vided for him, but it deprives life of all individual freedom. The system is a despotism, which the human race has never voluntarily adopted. While abounding in wise suggestions and profound thoughts, the education urged by Plato has remained in the realms of the imagination.

G. Aristotle

BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS.-Aristotle, whom an able German writer calls "the Alexander of the intellectual world," was born at Stagira, in Macedonia, 384 B. C. In youth he went to Athens, where he was a member of Plato's school for twenty years. His eminent abilities soon became the subject of remark, and he was called by the philosopher "the intellect of his school." Unlike his great theorizing teacher, Aristotle was a careful and practical investigator, and he succeeded by his genius and industry in compassing the whole circle of knowledge as it then existed. He created the science of logic, and made valuable contributions to many other departments of learning.

At the age of forty-seven, when his fame as a philosopher had become established, he was appointed teacher of Alexander the Great. He enjoyed the highest esteem both of Philip and Alexander, and received at their hands many marks of distinguished favor; among these may be mentioned the restoration of his native town, Stagira, which had been destroyed by war, and the erection there of a gymnasium for his philosophical lectures. Though having the royal pupil under his charge less than four years, he did much in molding his mind and character, and the effects of his teaching were afterward discernible in the conqueror's life.

THE LYCEUM.-When about fifty Aristotle returned to Athens and taught at the Lyceum. He lectured to a circle of disciples as he walked about the shady avenues, and this fact has given to his school of philosophy the name Peripatetic. In the morning he gave to select pupils a lecture upon some abstruse subject; in the afternoon he delivered a popular lecture to a wider circle of hearers. "In his works," says Ritter, "we see him the calm and sober inquirer, who does not, like Plato, pursue a lofty ideal, but keeps carefully in view the proximately practicable, and is not easily misled into any extravagance, either of language or of thought. His principal object is to examine truth under all her aspects, never to step beyond the probable, and to bring his philosophical system in unison with the general opinions of men, as supported and confirmed by common sense, observation, and experience.'"

EDUCATION AND THE STATE.-Aristotle recognized three legitimate forms of government-the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the republic. The latter he regarded as the least liable to abuse, and therefore the best; and it is for the training of citizens in a republic that he elaborates, in the Politics, his educational system. He rejects the communistic ideas of Plato, and recognizes the family as the basis of social organization. He regards the moral training of children as specially important, and to this end he would have them kept from every contaminating influence, and early placed under the charge of wise and capable pedagogues or guardians. Aristotle's views did not differ materially from the current practise of Athens, and the immediate practical end of education was, to his mind, the service of the State. But the happiness of the individual was likewise considered, which was to be found at last in a life of cultured leisure and contemplation.

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AIM OF EDUCATION.-The supreme aim of education, according to the conception of Aristotle, is the practise of virtue. This principle excludes, on the one hand, practical utilitarianism, and on the other a specialized or professional skill. A life of refined and meditative leisure is his ideal of the noblest life. Every work," he says, "is to be esteemed mean, and every art and every discipline as well, which renders the body, the mind, or the understanding of freemen unfit for the habit and practise of virtue. For which reason all those arts which tend to deform the body are called mean, and all those employments which are exercised for gain; for they take off from the leisure of the mind, and render it sordid. There are also some liberal arts which are not improper for freemen to apply to in a certain degree, but all sedulous endeavor to acquire a perfect skill in them is exposed to the faults I have just mentioned."

ADAPTATION TO CAPACITY.-Aristotle recognized three_ steps in the process of human development, and therefore adapted his training to the capacity and needs of the child. The first stage of development pertains to the body; the second, to the instincts; and the third, to the reason. The exercises and studies of the child are to be determined by these three fundamental facts of its life. This principle gives us the idea of a progressive education based on nature, and so anticipates, in some measure, the views of later educational reformers. Until the age of seven the child is to be left under the care of its parents; but after that time it is to be under public instruction. "For where education is neglected," he says, "it is hurtful to the city.".

COURSE OF STUDY.-Aristotle approved of the subjects usually employed in the education of Athenian children.

Reading was to be taught as a thing useful in itself and helpful in acquiring knowledge. Drawing was commended for its esthetic results in enabling a man better to judge the productions of the fine arts. Like Plato, he reprobated excessive gymnastic training. "What is fair and honorable," he says, "ought to take the foremost place in education; for it is not a wolf, nor any other wild beast, that will brave any noble danger, but rather a good man. So that those who permit boys to engage too earnestly in these exercises, while they do not take care to instruct them in what is necessary to do, render them too mean to speak the truth, and accomplished in only one duty of a citizen, but in every other respect good for nothing, as reason evinces."

MUSIC.-Aristotle advocated a musical training not only as a means of softening the passions, but also as a resource in elegant leisure. "It is clear," he says in an interesting passage, "that there are branches of learning and education which we must study with a view to the enjoyment of leisure, and these are to be valued for their own sake; whereas those kinds of knowledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary, and exist for the sake of other things. And therefore our fathers admitted music into education, not on the ground either of its necessity or utility, for it is not necessary nor, indeed, useful in the same manner as reading and writing, which are useful in money-making, in the management of a household, in the acquisition of knowledge, and in political life, nor like drawing, useful for a more correct judgment of the works of artists, nor again like gymnastics, which give health and strength; for neither of these is to be gained from music. There remains, then, the use of music for intellectual enjoyment in leisure,

which appears to have been the reason of its introduction, this being one of the ways in which it is thought that a freeman should pass his leisure."

SUMMARY. Notwithstanding his greatness, Aristotle was hemmed in by the limitations of his time and country. The end of education with him was the useful and happy citizen. Though recognizing, in some degree, the rights of the family and of the individual, he gave, as Plato had done, an undue importance to the State. He failed to grasp the worth of the individual in its fulness, and consequently his system of education contemplated only the freemen or ruling class of the commonwealth. The slaves and artisans, as well as the women, were excluded from its advantages. Though containing, as we have seen, beautiful ideals and high ethical aims, the educational system of Aristotle was content to leave a large part of the population in ignorance and degradation.

2. ROME

HISTORY.-Ancient Rome, founded 754 B. C., has a history extending through more than a thousand years. Beginning as a single city, it gradually extended its power until it embraced all the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean. From a condition of weakness and barbarism it rose to be the imposing mistress of the world and the chief representative of human progress. It finally gathered into its arms the elements of Grecian. and Oriental culture, and, as its end drew nigh, freely scattered them over the rest of Europe. Rome has been' the bearer of culture to the modern world. As a matter of cova dration varied during this long period of