A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

The Good Old Education 231
The ridge of Olympus is sounding on high,
Appalling with wonder the lords of the sky,
And the Muses and Graces
Enthroned in their places,
Join in the solemn symphony.
Nothing can be more delightful than the having wings to wear!
A spectator sitting here, accommodated with a pair,
Might for instance (if he found a tragic chorus dull and heavy)
Take his flight, and dine at home; and if he did not choose to leave ye,
Might return in better humor, when the weary drawl was ended. . . .
Trust me, wings are all in all! Diitrcphes has mounted quicker
Than the rest of our aspirants, soaring on his wings of wicker:
Basket work and crates, and hampers, first enabled him to fly;
First a captain, then promoted to command the cavalry;
With his fortunes daily rising, office and preferment new.
An illustrious, enterprising, airy, gallant cockatoo.
Just as we
might wish
for airships.
He made his
fortune as
a basketweaver.
The aristocratic
poet
jeers at the
industrial
class.
VI. The Good Old Education
Just Cause. I will, therefore, describe the ancient sys-
The goodmannered
boys of old!
tem of education, how it was ordered, when I flourished
in the advocacy of justice, and temperance was the fashion.
In the first place, it was incumbent that no one should
hear the voice of a boy uttering a syllable; and next, that
those from the same quarter of the town should march in
good order through the streets to the school of the Harpmaster,
lightly clad and in a body, even if it were to snow
as thick as meal. Then again their master would teach
them, not sitting cross-legged, to learn by rote a song,
either ^'Pallas Athena, Dread Sacker of Towns," or " Some
Farborne Battle-Cry," raising to a higher pitch the harmony
which our fathers transmitted to us. But if any of them
were to play the buffoon, or turn any quavers, like these
difficult turns the present artists make after the manner
of Phrynis, he used to be thrashed, beaten with many
Aristophanes,
Clouds, 961 £f.
The Just
Cause and
the Unjust
Cause are
here pleading
for
the privilege
of instructing
the boy.