depend on the profession he was going to
follow. If he was going to be only a common scribe, his education
would go no farther; for the work he would have to do would need no
greater learning than reading, writing, and arithmetic. If he was going
to be an officer in the army, he entered as a cadet in a military school
which was attached to the royal stables. But if he was going to be a
priest, he had to join one of the colleges which belonged to the
different temples of the gods, and there, like Moses, he was instructed
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was taught all the strange ideas
which they had about the gods, and the life after death, and the
wonderful worlds, above and below, where the souls of men lived after
they had finished their lives on earth.

But, whether his schooling was carried on to what we should call a
University training or not, there was one thing that Tahuti was taught
with the utmost care, and that was to be very respectful to those who
were older than himself, never to sit down while an older person was
standing in the room, and always to be very careful in his manners.
Chief of the older people to whom he had to show respect were his
parents, and above all, his mother, for the Egyptians reverenced their
mothers more than anyone else in the world. Here is a little scrap of
advice that a wise old Egyptian once left to his son: "Thou shalt never
forget what thy mother has done for thee. She bare thee, and nourished
thee in all manner of ways. She nursed thee for three years. She brought
thee up, and when thou didst enter the school, and wast instructed in
the writings, she came daily to thy master with bread and beer from her
house. If thou forgettest her, she might blame thee; she might lift up
her hands to God, and He would hear her complaint." Children nowadays
might do a great deal worse than remember these wise words of the
oldest book in the world.

But you are not to think that the Egyptian children's life was all
teaching and prim behaviour. When Tahuti got his holidays, he would
sometimes go out with his father and mother and sister on a fishing or
fowling expedition. If they were going fishing, the little papyrus skiff
was launched, and the party paddled away, armed with long thin spears,
which had two prongs at the point. Drifting over the quiet shallow
waters of the marshy lakes, they could see the fish swimming beneath
them, and launch their spears at them. Sometimes, if he