At about six years of age Greek boys were sent to school, while the girls remained at home to learn from their mothers how to spin and weave, and to read a little and keep accounts. Their education was of the simplest kind and ceased very early.
FIG. 52. BOY ROLLING A HOOP
FIG. 53. WOMEN WHIPPING TOPS
FIG. 54. STYLUS
The first school to which a boy went was that of the letter-teacher, who taught reading, writing, and simple arithmetic. A kylix in Case 3 (see [head-band, p. 40]) is decorated with figures of schoolboys, one of whom holds a roll of manuscript, and another a writing tablet. These tablets were thin pieces of wood covered with wax and fastened together with cords ([fig. 56]). A pointed stylus ([fig. 54]) was used for writing, the blunt end being turned around when it was necessary to erase by smoothing the wax[1]. After three or four years in the letter-school the boys went to the music teacher, who taught them to sing and to play the lyre, and in connection with the music they learned many selections from the great poets. Training in the palaistra or wrestling-school was begun very early, and was usually continued until the boy was old enough to be called into the military service of the state. These lessons will be described in the section on athletics, as the sports of the palaistra were in general the same as those of the men’s gymnasium. In addition to the subjects already mentioned, many boys, during the fifth century and later, studied geometry, rhetoric, and philosophy.
[1] Several very interesting objects illustrating Greek writing and writing-materials are exhibited in the case devoted to learning in the Seventh Egyptian Room. They include a wooden tablet covered with wax, several short letters on potsherds—a cheap and common writing-material—and fragments of the Iliad and the Odyssey on papyrus, the usual substance on which books were written, dating from the third century B.C. The reed pens in this case are of the kind employed for writing on papyrus.
