Around two thousand years ago, in a Greek city that had long been both politically and culturally under the sway of the Roman empire, a teenaged boy named Nicander participated in a coming-of-age ritual. Together with other young men, Nicander formally put on the toga virilis鈥攖he toga of manhood鈥攁nd in doing so marked the end of his adolescence and the commencement of his adult life. This new, more independent phase of life would begin with several years of higher education: Having donned his toga, Nicander was set to embark on the serious study of philosophy, an advanced subject now accessible to him because he had completed his earlier studies in literature and rhetoric under the guidance of his father and various tutors.
Nicander鈥檚 transition from adolescence to adulthood is mirrored across the USA every spring in the commencement ceremonies that mark the completion of high school and the beginning of independence and adulthood. As students don their graduation gowns (sometimes called togas after the Roman custom) and perform the ritual walk across the stage to hear their names called and receive their diplomas, their minds are flooded with memories of the past and high expectations for the future. Many of them, with their secondary education now complete, will matriculate in the coming fall to continue their education in college. Like Nicander, they are no longer under the direct care of their parents and teachers but must become more self-directed in their studies, and in their lives. This has always been an exciting and anxious time, in both the ancient and the modern world.
Another parallel between these two worlds involves the challenge of the graduation gift. In my day (not ancient times but sadly no longer modern), the classic gift for the college-bound graduate was a dictionary and a thesaurus, packaged together as a two-volume reference set. This gift acknowledged and supported the intellectual journey that was about to begin. My reference set was given to me by our parish priest. It turns out that Nicander also had a family friend, a philosopher and priest of Apollo at Delphi, who similarly chose a gift that would support his impending intellectual journey. Plutarch of Chaeronea, in his desire to set Nicander on the right path, presented him with an essay that explained the challenges he would face in his study of philosophy and offered advice on how to meet them. Plutarch was uniquely qualified to offer this sort of gift. Not only had he studied philosophy himself and so lived through the transition that Nicander was about to make, but he was also a teacher with years of pedagogical experience that gave his advice utility and authority. With its combination of idealism, sympathy, and encouragement, Plutarch鈥檚 essay, which has survived to our own day, is also perfectly suited to the modern first-year student.
Traditionally titled How to Listen, Plutarch鈥檚 essay assumes that listening well is the key to learning from others, but it also acknowledges that listening is a skill that must be developed. There are many personal, social, and environmental challenges that confront the first-year student, which make listening and learning difficult and so threaten a student鈥檚 success. In what follows, I have distilled Plutarch鈥檚 essay into ten essential pieces of advice which together comprise an ancient guide to success in college.
1. Your newly acquired freedom requires self-discipline and rationality
The time is right for my advice, Nicander, since you鈥檝e put on the toga of adulthood and are free of the guardians who used to supervise your learning. But a lack of supervision, which some young people ignorantly believe to be freedom, releases from their chains, so to speak, those desires that become even more difficult masters than the teachers and tutors of your youth. Many young people, when they set aside their childhood clothing, also set aside reverence and respect, and they become completely undisciplined. Believe, therefore, that for those who think rightly, the transition from childhood to adulthood does not entail the rejection of supervision, but it means a change in supervisors. Those who adopt Reason as the guide for their life, in place of their childhood guardian, are the only people worthy to be called free. Conversely, there is nothing noble in living your life according to undisciplined and irrational impulses.
For a long time now, you have been exposed to philosophy (that is, college-level learning) in your training, and from the beginning you have been accustomed to hearing all your lessons and advice expressed in philosophical language. You must approach higher education with familiarity and an open mind, since these lessons alone bestow on young people the perfect, adult polish that is truly based on Reason.
2. You鈥檙e in college to learn, not to be entertained
Young people should enjoy lectures, so long as they鈥檙e also deriving benefit from them. But they shouldn鈥檛 make enjoyment their educational goal, nor should they think it necessary to leave a professor鈥檚 class humming a tune or radiant with joy, just as they wouldn鈥檛 expect to be anointed with cologne when they really need treatment from a doctor. Instead, they should experience joy if their mind, after being clouded with mist and dullness, is made clear by a penetrating lecture, just as we clear away a swarm of bees with smoke.
Even if a professor rightly adopts a style that includes some amount of pleasure and persuasion, students should pay very little attention to that aspect of the lecture, at least when first starting out. Later, perhaps, they may act like people drinking from engraved glassware who, once they鈥檝e satisfied their thirst, lift and turn their cups to observe their decoration. That is, after they鈥檝e been inspired and filled with learning, then students may scrutinize a lecture鈥檚 style, to see if it contains anything clever or extraordinary. But the beginning student who鈥檚 not concerned with the contents but demands that lectures be given in a pleasing style is just like someone who declines to drink medicine unless the cup is made from a special type of clay, or who refuses to wear a coat in winter unless it鈥檚 made from the wool of certain sheep. This disease has created a great deficit of intellect and good sense because students are ready to praise style and expression and fine recitations, even though they can鈥檛 discern whether what鈥檚 being recited is useful or useless, essential or superfluous, and they don鈥檛 even want to find out.
3. There鈥檚 no shame in asking questions
In the beginning, of course, lectures may well deal with certain subjects that are difficult for young and inexperienced students to grasp. Even so, they most often fall into uncertainty and ignorance through their own fault, creating this situation for themselves by a couple of different, and opposing, natural tendencies. Some students, feeling a sort of shame and wishing to spare the professor鈥檚 feelings, hesitate to ask questions or clarify what鈥檚 being said, and so they nod along as though they understand. Others are driven by inappropriate ambition and vain competitiveness with their fellow students. In their eagerness to demonstrate their acuity and capacity to learn quickly, they admit to catching the professor鈥檚 meaning before they really do, and so in fact they never get it. Those who feel shame and remain silent in lecture find themselves feeling distressed and confused afterward, and so they鈥檙e compelled by an even greater sense of shame to bother their instructors, chasing them down and finally asking their questions. The ambitious and reckless, meanwhile, always struggle to cover up and conceal their lack of learning.
4. So, ask questions but stay on topic and don鈥檛 show off
When you鈥檙e attending a dinner party, you must eat what鈥檚 being served, without requesting something different or criticizing the food. And so, when you鈥檙e attending a 鈥渂anquet of words,鈥� you should listen to the professor in silence, since that鈥檚 why you came. Some people, however, like to draw a professor off topic, pose extraneous questions, and raise other issues: They make for an unpleasant and disagreeable audience, since they derive no benefit for themselves, while they confuse the instructor and disrupt the lecturing.
When a professor invites students to ask questions or pose their own problems, you must always be seen as raising points that are useful and necessary, but you must be careful not to pose too many questions, which is the habit of people interested in self-promotion. And now is not the time to be seeking answers to arcane questions. It鈥檚 very important to consider your instructors鈥� experience and natural abilities, and then to pose questions related to their areas of competence. You should not be forcing them out of their fields of expertise by, for example, asking a philosopher who鈥檚 studied ethics to address problems in natural science and mathematics, or asking a natural scientist to give an opinion about the premise to a syllogism. Students who don鈥檛 appreciate or accept what a professor has to offer and ask instead for things outside their competence not only harm themselves, but they also gain a reputation for mean-spiritedness and ill-will.
5. Be an active learner
When it comes to lectures, some people believe all the work is done by the speaker and the student does nothing. Speakers arrive, so they think, fully prepared and having given great thought to their topic, while students charge in and take their seats, oblivious and neglectful of their duties, as though they鈥檝e merely arrived at dinner. However, it does in fact take some effort to be a courteous dinner companion, and even more is required of the good student. Indeed, students are partners in the lecture and colleagues with the speaker. They ought not be meticulous in examining a speaker鈥檚 faults, scrutinizing every word and action, while they themselves are unaccountable even as they misbehave and fail to be a good audience. Just as when playing ball, the person catching must coordinate movements with the person who鈥檚 throwing, so at lectures some coordination is necessary, on the part of both speaker and student, if each is going to perform their duty.
6. Give yourself time to learn
When learning to read, to play an instrument, or to compete in a sport, the early lessons involve much confusion and toil and uncertainty, but then as you make steady progress there develops a real familiarity and knowledge鈥攁s also happens when forming friendships鈥攖hat makes everything about the activity agreeable, manageable, and easy to perform. So it is with higher learning, which of course includes basic terminology and subject matter that are tricky and unfamiliar, but you shouldn鈥檛 timidly abandon those early lessons out of fear or cowardice. Rather, you should always give your best effort, and you should persevere and cling to your progress as you await the familiarity that makes everything that鈥檚 worthwhile seem pleasant. For familiarity won鈥檛 take long to arrive, and when it comes, it will illuminate your path to education and instill in you a fierce desire for virtue. Conversely, the wholly miserable or faint-hearted people who lack this desire are destined to live the rest of their lives devoid of the benefits of higher education because of their cowardice.
7. Be fair and generous in your course evaluations
Offering praise in the right proportion requires some discretion and moderation, since neither a deficiency nor an excess of praise is commendable. On the one extreme, there are the insufferable and onerous students who are stubbornly defiant in the face of every argument, filled with deep-seated conceit and pre-disposed to self-glorification, always thinking they could do better. They sit stone-faced and say nothing to indicate that they鈥檙e receptive to what鈥檚 being said, and with their affected silence, gravitas, and pretense, they try to earn a reputation for being unflappable and profound. They conceive of praise as though it were money: If they pay a compliment to someone else, they think it鈥檚 been withdrawn from their own account. And so, they think that they鈥檒l appear wise when they offer ridicule and respectable when they show contempt.
College-level discourse, however, relies on knowledge and research into the cause of every phenomenon to dispel the awe and wonder that arise from confusion and ignorance, and it does so without sacrificing good humor, moderation, or human decency. Indeed, for people who truly and unwaveringly possess those good qualities, there鈥檚 no higher honor than to show respect to someone who deserves it, no adornment more beautiful than to decorate someone else. People act this way when they鈥檝e been generously encouraged by others; when people are stingy with their praise, they reveal just how impoverished they are and how much they hunger for praise themselves.
8. Learn to accept criticism and aim for self-improvement
Some listeners take a professor鈥檚 chastisement so carelessly and lightly that they laugh while being scolded and praise the one who鈥檚 scolding them, just as freeloaders lose none of their eagerness and confidence even when their hosts are belittling them. Their shamelessness is certainly no proof of courage. Now, there鈥檚 nothing dishonorable or unsophisticated in taking an innocent joke with grace and good humor when it鈥檚 delivered playfully and in jest; in fact, that鈥檚 very noble and judicious. However, if someone can listen to a rebuke or reprimand meant to improve their character, administered with straight-talk as though it were a bitter pill, and not be humbled, break out in a sweat, or feel dazed, and not sense a flicker of shame in their soul, but instead remain unmoved, flash a grin, or laugh it off, that鈥檚 the sure sign of a person who鈥檚 servile and incapable of embarrassment on account of having had their bad behavior continuously reinforced. Criticism leaves no mark on their soul, which has developed a hard and calloused exterior.
Others, if they are chastised even once, run away from the classroom, fleeing without ever looking back. They have the right basis for improving themselves, since they naturally feel shame, but they squander the opportunity through self-indulgence and soft living. They can鈥檛 withstand criticism or accept correction graciously. Instead, they open their ears to the soft and gentle voices of flatterers and sophists, who charm them with pleasing words that offer no benefit whatsoever. This is like walking away after a surgeon makes an incision and not accepting the bandage, feeling all the pain but being too impatient to experience the healing that comes with treatment. And so, you must suffer and feel the bite of pain, but when you鈥檝e been criticized, you must not be crushed or disheartened. Rather, as though your learning were a sort of consecration in a religious ritual, you must endure the confusion of the initial purification in the hope of experiencing the sweetness and joy that come from your distress.
9. The lecture is the starting point, but you must take charge of your own learning
Some students aren鈥檛 willing to work through scholarly problems on their own, but they always present them to their professor, repeatedly inquiring about the same things. In this way they鈥檙e like young birds still in the nest: They stretch open their beaks in the direction of another bird鈥檚 mouth, wishing to receive their food made ready-to-eat by someone else鈥檚 effort. And there are others who, in the hope of establishing an undeserved reputation for diligence and eagerness, wear down their professors with their chattiness and idle curiosity, always raising questions about tangential topics and seeking demonstrative proof for things that don鈥檛 need proving. These students always slow the teacher down with their inane and excessive questions, and they obstruct the steady progress of learning.
As for the lazy students, let me encourage them to grasp the main points of any topic while listening to a lecture, and then to work out the rest of the lesson for themselves, relying on their memory of the lecture to guide their discovery of meaning. They should treat the lecture as a starting point, or as a seed, which they may then nourish and grow on their own. For the mind isn鈥檛 like a container that needs filling, but it鈥檚 like firewood that only needs a spark to ignite a motivation for discovery and an appetite for the truth. Imagine that the hearth fire has died in the home of one of your neighbors, and after they find a big, bright fire in another house, they remain there getting warm, without going back home. So it is for people who listen to a professor giving a lecture but don鈥檛 think it necessary to kindle the light of their own mind. They sit enchanted, enjoying what they hear, and though they may form an opinion after listening, as we appear flush and bright after sitting by a fire, they haven鈥檛 really warmed the moldy darkness of their soul or expelled the gloom by means of real learning.
10. Real learning is a life-long process
Our aim in college is not merely to get a degree. We must aim to acquire a habit of learning that鈥檚 not merely academic or bookish, but that鈥檚 fundamental to our character and grounded in our studies. We must recognize, therefore, that listening well is the foundation for living well.
Jeffrey Beneker is professor of classics at the University of Wisconsin鈥揗adison. He is the editor and translator of Plutarch鈥檚 How to Be a Leader (快色直播) and the author of The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch鈥檚 Lives.