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Education in Late Antiquity
Education in Late Antiquity
Challenges, Dynamism, and
Reinterpretation, 300–550 ce

JA N R . S T E N G E R
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
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© Jan R. Stenger 2022
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First Edition published in 2022
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condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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ISBN 978–0–19–886978–8
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 Acknowledgements

This book would not have seen the light of the day without the
generous financial support of the Leverhulme Trust. It is, therefore,
my heartfelt desire to extend my thanks to the members of the Trust
Board for awarding me a Major Research Fellowship for the period
2016–19. I doubt it would have been possible to embark on this
project without this sustained period of full-time focus. Julia Smith
(Oxford), Henriette van der Blom (Birmingham), and Matthew Fox
(Glasgow) were the first readers of my initial thoughts on this
project and helped me with their perceptive comments to turn them
into a worthwhile application. For this I owe them a great debt. I
also benefitted from the support of Susanna Elm (Berkeley), Andrew
Louth (Durham), and Mark Vessey (Vancouver).
A Senior Fellowship at the Cluster of Excellence ‘TOPOI’, Berlin, in
summer 2017 and a fellowship at the Swedish Collegium for
Advanced Study in the academic year 2017–18 allowed me to make
significant progress on the project. I would like to express my
gratitude to these institutions and especially to the former director of
the Swedish Collegium, Björn Wittrock, for creating such an inspiring
environment. I very much enjoyed the ‘freien Umgang vernünftiger
sich untereinander bildender Menschen’ (Friedrich Schleiermacher)
at the Collegium, in particular the conversations with Rebecca Earle
(Warwick) about religious education. The exchange with my co-
fellows broadened my intellectual horizon and, thus, provided a truly
formative experience.
Portions of this book were publicly presented at events in Berlin,
Göttingen, Uppsala, Leicester, and Rome. I remain grateful to the
thoughtful audiences for taking part in the discussions and providing
valuable feedback on my thoughts. The staff of the university
libraries at Glasgow, Berlin, Uppsala, and Würzburg, of the National
Library of Scotland at Edinburgh, of the Institute of Classical Studies
in London, and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich were
always helpful. In the final stage, the help of my former doctoral
student James McDonald (Glasgow) was invaluable. He carefully
read the entire draft of the manuscript and improved my English. His
work has saved me from many mistakes, for which I am immensely
grateful. At Würzburg, Johannes Kern with his diligence spotted
many inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the manuscript. Finally, I
would like to thank the anonymous readers of the Press for their
helpful suggestions and the editorial staff at Oxford University Press
for their assistance and flexibility.
 Contents

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Educational Communities
1.1 Educational Practices, the Individual, and the Community
1.2 Grappling with the Educational Baggage of Catechumens
1.3 Paideia and Religious Affiliation
1.4 The Educated Few
1.5 Education, Allegiances, and Exclusions

2. The Emergence of Religious Education

2.1 Christianity and Education
2.2 Education and Religion in Antiquity
2.3 Reading the Classics through the Christian Glass
2.4 Raising Athletes for God
2.5 ‘In the Symbol of the Cross Every Christian Act Is
Inscribed’
2.6 Education as Proof of the Genuine Christian
2.7 Religious Education from the Alpha to the Omega

3. What Men Could Learn from Women

3.1 Ancient Schooling: A Training Ground for Elite Men
3.2 Leaving the Trodden Path of Conventional Education
3.3 Stripping Paideia of Its Habit-Forming Force
3.4 Trailblazers of a New Model of Education
3.5 Thinking Education ‘with’ Women

4. The Life of Paideia

 4.1 Education and Life
4.2 Leaving the Study and Reaching Out to Others
4.3 Templates for the Life of Learning
4.4 Towards a Christian Liberal Leisure
4.5 The Educated Ethos

5. Moulding the Self and the World

5.1 The Never-Ending Process of Bildung
5.2 The Art of Reading the World
5.3 The Armchair Traveller
5.4 Kicking Away the Ladder
5.5 ‘I Shall Equip Your Mind with Wings’
5.6 Cultivating the Self

6. The Making of the Late Antique Mind

6.1 Education and History
6.2 Museumizing Antiquity
6.3 Sounding the Death Knell for the Classics
6.4 Historicizing the veteres
6.5 Through the Lens of Modernity
6.6 Towards a Postclassical Mentality

Conclusion

References
Index
 List of Abbreviations

CCSG Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca

CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
GCS Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller
GNO Gregorii Nysseni Opera
PG Migne, Patrologia Graeca
PL Migne, Patrologia Latina
PLRE The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
SC Sources Chrétiennes

References to Greek authors follow the abbreviations of Liddell-

Scott-Jones and, for Christian authors, those of Lampe 1961.
References to Latin authors follow the practice of the Thesaurus
Linguae Latinae.
 Introduction

Education can be a divisive issue. When the Gothic court at Ravenna

in 526 ce debated the upbringing of King Athalaric, a serious conflict
erupted. Athalaric was the grandson and successor of Theoderic the
Great but, as a minor, still under the guardianship of his mother
Amalasuintha. On one side of the divide was the boy’s mother,
herself of sharp mind and well educated. If everything had gone
according to her plans, Athalaric would have received a thorough
training by mature experts in Latin grammar and letters, so as to
adopt the lifestyle becoming for Roman nobles. On the other, a
clique of powerful Goths mounted resistance. ‘Letters’, they asserted,
‘are widely separated from manliness, and the teachings of old men
for the most part results in a cowardly and submissive mind.’
Alleging that already Theoderic had evinced dislike for literate
education in favour of training in arms, they forced Amalasuintha to
abandon the aspirations for her son and replace the three elderly
tutors with the company of boys who were to share Athalaric’s life.
From then on, the child king’s fate was sealed, as the Greek
historian Procopius informs us. These lads, only a little older than
Theoderic’s grandson, soon enticed him into drunkenness and
debauchery, until any advice of his mother fell on deaf ears. 1 But,
as Edward Gibbon dryly remarked on Athalaric’s nature, ‘the pupil
who is insensible of the benefits, must abhor the restraints, of
education’. 2
This episode from the introduction to Procopius’ Gothic War,
undergirded by stark binaries—female/male, Roman/barbarian,
effeminacy/manliness, and intellect/practical virtue—allows us a
fascinating glimpse into the debate on education and formation in
late antiquity. 3 Embellished by the historian’s imagination, the
dramatic clash at the royal court not only condenses the political and
cultural tensions arising from Ostrogothic rule over Italy but also
pushes into the limelight questions around which late antique
thinking about paideia and personal development was revolving. It
contrasts two education systems, the centuries-old tradition of
Graeco-Roman schooling in letters and rhetoric, and a barbarian
model of socialization in a peer group, with a strong preference for
the cultivation of strength and will. As the contents, methods, aims,
and outcomes of late Roman education are called into question by
barbarians, Procopius’ cultured readers are encouraged to cast a
glance from a different, external angle at their cherished pedagogic
principles and traditions, even if, in the end, the superior value of
those venerated traditions is reaffirmed by Athalaric’s steep lapse
into degeneration. Education, the account suggests, was a catalyst
for negotiating key issues of culture and society, such as gender,
ethnicity, the relationship between theory and practice, and the
foundations of leadership, particularly in a time of profound
transformation. Procopius’ eavesdropping on the argument in the
inner circles of Gothic power draws our attention to the wider
implications of training and formation: the personality produced by
different processes of upbringing; the morality underpinning
pedagogic ideals; the hidden curriculum tacitly at work in any
education; and the role of socialization in guiding human beings
from childhood to adult age. In this respect, the controversy, stylized
though it is, is emblematic of preoccupations of the late Roman
elites.
This monograph intends to, as it were, adopt Procopius’
perspective and look at how people of the late antique
Mediterranean were thinking and discussing questions of upbringing,
formal education, and self-formation. It investigates what may be
termed educational ideologies, that is, reflections on the conditions,
contents, methods, objectives, outcomes, and paradigms of
education, both formal and informal. At times, these issues were
addressed in full-fledged theories and manifestos, but more often
than not they were embedded in wider contexts, sometimes, as in
the episode just seen, couched in the language of narratives.
Existing scholarship tends to concentrate on the practicalities of
education in the late Roman Empire, on schools and individual
teachers, on the curriculum, and on the well-documented student
life of the major cities. 4 In particular the work on the school
practices and the papyri was a corrective to a field that had
previously overlooked these sources. 5 However, our investigation
aims to show that we are missing out a crucial dimension of
education if we neglect the theorization made by educational
thinkers, be it explicit or implied.
As to the scope of our analysis, we shall cover the period
spanning from c.300 to 550 ce, the Latin west as well as the Greek
east, and both pagan and Christian authors. The focus will be on the
pivotal second half of the fourth to the beginning of the fifth
centuries, as in the course of these decades the late antique
discourse on education had its heyday and generated considerable,
often polemical, debate on the right way to equip people for their
lives. It is this broad scope that allows us to discern ideas and
attitudes common to westerners and easterners, and shared by
adherents of the traditional cults and the followers of Christ, while
scholarship is predominantly compartmentalized along disciplinary
boundaries. A superficial look at the literary output of late antiquity
is sufficient evidence that these centuries saw a proliferation of
educational thinking, often driven by the eminent literati, including
Chrysostom, Jerome, and Boethius. Paideia was a central issue of
the time, whether in the secular realm or within the church; it was a
pervasive topic in literature, thought, and society, across political and
religious turbulences. The examination of the concepts of education
and formation will thus recover an important layer of the culture of
late antiquity.
Although in scholarship the critical engagement of late antique
church fathers with classical paideia has attracted great interest for a
long time, the common perception of educational philosophy is used
to focusing on classical and imperial thinkers as precursors of the
modern discipline of pedagogy. When historians of education reach
back to ancient civilization, Plato and Isocrates, Quintilian and
Plutarch usually dominate the scene, and not without reason. 6 It
was in democratic Athens that the public discussion of paideia
reached its first peak, as the new political conditions put upbringing,
training in useful skills, and the acquisition of knowledge centre
stage. 7 Athenian democracy created a framework in which as many
people could partake in political decision-making and jurisdiction as
never before. This widening of access and participation raised the
question of what competences and skills were needed to exercise
one’s political rights in a successful and responsible manner. 8 The
sophists tried to satisfy this demand by offering professional
teaching to the affluent upper class, promising their students the
expertise and techniques that seemed to be vital for gaining and
retaining power and influence in the polis society. 9 It would have
been a surprise if in a democratic city this model of education had
remained unchallenged. At the same time as the sophists, and in
competition with them, Socrates’ way of philosophizing aimed at
encouraging his disciples to seek the truth and reflect on the very
possibility of knowledge, rather than imparting factual knowledge
and skills. Following in Socrates’ footsteps, Plato, above all in the
Republic, launched a scathing critique of Athenian elite schooling
and proposed a revolutionary model that was meant to educate
children and adolescents for the higher good of a new society
governed by philosophers. 10 Simultaneously, the sophistic pedagogy
provoked another thinker, Isocrates, not only to establish his own
school but also to develop a theory of teaching and learning that
envisioned as the outcome of the education process the citizen who
possessed practical judgement and learning, and knew how to
express them in a politically effective manner. 11 The tremendous
and long-standing success of his teaching made Isocrates one of the
most influential philosophers and theorists in the history of
education. We would, however, be mistaken to think that the
discussion of education was the preserve of intellectuals and serious
philosophers alone. Far from it, Isocrates with his speeches
addressed the wider Athenian public, and the comedies of
Aristophanes and other playwrights brought Socrates’ and Plato’s
philosophical teaching to the theatre stage, where they subjected
them to ridicule and criticism before the Athenian citizen body. 12
Paideia was an eminently public topic.
Educational ideologies again gained momentum centuries later,
and under widely different political conditions, in the Roman Empire
of the imperial age. In this period, discussion of learning, teaching,
and formation was not disconnected from politics and society either.
Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, which enjoyed an enormous afterlife
well into modern times, was far more than a practical handbook
furnishing the would-be leader with applicable skills and a reading
list to cultivate his eloquence. 13 Rather, his synthesis of rhetoric
included moral formation, with the greater aim of the full
development of humanity. While Quintilian promoted the ideal of the
well-educated Roman man putting his eloquence in service of
morality, Plutarch was more philosophically-minded, erecting his
education theory on Plato’s philosophy. Plutarch defined paideia as
the formation of the human character, the attainment of ethical
excellence, which enabled humans to live the good and happy life.
Consequently, the formation process had no limits in terms of age,
gender, or life setting. For all its philosophical aspirations, Plutarch’s
programme had obvious societal relevance, for it hoped to produce
able statesmen who would be ethical teachers of the body politic. 14
The same ideal pervaded the treatise On the Education of Children,
falsely attributed to Plutarch. 15 Its anonymous author devised a
comprehensive education scheme for children of the upper echelons
to remedy the many flaws of imperial educational practice. Drawing
on the three factors of nature, instruction, and exercise, the wide-
ranging programme not only deals with many practical aspects of
child rearing but also pursues an agenda situated in the wider
context of imperial society. All pedagogic measures, from choosing
the right nurse to physical exercise, are designed to produce a good
citizen who unites the management of civil affairs with philosophy.
The imperial education discourse continued many lines of thought
drawn by the Athenian thinkers but adapted them to the changed
conditions of the Roman Empire. Both educational ‘movements’ were
strongly oriented to, and indicative of, the contemporary state and
the preoccupations of their societies.
If we believe the majority of scholars working on late antique
schooling and pedagogy, this synchronicity or correlation broke down
in the later Empire. After classical Athens and imperial Rome had
given the two major impulses, the theorization and practice of formal
education seemed to be caught in a standstill for the centuries to
come. In the wake of Marrou’s magisterial study of ancient
education, it has often been described how, once the seeds of
rhetorical and philosophical instruction had been sown in the fifth
and fourth centuries bce, the Hellenistic era primarily contributed to
the full development of the Greek education system. 16 This was the
state that the Romans inherited when they conquered the Hellenistic
kingdoms and integrated from Greek culture what appeared to them
superior and useful for their own needs. With the adoption of
Hellenic education in Rome, the system became ever more
formalized and structured, as richly documented in rhetorical
handbooks, practical exercises, and school papyri from the imperial
period. 17 Since later centuries seem to have added or changed
nothing of significance, late antiquity is treated, if at all, in surveys
of ancient education merely as an appendix, in agreement with the
older prejudice that this period was anything but original. 18
What has enhanced this image is the increased interest of recent
decades in the performance culture of the Second Sophistic.
Scholars frequently emphasize that Libanius and his late antique
colleagues exhibit the same traits as, for example, the sophists
Aelius Aristides and Favorinus, which has led to an overemphasis on
the use and functions of paideia in late antiquity. 19 Consequently,
the prevailing picture of education from the fourth century ce
onwards is one of inertia, utter conservatism, and a failure to go
with the times. 20 It has been noted that educational papyri from the
third century bce to the beginning of the eighth century ce look very
similar. 21 Further, what students learnt in the classrooms of
Himerius, Ausonius, and Choricius was largely the same fare that
students of the Augustan or Antonine times had to memorize.
Raffaella Cribiore therefore notes ‘the substantially “frozen” quality
of education’ and the limited changes that occurred over the course
of this long span of time. 22 Robert Kaster is another important voice
that supports this image, stressing that the schools of grammar and
rhetoric were sound-proof against the outside world and in no way
affected by the changes of the period. ‘The schools of literary study’,
he claims, ‘at best did nothing to prepare their students to
understand change; at worst, they blinded them to the fact of
change.’ 23 And, with regard to the seemingly absurd scenarios
endlessly rehearsed in the school declamations of late antiquity,
Robert Browning speaks of the ‘hermetic exclusion of the world in
which such men were to pass their lives’. 24
Only occasionally are scholars ready to acknowledge that in the
late Roman schools there were, to some extent, changes, for
instance innovations in the rhetorical curriculum that responded to
earlier transformations in the theory of argument and stylistic theory.
25 However, these adaptations did little to overhaul the education

system as a whole. How likely is it, we may be wondering, that in an

age that is now seen as the period of marked transformations the
education sector remained totally immune to change and innovation,
as the rare bird of the period? While not denying the strong and
palpable continuities in schooling across the epochal watershed of
c.300 ce, this monograph aims to challenge the dominant view by
taking a different avenue to late antique paideia. If we shift the
focus from practice in the schools to the analysis of theorization, we
may re-evaluate the relationship between education and society in
this period.
Thanks to burgeoning research into various aspects of the period
from the tetrarchy to the threshold of the Middle Ages and
Byzantium, we have come to appreciate that these centuries so
decisive for the formation of European civilization were by no means
suffering under wholesale decline but were rather marked by in part
dramatic upheavals and symptoms of transition. 26 Older scholarship,
spellbound by the triumph of Christianity, the fall of the Roman
Empire, and Germanic invasions, liked to see collapse and decadence
all over the Mediterranean. Now we possess a more nuanced image
of late antiquity that takes account of geographic and temporal
variation, and is alive to local signs of prosperity, while not ignoring
clear evidence for contraction and decline. Overall, the image has
shifted from effeteness and disintegration to one of a dynamic
period, as scholars have moved on to understand late antiquity on
its own terms. It is this revised paradigm that has to be the context
for an examination of the contemporary education discourse.
Late antique studies have traced historical processes in a wide
range of fields. Major lines of the scholarly debate are the
Christianization of the Mediterranean world and the establishment of
the church; empire-wide administrative reforms; material and social
transformations in the cities of the west and the east; economic
developments, such as the changing patterns of agriculture, food
crises, and the new perception of poverty; the influx of barbarian
peoples and its repercussions; and fragmentation, including the
gradual drifting apart of east and west. 27 These phenomena not
only altered the face of the Roman Empire as a whole but also
affected, in various ways and to different degrees, the lives of
communities and individuals. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume
that the theory and practice of upbringing, formation, and education,
as a crucial element in human life, did not constitute an island far
removed from the shifting sands of society at large. Even if what
was routinely going on in the late Roman schools did not directly
respond to societal changes, the attitudes to education, the values
and functions attributed to it, and the significance of education for
individuals within late antique society are likely to have undergone
revision. The following outline seeks to make this assumption
plausible, as an introduction to our investigation.
Although, as scholars have contended, curriculum and methods of
the rhetorical schools were uniform and consistent across regions
and places, the still dominant model of male education did not go
uncontested. While the sons of the upper strata flocked to the
schools in the hopes of a public career and acquired there a
homogeneous class habitus, the discourse on education did have its
controversies. The philosopher Themistius, though himself an
outstanding example of a successful and urbane pepaideumenos,
was critical of students, and parents, who expected teachers to
primarily impart knowledge and skills that would pay in the currency
of power, possessions, and status. In Themistius’ eyes, paideia was
nothing of the sort but aimed solely at the cultivation of virtues and
self-perfection. 28 The young Augustine disparaged the traditional
schools and their social functions, advertising instead a kind of
intellectual conversion. True eruditio and doctrina promised
happiness and a fulfilled life, in deliberate withdrawal from the
treadmill of the schools. 29 Other thinkers, for example Gregory of
Nyssa, challenged the male supremacy in education by celebrating
women learners and teachers as alternative models of paideia. 30
Competition also arose when the dominant model of rhetorical
training had to fend off attractive newcomers, the budding studies in
law and shorthand. In addition, the centuries-old feud between
rhetoric and philosophy was revived. Teachers and litterateurs such
as Libanius, Themistius, Eunapius, and Synesius bear witness that
there was public controversy over the best way to shape the life of a
young person. In the face of criticism, they publicly promoted their
preferred models. Instead of inertia and universal agreement, we
find diversity and competing ideologies, as discussed in Chapters 1,
3, and 4. 31 Such disagreement opens avenues for study of the
education concepts available at the time.
The diversity of the education discourse is also reflected in the
settings and formats in which it emerged. It is significant that late
antiquity saw a number of full-blown theories of education, mainly
within the realm of the church. But Chrysostom, Augustine, and
Cassiodorus did not plough a lonely furrow. 32 Their ambitious
programmes were joined by theorization put forward in school
speeches, public addresses, letters, biographic literature, and further
genres. Even emperors and Germanic kings issued edicts concerning
the schools, taking the opportunity to make official pronouncements
on the value of literary education to society (Chapters 1 and 4). The
settings in which the state of education was discussed varied no
less. On one end of the spectrum, private conversation often gave
rise to personal statements on the content and benefits of paideia,
such as when bishop Isidore of Pelusium expressed to a newly
ordained lay reader his belief that empire and church fared well only
if administered by men imbued with logoi. 33 On the other end,
Themistius expressed his educational ideas before the senate of
Constantinople and the illustrious circle of the imperial court.
Catechumenate and regular church services provided further
opportunities for putting ideologies and visions up for debate
(Chapters 1 and 3). On many occasions, educational theorists of late
antiquity entered the public arena to make known what they
deemed proper training and formation and where current pedagogic
practice failed. Sometimes these public appearances could descend
into fierce battles, such as the one fought at Antioch between
Libanius and local critics of his education system. 34 What is more,
the promoters of both ethical formation and intellectual studies by
no means addressed only the forum of erudite connoisseurs. This
they did, of course, but in particular churchmen had a vital interest
in reaching out to ordinary Christian parents, regardless of social
status and educational background. Education became a major
concern for many stakeholders, and the range of their interests is
reflected in the remarkable polyphony of the discourse. While
specialists in the world of letters were often the primary audience, a
much wider segment of the population had a stake in the debate on
education—a characteristic that late antiquity shares with classical
Athens. 35
In many cases, we see such statements on paideia, whether
made pro domo or from a disinterested standpoint, provoked by
specific debates and urgent issues, though they responded, of
course, to the numerous changes of the times only selectively.
Educational thinkers on the basis of their authority as literati,
political, or ecclesiastical leaders attempted to offer in these contexts
solutions and clarify their positions. In doing so, they took into
account the dramatic transformations surrounding them. In the
perception of the Gothic king Athalaric, already mentioned, or rather
his ghostwriter Cassiodorus, the crisis of cities in Italy, exacerbated
by the withdrawal of the curiales to the countryside, not only
threatened orderly political life but also shook the whole of higher
education to the core. In response, the ruler averred that the
classical city was the cradle of civilization, but that it could only
flourish as long as liberales scholares brought their learning to bear
on its cultural and political life. 36 Some years earlier, Athalaric’s
predecessor, Theoderic, expressed his belief that the world, faltering
under uncertainty, rapid change, and confusion, was in dire need of
a secure, immovable anchor. Intellectual studies, above all
arithmetic, by nature inclined to certissima ratio, ordo, and
dispositio, in sum an immobilis scientia, seemed to him the perfect
antidote. 37 The episode at the Gothic court related by Procopius
also points to the longing for orientation and stability that education
was thought to provide. In the meantime, the Gallo-Roman
aristocrats, among them Sidonius Apollinaris, reinterpreted the old
cultural ideal of Romanitas , including literary pursuits, to brace
themselves for the ever wider barbarization of their homeland under
Germanic dominance (Chapter 1). By contrast, the plans of the
church fathers Gregory of Nyssa and Jerome for redefining the ethos
and values of the aristocracy through an upbringing with strong
ascetic overtones embraced change and they sought to accelerate it
themselves (Chapter 3). These examples illustrate that the
transformations of late antiquity could prove fertile ground for
dynamism and change in the field of education. Even traditional
ideas could assume new significance and importance in a changing
environment.
It is certainly no coincidence that, corresponding to the changes
in society, late antiquity witnessed a surge in normative theories,
encapsulated in authoritative definitions of ‘correct’ education.
Emperor Julian and his former classmate Gregory of Nazianzus
fought a literary battle over what true paideia was and who owned
it, as Themistius and Synesius respectively did in reaction to their
critics. 38 In the face of rivalling options and a perceived decline of
rhetorical studies, Libanius of Antioch kept raising the standard of
the genuine logoi. Matters of theological doctrine and idiosyncracies
aside, the bitter enmity between Jerome and his erstwhile friend
Rufinus was about the solely acceptable form of Christian erudition.
39
On the state level, although there was no such thing as an official
educational policy, emperors and authorities paid increasing
attention to the schools and higher studies and, at times, they made
direct interventions in order to ensure good practice. 40
Unsurprisingly, the church also took measures to regulate the
faithful’s dealings with formal education and occasionally issued to
the clergy binding orders on how much traditional learning was
deemed legitimate. Ecclesiastical authorities sought to ban clerics
from reading pagan books, to no avail, and church statutes
considered higher education expendable. 41 Directives and
authoritative guidelines bespeak the wish to draw boundaries, to
achieve non-ambiguity amid changing parameters. In response to
the polyphony of the education discourse, they sought to forge a
new consensus and re-establish uniformity.
One factor that had hardly played a role in earlier educational
ideologies but became paramount, indeed a game changer, in late
antiquity was religion. Although we should avoid the fallacy of
making religion the absolute crux of the period, the impact that
Christianization, the establishment of the church, and the Christian
engagement with the surrounding culture had on educational
thinking cannot be overestimated. 42 The church itself in all its facets
was intertwined with the domain of teaching and learning in various
ways. Since preaching was among the core duties of priests,
consideration of the extent to which rhetorical training was required
of clergy was almost inevitable. Moreover, many Christian bishops in
their dealings with the court, magistrates, and notables could not
dispense with refined eloquence and knowledge of letters, the more
so as they themselves came from an elite background. 43 While
vocational training was of little concern for classical pedagogic
thinking, which rather focused on producing cultured gentlemen, job
requirements now mattered more. Chrysostom and Augustine
considered rhetorical abilities essential in a cleric, and hagiographies
promoted the ideal of the well-educated bishop. 44 Yet education
needed attention not only in respect to functionaries of the church.
The institutionalized catechumenate created a new type of religious
instruction that occasioned theoretical thinking. Teaching in this
setting had objectives widely different from, and sometimes at odds
with, the secular schools, as examined in Chapter 1. Moreover, as
churchmen wanted to reform the lifestyles of their congregants more
widely, regular church service assumed a school-like character, noted
by the preachers themselves. However, the analogy to the traditional
schools went only so far because pastoral pedagogy had to cater for
the high and low alike, in contrast to the schools. This tension
generated some theoretical reflection, not least about the risks of
worldly paideia.
The emerging monastic movement was another innovation that
gave to education a new direction. From its inception, powerfully
promoted by the seminal Life of St Antony, Christian monasticism
was interwoven with a particular kind of wisdom. Taught by God
alone, the monk single-handedly saw off the Greek intellectuals, or
so the hagiographic sources boast. In fact, Christian ascetics
adopted and adapted many practices, even specific exercises, from
Graeco-Roman schooling. 45 Abba Arsenius (c.354–449), one of the
desert fathers, frankly dismissed formal education in letters, but
Dorotheus of Gaza, in the sixth century, had no qualms about
running his coenobium like a philosophical school, including lecture-
like presentations. 46 Also in the sixth century, Cassiodorus pursued
the ambitious goal of setting up a monastery as a school in all but
name, when he devised a detailed curriculum for his Vivarium. As an
institution without exact precedent, the Christian church injected
new ideas into pedagogy, to meet its specific needs. The new
significance of religion in the trajectories of education generated
novel thinking on various aspects, from lifelong education of ordinary
people and widening the scope of pedagogy to formal instruction in
religion and the re-evaluation of the role of literature and the school
curriculum (Chapter 2).
The rise of Christianity in the fourth century had a profound
impact on the educational landscape not only within the institutions
of the church and the monastery, however. Practical questions of the
Christian life often triggered theoretical reflection on general lines of
dealing with paideia. To be sure, from its infancy on, in the apostolic
times, Christianity had a fraught relationship with higher education.
But it was only with the fourth century that wide areas of knowledge
were reformulated from Christian perspectives, most prominently the
idea of history. 47 On a more personal level, elite Christians at the
time, among them the Cappadocians, Chrysostom, Jerome, and
Augustine, had to confront the serious question of the compatibility
of faith with their refined education. Each of them felt compelled to
address this issue, to become clear about the place and legitimacy of
erudite studies in their lives, though they shared many arguments
with earlier thinkers. A definitive solution remained out of reach, but
what is important in our context is that the Christian position on
learning was now an integral and central part of the mainstream
educational discourse, as discussed in Chapters 1 and 2.
Moreover, the debate on Christianity’s relationship with paideia
was conducted not only between Christians and pagans but among
Christians themselves. The acrimonious dispute between Rufinus
and Jerome over Latin letters and Augustine’s rebuke of a student
who cared too much about Cicero’s philosophy (epist. 118) are
evidence that there was a variety of Christian responses to secular
education—and that cultured Christians sometimes descended into
the same ferocious polemics as pagan intellectuals did. Christian
attitudes to learning will therefore occupy a prominent place
throughout our investigation. While existing studies tend to
foreground ideas and preoccupations exclusive to Christians, we will
see that, though both ecclesiastical leaders and lay believers
sometimes addressed their own, distinctive pedagogic questions,
they were part of the same cultural discourse and frequently held
the same views on intellectual studies and formation as their pagan
contemporaries. 48 In a sense, Christianity was the roof or umbrella
under which various questions on education could be pondered, not
only the question of whether classical paideia was compatible with
faith.
We have already mentioned that critical engagement with the
ways in which the traditional schools imparted knowledge and skills
was not a prerogative of Christians, although they in general evinced
stronger scepticism toward rhetorical and philosophical instruction.
Pagan thinkers also questioned the ideas and methods upon which
formal education was predicated and the qualities that the accepted
curriculum nurtured in young men. Writers such as Macrobius,
Libanius, and Eunapius, it is true, were far from overturning the
whole education system from top to bottom. Yet, they often
articulated their criticism, and their own ideals, in terms of formation
and self-perfection, rather than the acquisition of specific expertise
and competences. When they advertised their visions of the good
life emanating from learning, they preferred settings far removed
from the mundane routine of the classroom. Augustine drew an
idyllic portrait of a circle of like-minded learners in quest for the
happy life in the quietude of a country estate, and Synesius
envisioned a philosophical conversation in Socratic style with a select
company, to enjoy complete intellectual freedom (Chapter 4).
Significantly, many of the authors studied in this book pay scant
attention to the minutiae of schooling and focus instead on the
fundamentals of education, on the substance of processes of
upbringing and formation. Their individual preferences aside, they
explore what education means for an individual’s entire life after
reaching adulthood, suggesting the superiority of Bildung (culture)
over Ausbildung (education, training). This shift in interest was
driven by a desire to make paideia meaningful for one’s being, to
build one’s place in the world and social relationships on a particular
kind of intellectual and ethical formation. What men like the
disaffected young teacher Augustine and his eastern peer Gregory of
Nyssa were looking for was personal fulfilment, a transformative
experience generated by a new educational paradigm, as embodied,
for example, in Gregory’s sister Macrina.
This is not to say that late antique thinking shunned the
functional aspects of education completely. However, it now rather
revolved around education as a lifestyle, not necessarily in the sense
of the Second Sophistic, with its emphasis on display culture and
social standing, but predominantly inspired by the wish to give sense
and direction to one’s life. Outstanding learners and teachers who
captured the late antique imagination—Sosipatra, Macrina, Moses,
Origen, and others—perfectly illustrated this choice of life.
Accordingly, the trend to look beyond the walls of the classroom, to
consider the formation of personality more broadly, will be at the
forefront of our analysis. It will be shown that late antiquity saw a
return to a more fundamental, humanistic notion of education, to its
essence as it were. In a changing world, the turn to something that
could not be lost, to the self, had universal appeal (Chapters 3 to 5).
49

Finally, the dynamism and innovation of educational ideologies

need to be situated in the context of the late antique zeitgeist. Over
recent years, our image of the culture of the late Empire has been
undergoing radical revision, in a scholarly debate that has not
yielded general consensus yet. Studies mainly on the creative arts
and Latin poetry have made us aware of the distinctive, postclassical
voice of the age. Instead of frowning upon the deviations from
classical aesthetics, as older scholarship did, we now have come to
understand that late antique artists and writers in engagement with
earlier models developed their own idioms. The reuse of older
material in architecture and decoration, the penchant for
fragmentation, bricolage, and miniatures seen in artwork show that
the people of the period had an ambivalent relationship with the
classical past. 50 On the one hand, the tradition still very much
captivated the minds of artists and their audiences; on the other,
they wanted to express an independent sensitivity. A similar move
towards a non-classical aesthetics, with features comparable to the
arts, has been noted for late Latin literature, while it remains to be
seen whether Greek authors will be subjected to an analogous
revision. 51
The changing relationship to the classics inevitably had
repercussions for education. As late antiquity, an aetas hermeneutica
or a ‘Kultur globaler Auslegung’, never ceased to engage with earlier
texts, literate learning continued to be dominated by the classical
greats, from Homer to Plato and from Vergil to Cicero. 52 Yet we
discern in late antique ideologies of education a characteristic
awareness that the relationship with the distant past was no longer
seen as straightforward and unbroken. Quite the contrary, the look
back to the venerated classics was a catalyst for the articulation of a
late antique mentality, a feeling of temporal and spatial disconnect
that originated a new model of temporality. The theorization and
practice of education generated the very lateness of late antiquity,
thus defining the era’s ‘autonomy’. Giving birth to an
Epochenbewusstsein , an awareness of living in a distinct period,
educational thinking enabled the literate experts to make sense of
their times, as argued in Chapter 6. This intellectual operation allows
us to identify the education discourse as a tributary of what we may
term the ‘cultural revision’ of late antiquity, that is, the
reinterpretation of cultural parameters in engagement with the past.
This rough outline of the topic should be sufficient to suggest that
a detailed analysis of educational ideas, of the conceptual level of
paideia, in this period is worth our while. The following chapters will
offer rereadings of well-known literary masterpieces, alongside
studies of lesser known texts, to trace how the notion of education
was debated, developed, and reformulated between 300 and 550 ce.
It will be shown that reflection upon the conditions, contents,
methods, and aims of teaching, learning, and formation was
implicated in ideas and practices of wider society. An examination of
these discussions thus helps us to better understand the mindset of
the late Romans. This does not imply denying the obvious
continuities in education theory and practice from the classical era to
the postclassical world. The extent to which late thinkers were
indebted to their classical precursors will surface throughout.
However, we will see much more dynamism, changes, and novel
ideas than has been hitherto acknowledged. Further, it would be
inappropriate in light of the polyphony noted above to posit a
monolithic, homogeneous paradigm of education across the late
Mediterranean world. Yet, this monograph aims to give an account
of defining trends in educational thinking that occupied major
thinkers, even if they were not directly put to the test in pedagogic
practice.
What characterizes the prolific education discourse is a wide
notion of paideia: whether pagan or Christian, whether in Latin or in
Greek, late antique thinkers left a narrow definition of training, as
embodied by the established schools, behind in order to discuss
processes of formation more broadly, in terms not unlike the concept
of Bildung in nineteenth-century German philosophy. 53 They took
the whole human being into consideration and tried to explain how
methodical efforts and studies delineated what it meant to be
human. Therefore, our investigation will not limit itself to studying
school education but adopt a comprehensive view. It is this
approach that will establish the main traits of the discourse: that
societal transformations strongly impinged upon the debate; that, in
consequence, there was considerable dynamism and space for
experimenting with new ideas; that this brought about a
reinterpretation of paideia in many aspects, with an inclination
towards a humanist definition; and, finally, that these developments
make the education discourse a perfect gateway to the
preoccupations of the late antique world. The first book-length study
devoted to the educational ideologies of the late Empire, this
monograph recovers an underestimated dimension of education in
this period and revises the image of a ‘frozen’ system that has
dominated scholarship for too long.

Education in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Dynamism, and Reinterpretation, 300–550

ce . Jan R. Stenger, Oxford University Press. © Jan R. Stenger 2022. DOI:
10.1093/oso/9780198869788.003.0001
 1 Procop. Goth. 1.2 (γράμματά τε γὰρ παρὰ πολὺ κεχωρίσθαι ἀνδρίας, καὶ
διδασκαλίας γερόντων ἀνθρώπων ἔς τε τὸ δειλὸν καὶ ταπεινὸν ἀποκρίνεσθαι ἐκ τοῦ
ἐπὶ πλεῖστον). For another view on Amalasuintha’s education see Cassiod. var.
10.3, the letter in which she appoints Theodahad as her partner in her reign. The
piece contains a eulogy of formal education and its power.
2 Gibbon 1994: 648–50, the quote at 649. However, in Cassiod. var. 9.21 (to
the senate of Rome) Athalaric, in the words of Cassiodorus, praises grammar’s
benefits, claiming that it distinguishes Romans from barbarians.
3 Kaldellis 2004: 106–10 discusses the representation of rulers in the opening
of the Gothic War, arguing that having an education half Roman and half Gothic,
Athalaric is shown between the two extremes of the excellent but illiterate
statesman, Theoderic, and Theodahad, the learned philosopher who was utterly
incompetent as a ruler. See also Stewart 2020: esp. 71–97 on gendered discourse
and sentiments concerning Romans and Goths in Procopius.
4 See, for example, Riché 1976 (schooling in the west), Vössing 1997 (schools
in North Africa), Cribiore 2001 (schooling in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt), Heath
2004: 217–54 (teaching practice in rhetoric, mainly Libanius), Watts 2004 (student
travel), and Watts 2006 (Athens and Alexandria), Cribiore 2007 (Libanius), Penella
2007 (Himerius), Watts 2015: 51–8 (student life), Amato et al. 2017 (school of
Gaza).
5 See Morgan 1998, Cribiore 2001, and Webb 2001.
6 Brooke and Frazer 2013 is representative. If histories of the philosophy of
education include Graeco-Roman antiquity, they usually cover Plato, Isocrates, and
Quintilian, sometimes also Aristotle, the Stoics, and Augustine. See the
contributions in Curren 2003.
7 For brief surveys of educational thinking before late antiquity see Morgan
1998: 9–21 and Barrow 2015.
8 See Ober 2001 on the debate on civic education in democratic Athens;
further, Livingstone 2017.
9 Jaeger 1943–5: 1.298 considered the sophists the founders of pedagogy.
10 See in particular Books 2, 3, and 7 of the Republic. For Plato’s educational
thought see, for example, Kamtekar 2008. Plato’s presence is dominant in Werner
Jaeger’s classic on Greek paideia (Jaeger 1943–5).
11 Muir 2015. According to Marrou’s 1956 account, a new direction was given
to Greek education by the two beacons, Plato and Isocrates.
12 In particular Aristophanes’ Clouds, first performed in 423 bce and afterwards
revised, with its comic distortion of Socratic pedagogy, and the representation of
teaching in Plato’s Academy in a thirty-seven-line fragment of an unnamed comedy
by Epicrates (fr. 10 K.-A.). See also a fragment from Antiphanes’ Antaeus (fr. 35 K.-
A.). Further prominent evidence for the public interest in education is the trial of
Socrates in 399.
13 See Bloomer 2011: 81–110.
14 Xenophontos 2015 and Xenophontos 2016.
15 See Connolly 2001 and Bloomer 2011: 58–80.
16 See, for example, Marrou 1956 and Morgan 1998. Marrou’s motivations and
his humanistic viewpoint, including his criticism of his own times, have been
discussed by Too 2001 (the entire volume is intended as a revision of Marrou’s
narrative) and the contributions in Pailler and Payen 2004.
17 Studied by Morgan 1998 and Cribiore 2001. Bloomer 2011, however, argues
that Roman education was not just a copy of Greek education and highlights the
variety of teachers, students, materials, and methods in the Empire.
18 As is the case in Marrou 1956 and still in Bloomer 2015. Morgan 1998: 24
concludes, ‘By the mid-third century bce, on the evidence of the papyri, most of its
[literate education] elements were established in the order which they would
maintain for nearly a thousand years.’ In the 1949 Retractatio to his 1938
monograph on Augustine, in the light of his work on ancient education, Marrou
was more appreciative of the ability of late antique education to develop (Marrou
1938: 672–4). He then acknowledged some progress in rhetorical instruction,
while in the first part of the book he had spoken of the ‘caractère formel, sclérosé,
de l’école antique’, which he attributed to the classicism that dominated every part
of ancient education (51–2, the quote at 51).
19 Anderson 1993: 41–6 and Schmitz 1997: 34 (also noting the different
conditions of late antique society). Most prominently, Brown 1992 has shown that
paideia in late antiquity fulfilled social and political functions very similar to those
in the preceding centuries. See also Van Hoof and Van Nuffelen 2015.
20 Jaeger 1943–5: 1.xiv identified this phenomenon as a cultural universal:
‘Educational ideals are often extremely stable in the epoch of senile conservatism
which marks the end of a civilization—for example, in pre-revolutionary Confucian
China, towards the end of Greco-Roman civilization, at the end of Judaism, and in
certain periods of the history of the churches, of art, and of scientific schools.’
21 Morgan 1998: 47.
22 Cribiore 2001: 8. See also Webb 2017: 140.
23 Kaster 1988: ix and 12–13 (the quote at 13). See also Watts 2015: 55, who
overstates that fourth-century schools ‘physically and emotionally insulated
students from the larger world’, so that these did not notice the enormous political
and religious changes going on around them.
24 Browning 2000: 862.
25 As Heath 2004 has argued. He also tries to counter the myth that rhetorical
teaching no longer had practical functions and applications but rather operated as
a social mechanism, as has been claimed for the Second Sophistic. Szabat 2015
insists that the education sector of late antiquity saw innovation and flexibility, but
falls short of substantiating her claim with evidence, other than the rise of legal
studies. What she does show is only that there was lively educational activity
across the Greek-speaking world.
26 Already Marrou 1938 had inaugurated a revision of the image of decadent
late antiquity (esp. 543–4, 663–5, 689–702). For the still ongoing debate on
transformation and decline see Ward-Perkins 2005, Ando 2008, Rebenich 2009:
88–92, and Mitchell 2015, a detailed account of the entire period.
27 See, for example, Mitchell 2015. For an up-to-date synthesis of the changes
and their impact on ordinary lives see Sessa 2018. The essays in Föller and Schulz
2016 explore the changing relationships between east and west. Further, see the
volumes in the series Late Antique Archaeology (from 2003 on, edited by Luke
Lavan et al., published by Brill).
28 Them. Or. 20 and 27.
29 Aug. c. acad., ord., beat vit.
30 Gr. Nyss. v. Macr.
31 This observation ties in with what Peter Brown has stated about the
mentality of late antiquity in general. He argues for an important difference
between the cultures of the imperial age and late antiquity. While in the age of the
Antonines there were centripetal mechanisms that blurred the hard edges of
competitiveness, from the third century onwards the elite became increasingly
unable to curb these centrifugal forces. It was a development from an age of
equipoise to an age of ambition, with a general unleashing of competitive urges in
the late Empire (Brown 1978: 27–53). See also Brown 1992: 19–20 on the
fracturing of the late antique elites.
32 Chrys. educ. lib., Aug. doctr. christ., Cassiod. inst.
33 Isid. Pel. ep. 1.322 (PG 78.369).
34 Lib. Or. 62.
35 Pace Barrow 2015: 289, who contends that educational thinking in antiquity
never generated much public interest.
36 Cassiod. var. 8.31, addressed in c.526/7 to Severus, who was probably
governor of Lucania-Bruttium. For a detailed analysis see Lepelley 1990. See also
Deliyannis 2016: 234–5.
37 Cassiod. var. 1.10.3 and 6 (addressed to Boethius, c.507–12).
38 See, for example, Them. Or. 24.308a–309a and 33.365c–366a. Further,
Iamb. Ep. 14, l. 5 Dillon–Polleichtner (ἡ ὀρθὴ παιδεία) and Synes. Dion 4.1 (τῆς
ἀληθινωτάτης παιδείας).
39 See Rebenich 2002: 47–50 and Chin 2008: 76–87.
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Nid and Nod
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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Title: Nid and Nod

Author: Ralph Henry Barbour

Illustrator: C. M. Relyea

Release date: September 13, 2023 [eBook #71633]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Century Co, 1923

Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NID AND

NOD ***
NID AND NOD
The door was opened and the boy peered into the dim hall
 NID AND NOD
BY
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
Author of “The Crimson Sweater,” “Harry’s Island,”
“Team-Mates,” “The Turner Twins,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
C. M. RELYEA

THE CENTURY CO.

New York and London
1923
Copyright, 1923, by
The Century Co.

PRINTED IN U. S. A.
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE

I. At the Little Blue Shop 3

II. Kewpie States His Case 16
III. The “A. R. K. P.” is Formed 31
IV. Practice Makes Perfect 43
V. Laurie to the Rescue 62
VI. Laurie Talks Too Much 76
VII. Polly Approves 93
VIII. Kewpie Agrees 106
IX. An Afternoon Call 117
X. The Coach Makes a Promise 130
XI. On Little Crow 141
XII. On the Quarry Shelf 151
XIII. The “Pequot Queen” 162
XIV. A Perfectly Gorgeous Idea 178
XV. Romance and Miss Comfort 190
XVI. Mr. Brose Wilkins 201
XVII. The Fund Grows 215
XVIII. Miss Comfort Comes Aboard 227
XIX. Laurie is Cornered 240
XX. The Try-Out 260
 XXI. The Dead Letter 276
XXII. The Form at the Window 291
XXIII. Suspended! 309
XXIV. Mr. Goupil Calls 324
XXV. The Marvelous Catch 338
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The door was opened and the boy peered into the
dim hall Frontispiece
FACING
PAGE

A pleasant-faced little lady in a queer, old-fashioned

dress 56
They all accompanied Laurie to the Pequot Queen 186
“Nice old bus,” Laurie observed, “let’s take a spin,
Ned” 288
NID AND NOD
 CHAPTER I
AT THE LITTLE BLUE SHOP

A bell tinkled as the door of the little blue shop opened and closed,
and continued to tinkle, although decreasingly, as the stout youth
who had entered turned unhesitatingly but with a kind of impressive
dignity toward where in the dimmer light of the store a recently
installed soda-fountain, modest of size but brave with white marble
and nickel, gleamed a welcome.
In response to the summons of the bell a girl came through the
door that led to the rear of the little building. As she came she
fastened a long apron over the dark blue dress and sent an inquiring
hand upward to the smooth brown hair. Evidently reassured, she
said, “Hello,” in a friendly voice and, having established herself
behind the counter, looked questioningly at the customer.
“Hello,” responded the boy. “Give me a chocolate sundae with
walnuts and a slice of pineapple, please. And you might put a couple
of cherries on top. Seen Nod this afternoon?”
The girl shook her head as she deposited a portion of ice-cream in
a dish and pressed the nickeled disk marked “Chocolate.” “I’ve just
this minute got back from school,” she replied. “Aren’t you out early
to-day?”
“No recitation last hour,” the youth explained as his eyes followed
her movements fascinatedly. “That all the chopped walnuts I get,
Polly?”
“It certainly is when you ask for pineapple and cherries, too,”
answered the girl firmly. She tucked a small spoon on the side of the
alarming concoction, laid a paper napkin in front of the customer,
and placed the dish beside it. “Would you like a glass of water?”
 The youth paused in raising the first spoonful to his mouth and
looked to see if she spoke with sarcasm. Apparently, however, she
did not, and so he said, “Yes, please,” or most of it; the last of it was
decidedly unintelligible, proceeding as it did from behind a mouthful
of ice-cream, chocolate syrup, and cherry. When the glass of water
had been added to the array before him and he had swallowed three
spoonfuls of the satisfying medley, the stout youth sighed deeply,
and his gaze went roaming to an appealing display of pastry beyond
the girl.
“Guess I’ll have a cream-cake,” he announced. “And one of those
tarts, please. What’s in ’em, Polly?”
“Raspberry jam.”
“Uh-huh. All right. Better make it two, then.”
Polly Deane eyed him severely. “Kewpie Proudtree,” she
exclaimed, “you know you oughtn’t to eat all this sweet stuff!”
“Oh, what’s the difference?” demanded the youth morosely. “Gee,
a fellow can’t starve all the time! Maybe I won’t go in for football next
year, anyway. It’s a dog’s life. No desserts you can eat, no candy, no
—”
“Well, I think that’s a very funny way for you to talk,” interrupted
Polly indignantly. “After the way you played in the Farview game and
everything! Why, every one said you were just wonderful, Kewpie!”
Kewpie’s gloom was momentarily dissipated, giving place to an
expression of gratification. He hastily elevated a portion of ice-cream
to his mouth and murmured deprecatingly, “Oh, well, but—”
“And you know perfectly well,” continued the girl, “that pastry and
sweets make you fat, and Mr. Mulford won’t like it a bit, and—”
It was Kewpie’s turn to interrupt, and he did it vigorously. “What of
it?” he demanded. “I don’t have to stay fat, do I? I’ve got all summer
to train down again, haven’t I? Gee, Polly, what’s the use of starving
all the winter and spring just to play football for a couple of months
next fall? Other fellows don’t do it.”
 “Why, Kewpie, you know very well that most of them do! You don’t
see Ned and Laurie eating pastry here every afternoon.”
“Huh, that’s a lot different. Nod’s out for baseball, and Nid’s scared
to do anything Nod doesn’t do. Why, gee, if one of those twins broke
his leg the other’d go and bust his! I never saw anything so—so
disgusting. Say, don’t I get those tarts?”
“Well, you certainly won’t if you talk like that about your best
friends,” answered Polly crisply.
“Oh, well, I didn’t say anything,” muttered Kewpie, grinning. “Those
fellows are different, and you know it. Gee, if I was on the baseball
team I’d let pastry alone, too, I guess. It stands to reason. You
understand. But it doesn’t make any difference to any one what I do.
They wouldn’t let me play basket-ball, and when I wanted to try for
goal-tend on the hockey-team Scoville said it wouldn’t be fair to the
other teams to hide the net entirely. Smart Aleck! Besides, I’m only a
hundred and sixty-one pounds right now.”
“That’s more than you were in the fall, I’m certain,” said Polly
severely.
“Sure,” agreed Kewpie. “Gee, when I came out of the Farview
game I was down to a hundred and fifty-one and a half! I guess my
normal weight’s about a hundred and sixty-five,” he added
comfortably. “What about those tarts and the cream-cake?”
“You may have the cream-cake and one tart, and that’s all. I
oughtn’t to let you have either. Laurie says—”
“Huh, he says a lot of things,” grunted Kewpie, setting his teeth
into the crisp flakiness of the tart. “And I notice that what he says is
mighty important around here, too.” Kewpie smiled slyly, and Polly’s
cheeks warmed slightly. “Anything Nod says or does is all right, I
suppose.”
“What Laurie says is certainly a lot more important than what you
say, Mr. Proudtree,” replied Polly warmly, “and—”
“Now, say,” begged Kewpie, “I didn’t mean to be fresh, honest
Polly! Gee, if you’re going to call me ‘Mister Proudtree’ I won’t ever—
ever—”
He couldn’t seem to decide what it was he wouldn’t ever do, and
so he thrust the last of the tart into his mouth and looked hurt and
reproachful. When Kewpie looked that way no one, least of all the
soft-hearted Polly, could remain offended. Polly’s haughtiness
vanished, and she smiled. Finally she laughed merrily, and Kewpie’s
face cleared instantly.
“Kewpie,” said Polly, “you’re perfectly silly.”
“Oh, I’m just a nut,” agreed the boy cheerfully. “Well, I guess I’ll go
over to the field and see what’s doing. If you see Nod tell him I’m
looking for him, will you?”
Polly looked after him concernedly. Something was wrong with
Kewpie. He seemed gloomy and almost—almost reckless! Of late he
had rioted in sweets and the stickiest of fountain mixtures, which was
not like him. She wondered if he had a secret sorrow, and decided to
speak to Laurie and Ned about him.
Polly Deane was rather pretty, with an oval face not guiltless of
freckles, brown hair and brown eyes and a nice smile. She was not
quite sixteen years old. Polly’s mother—known to the boys of
Hillman’s School as the “Widow”—kept the little blue-painted shop,
and Polly, when not attending the Orstead High School, helped her.
The shop occupied the front room on the ground floor. Behind it was
a combined kitchen, dining and living room, and up-stairs were two
sleeping chambers. Mrs. Deane could have afforded a more
luxurious home, but she liked her modest business and often
declared that she didn’t know where she’d find a place more
comfortable.
Polly was aroused from her concern over the recent customer by
the abrupt realization that he had forgotten to pay for his
entertainment. She sighed. Kewpie already owed more than the
school rules allowed. Just then the door opened to admit a slim,
round-faced boy of about Polly’s age. He had red-brown hair under
his blue school cap, an impertinent nose, and very blue eyes. He
wore a suit of gray, with a dark-blue sweater beneath the coat. He
wore, also, a cheerful and contagious smile.
“Hello, Polly,” was his greeting. “Laurie been in yet?”
“No, no one but Kewpie, Ned. He was looking for Laurie, too. He’s
just gone.”
“Well, I don’t know where the silly hombre’s got to,” said the new-
comer. “He was in class five minutes ago, and then he disappeared.
Thought he’d be over here. I’d like a chocolate ice-cream soda,
please. Say, don’t you hate this kind of weather? No ice and the
ground too wet to do anything on. Funny weather you folks have
here in the East.”
“Oh, it won’t be this way long,” answered Polly as she filled his
order. “The ground will be dry in a day or two, if it doesn’t rain—or
snow again.”
“Snow again!” exclaimed the other. “Gee-all-whillikens, does it
snow all summer here?”
“Well, sometimes we have a snow in April, Ned, and this is only
the twenty-first of March. But when spring does come it’s beautiful. I
just love the spring, don’t you?”
“Reckon so. I like our springs back home, but I don’t know what
your Eastern springs are like yet.” He dipped into his soda and
nodded approvingly. “Say, Polly, you certainly can mix ’em.
Congreve’s has got nothing on you. Talking about spring, back in
California—”
He was interrupted by the opening of the door. The new arrival
was a slim, round-faced youth of about Polly’s age. He had reddish-
brown hair under the funny little blue cap he wore, a somewhat
impertinent nose, and very blue eyes. He wore a suit of gray
knickers with coat to match and a dark blue sweater beneath the
coat. Also, he wore a most cheerful smile. The first arrival turned
and, with spoon suspended, viewed him sternly.
“I bid you say where you have been,” he demanded.
 The new-comer threw forth his right hand, palm upward, and
poised himself on the toes of his wet shoes like a ballet-dancer.
“In search of you, my noble twin,” he answered promptly. “Hello,
Polly!”
“Punk!” growled Ned Turner. “‘Been’ and ‘twin’! My eye!”
“Perfectly allowable rime, old son. What are you having?”
“Chocolate ice-cream soda. Say, what became of you after
school? I looked all over for you.”
“Ran up to the room a minute. Thought you’d wait, you dumb-bell.”
“I did wait. Then I thought you’d started over here. Whose wheel is
that you’ve got out there?”
“Search me. Elk Thurston’s, I guess. I found it doing nothing in
front of West. I’ll take a pineapple and strawberry, please, Polly.”
“Well, you had a nerve! Elk will scalp you.”
Laurie shrugged and accepted his refreshment. “I only borrowed
it,” he explained carelessly. “Here comes the mob.”
The afternoon influx of Hillman’s boys was begun by two tousled-
haired juniors demanding “Vanilla sundaes with chopped walnuts,
please, Miss Polly!” and after them the stream became steady for
several minutes. Further sustained conversation with Polly being no
longer possible, Ned and Laurie took their glasses to the other side
of the shop, where Laurie perched himself on the counter and
watched the confusion. Ned’s eyes presently strayed to the array of
pastry behind the further counter, and he sighed wistfully. But as
Laurie, who was in training for baseball, might not partake of such
things, Ned resolutely removed his gaze from that part of the shop,
not without a second sigh, and, turning it to the door, nudged Laurie
in the ribs with an elbow.
“Thurston,” he breathed.
Laurie looked calmly at the big upper-middle boy who was
entering. “Seems put out about something,” he murmured.
 “Say,” demanded “Elk” Thurston in a voice that dominated the
noise of talk and laughter and the almost continuous hiss of the
soda-fountain, “what smart guy swiped my bicycle and rode it over
here?”
Elkins Thurston was seventeen, big, dark-complexioned, and
domineering, and as the chatter died into comparative silence the
smaller boys questioned each other with uneasy glances. No one,
however, confessed, and Elk, pushing his way roughly toward the
fountain, complained bitterly. “Well, some fresh Aleck did, and I’ll find
out who he was, too, and when I do I’ll teach him to let my things
alone!”
“What’s the trouble, Elk?” asked Laurie politely. Ned, nudging him
to keep still, found Elk observing him suspiciously.
“You heard, I guess,” answered Elk. “Did you have it?”
“Me?” said Ned. “No, I didn’t have it.”
“I don’t mean you; I mean him.” Elk pointed an accusing finger at
Laurie.
“Me?” asked Laurie. “What was it you lost?”
“Shut up,” whispered Ned. “He’ll come over and—”
“My bicycle, that’s what! I’ll bet you swiped it, you fresh kid.”
“What’s it look like?” inquired Laurie interestedly.
“Never you mind.” Elk strode across, fixing Laurie with angry eyes.
“Say, you took it, didn’t you?”
“Must have,” said Laurie cheerfully. “Did you want it?”
“Did I—did I want— Say, for two pins I’d—”
“But, my dear old chap, how was I to know that you’d be wanting
to ride it?” asked Laurie earnestly. “There it was, leaning against the
steps, not earning its keep, and you hadn’t said a thing to me about
wanting it, and so I just simply borrowed it. Honest, Elk, if you’d so
much as hinted to me, never so delicately, that—”