L' ÉDUCATION D'ACHILE. L'Inflexible Chiron fesait chaque matin Endéver bien souvent son élève mutin. Las! que de professeurs rompent nos jeunes têtes, Et sans être sans torts, sont plus qu'à moitié bêtes! Iliade, Traduction philosophique de Mr. Patin.

Trustman, Benjamin A., Trustman, Julia M. · 1842

The education of Achilles. It seems that in ancient times relations between teachers and students were similar to today's problems. Here we can see the centaur Cheiron in a futile attempt to transmit the secrets of the alphabet to a somewhat puzzled looking Achilles. See also the more serious paintings in the Herculaneum at Naples, at the Museo Nazionale. During the 1840's, a quarrel between painters of the classic and romantic schools had fully flared up. Delacroix asked the "loaded" question: "Who is going to liberate us from the old Greeks?" Daumier succeeded to answer it his own way by showing historic personalities such as Hercules, Pygmalion or Agamemnon in absurd situations.