6. Education should begin with the earliest childhood. 7. The forms and names of the letters should be learned simultaneously, playthings being utilized to assist in this. 8. Care should be taken that children do not acquire a distaste for learning. 9. In learning to read, advance very slowly. 10. Writing should begin with tracing, and the copies should consist of moral precepts. 11. The individuality of the child should be studied. 12. Public schools are preferable to other means of education, because they do not subject the child to greater moral danger, while they stimulate him by association, friendship, and example, to nobler endeavor. 13. Under the _literatus_, grammar, composition, music, geometry, astronomy, and literature are to be studied. 14. The climax of education should be _rhetoric_. =Other Roman Educators.=--Among the other Roman educators may be mentioned Plutarch (50-138 A.D.) and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Plutarch in his "Parallel Lives" gives particular attention to morals. He offers valuable suggestions as to the training of children, laying great stress upon family life, an admonition particularly needed in Rome at that period. He also urges that women should be educated in order properly to train their children, being one of the first to consider this question. Marcus Aurelius, called "the philosopher on the throne," in his "Meditations" gave expression to most lofty thoughts, showing keenest self-examination and obedience to conscience. His moral teachings are among the noblest of all the writers of antiquity. FOOTNOTES: [22] Forsyth, "Life of Cicero." This is a very complete, just, and discriminating treatment of Cicero and his relation to the times in which he lived. [23] "Life of Cicero," Vol. I, p. 30. [24] Vol. II, p. 213. [25] Vol. II, p. 317. [26] Authorities differ as to the dates of Quintilian's birth and death, placing his birth at from A.D. 35 to 42, and his death from A.D. 95 to 120. Drieser, who is perhaps the best authority, places his birth at A.D. 35, but does not fix the date of his death, which, however, was probably much later than A.D. 95 as he lived to a ripe old age. [27] _Institutio Oratoria._ CHAPTER XIII CHRISTIAN EDUCATION =Literature.=--_Bryce_, Holy Roman Empire; _Guizot_, History of Civilization; _Lord_, Beacon Lights; _Sheppard_, Fall of Rome; _Draper_, Conflict between Religion and Science; _Clarke_, Ten Great Religions; _Gibbon_, Decline and Fall of Roman Empire; _Laurie_, Rise of Universities; _Stille_, Studies in Mediaeval History; _Arnold_, Essays in Criticism; _Lecky_, History of European Morals; _Hegel_, Philosophy of History; _Allies_, The Formation of Christendom; _Chateaubriand_, The Genius of Christianity; _Azarias_, Essays Philosophical. INTRODUCTION