It has sometimes been imagined that in Greece separate edifices were not erected as with us expressly for school-houses, but that both the didaskalos and the philosopher taught their pupils in fields, gardens or shady groves.[575] But this was not the common practice, though many schoolmasters appear to have had no other place wherein to assemble their pupils than the portico of a temple[576] or some sheltered corner in the street, where in spite of the din of business and the throng of passengers the worship of learning was publicly performed. Here, too, the music-masters frequently gave their lessons, whether in singing or on the lyre, which practice explains the anecdote of the musician, who, hearing the crowd applaud one of his scholars, gave him a box on the ear, observing, “Had you played well these blockheads would not have praised you.” A custom very similar prevails in the East, where, in recesses open to the street, we often see the turbaned schoolmaster with a crowd of little Moslems about him, tracing letters on their large wooden tablets or engaged in recitations of the Koran. Footnote 575: See Coray, Disc. Prelim. sur Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. § 41. t. i. p. 46. seq. Footnote 576: In the Antichita di Ercolano (t. iii. p. 213.) we find a representation of one of these schools during the infliction of corporal chastisement. Numerous boys are seated on forms reading, while a delinquent is horsed on the back of another in the true Etonian style. One of the carnifices holds his legs, while another applies the birch to his naked back. Occasionally in Greece we find that free boys were flogged with a leek in lieu of a birch. Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 622. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 4. 10. p. 574.