Danger of over severity. those things which the careful fathers have provided for the sustenance of their old age. A cursed tribe! True friendship's hypocrites, they have no knowledge of plain dealing and frank speech. They flatter the rich, and despise the poor; and they seduce the young, as by a musical charm. When those who feed them begin to laugh, then they grin and show their teeth. They are mere counterfeits, bastard pretenders to humanity, living at the nod and beck of the rich; free by birth, yet slaves by choice, who always think themselves abused when they are not so, because they are not supported in idleness at others' cost. Wherefore, if fathers have any care for the good breeding of their children, they ought to drive such foul beasts as these out of doors. They ought also to keep them from the companionship of vicious school-fellows, for these are able to corrupt the most ingenuous dispositions. 18. These counsels which I have now given are of great worth and importance; what I now have to add touches certain allowances that are to be made to human nature. Again therefore I would not have fathers of an over-rigid and harsh temper, but so mild as to forgive some slips of youth, remembering that they themselves were once young. But as physicians are wont to mix their bitter medicines with sweet syrups, to make what is pleasant a vehicle for what is wholesome, so should fathers temper the keenness of their reproofs with lenity. They may occasionally loosen the reins, and allow their children to take some liberties they are inclined to, and again, when it is fit, manage them with a straighter bridle. But chiefly should they bear their errors without passion, if it may be; and if they chance to be heated more than ordinary, they ought not to suffer the flame to burn long. For it is better that a father's anger be hasty than severe; because the heaviness of his wrath, joined with unplacableness, is no small argument of hatred towards the child. It is good also not to discover the notice they take of divers faults, and to transfer to such cases that dimness of sight and hardness of hearing that are wont to accompany old age; so as sometimes not to hear what they hear, nor to see what they see, of their children's miscarriages. We use to bear with some failings in our friends, and it is no wonder if we do the like to our children, es pecially when we sometimes overlook drunkenness in our very servants. Thou hast at times been too straight-handed to thy son; make him at other whiles a larger allowance. Thou hast, it may be, been too angry with him; pardon him the next fault to make him amends. He hath made use of a servant's wit to circumvent thee in something; restrain thy anger. He hath made bold to take a yoke of oxen out of the pasture, or he hath come home smelling of his yesterday's drink; take no notice of it; and if of ointments too, say nothing. For by this means the wild colt sometimes is made more tame. . . . I will add a few words more, and put an end to these advices. The chiefest thing Teaching by that fathers are to look to is, that they themselves become example. effectual examples to their children, by doing all those things which belong to them and avoiding all vicious practices, that in their lives, as in a glass, their children may see enough to give them an aversion to all ill words and actions. For those that chide children for such faults as they themselves fall into unconsciously accuse themselves, under their children's names. And if they are altogether vicious in their own lives, they lose the right of reprehending their very servants, and much more do they forfeit it towards their sons. Yea, what is more than that, they make themselves even counsellors and instructors to them in wickedness. For where old men are impudent, there of necessity must the young men be so too. Wherefore we are to apply our minds to all such practices as may conduce to the good breeding of our children. And here we may take example from Eurydice of Hierapolis, who, although she was an Illyrian, and so thrice a barbarian, yet applied herself to learning when she was well advanced in years, that she might teach her children. Her love towards her children appears evidently in this Epigram of hers, which she dedicated to the Muses: Eurydice to the Muses here doth raise This monument, her honest love to praise ; Who her grown sons that she might scholars breed, And thus have I finished the precepts which I designed to give concerning this subject. But that they should all be followed by any one reader is rather, I fear, to be wished than hoped. And to follow the greater part of them, though it may not be impossible to human nature, yet will need a concurrence of more than ordinary diligence joined with good fortune. PART II ROMAN EDUCATION I. EARLY ROMAN EDUCATION Periods of Roman Education. Roman education falls into two general periods of clearly defined characteristics, though the line of demarcation between the two is not distinct. The first of these periods is from the earliest days to the time when Grecian ideas of life, culture, and enjoyment came in and Rome became as cosmopolitan in its ideas and manners as it had already become in arms and government. The second period dates from this change, approximately the middle of the second century B.C., when Macedonia was conquered and Greece became a Roman province, and includes the latter years of the Republic and all of the imperial period. This one contrast between the old Roman and the Græco-Roman period gives that which is fundamental to the understanding of the history of Roman education. Each of these general periods may be again divided into sub-periods, which will be referred to as the first, second, third, and fourth periods, while the term "general" will be used to indicate the more comprehensive divisions. The historic evolution of Roman education can be better understood by grouping the sources under these four periods. The first of these includes the legendary and the early historic period to the beginning of the third century B.C. The second extends to the beginning of the Græco-Roman period, 146 B.C. The third dates to the rather indefinite time in the second and third Christian centuries when Roman society gave general evidence of that moral and cultural decline that previously had become characteristic of the imperial court. The fourth includes the centuries of decadence to the termination of the imperial office in the West. So far as there is anything distinctive about the education of this last period that is not also true of the later portion of the third period, it centres about the opposition between the Christian religion and the pagan culture. Since this opposition is more closely connected with medieval than with classical education, the source material is not included here; none of the present selections date from later than the middle of the second Christian century. The general features of the education of the later period, so far as they are Roman, are similar to those of the second Christian century. Sources of Information for the Old Roman Period. What the laws of Moses were to early Hebrew education, the laws of Lycurgus to Spartan education, the laws of Solon and to a certain extent the Homeric poems to the early Athenian education, the Laws of the Twelve Tables were to the early education of the Romans. Not only do these express the ideals of Roman education, but to a large extent they form the subject-matter thereof. Their influence is dominant from the time of their formation, the middle of the fifth century B.C. to the opening of the first century B.C., by which time the Homeric poems and the early Latin literature had largely usurped their place. The fragments of these tables, preserved and given here, form the most important single source for this early period. A second source, though not presented here, is the bio |