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- minating at twelve, the second at fourteen, the third at
twenty, and the fourth at twenty-five years of age.[1] Primary education began at from five to seven, and the pupils were usually sent to a day-school in the charge of a slave, named a paedagogue. There they were taught to read, write, and to count; and suitable pieces were given to them to learn by rote. A wooden tablet faced with wax, upon which they scratched with a style, took the place of the modern slate or copy-book. Calculation was restricted to some simple operations of mental arithmetic, owing to the cumbersome method of figuring employed by the ancients, which did not lend itself easily to the manipulation of written numbers.[2] The schoolmasters who presided over such preparatory establish-*
- ↑ Chrysostom, Genesis, i, Hom. iii, 3 (in Migne, iv, 29); In Epist. ad Coloss. Hom. iv, 3 (in Migne, xi, 328); Paulus Aegin., i, 14; cf. Quintilian, i, 1, etc. Youths from the provinces studying at Rome were packed home again at twenty, but this order seems to have been dropped later on; Cod. Theod., XIV, ix, 1 (not retained in Code).
- ↑ On first methods with children, see Quintilian, i; Jerome, Epist., 107; Chrysostom, Ad Pop. Ant. Hom. xvi, 14 (in Migne, ii, 168); De Mut. Nom. ii, 1 (in Migne, iii, 125); Genesis, i, Hom. iii, 3; Epist. Coloss. i, Hom. iv, 3 (in Migne, xi, 329), etc. Libanius, In Chriis (Reiske, ii, p. 868). The first book of Augustine's Confessions gives many particulars as to his own bringing up in childhood. Greek nursemaids were hired at Rome so that young children might learn the language; Tacitus, De Caus. Cor. Eloq., 29. Wooden or ivory letters were used as playthings. These schoolmasters are represented as very harsh instructors, who cowed the spirit of their pupils. The rod was freely used, and chiefly by the paedagogue. Even scholars of maturer age were corrected by whipping. Libanius used to "wake up the lazy ones with a strap, the incorrigible he expelled." Epist., 1119. Chrysostom himself accepts as axiomatic that nothing can be done with boys without beating; Act. Apost. Hom. xlii, 4 (in Migne, ix, 308). Quintilian and Paul of Aegina, however, advise going on the opposite tack; loc. cit.
