Sparta Education Dbq Analysis

You're seven years old and there are Spartan soldiers taking you away from your family to train for the army. This is what Sparta was like, their education system was to train you so you were ready to battle. Sparta was a city-state located in the Southern Greek Peninsula. By 500 BCE it was the dominant city-state in Greece. Sparta had enemies from outside their walls, which was Persia and Athens, but they also had enemies inside, which were the helots. Because of this they created a military like society. Everything was controlled by their government. Sparta may have had weaknesses in their education but their were more positive than negative parts. The strengths of Spartan education did outweigh the weaknesses because they trained Spartan boys for war and battle, women were also trained, and Spartan babies, from birth, were expected to be healthy.

Evidence of this is, in Document B, where it explains how they were trained so they were ready to fight against Athens, Persia, and The Helots. It also states, "Instead of softening the boys’ feet with sandals, Lycurgus required them to harden their feet by going without shoes." They believed that if this habit were cultivated it would enable them to climb hills more easily and descend steep inclines with less danger, and that a youth who had accustomed himself to go barefoot would leap and jump and run more nimbly than a boy in sandals." This evidence helps explain why the strengths of Spartan education did outweigh the weaknesses because they had three different enemies inside and out and still managed to survive against them. It also shows how intense their training