[79:] Athen. Mitt., XIII., p. 427: Ὠκυθόα ἀστραγάλως πέτταρας, στρόβιλον, μάστιγα, δαίδα, . . . .
XXII.—EDUCATION, WITH WRITING AND PAINTING.
(Table-Case J.)
Education.—Case J contains several objects illustrating that part of the Greek child's education which was connected with the arts of reading, arithmetic and writing. A Greek terracotta of the fourth century B.C. with Silenus holding the child Dionysos by the hand (No. 601), may be supposed to represent the old pedagogue, the slave whose duty it was to take the child to school. (Scenes in a music school are shown on the vases E 171, E 172, in cases 55-56.)
Fig. 236.—Terracotta Groups. Reading and Writing Lessons (No. 602). Ht. 4¼ in. and 4¾ in.
Reading.—Another terracotta group of about the third century B.C. (No. 602, fig. 236, right) shows a kindly old schoolmaster seated and teaching a boy who stands by his side to read from a roll. The ancient book differed from our own in taking the form of a roll. The reader would first unroll the beginning, and then, as he went on, roll up the part he had finished, making thus a double roll, as it were, of the part read and the part unread. See the tablet in Case 56 of the child Avita, reading her scrolls, with her dog in attendance (No. 603).
Fig. 237.—Spelling Exercise (No. 605).