The ideal education, as understood in the older days of Rome, was a training which should fit a man for his duty to the gods, the state, and the family. It was above all things a moral and practical training. A man has certain domestic, political, and religious functions to perform: let him learn how best to perform these. Under this system there was little room for accomplishments or for purely intellectual pursuits. Little by little, however, such liberal elements, artistic and philosophical, struggled into the sphere of Roman education, but never to the extent or with the intellectual effect which belonged to them in Greece. Even by A.D. 64 the education of a Roman boy was very narrow, and, in the direction in which it sought some liberality, it often went sadly astray. The clearest course will be for us to take young Publius Silius through a course typical of the time. We will assume that he does not receive all his lessons at home, but that, through an old-fashioned preference on the part of his father, he goes to a school, along with boys who are mostly but not necessarily of the same social standing with himself. We have unfortunately almost no information as to any social grading of schools, or as to their size. All we know is that some schools were taught entirely by one man, while others employed an undermaster or several. In some cases the school is entirely a private enterprise, the master charging a monthly fee--amounting in the elementary schools to a penny or twopence a week--together with small money presents on certain festivals. The more select establishments naturally charged more. Probably most of the schools in Rome and the larger towns were upon this private footing. In other instances a number of parents in a smaller town would club together and subscribe sufficient money to provide the salary of a schoolmaster for their children. In yet others some benefactor, generally a wealthy local magnate, had given or bequeathed an endowment fund, from which a school was either wholly or partially financed. At a rather later date Pliny writes a letter, of which the following is a passage, interesting in this connection. "When I was lately in my native part of the country (that is to say, at Como), a boy--the son of a fellow townsman--came to pay his respects. I said, 'Are you at school?' 'Yes,' he replied. 'Where?' 'At Milan.' 'And why not here?' At this his father said, 'Because we have no teachers here.' 'And why have you none? It is of the greatest importance to any of you who are fathers--and it happened that several fathers were listening--that your children should be taught here rather than anywhere else.... How small a thing it is to put money together and engage teachers and to apply to their salary the amount which you now spend on lodgings, travelling expenses, and the articles that have always to be purchased when one is away from home.'" Whereupon he proceeds himself to offer to contribute one-third of