The earliest task to be performed at school was to gain a knowledge of the Greek characters, large and small, to spell next, next to read. Herodes the Sophist experienced much vexation from the stupidity exhibited in achieving this enterprise by his son Atticus, whose memory was so sluggish that he could not even recollect the Christ-cross-row. To overcome this extraordinary dulness he educated along with him twenty-four little slaves of his own age, upon whom he bestowed the names of the letters, so that young Atticus might be compelled to learn his alphabet as he played with his companions, now calling out for Omicron now for Psi.[592] In teaching the art of writing their practice nearly resembled our own; the master traced with what we must call a pencil (γραφὶς), a number of characters on a tablet, and the pupil following with the pen the guidance of the faint lines[593] before him, accustomed his fingers to perform the requisite movements with adroitness.[594] These things were necessarily the first step in the first class of studies, which were denominated _music_,[595] and comprehended everything connected with the developement of the mind; and they were carried to a certain extent before the second division called gymnastics was commenced. They reversed the plan commonly adopted among ourselves, for with them poetry[596] preceded prose, a practice which coöperating with their susceptible temperament, impressed upon the national mind that imaginative character for which it was preëminently distinguished. And the poets in whose works they were first initiated were of all the most poetical, the authors of lyrical and dithyrambic pieces, selections from whose verses they committed to memory, thus acquiring early a rich store of sentences and imagery ready to be adduced in argument or illustration, to furnish familiar allusions or to be woven into the texture of their style.[597] Footnote 592: Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 10. Footnote 593: Quint. i. 1. Poll. vii. 128. Aristoph. Thesm. 778. Footnote 594: Plat. Protag. t. i. p. 181. Footnote 595: See Plat. de Rep. ii. t. vi. p. 93. seq. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 188. seq. Footnote 596: In the Homeric age men, we are told, received their mental instruction from the bards, and their physical at the gymnasium.—Athen. i. 16. Footnote 597: Cf. Plat. de Rep. t. i. p. 149. Stallb. Considerable difference however existed in the practice of different teachers. Some imagining that by the variety of their acquirements they would be rendered eloquent, recommended the indiscriminate study of the poets,[598] whether they wrote in hexameter, in trimeter, or any other kind of verse, on ludicrous or on serious subjects. Certain poets there were who like Fenelon and the pretended Ossian, wrote their works in prose,[599] respecting the use of whose compositions Plato was in some doubt. Footnote 598: