(M386) The use of Sumerian terms and phrases in the body of a document written in Semitic Babylonian might be ascribed to a mere tradition. But they were no meaningless formulæ. The many variations, including the substitution of completely different though synonymous words, show that these Sumerian phrases were sufficiently understood to be intelligently used. In later times they either disappear altogether, or are used with little variation. They had become stereotyped and were conventional signs, doubtless read as Semitic, though written as Sumerian. Our own retention of Latin words is a close parallel. The First Dynasty of Babylon was bilingual at any rate in its legal documents, though the letters are all pure Semitic. The earlier documents show few signs of Semitic origin, though its influence can be traced as far back as we can go. (M387) The discovery at Sippara of a school dating from the First Dynasty of Babylon is very fully worked out by Professor Scheil in _Une Saison de fouilles à Sippara_, pp. 30-54. Professor Hilprecht gives further details in _Explorations in Bible Lands_, pp. 522-28 and _passim_. The methods of learning to write and the lessons in Sumerian are well described by these authors, and illustrated by numerous extant examples of practice-tablets. The subjects were very numerous and included arithmetic, mensuration, history, geography, and literature. As Dr. Pinches has shown by his edition of some of these practice-tablets,(365) these contain very valuable fragments of otherwise lost or imperfectly known texts. (M388) Slaves were often bound as apprentices to learn a trade or handicraft. A man might adopt a child to teach him his trade, and his duty to him was sufficiently discharged by doing so. (M389) We do not yet know in any authoritative way, when or with what ceremonies children were named. In the case of slaves we have a boy, still at the breast,(366) or a girl of three months, not named.(367) On the other hand, a girl still at the breast is named. Hence Meissner concludes, that at the end of one year, at latest, the child was given a name.(368) But the usage with respect to slaves is hardly a rule, and, as appears from the above, they were not consistently named. (M390) A child seems often to have been put out to nurse. From the phrase-book we learn that a father might “give a child to a wet-nurse to be suckled, and give the wet-nurse food and drink, oil for anointing, and clothing for three years.”(369) That this was not only done with adopted children is clear from the Code;(370) where we find a severe penalty laid on a wet-nurse, who substitutes another child for the one intrusted to her, without the parents’ consent. (M391) It will hardly do to interpret the phrase-book(371) as meaning that all children were made to learn writing. But that this was commonly done is evident from the number, both of men and women, who could act as scribes.(372) XV. Adoption