No one can study this inscription without becoming convinced that it tells an unvarnished tale of truth--that here was really a rare and precious woman; a Roman matron of the very best type, practical, judicious, courageous, simple in her habits and courteous to all her guests. And we feel that there is one human being, and one only, of whom she is always thinking, to whom she has given her whole heart--the husband whose words and deeds show that he was wholly worthy of her. CHAPTER VI THE EDUCATION OF THE UPPER CLASSES From what has been said in preceding chapters of the duties and the habits of the two sections of the upper stratum of society, it will readily be inferred that the kind of education called for was one mainly of character. In these men, whether for the work of business or of government, what was wanted was the will to do well and justly, and the instinctive hatred of all evil and unjust dealing. Such an education of the will and character is supplied (whatever be its shortcomings in other ways) by our English public school education, for men whose work in life is in many ways singularly like that of the Roman upper classes. Such an education, too, was outlined by Aristotle for the men of his ideal state; and Mr. Newman's picture of the probable results of it is so suggestive of what was really needed at Rome that I may quote it here.[247] "As its outcome at the age of twenty-one we may imagine a bronzed and hardy youth, healthy in body and mind, able to bear hunger and hard physical labour ... not untouched by studies which awake in men the interest of civilised beings, and prepare them for the right use of leisure in future years, and though burdened with little knowledge, possessed of an educated sense of beauty, and an ingrained love of what is noble and hatred of all that is the reverse. He would be more cultivated and human than the best type of young Spartan, more physically vigorous and reverential, though less intellectually developed, than the best type of young Athenian--a nascent soldier and servant of the state, not, like most young Athenians of ability, a nascent orator. And as he would be only half way through his education at an age when many Greeks had finished theirs, he would be more conscious of his own immaturity. We feel at once how different he would be from the clever lads who swarmed at Athens, youths with an infinite capacity for picking holes, and capable of saying something plausible on every subject under the sun."