8 10 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the evidence of tlie classic autliors, and the researches of the archteolo- 

 gists are the sole means of enlightenment. Naturally enough, the 

 most desirable information, the common everyday facts, are difficult 

 to obtain. 



A training of the youth, at one time military in its nature and 

 very similar to the German system, was required of the grown-up 

 youth or ephehi. These requirements were hung up in bronze or 

 carved in stone to be read by the Greeks, not yet favored with the 

 printing press. These announcements were continued even after the 

 compulsory military service had been discarded and other studies had 

 taken their place. These enactments, together with the Parthenon 

 frieze procession, furnish us almost our only information of the Greek 

 college system proper. 



Plato and Aristotle, in their ideal " states," have given us some 

 knowledge of a reliable nature; though we can not depend on them 

 any more than we could twenty centuries hence on Bellamy's Look- 

 ing Backward as a mirror of nineteenth-century life. In his 

 Protagoras, however, Plato's account of the Greek boy's training is 

 both clear and practical. The comic poets furnish us more valuable 

 information, though party spirit and satire oftentimes make the 

 " find " doubtful. Herodotus, Xenophon, and Pausanias yield by 

 far the most valuable intelligence that we derive from written 

 evidence. 



The vase paintings, gems, urns, and temple friezes which the 

 excavator of to-day is continually bringing to light in great numbers 

 are a most sure and interesting source of information. Athens 

 Sparta, Mycenae, the islands of the Greek seas, and even Italy have 

 produced many a powerful witness from their buried past. 



As the education of a child begins with the very first admonition 

 in its infancy and ends only with the grave, a few hints about the 

 Grecian baby may not be amiss. On the fifth or seventh day the 

 infant went through the ceremony of purification. This was called 

 the " run-around day," because at that time the child was carried 

 several times around the burning altar. The family on this day 

 enjoyed a festive meal ; the doors were decorated with wool for a girl 

 and with a crown of olive for a boy. On the tenth day the young 

 hopeful was named; a sacrifice was made, and another feast was 

 held. At this time the infant was given presents of metal and clay, 

 and the mother received painted vases from relatives and friends. 

 The classic baby was not unlike that little monarch of to-day — the 

 joy and the terror of his subjects. The mother's love was as great 

 and the helpless innocence of the child as powerful then as now. 

 The scene in the sixth book of the Iliad, where Hector's infant 

 screams with fright at the fluttering plume on his father's helmet, 



