r son Seti carried on the
erection, in which the service of the dead for the Manes of the members
of the new royal family was conducted, and the high festivals held in
honor of the Gods of the under-world. Great sums had been expended
for its establishment, for the maintenance of the priesthood of its
sanctuary, and the support of the institutions connected with it. These
were intended to be equal to the great original foundations of priestly
learning at Heliopolis and Memphis; they were regulated on the same
pattern, and with the object of raising the new royal residence of Upper
Egypt, namely Thebes, above the capitals of Lower Egypt in regard to
philosophical distinction.

One of the most important of these foundations was a very celebrated
school of learning.

[Every detail of this description of an Egyptian school is derived
from sources dating from the reign of Rameses II. and his
successor, Merneptah.]

First there was the high-school, in which priests, physicians, judges,
mathematicians, astronomers, grammarians, and other learned men, not
only had the benefit of instruction, but, subsequently, when they had
won admission to the highest ranks of learning, and attained the dignity
of "Scribes," were maintained at the cost of the king, and enabled to
pursue their philosophical speculations and researches, in freedom
from all care, and in the society of fellow-workers of equal birth and
identical interests.

An extensive library, in which thousands of papyrus-rolls were
preserved, and to which a manufactory of papyrus was attached, was at
the disposal of the learned; and some of them were intrusted with
the education of the younger disciples, who had been prepared in
the elementary school, which was also dependent on the House--or
university--of Seti. The lower school was open to every son of a free
citizen, and was often frequented by several hundred boys, who also
found night-quarters there. The parents were of course required either
to pay for their maintenance, or to send due supplies of provisions for
the keep of their children at school.

In a separate building lived the temple-boarders, a few sons of the
noblest families, who were brought up by the priests at a great expense
to their parents.

Seti I., the founder of this establishment, had had his own sons, not
excepting Rameses, his successor, educated here.

The elementary schools were strictly ruled, and the rod played so
large a part