But Augustine was rapidly growing out of childhood. Patricius, prouder than ever of his clever son, resolved to spare no pains to give him the best education that his means could procure. The boy had a great gift of eloquence, said his masters, and much judgment; he would be certain to succeed brilliantly at the Bar. It was decided to send him to Madaura, a town about twenty miles distant, a good deal larger than Tagaste, and well known for its culture and its schools. It was one of the most pagan of the cities of Africa, but this was an objection that had no weight with Patricius, although it meant much to Monica. The only comfort for her in the thought of this first separation was that there at least her son would not be far from home. Not far away in truth, as distance goes, but how far away in spirit! Madaura was a large and handsome city, with a circus and theatre, and a fine forum, or market-place, set round with statues of the gods. It was proud of its reputation for learning, but had little else to be proud of. Its professors were men who were more ashamed of being detected in a fault of style than in the grossest crimes, who were ashamed indeed of nothing else. The pagan gods were held up to their scholars as models for admiration and imitation. It was a poor ideal at the best. The gods were represented by the great pagan poets and authors as no better, if more powerful, than ordinary mortals. They were subject to all the meannesses and all the baseness of the least noble of their worshippers. That their adventures, neither moral nor elevating, were told in the most exquisite language by the greatest authors of antiquity rather added to the danger than decreased it. True, the noblest of the classical writers broke away continually from the bondage which held them, to stretch out groping hands towards the eternal truth and beauty into which real genius must always have some insight, but not all were noble. The students of Madaura were worthy of their masters. Nothing was too shameful to be talked about, if only it were talked about in well-turned phrases. The plays acted in the theatre were what might be expected in Roman society of the fourth century--that society from which St. Anthony and St. Jerome had been forced to flee to the desert in order to save their souls. Augustine won golden opinions from his masters for his quickness and intelligence. They thought of nothing else but of cultivating the minds of their scholars. Heart and soul were left untouched, or touched in such a way that evil sprang to life and good was stifled. He was a genius, they cried, a budding rhetorician, a poet.