The next date or period which in connection with my subject it is of interest to fix, however approximately, is that when it is possible to speak of the existence of a reading public. On this point also I take the liberty of quoting one or two paragraphs from Jevons in which the probabilities are clearly presented: “Reading and writing were certainly taught as early as the year 500 B.C., and half a century later, to be unable to read or write was a thing to be ashamed of. Herodotus speaks of boys’ schools existing in Chios in the time of Histiæus, who lived about 500.”[24] “Instruction of this kind does not, however, prove the existence of a reading public. Enough education to be able to keep accounts, to read public notices, to correspond with friends or business agents, may have been in the possession of every free Athenian in the period between 500 and 450 B.C., and the want of such education may have caused a man to be sneered at; but this does not prove the habit of reading literature.” There are, however, various references which indicate that by the year 450 B.C. the habit of reading was beginning to become general, at least in certain circles of society. Jevons quotes a passage from the _Tagenistæ_ of Aristophanes, in which, speaking of a young man gone wrong, the dramatist ascribes his ruin to “a book, to Prodicus or to bad company.”[25] Jevons also finds in fragments of an old comedy such expressions as “an unlettered man,” “a man who does not know his A B C.” A passage in the lyric fragments of the poet Theognis (who lived 583-500) is of interest not merely as an evidence of some public circulation of literature, but as possibly the earliest example of an author’s attempting to control the circulation of his own productions. Theognis says he has hit on a device which will prevent his verses from being appropriated by any one else. He will put his name on them as a seal (or trade-mark) and then “no one will take inferior work for his when the good is to be had, but every one will say ‘These are the verses of Theognis, the Megarian.’” As Jevons says: “This passage certainly implies that Theognis committed his works to writing.” It also appears to imply that there was likely to be sufficient literary prestige attaching to the poetry of Theognis to tempt an unscrupulous person to claim to be its author, while it is at least possible to infer that the plan of Theognis had reference not only to his prestige as an author, but also to certain author’s proceeds from the sales of his works, which proceeds he desired to keep plagiarists from appropriating. Clement does not, however, believe that there is adequate ground for the latter supposition, but contends that if the poet caused copies of his poems to be multiplied and distributed, it was not for the purpose of having them sold, and not even in order that they might be read, but to enable his friends to learn them and to sing