<P> Military dominance was of extreme importance to the Spartans of Ancient Greece . In response, the Spartans structured their educational system as an extreme form of military boot camp, which they referred to as agoge . The pursuit of intellectual knowledge was seen as trivial, and thus academic learning, such as reading and writing, was kept to a minimum . A Spartan boy's life was devoted almost entirely to his school, and that school had but one purpose: to produce an almost indestructible Spartan phalanx . Formal education for a Spartan male began at about the age of seven when the state removed the boy from the custody of his parents and sent him to live in a barracks with many other boys his age . For all intents and purposes, the barracks was his new home, and the other males living in the barracks his family . For the next five years, until about the age of twelve, the boys would eat, sleep and train within their barracks - unit and receive instruction from an adult male citizen who had completed all of his military training and experienced battle . The instructor stressed discipline and exercise and saw to it that his students received little food and minimal clothing in an effort to force the boys to learn how to forage, steal and endure extreme hunger, all of which would be necessary skills in the course of a war . Those boys who survived the first stage of training entered into a secondary stage in which punishments became harsher and physical training and participation in sports almost non-stop in order to build up strength and endurance . During this stage, which lasted until the males were about eighteen years old, fighting within the unit was encouraged, mock battles were performed, acts of courage praised, and signs of cowardice and disobedience severely punished . During the mock battles, the young men were formed into phalanxes to learn to maneuver as if they were one entity and not a group of individuals . To be more efficient and effective during maneuvers, students were also trained in dancing and music, because this would enhance their ability to move gracefully as a unit . Toward the end of this phase of the agoge, the trainees were expected to hunt down and kill a Helot, a Greek slave . If caught, the student would be convicted and disciplined - not for committing murder, but for his inability to complete the murder without being discovered . </P> <P> The students would graduate from the agoge at the age of eighteen and receive the title of ephebes . Upon becoming an ephebe, the male would pledge strict and complete allegiance to Sparta and would join a private organization to continue training in which he would compete in gymnastics, hunting and performance with planned battles using real weapons . After two years, at the age of twenty, this training was finished and the now grown men were officially regarded as Spartan soldiers . </P> <P> Spartan women, unlike their Athenian counterparts, received a formal education that was supervised and controlled by the state . Much of the public schooling received by the Spartan women revolved around physical education . Until about the age of eighteen women were taught to run, wrestle, throw a discus, and also to throw javelins . The skills of the young women were tested regularly in competitions such as the annual footrace at the Heraea of Elis, In addition to physical education, the young girls also were taught to sing, dance, and play instruments often by traveling poets such as Alcman or by the elderly women in the polis . The Spartan educational system for females was very strict because its purpose was to train future mothers of soldiers in order to maintain the strength of Sparta's phalanxes, which were essential to Spartan defense and culture . </P> <P> Pythagoras was one of many Greek philosophers . He lived his life on the island Samos and is known for his contributions to mathematics . Pythagoras taught philosophy of life, religion and mathematics in his own school in Kroton, which is a Greek colony . Pythagoras' school is linked to the theorem that states that the sum of the two other sides is equivalent to the square on the hypotenuse of a right - angled triangle . The students of Pythagoras were known as pythagoreans . </P>

How was education different in athens and sparta
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