very brief description is strictly based upon contemporary notices, the reader will have some idea of the appearance of fashionable society."[150] =Amusements.= It is presumed that Jewish children had games as the children of other nations, yet but slight account is given of such. It is noted that they kept tame birds and imitated marriages and funerals. They also engaged in singing and dancing, but males and females did not dance together, and the dancers performed according to their feelings, wild and fantastic, slow and graceful, nor were there any set forms for dancing. The youth must have taken part in the military sports which took place in public. Another means of entertainment was that of riddles, Samson's well-known one is an illustration. "Riddles are still 'put forth' at weddings. Here is a common one: Black as night, it is not night; It cuts its wings, it is no bird; Damaged the house, it is no mouse; It ate the barley and is no donkey. _Answer_--The ant."[151] The following is quoted from Jerome: "It is customary in the cities of Palestine, and has been so from ancient times, to place up and down large stones to serve for exercises for the young, who, according in each case to their degrees of strength, lift these stones, some as high as their knees, others to their middle, others above their heads, the hands being kept horizontal and joined under the stone."[152] =Education.= "If we take a general, and at the same time, it is to be admitted, a somewhat ideal, view of the education of the Jewish race, we shall find its beginnings and its specific character expressed in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up....' Accordingly, we may say that a present God, whom to fear was 'the beginning of wisdom,' the honoring of parents and elders, a sacred family life, the memory of a great history, the practical wisdom of proverbs, and a gradually growing lyric psalmody, constituted the elements of the education of the masses down to the time of the Exile."[153] Thus the education of the Hebrew child began at a very early age, as it would be taught these essential things as early as it could understand. The parents would begin its training in the home. Higher training, and in fact anything beyond the very rudiments, was given only to the upper classes. The teachers for the most part were highly respected. They were expected to be able men, not too young, and married.