Should education be fun?

Greek Learning Greek
1

I’ll get around to transcribing people’s recently posted audio shortly, but I saw this on Laudator Temporis Acti:

Aristotle, Politics 8.4.4 (1339 a; tr. H. Rackham):

Now it is not difficult to see that one must not make amusement the object of the education of the young; for amusement does not go with learning—learning is a painful process.

ὅτι μὲν οὖν δεῖ τοὺς νέους μὴ παιδιᾶς ἕνεκα παιδεύειν, οὐκ ἄδηλον· οὐ γὰρ παίζουσι μανθάνοντες, μετὰ λύπης γὰρ ἡ μάθησις.

I liked this, but λύπης echoed in my head as a read it, with the last part of the quotation sounding almost proverbial. I didn’t think that came out in the translation. Have I made any serious blunders with the following?

“It’s obvious that the young shouldn’t learn as a pastime. Learners are not at play — the learning comes through grief.”

2

Interesting to set this alongside what he say in the Poetics:

“Learning (μανθάνειν) is most pleasurable (ἥδιστον) not just to philosophers but to everyone else too (καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὁμοίως).” (This in the context of mimesis.)

So: we all enjoy learning, but it’s a painful process?

3

They used to have plenty of painful corporal punishment.

C o l l o q u i u m H a r l e i a n u m

ἄξιος εἶ δαρῆναι. dignus es vapulare.