2. It honored the home and taught respect for the mother. In this, Rome took a great step in advance over many nations of antiquity. 3. It was not a State institution, and therefore could not offer equal advantages to all. 4. Its end was to prepare the youth for practical life and to fit him for the acquirement of wealth, rather than for the development of all the human powers. 5. It was superficial, and sought to apply Greek culture to Roman conditions and character. 6. It did not take a strong hold upon the Roman people so as to shape the course of the nation. 7. It ignored the claims of the masses, including women, to equal education and equal rights. FOOTNOTES: [20] "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Vol. I, p. 2. [21] The "Twelve Tables" were formulated about B.C. 450. They constituted the code of written law, and were written or engraved on tables of wood. They settled usages long in practice, but never before written, defining the rights of _plebeians_ and _patricians_. They were agreed to only after ten years of dispute and mutual concession. They resembled Solon's laws, owing, doubtless, to the commission which was sent to Greece to study the laws of that country. These tables were destroyed when the Gauls sacked Rome (B.C. 390), but their contents had been widely committed to memory, and were handed down from generation to generation. The mothers saw to it that these laws were early taught to their children, who thus came to venerate them and to have respect for authority. CHAPTER XII ROMAN EDUCATORS =Literature.=--(See Literature, Chapter XI.) _Forsyth_, Life of Cicero; _Spofford_, Library of Historical Characters; _Watson_, Quintilian's Institutes (Pedagogy, in Bks. I & II). CICERO[22] (B.C. 106-43) Cicero was born B.C. 106, of noble parents. As a boy he had the advantage of the best schools and teachers that Rome could furnish. Later he studied at Athens, under the greatest Greek masters, and became proficient in the Greek language. According to the common practice among the better classes in Rome, he spent some time in travel to complete his education, visiting Egypt, Asia Minor, and other parts of the known world. But Cicero's education can hardly be said to have been "completed" as long as he lived, for he remained a student even in the midst of his most exacting duties of State, and often employed teachers, especially in oratory. Forsyth says of him, "Philosophy and oratory seem to have been the two chief objects of his study; but if of any man before Bacon appeared that might be said which the great master of modern philosophy claimed for himself, that he 'had taken all knowledge for his province,' it might be truly declared of the youthful Cicero. His appetite for knowledge was insatiable, and his desire for distinction boundless."[23]