818 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tliere was a special division where each pebble meant five of its re- 

 spective order. Thus 5,839 on the abacus would be — 



M. 



c. 



X. 



Units. 



Numbers were often represented by the letters of the alphabet; the 

 first ten characters stood for the numbers from one to ten; the 

 eleventh character signified twenty; the twelfth, thirty, and so on; 

 eleven was represented by the letters for ten and one. Thus — 



1, 2, 5 in the Greek notation is a', ^\ e'; but 125 is p/^e', in which 



p = 100 



/C =: 20 ;«®P^' 



€ = _^ 1897 



125 



Geometry, though advocated by the philosophers as good disci- 

 pline for boys too young for philosophical and political studies, was 

 not taught in the common schools, but became a favorite study of 

 the university scholars. Over the door of Plato's lecture room was 

 written, " Let none ignorant of geometry enter here." The absence 

 of the great number of compulsory studies which the modern boy 

 is forced to taste, but seldom till his university course is enabled to 

 digest, is a marked and praiseworthy feature of ordinary Greek 

 schooling. 



The importance assigned to music and gymnastics forms the most 

 noticeable contrast between old Hellenic training and ours. Music 

 in its strict sense was practically synonymous with culture, and not 

 only gave color but formed the basis of the educational theory. Real 

 music does not cease with the song or the performance on the instru- 

 ment, but wields its subtle though powerful influence in making our 

 lives in harmony or at discord with pure thought and noble action. 

 When we speak of the influence of music we think of it as a recrea- 

 tion, but a pastime, indeed, which affords harmless amusements, and 

 brings boys within the refining influence of their sisters and young 

 lady friends, seldom anything more. The Greek thinker held that 

 music not only had a refining influence, but that continuous playing 

 of warlike tunes really made men warlike, and that passionate and 

 voluptuous music made men passionate and voluptuous. The Gre- 

 cian father was as particular about the kind of music his boy heard 

 as we are about what our sons read. There are as many Captain 



