EDUCATION BY DOING. It was largely an education by doing, as was that of the old Greek period, though entirely different in character. Either by apprenticeship to the soldier, farmer, or statesman, or by participation in the activities of a citizen, was the training needed imparted. Its purpose was to produce good fathers, citizens, and soldiers. [11] Its ideals were found in the real and practical needs of a small State, where the ability to care for one's self was a necessary virtue. To be healthy and strong, to reverence the gods and the institutions of the State, to obey his parents and the laws, to be proud of his family connections and his ancestors, to be brave and efficient in war, to know how to farm or to manage a business, were the aims and ends of this early training. It produced a nation of citizens who willingly subordinated themselves to the interests of the State, [12] a nation of warriors who brought all Italy under their rule, a calculating, practical people who believed themselves destined to become the conquerors and rulers of the world, and a reserved and proud race, trained to govern and to do business, but not possessed of lofty ideals or large enthusiasms in life (Rs. 15, 16). III. THE TRANSITION TO SCHOOL EDUCATION BEGINNINGS OF SCHOOL EDUCATION. Up to about 300 B.C. education had been entirely in the home, and in the activities of the fields and the State. It was a period of personal valor and stern civic virtue, in a rather primitive type of society, as yet but little in contact with the outside world, and little need of any other type of training had been felt. By the end of the third century B.C., the influence of contact with the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily (_Magna Graecia_), and the influence of the extensive conquests of Alexander the Great in the eastern Mediterranean (334-323 B.C.), had begun to be felt in Italy. By that time Greek had become the language of commerce and diplomacy throughout the Mediterranean, and Greek scholars and tradesmen had begun to frequent Rome. By 303 B.C. it seems certain that a few private teachers had set up primary schools at Rome to supplement the home training, and had begun the introduction of the pedagogue as a fashionable adjunct to attract attention to their schools. These schools, however, were only a fad at first, and were patronized only by a few of the wealthy citizens. Up to about 250 B.C., at least, Roman education remained substantially as it had been in the preceding centuries. Reading, writing, declamation, chanting, and the Laws of the Twelve Tables still constituted the subject-matter of instruction, and the old virtues continued to be emphasized.