1. The education system in ancient Rome and pre-Greece
For more than two centuries from 50 1 BC to the first 300 years, Rome established and improved its own national slavery system. Slave owners, nobles and civilians are citizens of the country and have the right to participate in the political and economic life of the country. During this period, the economy of ancient Rome was dominated by agriculture, the industry and commerce were underdeveloped, and wars with neighboring countries were very frequent, which determined that Roman education in this period was relatively backward. The main purpose is to train brave soldiers. There are no special school education institutions and full-time teachers, and the main form of education is family education.
In Rome before Greece, "slaves were not allowed to be teachers, because it would lower their status in the eyes of others and themselves." "Children only study in the narrow environment of family life, and at most they can only study in the broader environment of the growing city." During this period, in Roman families, children aged 0-7 were mainly raised and educated by their mothers. From the age of seven, girls still stay at home and study with their mothers as the educational content of future housewives and mothers. From the age of seven, the boy will go to work with his father, who will teach him how to observe and learn, and let him receive basic learning, labor and life training. During this period, the Romans paid attention to teaching boys some knowledge about reading, writing and calculation, but many Romans paid insufficient attention to children's knowledge education. "Fathers often only let their children learn the skills they must have as a Roman gentleman and understand their responsibilities, because other knowledge is considered to be of no educational value."
When the boy reached the age of 16, he became a full citizen of Rome and began a new life of building and defending the motherland.
2. The education system in the ancient Roman Republic.
Since the middle of the 3rd century BC, Rome has been winning foreign wars, expanding its territory and increasing its population, forming a huge empire spanning Europe, Asia and Africa. During this period, Rome's foreign trade continued to expand, industry and commerce developed to a certain extent, domestic cultural life became increasingly rich, and political and economic struggles within the ruling class became increasingly fierce. During this period, the development of Rome's politics and economy and the widespread spread of Athenian culture in Rome urgently demanded that the backward state of relying only on families to carry out education should be changed as soon as possible, and Athenian-style school educational institutions should be widely established to cultivate citizens with high cultural literacy for the ruling class.
During this period, Roman rulers attached great importance to education and hired a large number of educated Greeks as teachers. Therefore, the school education in this country has developed rapidly and gradually formed a relatively complete school education system.
(1) primary school
This kind of educational institution is private and expensive, but the teaching facilities are very simple. It mainly recruits children of Roman slave owners aged 7- 12 and a small number of children of civilians. The main contents of study are reading, writing, calculation and twelve tables method.
(2) Grammar School (Latin School)
Grammar schools are one level higher than primary schools and are equivalent to institutions that implement secondary education. They are also private and expensive, mainly for children of slave owners aged 12- 16. At first, the grammar school mainly taught Greek and Greek literature, but later it turned to teach Latin and Latin literature. Roman grammar school mainly allows students to learn grammar, composition, literature, Roman theology, music, geometry, astronomy and so on. So as to lay a good foundation for training speakers, but such schools prohibit students from taking physical education courses.
(3) rhetoric school
This kind of school is equivalent to a special school. It was founded by the Roman rulers to cultivate speakers and debaters who are good at rhetoric, proficient in literature and history and eloquent. Mainly recruit children of slave owners aged 16-20. The content of study mainly includes literature, rhetoric, history, law, astronomy, geometry, ethics, music, dialectics and other disciplines. Learning methods include letting students listen to the teacher.
3. The educational system of the ancient Roman Empire.
In 30 AD, Rome entered the imperial period. In order to maintain their power and position, the Roman rulers strengthened their control over the political, economic and cultural education of the people in the region, and also carried out a series of reforms in the education system according to the requirements of the ruling class. For the purpose of education, change the teaching of basic cultural knowledge and the training of speakers into the training of officials who are obedient to the people and loyal to the empire; In school management, the state has strengthened its intervention in schools at all levels, exercised state supervision over primary schools, and changed some grammar schools and rhetoric schools into state schools, so that the state can directly control schools; Improve the treatment of school teachers, strengthen the control of teachers, and change teachers from private employment to direct employment by state educational institutions.
During this period, many important changes have taken place in the school education system at all levels in the Roman Empire, which are embodied in the following aspects:
(1) Primary education has not been paid attention to by the state, and the facilities for running schools in various places are quite simple, and the teaching focus of schools has also begun to shift from literature learning to grammar analysis.
(2) Grammar schools attach great importance to the teaching of Latin, and Latin grammar and Roman literature gradually dominate the teaching of grammar schools. Too much emphasis on speculation makes the teaching methods of grammar schools tend to formalism.
(3) Rhetoric school is greatly influenced by national politics, and the education and training goal has changed from training public speakers to training national officials. The main content of learning is rhetoric, but "rhetoric has become pure" and the learning method has become more formalistic; In order to meet the political and economic needs of the Roman Empire, the rulers established special schools in Rome to teach law, medicine and philosophy.
(4) During this period, the attitude of Roman rulers towards Christianity changed greatly. Christianity gradually evolved into a religious form acceptable to the ruling class, and Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. It began to play an important role in the education and teaching of schools at all levels, and gradually occupied a dominant position.
From the historical changes of the ancient Roman education system, we can see that the ancient Roman education system changed with the changes of the national political and economic system, and the changes of educational objectives, educational contents and educational methods in various periods all illustrate this point; The process of educational reform and development in ancient Rome is a process of extensively absorbing advanced Greek educational experience and ideas and combining them with the reality in Rome. "Rome is not only a disseminator of Greek culture, but also a creator of culture.