was free to take his choice. Where
there was endowment, as at Athens, there was control by the local
authorities over the behaviour of students and also of their teachers;
but it is evident that a professor's audience was by no means always a
very well-ruled or docile body. As in the German universities, the
visiting students were men, and some of them fairly advanced in years,
and, also as in Germany, they followed their own tastes in study and
changed from university to university at will. They, as it were,
"sampled" the professors and made their own election. The teacher not
only lectured to them, but also lectured them; while, on their side,
they were entitled to catechise, and in a sense "badger," the
lecturer, to propound difficulties, and to make more or less
pronounced exhibition of their sentiments.

In the philosophic lecture-room the student, possessing his share of
the vivacity and excitability of the south, would stamp, spring from
his seat, shout and applaud, calling out in Greek "splendid!"
"inimitable!" "capital!" "prettily said!" and so forth. Plutarch
writes a little essay on the proper manner of behaving in the
lecture-rooms, and he tells us: "You should sit in a proper manner and
not lounge; you should keep your eyes on the speaker and show a lively
interest; maintain a composed countenance and show no annoyance or
irritation, nor look as if you were thinking of other things." Such an
attitude was the ideal and orthodox; but he tells us also that there
were some who "scowled; their eyes wandered; they sprawled, crossed
their legs, nodded and whispered to their neighbour, smiled, yawned
sleepily, and let their heads droop." This was not necessarily because
the lecturer was dull, but because he might be giving lessons which
were unwelcome to some among his audience. The cap fitted them too
well, as it sometimes does when offered by a modern preacher. But,
says the same Plutarch, if you did not like these direct and
rough-tongued monitors, you could find other professors, _poseurs_,
who were all suavity; gentlemen whose philosophical stock-in-trade was
grey hair, a pleasant voice and delivery, graceful language, and much
self-appreciation. These were the Reverend Charles Honeymans of the
period, and their following was like unto the following of that
popular pulpiteer.

[Illustration: FIG. 96--Papyri and Tabulae. (From Dyer's Pompeii.)]

Since mention has been made more than once of reading and libr