Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/378



value attached by the Greeks to education is manifested in many ways. There was no duty which was regarded as of more sacred obligation in a parent than to provide for the education of his children. In some states, such as Sparta, it was taken out of his hands and made the care of the whole community. In others there were laws inflicting penalties and disabilities on those who neglected it, while in others the absence of such laws was made up for by the force of public opinion. When the Athenian population was removed en masse before the battle of Salamis, we are told that the people of Troezen, among other acts of kindness, provided school fees for the children who had taken refuge with them, so that not even that crisis should be allowed to interrupt the training proper to their age. More than three hundred years later Polybius still speaks of the payment of school fees for one's children as the last to be omitted amidst financial