Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1889 — Education in Ancient Egypt. [ARTICLE]

Education in Ancient Egypt.

Boys intended for the Government service entered the school at a very early age, says the Popular Science Monthly concerning education in ancient Egypt. The course of instruction was very simple. The first care of the teacher was to initiate the young scribe into the mysteries of the art of writing. After he had mastered the first difficulties, he was given older texts to copy. These texts were moral treatises, old poems, fairy tales, religious and mythical writings, and let-

ters. It is to this fact that we owe the preservation of the greater part of the literary remains of ancient Egypt. When one of these schoolboys died, the copies he had written, that could be of no earthly use to any one else, were buried with him. From these old books that he copied he learned to form his own style; he learned the grammar and-syatax of his beautiful language; he became acquainted with its vast stock of moral precepts, religiqus and mythical traditions, and with the unnumbered poems and tales that undoubtedly abounded, and of which the merest fragments have come down to us. Two classes of writings were prepared for this purpose. moral precepts and letters. It was considered absolutely indispensable to inculcate on the minds of the pupils vast numbers of moral precepts. Letter-writing was considered a high and difficult art, and the pupils needed very special preparation for it.