It may be seen that Spartan education was public and free and open equally to all free-born children. The Spartan youth received very little intellectual training. No doubt some acquired reading and writing, as such was not forbidden, although not encouraged. They obtained ethical and intellectual training from listening to their elders at meals and on the street. They gained from criticism of their conduct, which criticism was severe at all times. Thus they learned reverence for elders, honesty, and self-respect. All the sufferings and hardships placed upon the youth were that they might receive training to make them good soldiers to go out to battle for their native land. Although Spartan education did produce warriors and patriots, yet it did not bring out individuality, that which makes most for true progress and right living. "The state regulated the individual life, and, by so doing, crushed out individuality, personal initiation, literary and scientific activity, and ethical freedom."[175] Athens represented another phase in Greek education. A new conception of human life developed here and hence there came forth new ideas in regard to the meaning and end of education. The idea of the significance of the individual took prominence and, although interests centered upon the state, yet the state was considered as being composed, of individuals, each of whose free development made the voluntary giving of his life to the state all the stronger and better state. The citizens of Athens were educated for peace as well as for war, so that the aim of education was to produce all-round men who by being trained to be individuals would thus make the best citizens. At birth the child at Athens was judged by the father and upon his decision it remained in the family or it was taken from the mother and exposed. If it was returned to the mother, whether a boy or a girl, it remained in the home till marriage, when the man or woman went to his or her own home. For the first seven years of the child's life, both boy and girl, he was under the care and training of the mother and the other women of the household. The Athenian boy was well cared for and given plenty to eat and to wear and toys and playthings, so that at least the early years of his life were easy and pleasant. By hearing the nursery-rhymes and the stories from folk-lore, and by having related to him the doings of the gods and god-like men as given in the writings of the times, his emotional nature was stimulated and he became imbued with the poetic feeling and dramatic spirit which invaded Athens and with which later he was to come in close contact through his school training and in his social and political life.