ABSTRACT
The circumstances under which Roman children learned to read and write, and the extent of the linguistic knowledge which they acquired at an early age, varied considerably according to their family background. Many received their lessons at home, when the father, mother or other relative had the leisure and ability to teach them, or when, as often happened, their ‘pedagogue’ was competent to do so. Others, whose home circumstances were less favourable, were sent to school. The chief difference, so far as we can judge, seems to have been that those who went to the primary schools concentrated mainly on reading and writing in Latin, as these schools had to cater for the ordinary working population, whereas those who were taught at home were often able also to acquire greater proficiency in Greek. Instruction was based on a logical and orderly progression from letters to syllables, from syllables to words, and from words to sentences and short continuous passages. It was the same in both languages, as may be seen from a comparison of the brief descriptions given in Greek by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and in Latin by Manilius at much the same period. [1] Quintilian's account of primary education, which was later used and adapted by St Jerome, [2] is also applicable to both languages. The system was Greek in origin, and, as the Greek teachers kept to the same general pattern wherever they went, the Romans followed suit. The richest source of illustrative material is in Greek, mostly in the form of alphabets, syllabaries and other exercises, written by schoolchildren themselves on waxed or wooden tablets, on papyrus, or, in the poorest circles, on potsherds, which have been recovered from Graeco-Roman Egypt. [3] But quite the most interesting document for our purpose is a Cairo papyrus of the third century B.C., published by O. Guéraud and P. Jouget in 1938. It is a manual designed for the use of primary teachers (published under the rather misleading title of Un Livre d’Ecolier., which, though not completely preserved, gives an admirable picture of the graduated process of learning. [4]
