ny social grading
of schools, or as to their size. All we know is that some schools were
taught entirely by one man, while others employed an undermaster or
several. In some cases the school is entirely a private enterprise,
the master charging a monthly fee--amounting in the elementary schools
to a penny or twopence a week--together with small money presents on
certain festivals. The more select establishments naturally charged
more. Probably most of the schools in Rome and the larger towns were
upon this private footing. In other instances a number of parents in a
smaller town would club together and subscribe sufficient money to
provide the salary of a schoolmaster for their children. In yet others
some benefactor, generally a wealthy local magnate, had given or
bequeathed an endowment fund, from which a school was either wholly or
partially financed. At a rather later date Pliny writes a letter, of
which the following is a passage, interesting in this connection.
"When I was lately in my native part of the country (that is to say,
at Como), a boy--the son of a fellow townsman--came to pay his
respects. I said, 'Are you at school?' 'Yes,' he replied. 'Where?' 'At
Milan.' 'And why not here?' At this his father said, 'Because we have
no teachers here.' 'And why have you none? It is of the greatest
importance to any of you who are fathers--and it happened that several
fathers were listening--that your children should be taught here
rather than anywhere else.... How small a thing it is to put money
together and engage teachers and to apply to their salary the amount
which you now spend on lodgings, travelling expenses, and the articles
that have always to be purchased when one is away from home.'"
Whereupon he proceeds himself to offer to contribute one-third of
whatever sum the parents collect. He does not believe in giving the
whole, because experience has taught him that endowments of this kind
are commonly misused. The parents must themselves retain an interest
in preventing corruption; and this will be the case so long as they
are themselves paying their share. In this instance we are, however,
to think rather of a high school or school of rhetoric than of the
primary school. Como would not lack a primary school, nor would
parents send very young children to lodge in Milan. There is no trace
of real boarding-schools.

To whatever school Publius goes he will be accompanied by a sedate
slave, generally elderly and al