Uarda | Page 9

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 in them, that a pedagogue could record this saying: "The
scholar's ears are at his back: when he is flogged then he hears."
Those youths who wished to pass up from the lower to the high-school
had to undergo an examination. The student, when he had passed it,
could choose a master from among the learned of the higher grades,
who undertook to be his philosophical guide, and to whom he remained
attached all his life through, as a client to his patron. He could obtain
the degree of "Scribe" and qualify for public office by a second
examination.
Near to these schools of learning there stood also a school of art, in
which instruction was given to students who desired to devote
themselves to architecture, sculpture, or painting; in these also the
learner might choose his master.
Every teacher in these institutions belonged to the priesthood of the
House of Seti. It consisted of more than eight hundred members,
divided into five classes, and conducted by three so-called Prophets.
The first prophet was the high-priest of the House of Seti, and at the
same time the superior of all the thousands of upper and under servants
of the divinities which belonged to the City of the Dead of Thebes.
The temple of Seti proper was a massive structure of limestone. A row
of Sphinxes led from the Nile to the surrounding wall, and to the first
vast pro-pylon, which formed the entrance to a broad fore-court,
enclosed on the two sides by colonnades, and beyond which stood a
second gate-way. When he had passed through this door, which stood
between two towers, in shape like truncated pyramids, the stranger
came to a second court resembling the first, closed at the farther end by
a noble row of pillars, which formed part of the central temple itself.
The innermost and last was dimly lighted by a few lamps.
Behind the temple of Seti stood large square structures of brick of the
Nile mud, which however had a handsome and decorative effect, as the

humble material of which they were constructed was plastered with
lime, and that again was painted with colored pictures and hieroglyphic
inscriptions.
The internal arrangement of all these houses was the same. In the midst
was an open court, on to which opened the doors of the rooms of the
priests and philosophers. On each side of the court was a shady,
covered colonnade of wood, and in the midst a tank with ornamental
plants. In the upper story were the apartments for the scholars, and
instruction was usually given in the paved courtyard strewn with mats.
The most imposing was the house of the chief prophets; it was
distinguished by its waving standards and stood about a hundred paces
behind the temple of Seti, between a well kept grove and a clear lake--
the sacred tank of the temple; but they only occupied it while fulfilling
their office, while the splendid houses which they lived in with their
wives and children, lay on the other side of the river, in Thebes proper.
The untimely visit to the temple could not remain unobserved by the
colony of sages. Just as ants when a hand breaks in on their dwelling,
hurry restlessly hither and thither, so an unwonted stir had agitated, not
the school-boys only, but the teachers and the priests. They collected in
groups near the outer walls, asking questions and hazarding guesses. A
messenger from the king had arrived--the princess Bent-Anat had been
attacked by the Kolchytes--and a wag among the school-boys who had
got out, declared that Paaker, the king's pioneer, had been brought into
the temple by force to be made to learn