The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor
(pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself
well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave
him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in
antiquity.
Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher,
recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute.
At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it
made men sound in body and calm in spirit--what the Greeks called
"good and beautiful."
To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal
arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey.
Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of
his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I
married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting
surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned
almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman
who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to
distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she
become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I
aid you? Of what am I capable? My mother has always taught me that my
business was to be prudent.
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