The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May,
1859, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859

Author: Various

Release Date: March 27, 2004 [eBook #11727]
[Date last updated: August 13, 2005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 3, NO.
19, MAY, 1859***

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. III.--MAY, 1859.--NO. XIX.

THE GYMNASIUM.

Two distinct yet harmonious branches of study claimed the early
attention of the youth of ancient Greece. Education was comprised in
the two words, Music and Gymnastics. Plato includes it all under these
divisions:--"That having reference to the body is gymnastics, but to the
cultivation of the mind, music."

Grammar was sometimes distinguished from the other branches classed
under the term, Music; and comprehended, besides a knowledge of
language, something of poetry, eloquence, and history. Music embraced
all the arts and sciences over which the Muses presided.

Grammar, Music, and Gymnastics, then, comprised the whole _curriculum_
of study which was prescribed to the Athenian boy. There were not
separate and distinct learned professions, or faculties, to so great
an extent as in modern times. The compass of knowledge was far less
defined, and the studies and attainments of the individual more
miscellaneous. Some of the arts rose to an unparalleled perfection.
Architecture and sculpture attained an excellence which no subsequent
civilization has reached. But the practical application of the sciences
to daily use was almost entirely neglected; and inventions and mechanics
languished until the far later uprising of the Saxon mind.

Yet the whole system of education among the Greeks was peculiarly
calculated for the development of the powers of the mind and of the body
in common. And it is from this point of view that we wish to consider
it, and to show the nature and preeminence of gymnastics in their times
as compared with our own