In Athens, as at Sparta, weak, deformed or sickly infants were sometimes put out of the way (“exposed”), but in this case the decision rested with the father. Here, too, the first six years were spent at home, under the charge of the women of the household. The play of childhood took most often the form of active exercise and games, and in the list of amusements, under the thin disguise of strange names, we discover many varieties which have survived to the present day with undiminished popularity: The small box of metal or wood containing stones which rattled when it was shaken; hobby-horses, swinging and seesaw, walking on stilts, trundling hoops, kite-flying; spinning tops, whipping the humming top, and a game resembling our peg-top, but played with sharpened sticks; shooting or tossing smooth stones or nuts and the like, as in some of our modern games with marbles; tossing up and catching jackstones, in the shape of pebbles or small bones; making flat stones skip along the surface of the water, various exercises and games with balls, hide-and-seek, blindman’s buff, games like our drop-the-handkerchief, and others in which sides were chosen and one side then chased its opponents in the attempt to make them prisoners. Besides a share in the less violent of these sports, the little girls had, of course, their dolls, made of clay or wax and sometimes painted. They seldom left the women’s quarters, but acquired there whatever training was considered necessary for their later life. The school age for the boy began with his seventh year. Custom required that each son of a free citizen should be given instruction in gymnastics and music, but beyond keeping an eye on the morals of teachers and the conduct of their charges the state did not concern itself with education. It rested with the parent alone to decide how much schooling his boy should receive, and the schools were in all cases private institutions, supported by the fees of pupils. The status of the teacher was not an exalted one—the pay was small, and the position was often the last resort of the unsuccessful. We may be certain, therefore, that the results of education, even at Athens, too often fell far short of the exalted ideal cherished by many of her foremost citizens. The general features of the system are sufficiently clear, but many details of instruction, including the amount of time devoted to different branches, and the age at which they were begun, remain to be discovered. The literary training comprised reading and committing to memory selections from the poets, especially Homer and Hesiod, writing, and the elements of arithmetic. For musical training there was practice not only in singing selections from the great lyric poets, but also in the use of stringed instruments—the seven-stringed lyre, or the later cithara—as an accompaniment to the voice. The flute, as an instrument for ordinary use, was held in less esteem. [Illustration: FIG. 1.—Scene in a Palæstra.]