1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pedagogue

PEDAGOGUE, a teacher or schoolmaster, a term usually now applied with a certain amount of contempt, implying pedantry, dogmatism or narrow-mindedness. The Gr. παιδαγωγός (παῖς, boy, ἀγωγός, leader, ἅγειν, to lead), from which the English word is derived, was not strictly an instructor. He was a slave in an Athenian household who looked after the personal safety of the sons of the master of the house, kept them from bad company, and took them to and from school and the gymnasium. He probably sat with his charges in school. The boys were put in his charge at the age of six. The παιδαγωγός being a slave, was necessarily a foreigner, usually a Thracian or Asiatic. The Romans adopted the paedagogus or pedagogus towards the end of the republic. He probably took some part in the instruction of the boys (see Schools). Under the empire, the pedagogus was specifically the instructor of the boy slaves, who were being trained and educated in the household of the emperor and of the rich nobles and other persons; these boys lived together in a paedagogium, and were known as pueri paedagogiani, a name which has possibly developed into “page” (q.v.).