That the Athenian system was designed to suit the wishes of the Athenian children is less difficult to establish. It is only necessary to think what the primary schools were like. When once the letters and rudiments of reading and writing had been mastered, the process perhaps being aided by metrical alphabets and dramatised spelling, the boys began to read, learn by heart, and write down the fascinating stories of adventure and the romantic tales of Homer. There was no grammar to be studied; that, when invented, came at a later age as a voluntary subject. There were no years wasted over “Primary Readers” consisting of dull and second-rate stories. The boys began at once upon the best and most attractive literature in their language, and it remained their study for many years, and was still remembered and loved in after life. Nor can it be doubted that the music- and art-schools were attractive to Athenian boys, sons of a people who filled their whole city with art, and made their year a round of musical festivals. A large part, too, of Athenian schooling was what now would be called play; for the Hellene recognised the importance of physical exercise in the upbringing of the young, and included it in his conception of education. The effect upon Hellenic culture of thus making education attractive was far-reaching. Instead of regarding with aversion or a bored indifference the subjects which they had studied at school, the Hellenes had an affection for them and continued to practise and improve themselves in them. Throughout their lives they were eager to hear recitations of Homer. At banquets they sang the songs and played the music on the lyre which they had learnt at school. Elderly men would return to a music-master, to improve their style, or rush off to hear a Sophist lecture on geography or astronomy. The exercises of the palaistra were pursued till old age made them impossible. Grown citizens retained throughout an affection for education, and went on educating themselves all their lives. Thus an Hellenic city formed a centre of widely diffused culture, a home where literature and art and music and research could flourish surrounded by appreciation and capable criticism. Children, too, seeing how much their elders were preoccupied with education, found it even more attractive than its designers had made it, since they were not constrained by nursery-logic to see in it one of the plagues of youth from which “grown-ups” were set free. No doubt the Hellenic schoolmaster was much assisted in his endeavour to make education attractive by the intellectual curiosity which was a feature of all those States where the intellect was systematically trained. The young Athenian or young Chian was exceedingly eager to learn. In fact, his eagerness was excessive; he was too much in a hurry; he desired to have his information given to him ready-made, not having the patience to think or to undertake researches on his own account. Hence the phenomenal