at Como), a boy—­the son of a fellow townsman—­came to pay his respects.  I said, ‘Are you at school?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied.  ‘Where?’ ’At Milan.’  ‘And why not here?’ At this his father said, ’Because we have no teachers here.’  ’And why have you none?  It is of the greatest importance to any of you who are fathers—­and it happened that several fathers were listening—­that your children should be taught here rather than anywhere else....  How small a thing it is to put money together and engage teachers and to apply to their salary the amount which you now spend on lodgings, travelling expenses, and the articles that have always to be purchased when one is away from home.’” Whereupon he proceeds himself to offer to contribute one-third of whatever sum the parents collect.  He does not believe in giving the whole, because experience has taught him that endowments of this kind are commonly misused.  The parents must themselves retain an interest in preventing corruption; and this will be the case so long as they are themselves paying their share.  In this instance we are, however, to think rather of a high school or school of rhetoric than of the primary school.  Como would not lack a primary school, nor would parents send very young children to lodge in Milan.  There is no trace of real boarding-schools.

To whatever school Publius goes he will be accompanied by a sedate slave, generally elderly and also generally a Greek, whom you may call his “guardian,” or his “governor,” or his “mentor,” according to your fancy.  The function of this worthy is to look after the morals and behaviour of the boy when in the streets, and also to supervise his manners when at home.  Publius will not be free of this incubus until the day when he puts on the adult’s toga; and he must be prepared to accept, at least in his younger days, not only scolding, but also corporal punishment from him.  In poorer families the mother corrected her children with a slipper.  The “guardian” of Publius is nevertheless a slave, and will carry the young master’s books and school requisites for him, while the sons of poorer parents are marching along, freer and happier, with their tablets and writing-case slung over their left arm.  When, in the New Testament, we are told that the “Law hath been our schoolmaster unto Christ,” the word employed does not at all mean schoolmaster.  It means this slave who keeps the pupil under salutary discipline until he reaches the schoolmaster, and who superintends his conduct until he is of age.

[Illustration:  FIG. 94.—­WRITING MATERIALS.]

School age regularly begins at seven for the elementary stage, which commonly includes writing, reading, and arithmetic.  The first lessons in writing are done upon wax tablets, which correspond to our slate.  For school purposes they are flat pieces of wood, with a rim, their surface being covered with a thin layer of wax.  The pupil takes a “style,” or metal stiletto, pointed at one end and flat at the other; with the point he scratches, or “ploughs” as the Romans called it, the writing in the wax; with the other end he flattens the wax and so makes the necessary erasures when he desires to correct a word or to “clean his slate.”