As the national education of this period is that which
the apostles and the first disciples of Christ received, and as this must be of the utmost importance and in- terest to Ciiristians of the present day, we shall now brietiy state what the Talmud and the Midrashim con- sider to constitute the proper education of a respectable Jew, and give their notions of schools and the mode of instruction. We must begin with the schools. A school or teacher was required for every twenty-five children ; when a community had only forty children, they might have one master and an assistant {Baba Bathra, 21 a). Schools must neither be established in the most densely crowded parts of the town {Pesachim, 112 a), nor near a river which has to be crossed by an insecure bridge (Baba Bathra, 21), so as not to endanger the health or lives of the children. The proper age for a boy to go to school is six jears {Kethnho/h, 50 a); before that time the father must instruct his son. Thus it is relat- ed that 11. Ciiija ben-Abba would never eat his breakfast before he had repeated with his son the lesson which he gave him on the previous day, and taught him at least one new verse (Kiddush. 30 a). At the age of five a boy had to study the Bible, at ten the Mishna, and at fifteen the Talmud (Aboth, v, 21). (ireat care was tak- en that the books from which instruction was imparted should be correctly written (Pesachim, 112 a), and that the lessons taught, especially from the Bible, should be in harmony with the capacities and inclinations of the children (Aboda Zara, 19 a; Berach. 63 a), practical (Kiddush. 40 b), few at a time, but weighty (Vayikra Rabba, ciii). The parents never ceased to watch that their children should be in the class at the proper time. We are told that Kabba ben -H una never partook of his breakfast till he had taken his son to school (Kid- dush. 30 a). Josephus, therefore, did not at all ex- aggerate when, writing against Apion, he said, " Our principal care of all is to educate our children" (Apion, i, 12). " If any of us is asked about our laws, he will more readily tell them all than he will tell his own name, and this in consequence of our having learned them as soon as ever we became sensible of anything, and of our having them, as it were, engraven on our souls. Our transgressors of them are but few, and it is impossible, when any do offend, to escape punish- ment" (ibid, ii, 19). In a similar manner Philo ex- presses himself: "The Jews looking upon their laws as oracles directly given to them by (iod himself, and having been instructed in this doctrine from tlieir very earliest infancy, they bear in their souls the images of the commandments contained in these laws as sacred" (Ae7((/.<«ZC(y(/w, §31, Slang, ii, 577). "They are taught, in a manner, from their very swaddling-clothes, by their parents and teachers and instructors, and even beft>re that by their hol\' laws, and also by the unwritten max- ims and customs, to believe that there is but one tiod • — their Father and the Creator of the world" (;ibid. § 16, Mang. ii, 562). Of Timothy we are told that from a child he knew the Holy Scriptures (aTro (5pi(pov<; to. Upa jpa^il-iaTa oWag [2 Tim. iii, 15]); and a similar state- ment we find in the Apocryphal book Snsannali, ver. 3. From all this we can presume that the education and instruction of the children at first devolved upon the parents, who were the teachers, and who in their leisure hours, especially on Sabbaths and festivals, illustrated the many symbols, rites, and ceremonies which were used on different occasions. The importance of educa- tion having now become more and more realized, the foundation of scho<ils became more and more a matter of necessity; and the man who immortalized his name by establishing elementary schools was Jesus of Gimlo, who fell by the hands of the zealots during the siege of Jerusalem. After that time children were not allowed to go to school from one city into another; the inhabi- tants of each city could be obliged to have a school and a teacher (Baba Bathra, 21 a), and it was even forbid- den to live in a citv where there was no school (Sanfie- drin, 17 a). The luiraber of schools now increased, and flourishe<l throughout the length and breadth of the
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SCHOOLS, HEBREW