Essay On Spartan Education

Personally my thoughts on the Spartan education system for children is valid for that specific time period and place. Firstly, the newborn is taken to an elder to whom the child belonged to and is inspected. If the baby is “stout and well made, they gave order for its rearing starting their education,but if they found it puny and ill-shaped. The elders ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetae, a sort of chasm under Taygetus and never to be talked about” (Plutarch). Only keeping the strongest to fight War and other uprisings of city slaves. Secondly, when the child turns “seven years old they were to be enrolled in certain companies and classes, where they all lived under the same order and discipline, doing their exercises and …show more content…
Third, “twelve years old, they were no longer allowed to wear any undergarment; they had one coat to serve them a year; their bodies were hard and dry, with but little acquaintance of baths and unguents”(Plutarch). Letting them suffer so they don't have any indulgences in the future.To let the children know how thankful they were was perfect for the time as they didn't have many resources and were forced into war so letting them feel suffering as normal was ok for the Spartans. Fourthly, “sending the oldest of them to fetch wood, and the weaker and less able, to gather salads and herbs, and these they must either go without or steal” (Plutarch). Even stealing during that time period wasn’t bad as these men are specifically to go into battle. So teaching them to steal shows them how to get food and be sneaky or else you would have no food. Plus, if you were caught you were reprimanded and whipped without mercy showing pain. This taught the men to be speak with a natural and graceful raillery after seeing others whipped to death. All in all, why I believe that the education system in Sparta was great for the time period and