The Roman Education
by Mary, grade 4
When a Roman child was of age to go to pre-school, their educational responsibilities were given to someone else. The boys' education was from when they were seven to fifteen, but the girls' only seven to thirteen. The Roman children's subjects: reading, writing, and arithmetic. The arithmetic hardly went beyond addition and subtraction. BOY,WERE THEY LUCKY!!!!!! They learned Latin and Greek even before the age of fourteen! When primary school was finished, the pupil's career school was over, especially for the girls. Only the higher class continued to be educated, they went to be initiated into Greek and Roman Literature, by a grammaticus. Here is the upper class becoming very smart, and lots of times, the lower classes never even learned to read or write! You may think the Romans were smart, oh yes they were! But it was the Greeks they got the educational system from.
The Roman public schools were usually begun and run by one man alone. Also, most of the time, the school was only a shop booth, with only a piece of cloth for a door. The pupils could hear everything going on outside of the school. They sure learned to not get upset if there was noise! If a boy pupil did something wrong, or made a mistake when asked a question, he might be beaten with a rod. At the public schools, discipline with a rod or cane was not rare. In those schools, they even had chalk-boards! The kids used papyrus rolls, wax writing tablets, and a kind of spelling tablet to learn to read and write. The kids had holidays then, just like we do now. The first five days after a full moon, "quinquatrus" as it was called, was free, and, every eighth day, "nundinae," was also free.
Teachers never got enough pay for their labor, and they probably never had enough money to support their families. Slaves that had domestic duties, sometimes became smarter than their masters, and those slaves, if they were lucky, became private tutors.
If you enjoyed this subject, here are some links for you! If you enjoyed Mary's report, won't you let her know? It would mean so much to her if you left her a note at our guestbook.
A Day in the Life of a Schoolboy
Roma-History and Civilisation
Roman Education
Daily Life in Rome: Education
Education
Grammaticus
Slaves in Roman Education
