School usually began about six in the morning, and it continued all day, with intervals for breakfast and lunch, sometimes running till dark. In some of the higher schools the scholars would return in the evening to their school work. School would continue throughout the entire week and the year, except one month during the New Year's festival and a vacation at wheat harvest and also at the autumnal harvest. If the teacher was preparing himself for a literary degree, there might be a vacation of about six weeks in the summer. The teacher was often not quite regular in his attendance at the school and the pupils were still more irregular than he, so that in a way made up for the lack of holidays. There were scarcely any school-houses as such in China. The schools were held as a rule in the hall of a temple or in a private building, usually the ancestral temples were used for such purposes, and yet they might be held in a shed, which scarcely protected from the weather, or in the upper attic of a shop. In this room were placed a table, with an arm-chair, for the teacher. The writing-materials, which consisted of brushes, India ink, and ink-wells made of slate, were placed on this table. About the room were tables and stools for the pupils. In one corner of the room was placed a tablet or an inscription on the wall, dedicated to Confucius and the god of Letters. Whatever may be said of education in older China, the teachers were educated men, the majority of them being unsuccessful candidates for literary degrees, but many of them were Bachelors and not a few were Doctors. For the work they had to do they were well prepared by a long course of study and they were usually competent. "In no country is the office of teacher more revered. Not only is the living instructor saluted with forms of the profoundest respect, but the very name of teacher, taken in the abstract, is an object of almost idolatrous homage."[98] Yet, "as a matter of fact, the Chinese teacher is often barely able to keep soul and body together, and is frequently obliged to borrow garments in which to appear before his patrons."[99] The first day of school was a great and noted day in the life of a Chinese boy. He entered school in his seventh or eighth year. When he was to enter school, a lucky day was found for him, and with his good clothes on he started for school, feeling that this was the greatest event that was to happen in his life till he entered the Imperial Academy, which he was sure to do, so said all his friends. On entering the school-room he saluted, by prostrating himself, the picture of Confucius and next, with almost as much reverence, saluted his teacher, for the teacher was held in very high respect.