rudimentary agriculture that precedes the improvement of manufactures and the expansion of foreign commerce. In such societies, everyone's varied occupations compel everyone to exercise his abilities and devise ways around difficulties that continually arise. Invention remains alive, and the mind cannot sink into the drowsy stupidity that seems to benumb the understanding of almost all the lower ranks in civilized society. In these so-called barbarous societies, as already observed, everyone is a warrior. Everyone is also to some extent a statesman, able to form a reasonable judgment of society's interests and the conduct of its rulers. Almost every individual can see how well the chiefs judge in peace and lead in war. In such a society, admittedly, no one can easily acquire the highly developed and refined understanding sometimes possessed by a few people in a more civilized society. Although each person in a rudimentary society has many kinds of work, the society as a whole does not. Each does, or is capable of doing, almost everything any other does or is capable of doing. Everyone has considerable knowledge, ingenuity, and inventiveness, but scarcely anyone has these qualities to an exceptional degree. The degree generally possessed is nevertheless sufficient to conduct all the simple affairs of that society. By contrast, in a civilized society there is little variety in the occupations of most individuals but almost infinite variety across society as a whole. These varied occupations offer almost infinitely varied subjects of contemplation to the few who, attached to no occupation of their own, have the leisure and inclination to examine the work of others. Reflecting on so many different subjects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons and combinations, making their understanding extraordinarily acute and wide-ranging. Yet unless these few happen to occupy very particular positions, their great abilities, honorable though they are to themselves, may do very little for the good government or happiness of their society. Despite the great abilities of those few, all the nobler elements of human character may be largely erased and extinguished among the great body of the people.

Teachers of young people in music or military exercises do not seem to have been paid or even appointed by the state in Rome or at Athens, the Greek republic whose laws and customs we know best. The state required every free citizen to prepare to defend it in war and therefore to learn military exercises. But it left citizens to find their own instructors. It apparently supplied only a public field or training ground where they could practice.

In the early Greek and Roman republics, the rest of education seems to have meant learning to read, write, and calculate using the arithmetic of the time. Wealthier citizens often learned these skills at home from a household tutor, usually a slave or a freedman. Poorer citizens learned at schools run by teachers who charged for instruction. Parents or guardians had complete responsibility for these parts of education. The state does not appear to have supervised or directed them. Solon's law did, however, relieve children of the duty to support parents who had failed to teach them a useful trade or occupation.

As society became more refined and philosophy and rhetoric became fashionable, better-off people began sending their children to philosophers' and rhetoricians' schools to learn these popular subjects. The public did not fund these schools. For a long time it barely tolerated them. Demand for philosophy and rhetoric remained so small that the first professional teachers of either subject could not find steady work in one city. They had to move from place to place. Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many others lived this way. As demand grew, philosophy and rhetoric schools settled first in Athens and then in other cities. The state seems to have encouraged them only by sometimes giving them a place to teach. Private donors sometimes did that too. The state apparently gave the Academy to Plato, the Lyceum to Aristotle, and the Portico to Zeno of Citta, founder of the Stoics. Epicurus, however, left his gardens to his own school. Until about the time of Marcus Antoninus, no teacher appears to have received a public salary or any income beyond students' fees. According to Lucian, that emperor, who was himself a philosopher, gave money to a philosophy teacher. The payment probably did not continue beyond the emperor's lifetime. There were no privileges comparable to those attached to graduation. No one had to attend these schools to be allowed to practice any particular trade or profession. If belief in a school's usefulness failed to attract students, the law did not force anyone to attend or reward anyone for attending. Teachers had no legal authority over their students. They had only the natural influence that superior character and ability always give educators over young people.

At Rome, civil law was studied by some families, not by most citizens. Young people who wanted to learn law had no public school to attend. Their only way to study it was to spend time with relatives and friends thought to understand it. It may be worth noting that although many laws of the twelve tables were copied from ancient Greek republics, law does not seem to have developed into a field of study in any of those republics. It became one very early in Rome, bringing considerable distinction to citizens known for understanding it. In ancient Greek republics, especially Athens, ordinary courts were made up of large and therefore disorderly crowds. They often made decisions almost at random, or according to the noise, factional rivalries, and party feeling of the moment. With five hundred, a thousand, or fifteen hundred people sharing responsibility for an unjust verdict, as happened in some of their enormous courts, no individual bore much shame. Rome's main courts, by contrast, had a single judge or a small number of judges. Their reputations could be seriously harmed by reckless or unjust decisions, especially since they always deliberated in public. In uncertain cases they naturally looked to earlier judges' decisions in the same or another court to avoid blame. Attention to past decisions and practice necessarily shaped Roman law into the orderly, systematic form handed down to us. The same attention has had the same effect on law wherever it has occurred. The Romans' stronger character, which Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus noted, probably owed more to their better-organized courts than to any cause those writers suggested. Romans are said to have had a particularly strong respect for oaths. But anyone accustomed to swearing only before an attentive, well-informed court would naturally take an oath more seriously than someone accustomed to swearing before an unruly crowd.

People will readily agree that the Greeks and Romans were at least as capable in civilian and military affairs as any modern people. We may even be inclined to rate them too highly. Yet apart from military training, their states seem to have made no effort to develop those great abilities. I cannot believe Greek music education did much to develop them. Still, teachers were apparently available to teach the better-off people of both societies every art and science their circumstances made necessary or convenient to learn. Demand for teaching produced, as it always does, people able to teach. Competition, when unrestricted, always encourages a desire to excel, and it seems to have developed their teaching ability to a very high level. Ancient philosophers seem to have far surpassed modern teachers in attracting listeners' attention, influencing their views and principles, and shaping their behavior and conversation. Today, conditions that make public teachers more or less independent of their professional success and reputation also weaken their diligence to a greater or lesser degree. Their salaries also put private teachers who try to compete in the position of merchants trading without a subsidy against merchants receiving a large one. If the unsubsidized merchant sells at nearly the same price, they cannot earn the same profit and are sure to face poverty, perhaps even bankruptcy and ruin. If they charge much more, they will probably have so few customers that they will be little better off. In many countries, degree privileges are also necessary, or at least very useful, to most people in learned professions—that is, to most people needing advanced education. But students can obtain these privileges only by attending public teachers' lectures. Even careful attendance on the most capable private teacher does not always give anyone a claim to them. For all these reasons, today's private teachers of subjects commonly taught at universities are generally counted among the lowest ranks of educated people. Someone genuinely able can hardly find a more humiliating or less profitable use for their abilities. Endowments for schools and colleges have thus both weakened the diligence of public teachers and made it almost impossible for good private teachers to thrive.

Without public educational institutions, no system or subject would be taught unless there was demand for it, or the times made it necessary, useful, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could not make a living teaching an outdated and rejected version of an otherwise useful subject. Nor could they make a living teaching a subject that everyone considered a useless, pretentious pile of misleading arguments and nonsense. Such subjects and systems survive only in incorporated educational institutions whose prosperity and revenue largely do not depend on their effort. Without public educational institutions, a gentleman who completed the fullest education available in his time with ability and effort could not enter society wholly ignorant of everything commonly discussed by gentlemen and people active in the world.

There are no public institutions for educating women, so their ordinary education contains nothing useless, absurd, or fanciful. They learn only what parents or guardians think necessary or useful. Each part of their education clearly serves a useful purpose: improving their natural physical attractions, or shaping their minds toward discretion, modesty, chastity, and thrift. This is meant to prepare them to manage a household and conduct themselves properly when they do. Throughout her life, a woman finds some practical benefit in every part of her education. A man rarely gets any practical benefit from some of the most demanding and troublesome parts of his.

Should the public, then, pay no attention to educating the people? Or, if it should, which parts of education should it address for different groups of people, and how should it do so?

In some societies, most people naturally find themselves in circumstances that develop almost every skill and virtue their society needs, or perhaps can accommodate, without any government action. In others, most people do not live in such circumstances. Some government action is then needed to prevent the great majority from becoming almost completely degraded in mind and character.

As the division of labor advances, most wage earners—the great majority of the people—end up doing only a few very simple tasks, often just one or two. Most people's minds are necessarily shaped by their ordinary work. Someone who spends an entire life on a few simple tasks, whose results are nearly always the same, has no need to exercise their mind or invent ways around problems that never arise. Naturally, the person loses the habit of thinking in this way. They generally become as dull and ignorant as a human being can be. Their mental sluggishness leaves them unable to enjoy or take part in a thoughtful conversation. It also leaves them unable to feel generous, noble, or tender emotions and therefore unable to judge fairly even many ordinary duties of private life. They cannot judge the broad interests of their country at all. Unless particular care has been taken to prepare them, they cannot defend it in war either. The sameness of their settled life weakens their courage and makes them dread a soldier's irregular, uncertain, dangerous life. It even weakens their physical energy, leaving them unable to apply strength with vigor and persistence in any work other than their own trade. Their skill at that trade thus seems to come at the cost of their intellectual, social, and military virtues. In every developed and civilized society, this is what must happen to working poor people—the great majority—unless government takes steps to prevent it.

Things are different in societies commonly called barbarous: those of hunters, herders, and even farmers who practice the simple farming that comes before manufacturing develops and foreign commerce expands. People in these societies do many different kinds of work. Each person must use their abilities and devise ways to meet difficulties that constantly arise. They keep their inventiveness alive, and their minds do not sink into the sleepy dullness that seems to numb the understanding of almost everyone in the lower ranks of civilized society. As already noted, everyone in these so-called barbarous societies is a warrior. Everyone is also something of a statesman, able to judge reasonably well the community's interests and its rulers' conduct. Almost everyone can see whether their chiefs make good decisions in peacetime and lead well in war. Admittedly, no one in such a society can easily develop the advanced, refined understanding that a few people sometimes have in a more civilized society. Individuals in a simple society do many different things, but the whole society does not do many kinds of things. Nearly everyone does, or can do, almost everything anyone else does or can do. Everyone has a fair amount of knowledge, ingenuity, and inventiveness, but hardly anyone has a great amount. What they generally have is enough to conduct all the society's simple affairs. In a civilized society, by contrast, most individuals have little variety in their work, but the whole society has a nearly endless range of occupations. These occupations offer a nearly endless range of things to examine for the few people who have no particular occupation of their own and have the free time and interest to examine other people's work. Considering so many different things exercises their minds through endless comparisons and connections. It makes their understanding exceptionally sharp and broad. But unless these few people occupy some very particular positions, their great abilities may do little to improve their society's government or happiness, however much credit the abilities bring them personally. Despite the great abilities of a few, the nobler parts of human character may be largely erased from the great majority of people.