Besides truth-speaking and faithfulness to promises, the Persians prized gymnastics. All boys were trained in throwing the spear and javelin, as well as in shooting the bow and arrow and riding on horse-back. An active life is provided for. This training of the body is for real service in the world. The tortures and mortification of the body in India show a very different object. The Persian youth were educated at home in the family, chiefly by the mothers, until the seventh year. Then the public education began, under the care of teachers venerable with age and exemplary character. From ten to fifteen years the boys learned prayers and the holy books of Zoroaster, and especially the ceremonies necessary to purification. The belief was that a person became unclean if he touched a corpse of man or of any clean animal. All clean animals became unclean at death, while all unclean animals became clean at death. For death was the symbol of conquest by the opposing power. The Persian who had become unclean must go through a tedious process of purification. It was a process of driving out the evil spirit that had taken possession of him. After various ceremonies of sprinkling himself with earth and water and gomez, he drove the evil demon from his head and body and limbs, and could now approach his fellow men once more and go near sacred fire. The formal ceremony of purification must be undertaken, not only on occasions of touching unclean things, but also at stated periods, in order to counteract unobserved pollution that might have happened. At the age of fifteen the boy put on the sacred girdle, composed of exactly seventy-two threads of camel’s hair or wool, worn day and night for protection from evil spirits. On putting on this girdle, after the ceremony of purification, the youth took a solemn vow to obey the law of Zoroaster. The school education took place in the public market-place. There were four divisions, one set apart for the boys who had not put on the sacred girdle; another for the youth between fifteen and twenty-five years; another for those between twenty-five and fifty years, and a fourth for the old men, who came when they pleased. The second class, the unmarried youth, passed the night under arms as a police force or a garrison for defense. The boys brought with them their dinner, consisting of bread and water-cresses. Hunting was practiced by the youth as a proper military training. The youth were compelled to live on such game as they could kill, otherwise they must go hungry. The public education was open to all classes of citizens, but only the boys and not the girls, it seems, received it. There was special education for the nobility to supplement the public education. It was such education as pages receive by attending court and seeing the fine manners there, observing the looks and behavior of great statesmen and heroes.