Among the instrumentalities of higher education were the Schools of the Prophets, which taught philosophy, medicine, poetry, history, and law to the sons of prophets and priests, and of leading families. These schools were influential in stimulating the production of the historical, poetical, and prophetic books of the Old Testament. But more important as direct means of higher education were the Schools of the Rabbis. These sprang up in Alexandria, Babylon, and Jerusalem in the early centuries of the Christian era. They were private institutions founded by celebrated teachers. Doubtless it was in such a school as this that St. Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. The principal subjects studied were theology and law,--politics, history, mathematics and science being excluded. The collection of the sayings and discussions was begun in the second century A.D. and afterward took form in the Talmud. =Criticism of Jewish Education.=--1. It exalted the home and insisted on the control of children by their parents. 2. It gave to woman an honored place in the home. 3. It gave an intelligent interpretation of the school and its functions. In regard to school attendance, the number of pupils under one teacher, the respect due to teachers, the course of study, and many other matters, it showed practical wisdom. 4. It taught obedience, patriotism, and religion. 5. It provided only for Jewish children. 6. It was mild and generally wise in discipline, though mistaken in forbidding corporal punishment before the eleventh year, while admitting its use after that. 7. It developed an honest, intelligent, progressive, God-fearing people. 8. It produced some of the greatest poets and historians of the world. THE TALMUD[12] This book, as we have seen, is the outgrowth of the discussions of the rabbis, whose sayings, collected from the second to the sixth century A.D., are herein contained. It proclaims with great minuteness rules of life which the faithful Jew still rigidly observes. It has aided in perpetuating Jewish laws, ceremonies, customs, and religion, and has been the most potent means of preserving the national and racial characteristics of the Jews for nearly two thousand years. Driven from one country to another, they have always carried the Talmud with them and have been guided and kept united by its teachings. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the study of the Talmud has been revived, not only among the Jews, but also among Christians and students of all classes. EXTRACTS FROM THE TALMUD 1. Even if the gates of heaven are shut to prayer, they are open to tears. 2. Teach thy tongue to say, "I do not know." 3. If a word spoken in its time is worth one piece of money, silence is worth two. 4. Not the place honors the man, but the man the place. 5. The world is saved by the breath of school children. FOOTNOTES: [12] See Peters, "Justice to the Jew." CHAPTER VI EGYPT