“Do not say: ‘I have found a powerful patron… now I can play a dirty trick on someone I dislike.’ In the eighth century B.C., a priest named Amenemope advised his young students on their life after graduation, saying: The wisdom of the Egyptian priests was quite practical as well as moral and was intended to show the young rascals the right way to live. “Do not let your heart become swollen with pride in case you may be humbled.” “A lovely thought is harder to come by than a jewel one can find it in the hand of a maid at the grindstone. “There are no limits that have been decreed for art there is no artist who attains entire excellence. “Do not let your heart become proud because of what you know learn from the ignorant as well as the learned man. In the Fifth Dynasty, a high-ranking priest named Ptahhotep wrote the following advice to his students around 2500 B.C. The maxims the young had to copy and memorize were full of advice for aspiring young students. When he was sent to carry out a task, before he returned he was dressed in adult garments.”Ĭlearly, education was the way forward in ancient Egypt. When he began to become sturdy but was still a child, he was greeted (respectfully). I shall make you love books more than your mother, and I shall place their excellence before you. I do not see an office to be compared with it, to which this maxim could relate. When he fulfills the bidding of another, he does not come forth satisfied. “As for a scribe in any office in the Residence, he will not suffer want in it. Here is what Dua-Khety says to his bored kid on his way to the scribal school 4,000 years ago. Similar talks are still given by parents to freshmen every year. The text describes the complete misery of every possible job in Egypt, such as the baker, the fisherman, the laundry man, the plowman and so on, but compares them all to the easy life of a student who works hard in school, does well andīecomes a scribe. With his son he is sent the following instruction, which became a standard text the students had to copy out by hand. Some time between 20 B.C., a concerned father named Dua-Khety sent his son Pepy off to the temple school, which was a boat ride up river to the temple. Like many parents sending their children off to school, parents of children in the scribal school worried that the dear ones actually get some work done while on campus. That is, they were if one had done his lessons well enough. Given that priests had to work for only one lunar month a year and they got taken care of the rest of the year, the priesthoods were a great vocation. It was from the scribal class that the priests were selected to join the many ranks of temple priests who conducted the complicated rituals of the many gods. The scribal class kept state records, handled correspondence, calculated supplies and taxes and managed the army. Noble-born children would learn privately and for the aristocracy it was possible for a girl to learn to read and write, but that was exceptional.īut the parents of the boys were very glad that junior was in school, because scribe school was the path to social mobility. Sons of scribes could attend the schools and then others might be admitted if there was space. And I can assure you it was a lot harder back then in the good old days on the Nile than it is now.Ī a scribe school was not easy to get into, not because of SAT scores but because one needed social connections. But I also point out to them what it would have been like to be students in the old days. The students, for some reason, perhaps because they are still uneducated, somehow live as if we cannot see the disrespectful roll of the eyes.Īt this moment, I am teaching a section on ancient Egyptology and droning on about burial practices, pagan gods, pyramids and the development of hieroglyphic writing. Yes, I saw you creep in late, and I can see when you are doodling when you should be taking notes. Yes, I can see you texting under the desktop. Yes, I can see you peeping at the pretty girl next to you and nudging her with your elbow. Of course, every teacher on the planet can tell this phase because what do we do but watch the little darlings all day long. The fun of seeing old friends again has worn off, the novelty of new classes and new books is old, and the dear ones stare at the teacher with the knowledge that they will be staring at this person for either a whole semester or, worse still, a whole year. By this point in September almost all schools, colleges and universities are back in session.īut about now, one month or so into the teaching year, things get a little itchy. The little darlings are back in the classroom now, to the relief of parents and police alike.
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