YOUNG GREEK BOYS AXB OLD GREEK SCHOOLS. 815 



sound for themselves and all tlie otlier letters, and are said to do 

 mucli more talking, take the female parts. Remnants, discovered 

 only a decade ago, prove the use of pictorial illustrations to teach 

 young children. The subject chosen is, as usual, taken from Homer. 

 One fragment represents the priest Chryses praying the king Aga- 

 memnon to ransom his daughter. Under the king, priest, and wagon- 

 load of ransom we read the words " Agamemnon," " Chryses," " the 

 Ransom." Not only correct pronunciation, but well-balanced intona- 

 tion and rhythm, were demanded by the Greek ear. Reading aloud 

 and learning the poets were great aids to this end. The children, 

 and those who were older, were taught to recite verses from that — 

 to them — inspired Greek Bible, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The 

 Greek required his son to memorize the great masters' poems, not only 

 as an intellectual acquirement, but as an incentive to holy living; 

 and so thorough was the training that ISTiceratus can say in Xeno- 

 phon's Banquet, " Even now I could recite the whole Iliad and Odys- 

 sey." Both of these books, some eight hundred and fifty pages 

 of close modern type, are claimed to have been handed down by 

 sheer memory from father to son. Though such cultivation seems 

 miraculous to us, whose memory powers have been weakened by 

 writing and the printing press, a striking example of its probability 

 is seen in the story circulated about the romantic marriage of the rich 

 German merchant, the renowned Dr. Schliemann. The doctor once 

 said, report has it, before a party of Athenians, that he would marry 

 the first woman who could recite the Odyssey. One day a fair Greek 

 girl appeared before him, unintroduced, asked if the promise was 

 true, recited her Homer, secured her home, and a wife's share of one 

 million dollars. 



Writing in ancient Greece was not for a long time considered a 

 very important essential to the average man ; probably being deemed 

 servile, as the business writing was almost entirely confined to for- 

 eigners and slaves. In time, however, it came to be considered an 

 ornament for the rich and people of leisure, though even the great 

 orators and scholars employed private secretaries on almost every pos- 

 sible occasion. We must not think of the Greek boy as using pencil 

 and slate or even pen and paper. The first companion of the school- 

 boy in his writing was the wax tablet — a thin, oblong board covered 

 with wax; sometimes a single piece like our slate, and sometimes 

 double, like the book slate of to-day. When two tablets were joined 

 in this way they were provided with raised edges, to prevent the waxed 

 surfaces from sticking together. The stylus was used to wi-ite upon 

 the wax; it was a sharp-pointed instrument of metal or ivory, in 

 shape much like our pencil, but with rounded end; the point cut 

 through the wax, and the blunt end was used to erase and rub the wax 



