7. The forms and names of the letters should be learned simultaneously, playthings being utilized to assist in this.
8. Care should be taken that children do not acquire a distaste for learning.
9. In learning to read, advance very slowly.
10. Writing should begin with tracing, and the copies should consist of moral precepts.
11. The individuality of the child should be studied.
12. Public schools are preferable to other means of education, because they do not subject the child to greater moral danger, while they stimulate him by association, friendship, and example, to nobler endeavor.
13. Under the literatus, grammar, composition, music, geometry, astronomy, and literature are to be studied.
14. The climax of education should be rhetoric.
Other Roman Educators.—Among the other Roman educators may be mentioned Plutarch (50-138 A.D.) and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Plutarch in his "Parallel Lives" gives particular attention to morals. He offers valuable suggestions as to the training of children, laying great stress upon family life, an admonition particularly needed in Rome at that period. He also urges that women should be educated in order properly to train their children, being one of the first to consider this question.
Marcus Aurelius, called "the philosopher on the throne," in his "Meditations" gave expression to most lofty thoughts, showing keenest self-examination and obedience to conscience. His moral teachings are among the noblest of all the writers of antiquity.