A certain amount of arithmetic was also taught, for it was considered a good training for the mind. "No branch of education is considered so valuable a preparation for household management and politics, and all arts and crafts, sciences and professions, as arithmetic; best of all by some divine art, it arouses the dull and sleepy brain, and makes it studious, mindful and sharp," and it was said of arithmetic that "those who are born with a talent for it are quick at all learning, while even those who are slow at it, have their general intelligence much increased by studying it."[6] But Athenian children, like others, sometimes found it difficult to learn, and "I am pretty sure," said an Athenian, "that you will not easily find many sciences that give the learner and student so much trouble and toil as arithmetic."[7] [Illustration: THE LYRE LESSON, AND THE POETRY LESSON. (ABOVE IS AN ORNAMENTAL MANUSCRIPT BASKET.) From a Kylix by Douris, now in Berlin (No. 2285). Monumenti dell' Instituto, ix. Plate 54.] Part of the day was given to the study of letters, {227} and then the boys went to the music school, where they learnt to play the lyre and to sing. A song accompanied by the music of the lyre was a favourite part of the entertainment after a banquet, and every Athenian gentleman was expected to be able to sing and play whenever he was called upon. So much was it the mark of a gentleman, that "He who doesn't know the way to play the lyre" became a proverbial expression for an uneducated person. Very little is known about Greek music, but it was considered very necessary that the music taught should be of an ennobling and inspiring kind. The Lydian melodies were held to be altogether too soft and sentimental, and the Athenians preferred those known as Dorian, because they were simpler and sterner and of a kind to inspire men to noble and manly deeds. Aristotle who wrote so much about the ideal state, wrote also about the education an ideal state should give to its children. He held that "music is neither a necessary nor a useful accomplishment in the sense in which letters are useful, but it provides a noble and worthy means of occupying leisure time," and Aristotle, like all Athenians, believed that it was the part of a good education to teach not only how to work well, but also how to use leisure well. The Athenians thought music was a good medicine for all ills. One philosopher, when his temper had been ruffled and he felt irritated and tired, used to take up his harp and play, saying, "I am calming myself." In the afternoon the boys were taken by their pedagogues to the palaestra or wrestling-school, {228} where they learned gymnastics. It was as important that the boy should have a well-trained, graceful body, as that he should have a clear and well-furnished mind, and so he spent a good part of each day running, jumping, wrestling, and throwing the discus under a special master.