Another famous teacher was Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, who opened the school at Lydda. His weakness lay in the fact that he would never trust his own judgment to deduce a rule. He accepted and taught only what he had learned on the authority of his teachers. That type of man has its value in the world and is like the priest, who treasures past traditions. But we need originators too, who boldly open up new highways; for if we mistrusted our own powers altogether and walked only in the old paths, knowledge would not grow and the world would not advance. Rabbi Eliezer taught: "Thy fellowman's honor must be as dear to thee as thine own. Do not allow thyself to be easily angered. Repent one day before thy death." R. Joshua. In contrast, let us single out a more interesting figure, a man who left his impress on his age--Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah. Broad, versatile and gifted, he as a youth had been a chorister in the Temple, now laid waste. His mother, like Samuel's, destined him for a religious life from his birth. Like a true genius, he broke through many of the disadvantages that handicapped him and became one of the Tannäim and the founder of a new academy at Bekiim. He was miserably poor and eked out a scanty existence as a needle-maker. For these great teachers received no emolument for their labors in the religious Academy. It was a service of love. They followed the principle laid down by Rabbi Zadok, "Do not use the Law as a crown to shine therewith or a spade to dig therewith." Rabbi Joshua was, however, so severely plain that a Roman emperor's daughter, combining at once a compliment and an insult, asked why so much wisdom should be deposited in so homely a vessel. Tradition says he advised her to put her father's wine in golden jars with a lamentable result, to prove that, good wisdom, like good wine, may be best preserved in plain receptacles. Many of the scholarly leaders belonged to the Jewish aristocracy, that was still prized even in their fallen state. Joshua was a man of the "common people." Yet that became for him a source of power, as, being closer to the masses, he was the better able to influence them, and he helped to bring the upper and lower classes closer together. By his gentleness and moderation he prevented many a split in Judaism that often threatened when divergence of view reached the danger point. Although, like Gamaliel, a great mathematician and astronomer, he was modest and obedient and submitted to a humiliating ordeal imposed by this stern Nasi because of a mistaken calculation as to the date of a holy day. He must travel with purse and staff on the very day, according to his error, Yom Kippur would have fallen. He came. Gamaliel embraced him and said, "Welcome, my master and my pupil; my master in wisdom and my pupil in obedience." Such examples by great teachers were most beneficial to the people at large.