Leisure and Music in Education
Aristotle followed Plato, was his student, in fact. And he joined his teacher is asserting the music was a necessary part of one’s education because it teaches one how to use leisure nobly and it forms a certain character in the soul of the participant. He says,
There are perhaps four customary subjects of education, reading and writing, gymnastics, music, and fourth, with some people, drawing; reading and writing and drawing being taught as being useful for the purposes of life and very serviceable, and gymnastics as contributing to manly courage; but as to music, here one might raise a question. For at present most people take part in it for the sake of pleasure; but those who originally included it in education did so because, as has often been said, nature itself seeks to be able not only to engage rightly in business but also to occupy leisure nobly; for—to speak about it yet again—this is the first principle of all things. For if although both business and leisure are necessary, yet leisure is more desirable and more fully an end than business, we must inquire what is the proper occupation of leisure…It is clear therefore that there is a form of education in which boys should be trained not because it is useful or necessary but as being liberal and noble.((Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham, The Loeb Classical Library (London; Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann Ltd; Harvard University Press, 1932), 643.))
Leisure is not mere amusement or relaxation but it is the absence of real business (i.e., buying, selling, political activity, etc.) and Aristotle suggests it must be occupied nobly—in the same way we should occupy our business. Of the two, only one is done for the sake of the other. Business is not an end in itself. We do our business so we can have leisure. Of course, leisure occupied nobly will pay dividends on our business, but we do not occupy it for that reason. For as Aristotle further states, “to seek for utility everywhere is entirely unsuited to men that are great-souled and free.”
So then how does one occupy leisure nobly? Why music of course. Music is not only for pleasure–though it is most pleasing–Aristotle contends, “it is plain that music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.((Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham, The Loeb Classical Library (London; Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann Ltd; Harvard University Press, 1932), 661.))
