Such had been the feeling of the old Romans, though their State laid
down no laws for education, but trusted to the force of tradition and
custom. Old Cato believed himself to be acting like an old Roman when
he looked after the washing and dressing of his baby, and guided the
child with personal care as he grew up, writing books for his use in
large letters with his own hand.[260] But since Cato's day the idea
of the State had lost strength; and this had an unfortunate effect
on education, as on married life. The one hope of the age, the Stoic
philosophy, was concerned with those who had attained to reason, i.e.
to those who had reached their fourteenth year; in the Stoic view
the child was indeed potentially reasonable, and thus a subject of
interest, but in the Stoic ethics education does not take a very
prominent place.[261] We are driven to the conclusion that a real
interest in education as distinct from the acquisition of knowledge
was as much wanting at Rome in Cicero's day as it has been till lately
in England; and that it was not again awakened until Christianity had
made the children sacred, not only because the Master so spoke of
them, but because they were inheritors of eternal life.
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