Note 21 — Chapter I · EDUCATION IN ANTIQUITY.
William Harold Payne translation
On a recent occasion Archdeacon Farrar referred to Persian education as follows: “We boast of our educational ideal. Is it nearly as high in some essentials as that even of some ancient and heathen nations long centuries before Christ came? The ancient Persians were worshippers of fire and of the sun; most of their children would have been probably unable to pass the most elementary examination in physiology, but assuredly the Persian ideal might be worthy of our study. At the age of fourteen—the age when we turn our children adrift from school, and do nothing more for them—the Persians gave their young nobles the four best masters whom they could find to teach their boys wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage—wisdom including worship, justice including the duty of unswerving truthfulness through life, temperance including mastery over sensual temptations, courage including a free mind opposed to all things coupled with guilt.” (P.)