Once Marrou comes to Plato everything stops. He dwells on this titan of classical history for a full 22 pages, the longest chapter yet. However, he still keeps things short, and his sections deal with chunks of how Plato and his style of education affected education throughout the rest of the classical era.
The hallmark of Plato's system is its emphasis on education as moral cultivation. His system involved an elementary level of study, but also several intermediate levels between the beginner and the philosopher. In fact, according to Marrou, it would take a pupil of Plato's until they were 50 before they were considered a "true" philosopher - someone well versed in the reality of pure reason and fully able to puzzle out morality.
Such a lofty goal seems unachievable, but Plato also innovated with an addition to the standard curriculum: mathematics. At every level of his system, mathematics were taught. Starting with simple numeracy, these mathematics became increasingly complex and abstract, until, as was the idea, they showed the student the underlying mechanics of the world and the relationships between its moving parts.
All of this information is delivered quickly though Marrou's short sub-sections. But it is, nevertheless, dense, and even Marrou's voice, editing, and style can't mask that fact.
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