one." Then, when he was four years old,
the time came when he had to become "a writer in the house of books,"
which is what the Egyptians called a school-boy; so little Tahuti set
off for school, still wearing no more clothes than the thread tied round
his waist, and with his black hair plaited up into a long thick lock,
which hung down over his right ear. The first thing that he had to learn
was how to read and write, and this was no easy task, for Egyptian
writing, though it is very beautiful when well done, is rather difficult
to master, all the more as there were two different styles which had to
be learned if a boy was going to become a man of learning. I don't
suppose that you think your old copy-books of much importance when you
are done with them; but the curious thing is that among all the books
that have come down to us from ancient Egypt, there are far more old
copy-books than any others, and these books, with the teachers'
corrections written on the margins, and rough sketches scratched in here
and there among the writing, have proved most valuable in telling us
what the Egyptians learned, and what they liked to read; for a great
deal of the writing consisted in the copying out of wise words of the
men of former days, and sometimes of stories of old times.

These old copy-books can speak to us in one way, but if they could speak
in another, I daresay they would tell us of many weary hours in school,
and of many floggings and tears; for the Egyptian school-master
believed with all his heart in the cane, and used it with great vigour
and as often as he could. Little Tahuti used to look forward to his
daily flogging, much as he did to his lunch in the middle of the day,
when his careful mother regularly brought him three rolls of bread and
two jugs of beer. "A boy's ears," his master used to say, "are on his
back, and he hears when he is beaten." One of the former pupils at his
school writing to his teacher, and recalling his school-days, says: "I
was with thee since I was brought up as a child; thou didst beat my
back, and thine instructions went into my ear." Sometimes the boys, if
they were stubborn, got punishments even worse than the cane. Another
boy, in a letter to his old master, says: "Thou hast made me buckle to
since the time that I was one of thy pupils. I spent my time in the
lock-up, and was sentenced to three months, and bound in the temple." I
am afraid our schoolboys would think the old Egyptian