Introduction

Ancient Greek civilization dated back to the 6th century B.C.E. and from the earliest times, education and the acquisition of knowledge played a central role in Greek culture. Between 431 and 399 B.C.E. struggles periodically erupted between cities and factions whereby oligarchies and democracies would alternately be established and then successively torn down. Education and the purposes of education varied from region to region. Following periods of rule by tyrants or oligarchs, as in the case of Athens, educational programs tended to emphasize the need to produce an informed citizenry who were capable of participating in the issues and governance of their cities. In contrast, we know that education Sparta tended to be directed at producing a militaristic citizenry, hardened and well prepared for the eventualities of war.

The legacy of ancient Greece numbered among them such heroic figures as the orator Isocrates, Pythagoras,¹ the mathematician who invented irrational numbers, Euclid², known for his contribution to geometry, and Democritus³,the first scholar that we know of to suggest an atomic theory of matter.

The individuals who have perhaps left the best-known legacy to the modern world, however, were the philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. These men and their work constitute the foundations of modern science and philosophy. More specifically, their ideas and approaches to thinking and problem solving helped shaped the manner in which western education became established. In the matter of education, philosophers such as Socrates and Plato also laid the foundations for pedagogy--the science of teaching--particularly in the incorporation of what would come to be known as the Socratic approach to learning, i.e. the use of a question and answer technique to facilitate learning. Although Socrates himself left no written legacy of his work, his philosophy has survived through the writings of his former student Plato.