v. DISCUSSIONS, ‘THE SEVEN LIBERAL, ARTS, S The Greeks originally recognized two branches of liberal ‘education (1) Gymnastics, or the body, and (2) Music, for the soul. Out of music grew, in process of time, not only the so- called Liberal Arts, that is, the arts that go to constitute the ‘education of every freeman, but also what was regarded as a superfluous luxury (weptrri), Philosophy. It is the purpose of this paper to trace, as far as possible, this gradual develop- ment. In doing so, one must bear in mind that originally the term “ Music” covered, not only what we call musi, but also poetry, and that poetry was the vehicle of all the science that then was, ‘The Homeric asides knows. the “works of gods and men.” Strictly speaking, therefore, it was out of music and — Poetry that all the arts and aciences grew. ‘The frst step in this direction was taken when Letters were introduced, that is, about the first Olympiad." Butt was long before Letters were egarded as a separate branch of education ; they were simply. ‘a means of recording poetry. Even as late as the time of Plato, Letters are still usually included under Music. In Aristotle, they are recognized as a separate branch, It fol- lows from this that, when we find Greek writers confining soul- education to Music, or Music and Letters, we must not con- fy only playing and singing, reading and writing. Socrates was saying nothing new oF paradoxical, when he affirmed that Philosophy was the “highest music. ‘The Pythagoreans had said the same thing before him, and there can be no doubt that Pythagoras himself included under Music (1) Letters, (2) Arithmetic, (3) Geometry, (4) Astronomy, {5) Music, in our sense, and (6) Philosophy (a term invented by him), " Plato did the same thing. He speaks of “the true * it musbe bore in mind that the Greek fr, a, coreapond amos eral to sint we mean by "sence" Tt ts desed by Aste, Meuphy Ac tr gBt es aq. "Schwerler ia hs tration ofthe Maple, ender by Monch arn i oat phiesopby. Se Jeb, Homer pp. 8099, 4468 Educational Review. [December Muse that is accompanied with trath(héy@v) and philosophy.” But in his time Music" was used in two senses, a broad one, in which it included the whole of intellectual education, and narrow one, in which itis confined to music in the modern sense, Ttis in this later sense that itis used by Aristotle, when he makes the intellectual branches of schoo! education (j) Letters, (2) Music, and (3) Drawing. Philosophy he places ina higher grade. Having distinguished Letters from Music, it is natural enough that he should assign to the former the branches which Pythagoras had included under the latter. His literary scheme appears to be (1) Grammar, (2) Rhetoric, (6) Dialectic, (4) Arithmetic, (8) Geometry, (6) Astronomy. ‘Add Music, and we have exactly the Seven Liberal Arts; but, as Drawing’ must also be added, itis clear that there was, a5 Yet, no thought of xing definitely the number seven. That Drawing was fora long time part of the school curiculum is rendered clear by a passage in a work of Teles (B.C. 260) © 72), in which it is faid that boys study (1) Letters, (2) Music, (2) Drawing; young men, (4) ‘Arithmetic and (8) Geometry. ‘The last two branchesare here already distinguished from Letters; but we cannot be sure fended to be exhaustive. What ie especially the list of Telesis, that it draws a clear distinc. ssophy, or the highest education, Aristotle dipided into (2) Theory and (2) Practice. Theory he subdivided into (a) ‘Theology, First Philosophy, or Wisdom, called later Meta- physics, the science of the Unchangeable, and (b) Physics, the science of the Changeable; Practice into (a) Ethics, including Politics and CEconomics, and (b) Poetics or Eistheties. ‘Alter Teles we hear little of the Greek school currieu- 214 is a pty that we cannot Gr the date of the socaled Picture of Cebes (iPro Mal) “To thie we bed enumerated the vais of Fale Learaig.() Poets (2) Rhetoicns (3) Dileians, (@) Musicians () Aritbmeticians, (6) Geometiins, 7) Astrologer (i we fount Ports=Grammarians, we the Seven Literal Arak (@) Hedosist, 0) Pevpsteti, (10) Cr, tthenabae lite to these.” ‘The edits” (wus) ae the Cyreaals the Cities” Gora) can bardly be the grsimarians, thoogh that & usally the tmenng ofthe term in later tier Seald we not cad mal?” The Pina can arly be later than aso B.C.1851] Discussions. 469 Jum until about the Christian era, Meanwhile, the Romans, having acquired a smattering of Greek learning, began to draw upa scheme of studies suitable for themselves. It is no- ticeable that in this scheme there is no such distinction as the Greeks drew between liberal (ehevSéptay, iyxtndsos, Loysxat) ~ and illiberal (Sévavoo) arts* As early as the first half of the second century B. C,, Cato the Censor wrote a series of ‘manuals for his son on (1) Ethics, (2) Rhetoric, (5) Medicine, } (4) Military Science, (s) Farming, () Law. It is very signif. cant that the only Greck school-study which appears here is Rhetoric; this the Romans, and notably Cato himself, always studied with great care for practical purposes. It seems that Cato, in order to resist the inroads of Greek education and manners, which he felt to be demoralizing, tried to draw up a characteristically Roman curriculum. Greece, however, in a great measure prevailed, and half a century later we find Varro Grammar; Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astron- ‘omy, Music, Philosophy, besides many others. He wrote a treatise in nine books, called Diseiplinarum Libri. Ritschl, in his Questiones Varroniana'* tried to. show that these “dis. ‘iplina:” were the Seven Liberal Arts, plus Architecture and Medicine, and Mommsen, in his Roman History, has followed him; but Ritschl himself later changed his opinion, Th seems no doubt that (1) Grammar, (2) Rhetoric, (3) Dialectic () Music, (5) Geometry, and (6) Architecture were treated in the work: what the rest were, we ean only guess* There is ro ground for the assertion that the Seven Liberal Arts were ‘obtained by dropping Architecture and Medicine from Varro's list. Tt must have been about the time of Varro, if not earlier, that Roman education came to be divided into three grades! called respectively (1) Grammar, (2) Rhetoric, and (3) Phi- losophy, the last falling to the lot of but few persons, Of course “ Grammar” now came to have a very extensive mean- , a5 we can see from the definition of it given by Diomysis Thrax, in his grammar, prepared apparently for Roman use {B. C90}. In the Scholia to that work (Iam unable to fix their date), we find the Liberal Arts enumerated as(1) Astron. 4+ Liberal” means 6 “bert waft for freemen. The arts was cil Eyeucoradl, which we have coupled ato Emel * Bone, 84s * See Boise, Aude sur la Vi et es Ouorages de M, 7. Varrom, pp 3%470 Educational Review, [December ‘omy, (2) Geometry, (3) Music, (4) Philosophy, (s) Medicine, (© Grammar, (7) Rhetoric” But toreturn to the Greeks. In the works of Philo Judzus, 4 contemporary of Jesus, we find the encyclic arts frequently referred to,and distinguished from philosophy. The former, he says, are represented by the Egyptian slave Hagar, the latter by Sarah, the lawful wife. One must associate with the arts before he can find philosophy fruitful. Inno one passage oes Philo give a lst of the encyclic arts, In one place we find enumerated (1) Grammar, (2) Geometry, (3) Music, (4) Rhetoric (De Cherub,, § 30); in another (1) Grammar, (2) Geometry, (3) “the entire music of encyclic instruction” (De Agricule, § 4); i another (1) Grammar, (2) Music, (3) Geometry, (4) Rhetoric, (5) Dialectic (De Congressu Quar. Erud. Grat.,§ 3); in another, (1) Grammar, (2) Arithmetic, (3) Geometry, (4) Music, (s) Rhetoric (De Someniis,§ 35) ete. It ‘would seem that the encyclic arts, according to Philo, were (1) Grammar, (2) Rhetoric, (3) Dialectic, (4) Arithmetic, (§) Geome- try, (6) Music, Astronomy appears in none of the lists, Philosophy is divided into (1) Physics, (2) Logic, (3) Ethics (De Mutat. Nom, § 10), 2 division that was long current. From what has been adduced 1 thinke we may fairly con- clude that at the Christian era no definite number had been fixed for the liberal arts either at Athens, Alexandria, or Rome. The list apparently differed in different places. Clearly the Roman programme was quite different from the Greek: Shortly after this era we find Seneca (who died A. D. 65) giving the liberal arts, beralia studi, as (1) Grammar, (2) Music, (3) Geometry, (4) (6) Astronomy, (Epist, 88). He divides Philosophy into (1) Moral, (2) Natural, (3) Rational, and the last he subdivides into (a) Dialectic and (b) Rhetoric. Above all he places Wisdom, " Saptentia perfecum onum est mentis humana” (Epist, 80). Here we see that two of the Seven Liberal Arts are classed under Philosophy. A little later, Quintilian divides all education into (1) Grammar, and (2) Rhetoric, but condescends to allow his young orator to study a little Music, Geometry, and Astronomy. Turning to the Greeks, we find Sextus Empiricus, who seems to have flourished in Athens and Alexandria toward the end of the second century, writing a great work against the dogmatists * See Bekkers Amela Grea, hy 655.801] Discussions, 4am ‘or “mathematicians,” of whom he finds nine classes, corre- sponding to six arts and three sciences of philosophy. The arts are (1) Grammar, (2) Rhetoric, (3) Geometry, (4) Arith- metic, (6) Astronomy, (6) Musie: the sciences, (1) Logie, (2) Physics, (3) Ethics. We are now not far from the Seven Liberal Arts; still we have not reached them, There is not, I think, any noteworthy list of the liberal arts to be found in any ancient author after Sextus, til we come to St. Augustine. In his Refractiones, written abont 425, he tells us (I. 6) that in his youth he undertook to write Diseipl- narum Libri (the exact title of Varro's work!) that he finished the book on (1) Grammar, wrote six volumes on (2) Music, and made a beginning with other jive disciplines, (3) Dialectic, (4) Rhetoric, (5) Geometry, (6) Arithmetic, (7) Philosophy. | It has frequently been assumed that we have here, forthe first time, the Seven Liberal Arts definitely fixed; but there is nothing whatever in the passage to justify this assumption ‘The authordoes not say “ sie other five disciplines,” but merely ““otherfive.” Among these five, morcover, snamed Philosophy, which, though certainly a “ discipline,” was never, so far as I can discover, called an art, liberal or otherwise. ‘There is not tthe smallest reason for tracing back the Seven Liberal Arts to St. Augustine, who surely was incapable of any such playing, with numbers. He does not, indeed, recognize the “ Seven.” “Tt is in the fantastic and superficial work of Martianus Capella, a heathen contemporary of Augustine's, that they frst make their appearance, and even then no stress is laid upon their number. They are (1) Grammar, (2) Dialectic, (3) Rhetoric, (4) Geometry, (5) Arithmetic, (6) Astronomy, (7) Music. These, no doubt, were the branches taught in’ the better schools of the Roman Empire in the fourth and fith centuries, when, on the whole, the Greek liberal curriculum had conquered the Roman rhetorical one, There is not the slightest ground for supposing that Capella had anything to do with fixing the curriculum which he celebrates. His work is a wretched production, sufficiently characterized by its title, The Wedding of Mercury and Philology. He wrote about seven arts because he found seven to write about. Attention was frst called to the musnder of the arts, and a mystical mean- ing attached to it by the Christian Senator, Cassiodorus (480 575) in his De Artibus ef Disciplinis Literalium Litterarum. ‘He finds it written in Prov. 1X. 1, that Wisdom hath builded v472 Educational Review [December her house. She hath hewn out her seven pillars." He con- ‘cludes that the Seven Liberal Arts are the seven pillars of the house of Wisdom. ‘They correspond also to the days of the week, which are also seven. It is to be observed that he dis- tinguishes the “ Arts" from the “ Disciplines,” or, as they said later, the Trivium from the Quadrivium. The pious notion of Cassiodorus was worked out by Isidore of Seville (died 636) in his Etymologia, and by Alcuin (died 804) in his Grammatica. Of course, as soon as the number of the arts came to be re- garded as fixed by Scripture authority, it became as familiar 2 fact as the number of the planets or of thedays of the week, fr indeed, as the number of the elements, About A. D. 820, Hrabanus’ Maurus (776-856), pupil of Aleuin’s, wrote a work, De Clericorum Institutione, in which the phrase Septem Libera. des Artes is said to occur for the first time. About the same date Theodulfus wrote his allegorical poem De Septem Libera Hibus in quadam Pictura Descriptis* ‘The Liberal Studies after St. Augustine did not include Philosophy, which rested upon the Seven Arts, as upon “seven pillars," and was usually divided into (1) Physical, (2) Logical, (3) Ethical" After a time Philosophy came to be an allem. bracing term. In a commentary on the Zimaus of Plato, as- signed by Cousin to the twelfth century, we find the following scheme: Bi raat {Ee ‘The -Pentozonity OT ate ‘Theotical{ Mathematics | MUSE | —Quadrivam, Physics. 4 \ The author expressly says that “Mathematica quadrivium continet "; but he plainly does not include the Trivium under Philosophy. This, however, was done in the following cen- ‘Tam indebted for numer of these facts to am article by Prot. A. F. Wes fa the Print Colle Buletin, November, 1890. "These terms, which we stil Godin Isidore and Hrabancs Manes are afer wards ia the thirteenth century, replaced by ther Latin equlleats: Natu, Ration, ad Mor, To the cae ofthe second, this cated consierable co fusion, inemich ax when lt esced 86 be sed an rains" took the ple of aiaestie™189] Discussions. 473 tury. In the Jtinerarium Mentis in Deum of St. Bonaventura (1221-74) we find the following arrangements : Here we have the Trivium, under the division “ Rational,’ the Quadrivium must still be included under“ Mathe- matics.” In both cases we get nine sciences or disciplines, and the number was apparently chosen, because it is the ‘square of three, the number of the Holy Trinity, In the latter case this was certainly true. Speaking of the primary divisions of Philosophy, the Saint says: “The first treats of the cause of being, and therefore leads to the Power of the Father; the second of the ground of understanding, and therefore leads to the Wisdom of the Word ; the third to the ‘order of living, and therefore leads to the goodness of the hhis Convivio (II, 14, 15) gives the following scheme ‘based upon the “ten heavens,” nine of which are moved by angels or intelligences, while the last rests in God. ng Tea ‘cee Soe Laven Aas giteee Quadriviam } Geometry Asolo Payne Meaphyi. Stary Hest, Pamosory {eee eee In Dante are summed up the ancient and medizeval systems of education. Tomas Davinson. Naw You, "Inthe XXVIIIGH Canto of the Pals, thee angelic powers are amanged ‘somerhat dilerently, la deference to Dionysian Avopapia and St Berard,