ircle
before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and
learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus
rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began with
Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can
imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and
went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.

They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough scraps
of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch
letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of
practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly
well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill
pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with
care.

GOOD AND BAD RESULTS OF THE TEACHING OF THE SCRIBES

So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a
mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for
their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but
learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still,
the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on
the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced
their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It
was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm:

="Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
And light unto my path.=
* * * * * * * * *
=Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed thereto, according to thy word."=

=The danger of formality.=--The danger in this kind of education is
that of blindness to the voice of God to be heard in everyday
experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture.
The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought
of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes
whom Jesus denounced for giving tithes, or a tenth part of the mint
and anise and cummin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their
garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other
words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the
spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is
written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad
kind of religion grew up in those schools where only boo