Having spent a few years in the elementary school, the average boy was set to work to assist with the cattle, gather fuel, care for the ducks and geese about his home, and later was put to learn a trade--generally the trade of his father. However, if a boy showed special aptitude for learning or seemed more alert and clever than ordinary, he was sent to the school for scribes. Here the training was vigorous. The scribe would waken the youth, calling: "The books are already in the hands of thy companions, take hold of thy clothes and call for thy sandals!" Discipline was rigid indeed. An old adage held that a boy's ears are placed on his back--he hears if he is flogged. You will remember how complex were the Egyptian styles of writing--both hieroglyphic and demotic. Consequently to be able to read and write was considered a great accomplishment. Having mastered the art of writing, the youth was set next to copying. Many of the old copy books still exist, for it was customary to place them in the tomb with the deceased. Three pages a day was the usual lesson. "By the age of ten or twelve," says Maspero, "the child was ... apprenticed to a scribe in some office, who would undertake to make him a _learned scribe_. The boy accompanied his master to the office or work-yard, and there passed entire months copying letters, circulars, legal documents, or accounts, which he did not at first understand, but which he faithfully remembered.... The pupil copied and copied, the master inserted forgotten words, corrected the faults of spelling, and drew on the margin the signs or groups unskillfully traced. When the book was finished and the apprentice could write all the formulas from memory, the master entrusted him with the composition of a few letters, gradually increasing the number and adding new difficulties. As soon as he had fairly mastered the ordinary daily routine his education was ended, and an unimportant post was sought."[2] The Egyptians never investigated a subject until they reduced it to a science. A certain knowledge of geometry was necessary to determine boundaries of land, so valuable along the river that very small areas were sometimes in dispute. A knowledge sufficient for this purpose the Egyptians possessed, but they never delved deeper into the matter and became proficient in it. They studied astronomy and made charts of portions of the heavens. They studied arithmetic, but never, for example, wrote a fraction with a numerator larger than 1; instead of writing 2/3 or 5/8 they wrote: 1/3, 1/3; 1/2, 1/8. It has taken much patience and some ingenuity to understand problems found already worked out in the copy books.