draws attention to the frequency with which individuals who had distinguished themselves as teachers of rhetoric had been elevated into the senate, and advanced to the highest dignities of the state.1 That the profession of a philologist was occasionally at least well remunerated is evident from the facts recorded by the same author in his work de claris grammaticis, § 3. He there mentions that there were at one time upwards of twenty well attended schools devoted to this subject at Rome, and that one fortunate individual, Q. Remmius Palaemon, derived four hundred thousand sesterces, or considerably above three thousand a year, from instruction in philology alone. Julius Caesar conferred the citizenship, together with large bounties in money, and immunity from public burthens, on distinguished rhetoricians and philologists, in order to encourage their presence at Rome. The numerous instances in which distinguished grammarians were advanced to offices of greater dignity and leisure furnished probably even a more powerful incitement to those who were desirous of embracing erudition as a profession. Augustus selected an individual of this class, Verrius Floccus, as the private tutor of his grand children, and the practice introduced under the Ptolemies of assigning the superintendence of public libraries to professional philologists was faithfully adhered to under the later Roman Emperors.

2

20. That individuals who thus enjoyed an income not greatly below the revenues of an English Bishopric were not, as the name might lead us to imagine, employed in teaching the accidents of grammar, but possessed considerable pretensions to that higher and more thoughtful character of the scholar which it has been reserved for modern Europe to exhibit in perfection, is not only in itself highly probable, but supported by the distinctest and most unimpeachable evidence. Seneca tells us that history was amongst the subjects professed by grammarians, and Cicero regards the most thorough and refined perception of all that pertains to the spirit and individuality of the author as an indispensable requisite in those who undertake to give instruction in this subject.3 Aulus Gellius abounds

4

in instances where questions of aesthetic criticism are discussed by grammarians, and Suetonius asserts that rhetoric, or the practical application of the principles of literary excellence was also expected

1. Innumerable instances are furnished in the biographies of later sophists.

2 Ατέλεια. This privilege was frequently conferred upon philosophers and men of learning in the Greek states. See Diog. L. vit. Pyrrhon. c. 5. An edict of Constantine quoted by Bernhardy Gr der Gr. Litt extends the enjoyment of this exemption to the wives and families of deceased professors. Uxores etiam et filios eorum ab omni functione, et ab omnibus muneribus publices vacare praecepimus.

3 Quoted by Passow Leben und Zeitalter von Horaz, p. 8. Anm. 13. 4. Noct. Att. II. 6. IX. 9. 10.

from such individuals. Victorinus, quoted by Graefenhahn in his history of classical literature in the times of antiquity, sums up the different heads of this subject as consisting of lectio, or correctness of expression, enarratio, or exposition of the meaning of the author, emendatio, or criticism of the text, and aestimatio, or an estimate of the artistic character of the work.' Even the name "philologus " began to be assumed in token of the varied and scientific character of the attainments of the professional grammarian. The title however never seems to have become frequent amongst the Romans, with whom such individuals were more commonly known as literati, docti, eruditi, or professores."

21. The grammatici appear to have occupied a position very closely analogous to that of the teachers of collegiate schools in England, and the gymnasial professors in Germany. In accordance with this view of their character we find them universally described amongst ancient writers as holding a rank intermediate between the elementary teachers and the rhetorician, or academic professor of literature. They are invariably recognized as a liberally educated class of men, and their office is rarely spoken of otherwise than with the respect and deference accorded of right to a learned profession. In this respect the grammatici present an utter contrast to the ludimagistri (γραμματιστεί), or teachers of the γραμματὴ μικρά, whose condition and social status seems to have been even more cheerless and unfortunate than that of our own elementary and parish schoolmasters. Persons of this class taught in the market place and under awnings (pergulae.) The story of Virginia shows that girls also attended schools at an early period of antiquity. They were most probably of the same rudimentary description, though we learn from Martial, (Epigr. VIII. 3. XI. 4,) that at a later era grown up maidens were instructed in the higher branches of elegant litera rature. The vocation of the ypaμμarikoì consisted in giving fin ish and completion to that propaedeutic course of study which the Greeks denoted as the εγκύκλια μαθήματα, and which in the later ages of the Roman empire was known under the name of Trivium and Quadrivium. The subordinate positions assigned to the subjects included in the course above mentioned, is evident from a passage in Plutarch in his life of Alexander.

1. See also Zonoras Lex. Γραμματική· ἡ ἐμπειρία τῶν παρά ποιηταὶς τε καὶ συγγραφεύσιν ὡς ἐπιτνοπολύ λεγόμενον. Higher scholarship and criticism was known amongst the Greeks as the уpaμμatikỳ μeyáλn, or évreλýs. Gräfenh. Gesch. der class. Phil. I. p. 343.

2. Gräfenh. Gesch. der class. Phil. IV. p. 53.

3. Gräfenhahn Gesch. der class. Litt. IV. 53.

4. Zonaras Γωαμματιστής· ὁ τὰ πρῶτα στοιχεῖα διδάσκων. Compare Suid. s. v. and Ritter shus. ad Porphyr. p. 75.

5. Gräfenhahn Gesch. der class. Phil. IV. p. 26.

6. Perizon. ad Aelian. III. 21.

7. See also Suid. s. IIaμmрémios and 'Opɩyérns.

22. Before passing from this portion of the subject it may not be without interest to remark that Quintilian, one of the ablest and most sagacious writers who has ever treated of education, strenuously and pointedly insists that the study of Greek should precede that of Latin. Even during the more cultivated periods of the republic-at least in that era which Cicero describes as the golden age of Latin eloquence—all higher and more liberal minded instruction in the one language was held to be concomitant, and, in a manner synonymous with a similar acquaintance with the other. The most profound and enlightened appreciation of the peculiar excellences of the national literature was thought to be alone attainable when the study of Roman authors was blended in a perfectly balanced and indissoluble union with a knowledge of the most admirable productions of those of Greece.3

With the more clearly defined and strictly systematic arrangement which the different portions of the educational courses began to assume shortly after the age of Aristotle, we find that the subjects of highest mental training, when considered somewhat in the abstract, and with reference to their general character and tendency, are all embraced under the common name of philosophy. That this department of knowledge was not unreasonably regarded as preëminently in accordance with the aims and spirit of University study will be sufficiently evident from what has been previously pointed out as the essential attributes of the latter. We are not however to imagine (though the vague and declamatory language of the writers on these subjects would undoubtedly favor such a conclusion) that mere metaphysics—itself a separate and particular branch of inquiry -was intended to monopolize the undivided attention of those who frequented the highest schools of intellect. Such an inference is at variance with the fact that totally different subjects, such as grammar, rhetoric, and medicine were actually taught in the schools of the time; and, though nothing can be more natural or likely than that those who mainly devoted themselves to one of these subjects may have attended instruction in another also, we know from the testimony of Aulus Gellius the jealous vigilance with which the distinct limits of the several faculties were guarded. Philosophy therefore, in passages such as these above alluded to, can only be intended to denote that absolute and elevated form which every branch of knowledge assumes when studied in a comprehensive spirit, and carried to

1. Institut. orat. 1, 1, 12. A sermone Graeco puerum incipere malo, quia Lätinus, zui pluribus in usu est, vel nobis nolentibus se praebest, simul quia disciplinis quoque Graecis prius institu eudus est, unde et nostrae fluxerunt. Quoted by Gräfenhahn Gesch. der class. Philol. IV. p. 29. 2. Mommsen's Römische Geschichte, Band II. p. 406. 8. Noct. Att. X. 19.

the ideal perfection of its own proper nature. As bearing moreover immediately upon questions deeply associated with all that is most momentous to the individual and the state, the science of mind not unnaturally became the "solar" study to all those who attended the teaching of the ancient Universities not with a view to qualify themselves for any particular learned profession, but simply in order to obtain that clearness of intellect, and confirmed mastery of the noblest principles of thought and action which would enable them to enter upon the grander usefulness of public life with at least the condition of forethought and design.' This class it must be further borne in mind was precisely the one which comprised those individuals from whose biographies our acquaintance with the details of ancient Universities is mainly derived. We must also bear in mind that from the mental idiosyncrasy, and many peculiarities in the social condition of the nations of classical antiquity the study of philosophy was far from possessing with them that vague, and purely abstract character now generally associated with the name. The frugal habits and simple wants which to this day continue a leading feature in the common life of the nations of the south of Europe were united in the case of the Greeks with a passionate desire for knowledge, and a mobility of intellect which enabled them during many ages of their history to exhibit beyond all other nations the dignity of that free and noble axol of which none but the most gifted natures are capable. To those who led an existence unfettered by any but the simplest and most generally human relations, who labored not from the pressure of external necessity, but from the irrepressible fullness of their own productivity, in whom, in short, the inward life of thought had become singularly predominant over that of external circumstances, the science of Being naturally became the one engrossing pursuit of life, and questions of the most abstruse and metaphysical nature rose into a degree of immediate importance which at the present day we can only conceive of as connected with occurrences where considerations of personal interest are directly involved.' With

1. Dial. de orator. § 30. The author of the same work tells us in another passage (§ 32) that the eloquence of Cicero was due far more to the speculations of the Academy than to the instruction of professional rhetorians. Plutarch (vit. Cic. p. 475.) informs us that such was Cicero's own opinion (καίτοι πολλάκις ἠξίου μὴ ῥήτορα καλεῖν αὐτὸν ἀλλὰ φιλόσοφον· φιλοσοφίαν γὰρ ὡς ἔργον ᾑρῆσθαι, ῥητορικῇ δ ̓ ὀργάνῳ σρῆχθαι πολιτευόμενος ἐπὶ τὰς χρείας.) Compare also Cic. Brutus c. 97.

2. Not ȧpyía. Scaliger quoted by Passow in his Leben von Horaz. p. 21. Anm. 63. thus describes the Greeks, quae natio nihil paene egisse videtur quam ut reperiret quomodo an otio negotiosa esse posset.

3. That the study of philosophy possessed amongst the ancients a character preeminently professional is evident from the opposition of meaning constantly insisted on between the terms φιλόσοφος ane ιδιώτης. Thus Critias was sneered at as an ιδιώτης μὲν ἐν φιλοσόφοις, φιλόσο

the utter and undisguised contempt into which the national religion had everywhere fallen, and the complete inadequacy of all that was traditionally received to satisfy that instinctive yearning after God to which even Homer alludes.' Philosophy became to the calm and noble natures of the old world very much what theology and Christianity are with us, the sole ground of Faith and Duty, the one healing consolation and refuge from the sorrows, afflictions, and disappointments of human existence.

25. That more definite conceptions, and above all happier results did not spring from a view of academic study involving so much that is sound and accurate, is to be attributed to the lamentable decay of all the powers of nobler mental action which so rapidly succeeded to the astonishing precision and certainty which the scientific tendencies of the ancient world had attained in Aristotle. Not only was a decline of freshness and vigor speedily visible in the more minutely detailed divisions into which the search after truth had ramified, but the central energy itself exhibited even more decided signs of waning power and intensity. Undiminished as was the national tendency towards metaphysical discussion, the theorists who succeeded Aristotle instead of radiating, as it were, from central truths, and endeavoring to enlarge and verify their conceptions of the absolute by diligent study of its infinite selfenactment in man and nature, exhausted the interest of philosophic study in barren and unpractical disputations, or else in idly circling around positions long since finally won for science.

26. We have dwelt at some length upon the most important stages in the rise and progress of the principle of academic education amongst the Greeks from reasons which it is hardly necessary to enumerate in detail. Though figuring to a very small extent among the men of statistics, and held extremely cheap amongst those who reverse the old legal maxim that men should be weighed, not counted, no people reaches so far and wide in all relations of mind, or has given birth and shape to so much which is still operating in every civilized nation as a predominating element in its life of life. They at once exhibit the consummation of the noblest tendencies of the old world, and contain the lively germs of all that is most admirable and active

pos dè év idiótais (Schol. ad Plat. Tim. § 20.) The same thought is neatly expressed in an epigram of the Anthology (II. p. 419. 58. Jacobs.)

1. Od. III. 48. πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσιν ἄνθρωποι.

2 Compare Clemens Alexandrin. Strom. I. 5. p. 330. Pottor. Also VI. 17. p. 823. where philosophy is explicitly declared to have served as the representative of religion and theology in the ancient world.

4. Fr. A. Wolf Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft, p. 71.

Herodotus contrasts the mental greatness of the Greeks with the material vastness of Asiatic empires. The latter he describes as amounting to πολλοὶ ἄνθρωποι, ὀλίγοι ἄνδρες.