BMCR 2009.05.15: Moretti on Pernot, A l'ecole des anciens: professeurs, eleves et etudiants: precede d'un entretien avec Jacqueline de Romilly. Signets Belles Lettres 4

Laurent Pernot (ed.), A l'e/cole des anciens: professeurs, e/le\ves et
e/tudiants: pre/ce/de/ d'un entretien avec Jacqueline de Romilly.
Signets Belles Lettres 4.  Paris:  Les Belles Lettres, 2008.  Pp. xxiv,
310.  ISBN 9782251030043.  EUR 13.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Paola Francesca Moretti, State University of Milan
([email protected])
Word count:  982 words
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Although it is conceived for a more general public, the book under
review here is interesting and challenging for specialist readers as
well. It introduces the reader into the world of ancient learning,
through the apparently narrow (but actually broad) perspective of the
educational relationship between teacher and learner. In so doing, it
also proposes some answers to questions concerning classics and
classical scholarship at large: how far our world is indebted to the
classical idea(s) and practice(s) of teaching and learning, and what we
can still learn from them; in a word: why classics are still worth
studying.

The thematic anthology of Greek and Latin texts, which represents the
very heart of the book, is preceded -- after a short preface -- by
Laurent Pernot's interview with Jacqueline de Romilly about
"L'enseignement, du passe/ au pre/sent". The dialogue focuses first on
what we owe to the ancients (mostly to the Greeks, from the Sophists
on) in terms of education; second, on the usefulness of the knowledge
of classical culture -- and of the Greek and Latin languages -- for our
world. De Romilly makes the point that education is not only the
acquisition of practical knowledge and skills (vocational education).
Teaching should be rather an education of the mind, aiming to shape men
and women who are capable first of all of thinking and asking
questions, and who are keen to ask themselves about the sense of what
they do, people, moreover, who have a common cultural background and
who share symbols and images when representing different behaviours and
perceptions (p. XIX).

Three maps (the ancient Mediterranean Sea, the Greek Aegean world,
ancient Italy) open the second section. The texts are presented in
French translation (taken from editions published in the Collection des
Universite/s de France), in thematic order, regardless of chronology;
they cover many centuries, from Homer to Augustine and further.

The eight chapters run as follows.

I. "Les professeurs": some famous teachers, both historical (Libanius)
and mythological (Prometheus, Chiron, the nymph Egeria); paidagogoi,
grammarians and rhetors (Statius' father, Quintilian); paidotribai;
music teachers.

II. "La vie a\ l'e/cole": school year and school day; physical
punishments; students' disorders; seminar-work at school; chreiai and
anecdotes concerning education.

III. "Organiser et re/glementer": comparisons between different
education systems (from Athens and Sparta to the Gallic Druids); the
ethics of teaching (e.g., how to correct pupils); teachers' and pupils'
duties; state involvement in school life (esp. laws; institution of
public chairs).

IV. "L'e/cole a\ domicile": family education, fathers and sons; women's
education (from Cornelia to Paula, Jerome's pupil, to Chariclea,
Heliodorus' heroine).

V. "Portraits d'e/le\ves": good and bad pupils; young people who died
prematurely; Greece and Rome; famous people's childhood according to
Plutarch (most worth noting is the example of Cato the Younger, who --
as Plutarch remarks -- "obe/issait a\ son pe/dagogue et faisait tout ce
qui lui e/tait prescrit, mais ... il exigeait de savoir la raison de
chaque chose et demandait le pourquoi" (Caton le Jeune 1 = 760b; here
at p. 189); feelings of affection between teachers and learners.

VI. "Lec,ons d'amour": paederasty and its spiritualization (Plato's and
Xenophon's portraits of Socrates and Alcibiades); the immorality of
teachers.

VII. "Le dur me/tier de professeur": the teachers' salaries and
economic problems (see Libanius on the lack of economic independence
that reduces them to slavery); critics against teachers; Augustine's
experiences, both as a learner and as a teacher.[[1]] I would only
remark that some further lines should have been included in the passage
quoted from Augustine (Confessions I.23; here at p. 237) about the
hatred of the Greek language, in order to make clear the reason why
Latin was appealing (it was learnt through libera curiositas) and Greek
was not (it was learnt through meticulosa necessitas).[[2]]

VIII. "Mai^tres de philosophie, mai^tres de vie": education should aim
to shape the whole person ("c'est un des points le plus saillants de
l'he/ritage antique en matie\re pe/dagogique", p. 245); Socrates, who
makes people conscious of what they only presume to -- but actually do
not-- know; the sophists' revolution; intellectuals and gurus (from
Pythagoras to Maximus of Ephesus).

The texts are followed by a short but exhaustive glossary of the
ancient authors quoted; the non-specialist reader will distinguish
Greek from Latin authors just from the glossary, as their names are
printed in different ways. Footnotes are reduced to the minimum and are
merely explicative. Further bibliography on the subject of education in
the ancient world is given under the title "Pour aller plus loin" (pp.
303-304); to this section might be usefully, but not necessarily, added
one general work,[[3]] and two other,more specialized works regarding
Christian education.[[4]]

Should we regret the exclusion of any particular passages or works? I
am quite sure we should not, as the book does not aim at completeness.
But I would suggest two additions, just in order to perform my task as
a reviewer. In section IV (or perhaps II?) one might add an anecdote
from [Plutarch], De l'e/ducation des enfants, reproaching those fathers
who, greedy for money, choose cheaper (in any sense) teachers for their
children: the author foreshadows the slavery which man is bound to
undergo, if education and culture are not the major focus of parents.
[[5]] In section II it might have been thought-provoking to insert some
verses of Prudentius, Le livre de couronnes 9, where the martyrdom of
Cassianus, a quite severe Christian teacher, is described as the
revenge of his cruel pagan pupils, perpetrated by means of the stili he
has taught them to use. [[6]]

Of course, many other texts might have been included, but then the book
would have become something different from what it was intended to be
-- and is: a short collection, which succeeds in rousing curiosity
about the world of ancient education and in pointing out some ways in
which it is the ancestor of our modern ideas about education.

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Notes:


1.   On this subject one might see also my Agostino e la scuola.
L'utilitas della formazione scolastica e la prosa delle Confessiones,
in Agostino a scuola. Atti del convegno di Pavia, 13 novembre 2008,
forthcoming.

2.   "Nague\re, encore petit enfant, j'ignorais de me^me les mots
latins, et cependant rien qu'a\ observer je les avais appris sans
crainte, sans souffrances, au milieu des caresses de mes nourrices,
parmi les plaisanteries et la gaiete/ de mon entourage, qui me riait et
jouait avec moi. Je les ai appris sans la pression des insistances et
des punitions; mon esprit, a\ soi seul, me poussait a\ produire au
dehors ses pense/es, ce que je n'aurais su faire, si je n'avais appris
un certain nombre des mots, en dehors de tout enseignement didactique,
des personnes qui causaient devant moi. Et pour qu'elles
m'entendissent, je donnais moi-me^me le jour a\ tous mes sentiments. Il
ressort de la\ assez lumineusement que cette libre curiosite/ est
autrement efficace qu'une contrainte toujours arme/e de menaces" (I 23;
transl. P. De Labriolle).

3.   Aspetti della scuola nel mondo romano. Atti del convegno (Pisa,
5.6 dicembre 2006), ed. by F. Bellandi, R. Ferri, Amsterdam: Hakkert
2008.

4.   H.I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique,
Paris: De Boccard 1958; C.M. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late
Roman World, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

5.   "Beaucoup de pe\res en arrivent a\ un tel degre/ de passion pour
l'argent et en me^me temps d'aversion pour leurs fils que, pour ne pas
acquitter un salaire plus fort, ils choisissent des hommes sans valeur,
recherchant pour leurs enfants une ignorance a\ bon marche/. Aussi ne
manquait-elle pas d'esprit et me^me e/tait-elle pleine de finesse,
cette raillerie qu'Aristippe [the Socratic philosopher] adressait a\ un
pe\re de/nue/ de sens et de raison. Comme quelqu'un voulait savoir quel
salaire il demandait pour l'e/ducation de son enfant, il re/pondit:
'Mille drachmes'. 'Par He/rakle\s', fit l'autre, 'tu es trop exigeant!
Pour mille drachmes, je puis acheter un esclave.' 'Tu en auras donc
deux', dit Aristippe, 'ton fils et celui que tu ache\teras' " (7 = 4f;
transl. J. Sirinelli).

6.   See at least the pupils' words at vv. 69-74: "Pourquoi te
plains-tu, mai^tre? ... c'est toi-me^me qui nous a donne/ ce fer et qui
as arme/ nos mains. Voici que nous te rendons autant de milliers de
notes que, debout et pleurant, nous en avons pris sous ta dicte/e; tu
ne peux pas te fa^cher que nous e/crivions: c'est toi-me^me qui nous
ordonnais de ne jamais avoir a\ la main un stylet inactif" (transl. M.
Lavarenne).