A story on behalf of a student of the school of the ancient two rivers. School and education in Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia)

Getting acquainted with the chapter, prepare messages: 1. About what contributed to the creation of great powers - Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian (key words: iron, cavalry, siege equipment, international trade). 2. About the achievements of the culture of the ancient peoples of Western Asia, which retain their significance today (key words: laws, alphabet, Bible).

1. Country of two rivers. It lies between two large rivers - the Euphrates and the Tigris. Hence its name - Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia.

Soils in the Southern Mesopotamia are surprisingly fertile. Just like the Nile in Egypt, the rivers gave life and prosperity to this warm country. But the floods of the rivers were stormy: sometimes the streams of water fell on the villages and pastures, demolishing both dwellings and pens for livestock. It was necessary to build embankments along the banks so that the flood would not wash away the crops in the fields. Canals were dug to irrigate fields and gardens. States arose here at about the same time as in the Nile Valley - more than five thousand years ago.

2. Cities made of clay bricks. The ancient people who created the first states in Mesopotamia were the Sumerians. Many settlements of the ancient Sumerians, growing up, turned into cities - the centers of small states. Cities usually stood on the banks of a river or near a canal. The inhabitants floated between them on boats woven from flexible branches and covered with leather. Of the numerous cities, Ur and Uruk were the largest.

There are no mountains or forests in the Southern Mesopotamia, which means that there could be no construction of stone and wood. Palaces, temples,

lye houses - everything here was built from large clay bricks. Wood was expensive - wooden doors were available only in rich houses, in poor houses they closed the entrance with a mat.

There was little fuel in Mesopotamia, and the bricks were not fired, but simply dried in the sun. Unfired brick crumbles easily, so the defensive city wall had to be made so thick that a wagon could pass over the top.

3. Towers from earth to heaven. Above the squat city buildings rose a stepped tower, the ledges of which rose to the sky. It looked like the temple of the god - the patron of the city. In one city it was the sun god Shamash, in another it was the moon god San. Everyone revered the water god Ea - after all, he nourishes the fields with moisture, gives people bread and life. To the goddess of fertility and love, Ishtar, people turned to requests for rich harvests of grain and the birth of children.

Only the priests were allowed to climb to the top of the tower - to the sanctuary. Those who remained at the foot believed that the priests there converse with the gods. On these towers, the priests observed the movement of the heavenly gods: the Sun and the Moon. They made a calendar, calculating the dates of lunar eclipses. The stars predicted people's fate.

Scientists-priests were also engaged in mathematics. The number 60 they considered sacred. Under the influence of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, we divide an hour into 60 minutes, and a circle into 360 degrees.

Goddess Ishtar. Ancient statue.

4. Letters on clay tablets. Digging up the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, ar-

geologists find tablets covered with wedge-shaped icons. These badges are embossed on a tablet of soft clay with the end of a specially pointed stick. To give hardness, inscribed tablets were usually fired in a kiln.

Cuneiform badges are a special writing of Mesopotamia, cuneiform.

Each sign in cuneiform comes from a drawing and often stands for a whole word, for example: star, foot, plow. But many signs expressing short monosyllabic words were also used to convey a combination of sounds or syllables. For example, the word "mountain" sounded like "kur" and the icon "mountain" also denoted the syllable "kur" - as in our rebuses.

There are several hundred characters in cuneiform, and learning to read and write in Mesopotamia was no less difficult than in Egypt. For many years it was necessary to attend the school of scribes. Lessons continued daily from sunrise to sunset. The boys diligently rewrote ancient myths and legends, the laws of kings, the tablets of astrologers who read the stars.

At the head of the school was a man who was respectfully called the "father of the school", while the students were considered the "sons of the school." And one of the school employees was called literally like this: “a man with a stick” - he followed discipline.

School in Mesopotamia. Drawing of our time.

Explain the meaning of the words: Sumerians, cuneiform writing, clay tablet, "father of the school", "sons of the school".

Test yourself. 1. To whom do the names Shamash, Sin, Ea, Ishtar belong? 2. What is common in the natural conditions of Egypt and Mesopotamia? What are the differences? 3. Why were stepped towers erected in the Southern Mesopotamia? 4. Why are there many more signs in cuneiform than in our alphabet of letters?

Describe the drawings of our time: 1. "The village of the Sumerians" (see p. 66) - according to the plan: 1) river, canals, vegetation; 2) huts and pens for livestock; 3) main occupations; 4) wheeled cart. 2. "School in Mesopotamia" (see p. 68) - according to the plan: 1) students; 2) teacher; 3) a worker kneading clay.

Think. Why did rich people in the Southern Mesopotamia indicate in their will, among other things, a wooden stool and a door? Get acquainted with the documents - an excerpt from the legend of Gilgamesh and the myth of the flood (see pp. 69, 70). Why did the myth of the flood arise in Mesopotamia?

The institution of school and education, as a special specialized field of activity, originates in ancient Mesopotamia. It was a natural process associated with the need for educated workers in various areas in the public service. Those states with a highly developed bureaucratic apparatus required a large number of scribes to serve in order to keep records, inventories, documentation, etc. The temples, which were also centers of power in the ancient East, in turn required priests to perform a wide range of work. For a long time, there were no educational institutions in the interfluve region that allowed one to master one or another specialization.

Like any institution, the education system developed gradually and took its origins in the family, where, based on family and patriarchal traditions, the older generation passed on the accumulated knowledge to the younger, as their successor. In ancient societies, special attention was paid to the role of the family as the basic institution of socialization. The family was obliged to give the initial basic elements of upbringing and education, thereby bringing the child into society as a full citizen. Initially, such traditions were enshrined in ancient literary monuments of an instructive and instructive nature, such as the "schoolchild's day". This was not legally prescribed anywhere, however, much attention was paid to intra-family relationships in the provisions of the Code of Hammurabi, which spelled out many points regarding education your child or pupil, teaching his craft, etc.

In Mesopotamia, the skill of scribes was inherited from father to son. The senior scribe taught his son to read and write, or he could take someone else's young man as his assistant. In the early periods, such private instruction was quite sufficient to prepare scribes for normal daily activities. In this regard, the relationship between the teacher and his student was closer than in subsequent times. When reading texts on clay tablets, one can learn that teachers called their students sons, and those, in turn, called their mentors fathers. From this there was a long belief that the transmission of the art of the scribe was exclusively between family members. But, having studied the culture and social relations of the ancient Sumerians, it becomes clear that even non-native people could speak about each other in this way. The fact is that the scribe "adopted" the student, becoming his mentor and being responsible for him, and such relationships continued until the young man became a full-fledged scribe. In school tablets, one can sometimes read that students called themselves "the sons of their scribe teachers", although they were not relatives.

Over time, such groups of teachers and students began to increase, there were more students, a small room in the scribe's house was not very suitable for conducting training sessions. In an intellectual society, the question arose about the organization of premises for conducting classes.

Thus, prerequisites arose for the organization of state institutions, the purpose of which would be to train future scribes, officials and priests.

The first schools that arose in ancient Mesopotamia are considered the oldest in the world. In the ruins of the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, along with the earliest written monuments, archaeologists have discovered a large number of school texts. Among the tablets found in the ruins of Ur, dating back approximately to the XXVIII-XXVII centuries. BC e., there were hundreds of educational texts with exercises performed by students during the lessons. Many educational tablets with lists of gods, systematized lists of all kinds of animals and plants were found. The overall percentage of school tablets in relation to other texts turned out to be impressive. For example, the collection of the Berlin Museum contains about 80 school texts from 235 clay tablets excavated in Shuruppak and belonging to the first half of the 3rd millennium. Those school tablets were of particular value also because many of them contain the names of the scribes who compiled the tablets. Scientists have read 43 names. School plaques also bear the names of those who made them. From such sources, it became possible to learn about the organization of schools, the relationship between teachers and students, the subjects taught in schools, and the methods of teaching them.

The first schools that arose in Mesopotamia were located at temples. In Mesopotamia they were called "tablet houses" or edubbas, and were widespread in ancient Sumer. During the heyday of the Old Babylonian kingdom (1st half of the 2nd millennium BC), palace and temple schools began to play an important role in education and upbringing, which were usually located in religious buildings - ziggurats, where there were both libraries and premises for scribes. Such, in modern terms, the complexes were called "houses of knowledge", and according to some versions, they were an analogue of higher educational institutions. In Babylonia, with the spread of knowledge and culture in the middle social groups, apparently, educational institutions of a new type appear, as evidenced by the appearance on various documents of signatures of merchants and artisans. There were also schools in the royal palace - apparently, court officials were trained there, or on the territory of temples - future priests were trained there. For a long time there was an opinion that schools were exclusively attached to churches. This could well have been in some places and in certain periods, but this was clearly not the case, because documentary literary sources of this time have nothing to do with temples. Buildings were found that, according to the archaeologists working there, due to their layout or the presence of school signs nearby, could be school classrooms. The Sumerian school, which apparently began as a special service at the temples, eventually became a secular institution.

The emergence of private schools falls on the period of the Akkadian literary canon, at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. The role of school education intensifies in the 1st millennium BC. e.

The first private schools were probably located in large houses of scribe teachers. The widespread use of business correspondence in Mesopotamia, especially at the end of the II-beginning of the I millennium BC. e., testifies to the development of school education in the middle social groups.

The school building was a large building divided into two parts. In the first part there was a classroom, which consisted of a row of benches. There were no tables or desks, however, scribes in Ancient Sumer were depicted sitting cross-legged on the floor. The disciples sat holding a clay tablet in their left hand and a reed style in their right. In the second part of the classroom, enclosed by a partition, sat the teachers and the man who was engaged in the manufacture of new clay tablets. The school also had a courtyard for walking and recreation. At palaces, temples, schools and colleges there were departments of the library of "clay books in different languages". The library catalogs have been preserved.

It is known from sources that there could be either one teacher or several teachers performing various functions at the school. The edubba was headed by a "father-teacher", probably, his functions were something similar to the functions of a school principal today, while the rest of the teachers were called "father's brothers", some texts mention a teacher with rods who kept order, and also about a teacher's assistant who made new clay tablets. So, the teacher's assistant was listed as "big brother", and his duties included compiling samples of tablets for copying, checking copies of students, and listening to assignments by heart. Other teachers under the Edubbas were, for example, "responsible for drawing" and "responsible for the Sumerian language" (the period when the Sumerian language became dead and was studied only in schools). There were also elders there to supervise the visit and inspectors in charge of discipline.

Of the countless documents, not a single one was found, where the salary of teachers was indicated. And here the question arises: how did the edubb teachers earn their living? And the work of teachers was paid at the expense of the parents of schoolchildren.

Education in Sumer was paid, and, apparently, quite expensive, since ordinary peasants and artisans did not have the opportunity to send their children to edubbs. And it didn’t make much sense: the son of a peasant, artisan or worker, who from an early age helps with housework or work, will continue his father’s work or take up his own similar one. While the children of nobles and officials, highly respected and prestigious groups in Sumerian society, in turn will continue the career of their fathers - scribes. From this follows a logical conclusion that studying at school was a prestigious and ambitious undertaking, representing great opportunities for career growth for future employees of the state apparatus. How long the student's parents could pay for his stay at the school largely depended on whether their son would be a simple copyist of texts or go further and receive, along with an in-depth education, a decent public position. However, modern historians have reason to believe that especially gifted children from poor families had the opportunity to continue their education.

The students themselves were divided into younger and older "children" of the edubba, and the graduate - "the son of the school of the past days." There was no class system or age differentiation: novice students sat, repeating their lesson or copying copybooks, next to older scribes who had almost completed their studies and had their own, much more complex tasks.

The issue of women's education in schools remains debatable, since it is not known for certain whether girls studied in edubbs or not. A strong argument in favor of the fact that girls were not educated in schools was the fact that clay tablets do not contain female names of scribes who sign their authorship. It is possible that women did not become professional scribes, but among them, especially among the priestesses of the highest rank, there could well be educated and enlightened people. However, in the Old Babylonian period, at the temple in the city of Sippar, there was one of the female scribes; in addition, female scribes were found among the servants and in the royal harems. Most likely, women's education was very little spread and was associated with narrow areas of activity.

To date, it is not known at what exact age education officially began. In an ancient tablet, this age is referred to as "early youth", which probably meant less than ten years of age, although this is not entirely clear. The approximate period of study in edubbach is from eight to nine years old and ending at twenty to twenty two.

Schools were "coming". The students lived at home, got up at sunrise, took lunch from their mothers and hurried to school. If he happened to be late, he received a proper flogging; the same fate awaited him for any misconduct during school hours or for not doing the exercises properly. The practice of corporal punishment was common in the ancient East. Working all day with texts, reading and copying cuneiform, in the evening the students returned home. Archaeologists have discovered a number of clay tablets that could easily pass for students' homework. In the ancient Sumerian school text, conventionally called "the day of a schoolboy", describing the day of one student, there was a confirmation of the above.

An interesting detail of school life that Professor Kramer discovered is the monthly amount of time that students were given as days off. In a tablet found in the city of Ur, a student writes: "The calculation of the time that I spend monthly in the" house of tablets ") is as follows: I have three free days a month, holidays are three days a month. Twenty-four days of each month I live in the "House of Tablets. These are long days."

The main method of education at school, as well as in the family, was the example of the elders. One of the clay tablets, for example, contains a father's appeal, in which the head of the family calls on his schoolboy son to follow the good models of relatives, friends and wise people.

In order to stimulate the desire for education in students, along with textbooks, teachers created a large number of instructive and instructive texts. Sumerian edifying literature was intended directly for the education of students, and included proverbs, sayings, teachings, dialogue-arguments about superiority, fables and scenes from school life.

The most famous of the edifying texts have been translated into many modern languages, and titled by scientists something like this: "School days", "School disputes", "The clerk and his unlucky son", "The conversation of the ugul and the clerk". From the above sources, it was possible to fully present the picture of the school day in ancient Sumer. The main meaning invested in these works was the praise of the profession of a scribe, teaching students about diligent behavior, striving to comprehend the sciences, etc.

Proverbs and sayings from a very early time become a favorite material for training skills in writing and oral Sumerian speech. Later, whole compositions of a moral and ethical nature are created from this material - texts of teachings, of which the most famous are "Teachings of Shuruppak" and "Wise Advice". In the teachings, practical advice is mixed with various kinds of prohibitions on magical actions - taboos. In order to confirm the authority of the instructive texts, their unique origin is mentioned: allegedly, at the beginning of time, the father gave all these advice to Ziusudra, the righteous man who escaped the flood. Scenes from school life give an idea of the relationship between teachers and students, the daily routine of students and the program.

With regard to examinations, the question of their form and content remains unexplored, as well as whether they were widely distributed or only in some schools. There is data from school tablets, which say that at the end of his studies, a school graduate had to have a good command of the slang words of various professions (the language of priests, shepherds, sailors, jewelers) and be able to translate them into Akkadian. It was his duty to know the intricacies of singing art and calculation. Most likely, these were the prototypes of modern exams.

After leaving school, the student received the title of scribe (oak-cap) and was hired to work, where he could become either a state or temple, or a private scribe or scribe-translator. The state scribe was in the service of the palace, he compiled royal inscriptions, decrees and laws. The temple scribe, accordingly, carried out economic calculations, but could also perform more interesting work, for example, write down various texts of a liturgical nature from the lips of priests or conduct astronomical observations. A private scribe worked in the household of a large nobleman and could not count on some interesting business for an educated person. The scribe-translator traveled to a variety of jobs, and often visited the war and diplomatic negotiations.

Some graduates remained at the school after graduation, played the role of "big brother", prepared new tablets and compiled instructive or educational texts. Thanks to school (and partly temple) scribes, priceless monuments of Sumerian literature have come down to us. The profession of a scribe gave a person a good salary, scribes in ancient Mesopotamia were ranked among the class of artisans and received an appropriate salary as well as respect in society.

In the civilizations of the ancient East, where literacy was not the privilege of most sections of society, schools were not only institutions for the training of future officials and priests, but also centers of culture and the development of scientific knowledge of antiquity. The rich heritage of ancient civilizations has survived to this day thanks to the huge number of scientific texts stored in schools and libraries. There were also private libraries located in private houses, which were collected for themselves by scribes. The tablets were collected not for educational purposes, but simply for oneself, which was the usual way of collecting collections. Some, perhaps the most learned, scribes managed to create, with the help of their students, a personal collection of tablets. The scribes of the schools that existed at the palaces and temples were economically secure and had free time, which allowed them to be interested in special topics. This is how collections of tablets were created on various branches of knowledge, which Assyriologists usually call libraries. The oldest library is considered to be the library of Tiglathpalasar I (1115-1093), located in the beard of Ashur. One of the largest libraries of ancient Mesopotamia is the library of the Akkadian king Ashurbanipal, who is considered one of the most educated monarchs of his time. More than 10,000 tablets were found in it by archaeologists and, based on the sources, the king was very interested in accumulating even more texts. Temples often comprised vast collections of religious texts originating from ancient times. The pride of the temples was to have preserved Sumerian originals, which were considered sacred and especially revered. If there were no originals, then the most important texts from other temples and collections were taken for a while and rewritten. In this way, a large part of the Sumerian spiritual heritage, primarily myths and epics, was preserved and passed on to posterity. Even if the original documents have long disappeared, their contents remained known to people thanks to numerous copies. Since the spiritual and cultural life of the population of Mesopotamia was thoroughly permeated with spiritual ideas, their patron gods also began to appear in the field of education. For example, the story of a goddess named Nisaba is connected with this phenomenon. The name of this goddess originally sounded nin-she-ba ("lady of the barley ration").

First, she personified the sacrificial barley, then the process of accounting for this barley, and later she became responsible for all accounting and accounting work, turning into the goddess of school and literate writing.

The rich heritage of ancient civilizations has survived to this day thanks to the huge number of scientific texts stored in schools and libraries. There were also private libraries located in private houses, which were collected for themselves by scribes. The tablets were collected not for educational purposes, but simply for oneself, which was the usual way of collecting collections.

Some, perhaps the most learned, scribes managed to create, with the help of their students, a personal collection of tablets. The scribes of the schools that existed at the palaces and temples were economically secure and had free time, which allowed them to be interested in special topics.

This is how collections of tablets were created on various branches of knowledge, which Assyriologists usually call libraries. The oldest library is the library of Tiglathpalasar I (1115-1093), located in the city of Ashur.

One of the largest libraries of ancient Mesopotamia is the library of the Akkadian king Ashurbanipal, who is considered one of the most educated monarchs of his time. More than 10,000 tablets were found in it by archaeologists and, based on the sources, the king was very interested in accumulating even more texts. He specially sent his people to Babylonia in search of texts and showed such a great interest in collecting tablets that he personally selected texts for the library.

Many texts have been carefully copied for this library with scientific accuracy to a certain standard.

Education and schools of the Ancient East

Plan:

1. Education, training and schools in Mesopotamia.

2. Education, training and schools in ancient Egypt.

3. Education, training and schools in ancient India.

4. Education, training and schools in ancient China.

Mesopotamia

Approximately 4 thousand years BC. city-states arose between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers Sumer and Akkad, which existed here almost until the beginning of our era, and other ancient states, such as Babylon and Assyria.

All of them had a fairly viable culture. Astronomy, mathematics, agriculture were developed here, original writing was created, various arts arose.

In the cities of Mesopotamia, there was a practice of tree planting, canals were laid with bridges through them, palaces were built for the nobility. There were schools in almost every city, the history of which dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. and reflected the needs of the development of the economy, culture, in need of literate people - scribes. Scribes were quite high on the social ladder. The first schools for their training in Mesopotamia were called " signs houses" (in Sumerian – edubba), from the name of the clay tablets on which cuneiform was applied. The letters were cut with a wooden chisel on a wet clay tile, which was then fired. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. scribes began to use wooden tablets covered with a thin layer of wax, on which cuneiform characters were scratched.

Clay tablet example

Gradually, the Edubbs acquired autonomy. Basically, these schools were small, with one teacher, whose duties included both the management of the school and the production of new sample tablets, which the students memorized, rewriting them into exercise tablets. In large "tablet houses", apparently, there were special teachers of writing, counting, drawing, as well as a special steward who monitored the order and progress of classes. Education in schools was paid. To gain additional attention from the teacher, the parents made offerings to him.

at first goals schooling were narrow: training necessary for the economic life of scribes. Later, edubbs began to gradually turn into centers of culture and education. When they arose large book depositories.

The emerging school as an educational institution was nourished by the traditions of patriarchal family education and, at the same time, craft apprenticeship. The influence of the family-communal way of life on the school was preserved throughout the history of the most ancient states of Mesopotamia. The family still played the main role in the upbringing of children. As follows from the "Code of Hammurabi", the father had to be responsible for preparing his son for life and was obliged to teach him his craft. main method upbringing in the family and school was an example of the elders. In one of the clay tablets, which contains an appeal from a father to his son, the father encourages him to follow the positive examples of relatives, friends and wise rulers.

The edubba was headed by the "father", the teachers were called "father's brothers". The students were divided into older and younger "edubba children". Education in edubba was considered, first of all, as preparation for the craft of a scribe. The students had to learn the technique of making clay tablets, to master the system of cuneiform writing. During the years of training, the student had to make a complete set of tablets with the provided texts. Throughout the history of tablet houses, the universal methods of teaching in them have been memorization and rewriting. The lesson consisted in memorizing the "tables-models" and copying them in the "tablets-exercises". Raw tablets-exercises were corrected by the teacher. Later, exercises such as "dictations" were sometimes used. Thus, the teaching methodology was based on repeated repetition, memorization of columns of words, texts, tasks and their solutions. However, it was also used clarification method teacher of difficult words and texts. It can be assumed that the training also used reception of a dialogue-dispute, and not only with a teacher or student, but also with an imaginary object. The students were divided into pairs and, under the guidance of a teacher, they proved or refuted certain statements.

Education in the "tablet houses" was difficult and time-consuming. At the first stage, they taught to read, write, count. When mastering literacy, one had to memorize a lot of cuneiform signs. Further, the student proceeded to memorize instructive stories, fairy tales, legends, acquired a well-known stock of practical knowledge and skills necessary for construction and preparation of business documents. The one who was trained in the “House of Tablets” became the owner of a kind of integrated profession, acquiring various knowledge and skills.

The schools taught two languages: Akkadian and Sumerian. Sumerian language in the first third of the 2nd millennium BC already ceased to be a means of communication and was preserved only as the language of science and religion. In modern times, the Latin language played a similar role in Europe. Depending on the further specialization, future scribes were given knowledge in the field of the language itself, mathematics and astronomy. As can be understood from the tablets of that time, a graduate of edubba had to master writing, four arithmetic operations, the art of a singer and musician, navigate the laws, and know the ritual of performing cult actions. He had to be able to measure fields, divide property, understand fabrics, metals, plants, understand the professional language of priests, artisans, and shepherds.

The schools that arose in Sumer and Akkad in the form of "tablet houses" then underwent a significant evolution. Gradually they became, as it were, centers of education. At the same time, a special literature began to take shape that served the school. The first, relatively speaking, methodological aids - dictionaries and readers - appeared in Sumer 3 thousand years BC. They included teachings, edifications, instructions, designed in the form of cuneiform tablets.

Edubbs became especially widespread in the Assyrian-New Babylonian period - in the 1st millennium BC. In connection with the development of the economy, culture, and the strengthening of the division of labor in ancient Mesopotamia, there was a specialization of scribes, which was also reflected in the nature of education in schools. The content of education began to include classes, relatively speaking, philosophy, literature, history, geometry, law, geography. In the Assyrian-New Babylonian period, schools for girls from noble families also appeared, where they taught writing, religion, history and counting.

It is important to note that large palace libraries were created during this period. Scribes collected tablets on various topics, as evidenced by the library of King Ashurbanipal (VI century BC), special attention was paid to teaching mathematics and methods of treating various diseases.

Egypt

The first information about schooling in Egypt dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. School and upbringing in this era had to form a child, a teenager, a young man in accordance with the prevailing over the millennia the ideal of man : laconic, who knew how to endure hardships and calmly accept the blows of fate. In the logic of achieving such an ideal, all training and education went on.

In Ancient Egypt, as in other countries of the Ancient East, family education. Relations between a woman and a man in the family were built on a fairly humane basis, as evidenced by the fact that boys and girls were given equal attention. Judging by the ancient Egyptian papyri, the Egyptians paid much attention to the care of children, because, according to their beliefs, it was the children who could give their parents a new life after performing the funeral rite. All this was reflected in the nature of education and training in schools of that time. The children had to learn the idea that a righteous life on earth determines a happy existence in the afterlife.

According to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, the gods, when weighing the soul of the deceased, put “ maat "- code of conduct: if the life of the deceased and "maat" were balanced, then the deceased could start a new life in the afterlife. In the spirit of preparation for the afterlife, teachings were also compiled for children, which were supposed to contribute to the formation of the morality of every Egyptian. In these teachings, the very idea of the need for education and training was affirmed: “The ignoramus who was not taught by the father is like a stone idol.”

The methods and techniques of school education and training used in ancient Egypt corresponded to the then accepted ideals of man. The child should, first of all, learn to listen and obey. There was an aphorism in use: “Obedience is the best thing for a person.” The teacher used to address the student with these words: “Be attentive and listen to my speech; don't forget anything I tell you." The most effective way to achieve obedience was physical punishment which were considered natural and necessary. The motto of the school can be considered a saying written in one of the ancient papyri: “ The child carries an ear on his back, you need to beat him so that he hears". The absolute and unconditional authority of the father and mentor was consecrated in ancient Egypt by centuries of tradition. Closely related to this is the custom of transmitting legacy profession- from father to son. One of the papyri, for example, lists the generations of architects who belonged to the same Egyptian family.

The main purpose of all forms of school and family education was to develop moral qualities in children and adolescents, which they tried to do mainly by memorizing various kinds of moral instructions. In general, by the 3rd millennium BC. in Egypt, a certain institution of a “family school” developed: an official, warrior or priest prepared his son for the profession to which he was to devote himself in the future. Later, small groups of outside students began to appear in such families.

Kind public Schools in ancient Egypt existed at temples, palaces of kings and nobles. They taught children from the age of 5. First, the future scribe had to learn how to write and read hieroglyphs beautifully and correctly; then - to draw up business papers. In some schools, in addition, they taught mathematics, geography, taught astronomy, medicine, and languages of other peoples. To learn to read, a student had to memorize over 700 hieroglyphs, be able to use fluent, simplified and classical ways of writing hieroglyphs, which in itself required a lot of effort. As a result of such classes, the student had to master two styles of writing: business style for secular needs, as well as statutory style, in which religious texts were written.

In the era of the Old Kingdom (3 thousand years BC), they still wrote on clay shards, skin and bones of animals. But already in this era, papyrus, paper made from a marsh plant of the same name, began to be used as a material for writing. In the future, papyrus became the main material for writing. The scribes and their students had a kind of writing instrument: a cup of water, a wooden board with recesses for black soot paint and red ocher paint, as well as a reed stick for writing. Most of the text was written in black ink. Red paint was used to highlight individual phrases and indicate punctuation. Papyrus scrolls could be reused many times by washing away what was previously written. It is interesting to note that at school work they usually set the time for completing this lesson.. Pupils rewrote texts that contained various knowledge. At the initial stage, they taught, first of all, the technique of depicting hieroglyphs, without paying attention to their meaning. Later, schoolchildren were taught eloquence, which was considered the most important quality of scribes: "Speech is stronger than weapons."

In some ancient Egyptian schools, students were also given the rudiments of mathematical knowledge that could be needed in the construction of canals, temples, pyramids, crop counting, astronomical calculations, which were used to predict the floods of the Nile, etc. At the same time, they taught the elements of geography in combination with geometry: the student had to be able, for example, to draw a plan of the area. Gradually, the specialization of education began to increase in the schools of Ancient Egypt. In the era of the New Kingdom (5th century BC), schools appeared in Egypt where healers were trained. By that time, knowledge had been accumulated and manuals for the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases had been created. The documents of that era describe almost fifty different diseases.

In the schools of ancient Egypt, children studied from early morning until late at night. Attempts to violate the school regime were mercilessly punished. To achieve success in learning, schoolchildren had to sacrifice all the joys of childhood and youth. The position of a scribe was considered very prestigious. The fathers of not very noble families considered it an honor for themselves if their sons were accepted into the schools of scribes. Children received instructions from their fathers, the meaning of which boiled down to the fact that studying in such a school would provide them for many years, would give them the opportunity to get rich and take a high position, to approach the clan nobility.

India

In the 2nd - 1st millennium BC. Aryan tribes from ancient Persia invaded the territory of India. Relations between the main population and the Aryan conquerors gave rise to a system later called caste: the entire population of ancient India began to be divided into four castes.

The descendants of the Aryans made up the three highest castes: Brahmins(priests) kshatriyas(warriors) and vaishyas(communal peasants, artisans, merchants). The fourth - lowest - caste was sudras(employees, servants, slaves). The Brahmin caste enjoyed the greatest privileges. Kshatriyas, being professional soldiers, participated in campaigns and battles, and in peacetime they were supported by the state. Vaishyas belonged to the laboring part of the population. Shudras had no rights.

In accordance with this social division, the upbringing and education of children was based on the idea that each person must develop his moral, physical and mental qualities in order to become a full member of his caste. Among the Brahmins, righteousness and purity of thoughts were considered the leading qualities of a person, among the Kshatriyas - courage and courage, among the Vaishyas - industriousness and patience, among the Shudras - humility and resignation.

The main goals of educating children of higher castes in Ancient India by the middle of the 1st millennium BC. were: physical development - hardening, the ability to control your body; mental development - clarity of mind and rationality of behavior; spiritual development - the ability to self-knowledge. It was believed that a person was born for a life full of happiness. The children of the higher castes were brought up with such qualities: love for nature, a sense of beauty, self-discipline, self-control, restraint. Models of education were scooped, first of all, in the legends about Krishna, the divine and wise king.

An example of ancient Indian instructive literature can be considered " Bhagavad Gita”- a monument of the religious and philosophical thought of Ancient India, containing the philosophical basis of Hinduism (mid-1st millennium BC), was not only sacred, but also an educational book written in the form of a conversation between a student and a wise teacher. Krishna himself appears here in the form of a teacher, and the king's son Arjuna appears in the form of a student, who, getting into difficult life situations, sought advice from the teacher and, receiving explanations, rose to a new level of knowledge and performance of actions. The training was to be built in the form of questions and answers: first, the presentation of new knowledge in a holistic form, then consideration of it from various angles. At the same time, the disclosure of abstract concepts was combined with specific examples.

The essence of training, as follows from the Bhagavad Gita, was that the student was consistently assigned tasks of a specific content that gradually became more complicated, the solution of which was supposed to lead to finding the truth. The learning process was figuratively compared to a battle, in which the student rose to perfection by winning.

By the middle of the 1st millennium BC. in India there is a certain educational tradition. The first stage of upbringing and education was the prerogative of the family; systematic education, of course, was not provided for here. For representatives of the three higher castes, it began after a special ritual of initiation into adults - “ upanayama". Those who did not pass this ritual were despised by society; they were deprived of the right to have a spouse of a representative of their caste, to receive further education. The order of training with a specialist teacher was largely based on the type of family relations: the student was considered a member of the teacher's family, and in addition to mastering the literacy and knowledge required for that time, he learned the rules of behavior in the family. The terms of "upanayama" and the content of further education were not the same for representatives of the three upper castes. For the Brahmins, Upanayama began at the age of 8, for the Kshatriyas at the age of 11, and for the Vaishyas at the age of 12.

The most extensive was the program of education among the Brahmins; classes for them consisted in mastering the traditional understanding of the Vedas, mastering the skills of reading and writing. The Kshatriyas and Vaishyas were trained according to a similar, but somewhat abbreviated program. In addition, the children of the Kshatriyas acquired knowledge and skills in the art of war, and the children of the Vaishyas in agriculture and crafts. Their education could last up to eight years, then another 3-4 years followed, during which the students were engaged in practical activities in the house of their teacher.

The prototype of higher education can be considered the occupations to which few young men from the highest caste devoted themselves. They visited a teacher known for their knowledge - a guru (“honored”, “worthy”) and participated in meetings and disputes of pundits. Near the cities began to appear so-called forest schools , where their faithful disciples gathered around hermit gurus. There were usually no special rooms for training sessions; training took place outdoors, under trees. The main form of compensation for tuition was the assistance of students to the teacher's family with housework..

A new period in the history of ancient Indian education begins in the middle of the 1st millennium BC, when there were significant changes in ancient Indian society associated with the emergence of a new religion - Buddhism , whose ideas were reflected in education. The Buddhist tradition of learning had its source in educational and religious activities. Buddha. In the religion of Buddhism, he is a being who has reached the state of the highest perfection, who opposed the monopolization of the religious cult by the Brahmins and for the equalization of castes in the sphere of religious life and education. He preached non-resistance to evil and the renunciation of all desires, which corresponded to the concept of " nirvana". According to legend, the Buddha began his educational work in the "forest school" near the city of Benares. Around him, a hermit teacher, groups of voluntary students gathered, to whom he preached his teaching. Buddhism paid special attention to the individual, questioning the inviolability of the principle of caste inequality and recognizing the equality of people from birth. Therefore, people of any caste were accepted into Buddhist communities.

According to Buddhism, the main task of education was the internal perfection of a person, whose soul must be delivered from worldly passions through self-knowledge and self-improvement. In the process of seeking knowledge, Buddhists distinguished between stages of concentrated, attentive assimilation and consolidation. Its most important result was the knowledge of the previously unknown.

By the 3rd century BC. in ancient India, various variants of the alphabetic-syllabic writing had already been developed, which also affected the spread of literacy. During the Buddhist period, primary education was carried out in the religious "schools of the Vedas" and in secular schools. Both types of schools existed autonomously. The teacher worked with each student separately. The content of education in the "schools of the Vedas" (Vedas - hymns of religious content) reflected their caste character and had a religious orientation. In secular schools, students were accepted regardless of caste and religious affiliation, and education here was of a practical nature. The content of education in schools at monasteries included the study of ancient treatises on philosophy, mathematics, medicine, etc.

At the beginning of our era in India, views on the ultimate tasks of education began to change: it should not only help a person learn to distinguish between the essential and the transient, achieve spiritual harmony and peace, reject the vain and mortal, but also achieve real results in life. This led to the fact that in schools at Hindu temples, in addition to Sanskrit, they began to teach reading and writing in local languages, and at Brahmin temples a two-stage education system began to take shape: elementary schools (“tol”) and schools of complete education (“agrahar”). The latter were, as it were, communities of scientists and their students. The training program in "agrahar" in the process of their development became gradually less abstract, taking into account the needs of practical life. Access to education for children from different castes was expanded. In this regard, they began to teach more elements of geography, mathematics, languages; began to teach medicine, sculpture, painting and other arts.

The student usually lived in the house of a teacher-guru, who by personal example brought up in him honesty, fidelity to faith, obedience to his parents. The disciples had to unquestioningly obey their guru. The social status of the mentor - the guru was very high. The student had to honor the teacher more than his parents. The profession of a teacher-educator was considered the most honorable in comparison with other professions.

China

At the heart of the upbringing and educational traditions of raising and educating children in ancient China, as in other countries of the East, was the experience of family education, which originated in the primitive era. It was necessary for everyone to observe numerous traditions that streamlined life and disciplined the behavior of each family member. So, it was impossible to utter swear words, to commit acts that harm the family and elders. At the heart of intra-family relations lay the respect of the younger elders, the school mentor was revered as a father. The role of the educator and education was extremely great in ancient China, and the activity of the teacher-educator was considered very honorable.

The history of the Chinese school has its roots in ancient times. According to legend, the first schools in China arose in the 3rd millennium BC. The first written evidence of the existence of schools in ancient China has been preserved in various inscriptions dating back to the ancient Shang (Yin) era (16-11 centuries BC). Only the children of free and wealthy people studied in these schools. By this time, hieroglyphic writing already existed, which was owned, as a rule, by the so-called writing priests. The ability to use writing was inherited and spread very slowly in society. Initially, hieroglyphs were carved on tortoise shells and animal bones, and then (in the 10th-9th centuries BC) on bronze vessels. Further, until the beginning of the new era, they used split bamboo tied into plates, as well as silk, on which they wrote with the juice of a lacquer tree, using a pointed bamboo stick. In the III century. BC. lacquer and a bamboo stick were gradually replaced by ink and a hair brush. At the beginning of the II century. AD paper appears. After the invention of paper and ink, learning to write became easier. Even earlier, in the XIII-XII centuries. BC, the content of school education provided for the mastery six arts: morality, writing, counting, music, archery, horse and draft riding.

In the VI century. BC. in ancient China, several philosophical trends were formed, the most famous of which were Confucianism and Taoism which had a strong influence on the development of pedagogical thought in the future.

The greatest impact on the development of upbringing, education and pedagogical thought in ancient China had Confucius(551-479 BC). Confucius's pedagogical ideas were based on his interpretation of ethics and the foundations of government. He paid special attention to the moral self-improvement of man. The central element of his teaching was the thesis of proper education as an indispensable condition for the prosperity of the state. Proper education was, according to Confucius, the main factor of human existence. According to Confucius, the natural in a person is the material from which, with the right upbringing, you can create an ideal personality. However, Confucius did not consider education to be omnipotent, since the capabilities of different people by nature are not the same. According to the natural inclinations, Confucius distinguished " sons of heaven "- people who have the highest innate wisdom and can claim to be rulers; people who have acquired knowledge through teaching and who are able to become “ pillar of the state »; and finally black - people incapable of the difficult process of comprehension of knowledge. Confucius endowed the ideal person, formed by upbringing, with especially high qualities: nobility, striving for truth, truthfulness, reverence, rich spiritual culture. He expressed the idea of the versatile development of the individual, while giving priority over education to the moral principle.

His pedagogical views are reflected in the book "Conversations and Judgments" , containing, according to legend, a record of Confucius' conversations with students, which students memorized by heart, starting from the 2nd century BC. BC. Education, according to Confucius, should have been based on a dialogue between a teacher and a student, on the classification and comparison of facts and phenomena, on imitation of patterns.

In general, the Confucian approach to learning is contained in a capacious formula: agreement between student and teacher, ease of learning, encouragement to independent thinking - this is what is called good leadership. Therefore, in ancient China, great importance was attached to the independence of students in mastering knowledge, as well as the ability of a teacher to teach his pupils to independently raise questions and find their solutions.

The Confucian system of upbringing and education was developed Mengzi(c. 372-289 BC) and xunzi(c. 313 - c. 238 BC). Both of them had many students. Mengzi put forward the thesis about the good nature of man and therefore defined the goal of education as the formation of good people with high moral qualities. Xunzi, on the contrary, put forward the thesis about the evil nature of man, and from here he saw the task of education in overcoming this evil inclination. In the process of education and training, he considered it necessary to take into account the abilities and individual characteristics of students.

During the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was declared the official ideology. During this period, education in China was quite widespread. The prestige of an educated person has grown markedly, as a result of which a kind of cult of education has developed. The school business itself gradually turned into an integral part of state policy. It was during this period that a system of state examinations for occupying bureaucratic positions arose, which opened the way to a bureaucratic career.

Already in the second half of the 1st millennium BC, during the short reign of the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), a centralized state was formed in China, in which a number of reforms were carried out, in particular, simplification and unification of hieroglyphic writing, which was of great importance for the spread of literacy. For the first time in the history of China, a centralized education system was created, which consisted of government and private schools. From then until the beginning of the 20th century. in China, these two types of traditional educational institutions continued to coexist.

Already during the reign of the Han Dynasty in China, astronomy, mathematics and medicine were developed, the loom was invented, paper production began, which was of great importance for the spread of literacy and education. In the same era, a three-tier system of schools began to form, consisting of primary, secondary and higher educational institutions. The latter were created by the state authorities to educate children from wealthy families. Up to 300 people studied in each such higher school. The content of the training was based, first of all, on the textbooks compiled by Confucius.

Students received a fairly wide range of predominantly humanitarian knowledge, which was based on ancient Chinese traditions, laws and documents.

Confucianism, which became the official ideology of the state, asserted the divinity of the supreme power, the division of people into higher and lower. The moral improvement of all its members and the observance of all prescribed ethical norms were placed at the basis of the life of society.

The first schools of this type arose, obviously, under the families of scribes. Then came the palace and temple "tablet houses". Clay tablets with cuneiform writing, which are material evidence of the development of civilization, including schools, in Mesopotamia allow you to get an idea about these schools. Tens of thousands of such tablets have been found in the ruins of palaces, temples and dwellings. Such, for example, are the tablets from the library and archive of the city of Nshkhpur, among which the annals of Ashurbanipal (668-626 BC), the laws of the king of Babylon Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), the laws of Assyria should be mentioned the second half of the 2nd millennium BC and etc.

Gradually, the Edubbs acquired autonomy. Basically, these schools were small, with one teacher, whose duties included both the management of the school and the production of new sample tablets, which the students memorized, rewriting them into exercise tablets. In large "tablet houses", apparently, there were special teachers of writing, counting, drawing, as well as a special steward who monitored the order and progress of classes. Education in schools was paid. To gain additional attention from the teacher, the parents made offerings to him.

At first, the goals of schooling were narrowly utilitarian: the preparation of scribes necessary for economic life. Later, edubbs began to gradually turn into centers of culture and education. Under them, large book depositories arose, for example, the Nippur Library in the 2nd millennium BC. and the Nineveh Library in the 1st millennium BC.

The emerging school as an educational institution was nourished by the traditions of patriarchal family education and, at the same time, craft apprenticeship. The influence of the family-communal way of life on the school was preserved throughout the history of the most ancient states of Mesopotamia. The family still played the main role in the upbringing of children. As follows from the "Code of Hammurabi", the father had to be responsible for preparing his son for life and was obliged to teach him his craft. The main method of education in the family and school was the example of the elders. In one of the clay tablets, which contains an appeal from a father to his son, the father encourages him to follow the positive examples of relatives, friends and wise rulers.

The edubba was headed by the "father", the teachers were called "brothers OTi ia". The students were divided into older and younger "edubba children". Learn! She in edubba was seen primarily as a preparation for the craft of a scribe. The students had to learn the technique of making 1С1 shya ram (yang tablets, master the cuneiform system. Over the years of training, the student had to make a complete set of tablets

personal with the provided texts. Throughout the history of tablet houses, memorization and rewriting have been the universal methods of learning in them. The lesson consisted in memorizing the "tables-models" and copying them in the "tablets-exercises". Raw tablets-exercises were corrected by the teacher. Later, exercises such as "dictations" were sometimes used. In the basis of the teaching methodology lay, therefore, multiple repetition, memorization of columns of words, texts, vdachas and their decisions. However, the teacher also used the method of explaining difficult words and texts by the teacher. It can be assumed that the method of dialogue-dispute was also used in the training, and not only with the teacher or student, but also with an imaginary object. The students were divided into pairs and, under the guidance of a teacher, showed or refuted one or another position.

The signs “Glorification of the art of scribes” found in the ruins of the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, speak of what the way of the school was and how they wanted to see it in Mesopotamia. They said: "The true scribe is not the one who thinks about his daily bread, but who is focused on his work." Diligence, according to the author of "Vosslavanie...", helps the student "to enter the road of wealth and prosperity."

One of the cuneiform documents of the 2nd millennium BC. allows you to get an idea of the school day of the student. Here is what it says: “Schoolboy, where did you go from the first days?” the teacher asks. “I go to school,” the student replies. "What are you doing at school?" - "I I'm making my own. I eat breakfast. I'm given an oral lesson. I'm given a written lesson. When classes are over, I go home, go in and see my father. I tell my father about my lessons, and my father rejoices. When I wake up in the morning, I see 1 in but my mother and I tell her: quickly give me my breakfast, I'm going to school: at school the warden asks: "Why are you opaz-washing?" Frightened and with a beating heart, I enter the teacher and bow to him respectfully.

< >(> learning in the "tablet houses" was difficult and laborious. ! !,i at the first stage they taught to read, write, count.

n literacy should have memorized a lot of cuneiform c|.1m>11. Further, the student proceeded to memorize instructive paragraphs of torii, fairy tales, legends, acquired a well-known stock of practical knowledge and skills necessary for construction, i in i l slapping business documents. Having been trained in the "house of i and hi and check" became the owner of a kind of integrated-|цMi profession, acquiring various knowledge and skills.

And schools studied two languages: Akkadian and Sumerian. Shu-Mi | "kip language in the first third of the 2nd millennium BC already

24 Chapter 2.

ceased to be a means of communication and was preserved only as the language of science and religion. In modern times, the Latin language played a similar role in Europe. Depending on the further specialization, future scribes were given knowledge in the field of the language itself, mathematics and astronomy. As can be understood from the tablets of that time, a graduate of edubba had to master writing, four arithmetic operations, the art of a singer and musician, navigate the laws, and know the ritual of performing cult actions. He had to be able to measure fields, divide property, understand fabrics, metals, plants, understand the professional language of priests, artisans, and shepherds.

During the heyday of the Babylonian kingdom (1st half of the 2nd millennium BC), palace and temple schools began to play an important role in education and upbringing, which were usually located in religious buildings - ziggurats, where there were libraries and premises for scribes. Such, in modern terms, complexes were called "houses of knowledge". In the Babylonian kingdom, with the spread of knowledge and culture in the middle social groups, apparently, educational institutions of a new type appear, as evidenced by the appearance of signatures of merchants and artisans on various documents.

It is important to note that during this period large palace libraries were created in Aishgur and Nippur. Scribes collected tablets on various topics, as evidenced by the library of King Ashurbanipal (VI century BC), special attention

School and education in ancient egypt

nie began to be given to teaching mathematics and methods of treating various diseases.

The first information about schooling in Egypt dates back to

3rd millennium BC School and
School and upbringing education in this era should
in Ancient Egypt were to shape the child, the

Stka, a young man in accordance with the ideal of a man that has developed over thousands of years: a man of few words, who knew how to endure hardships and calmly accept the blows of fate. In the logic of achieving such an ideal, all training and education went on.

In Ancient Egypt, as in other countries of the Ancient East, family education played a huge role. Relations between a woman and a man in the family were built on a fairly humane basis, as evidenced by the fact that boys and girls were given equal attention. Judging by the ancient Egyptian papyri, the Egyptians paid much attention to the care of children, because, according to their beliefs, it was the children who could give their parents a new life after performing the funeral rite. All this was reflected in the nature of education and training in schools of that time. Children had to learn the idea that a righteous life on earth determines a happy existence in the afterlife.

According to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, the gods, weighing the soul of the deceased, put "maat" as a weight on the scales - a code of conduct: if the life of the deceased and "maat" were balanced, then the deceased could start a new life in the afterlife. In the spirit of preparation for the afterlife, teachings were also compiled for children, which were supposed to contribute to the formation of the morality of every Egyptian. In their teachings, the very idea of the need for education and training was affirmed: “The ignoramus who was taught by the father is like a stone idol.”

The methods and techniques of school education and training used in ancient Egypt corresponded to the then accepted ideals of man. The child had to first learn to listen and obey. There was an aphorism in use: “Fluffing is the best thing for a person.” The teacher usually addressed the student with the following words: “Be careful and< мушай мою речь; не забудь ничего из того, что говорю я ц-бе». Наиболее эффективным способом достичь повиновения были физические наказания, которые считались есте- 1 ш-иными и необходимыми. Девизом школы можно считать и мочение, записанное в одном из древних папирусов: «Дитя песет ухо на своей спине, нужно бить его, чтобы он услы-

Chapter 26

shawl." The absolute and unconditional authority of the father and mentor was consecrated in ancient Egypt by centuries of tradition. Closely connected with this is the custom of passing the profession by inheritance - from father to son. One of the papyri, for example, lists the generations of architects who belonged to the same Egyptian family. With all the conservatism of the ancient Egyptian civilization, as well as others, in its bowels one can find processes that testify to the revision of the ideals of the individual, and with them the goals of education. From the text of one of the ancient papyri, dating back to the 1st millennium BC, one can find that even then there were different points of view regarding what a person should be like. An unknown author argued with those who were moving away from the traditional commitment of family and school education to the ideal of obedience: "A person who lives in faith is like a plant in a greenhouse." This idea was not disclosed in detail by him, but the main purpose of all forms of school and family education was to develop moral qualities in children and adolescents, which they tried to do mainly by memorizing various kinds of moral instructions, such as, for example: “It is better to rely on philanthropy than for gold in your chest; it is better to eat dry bread and rejoice in your heart than to be rich and know sorrow.” Naturally, the understanding of such maxims at school was very difficult because they were written in hieroglyphs in an archaic language, far from living speech.

In general, by the 3rd millennium BC. in Egypt, a certain institution of a “family school” developed: an official, warrior or priest prepared his son for the profession to which he was to devote himself in the future. Later, small groups of outside students began to appear in such families.

A kind of public school in Ancient. Egypt existed at temples, palaces of kings and nobles. They taught children from the age of 5. First, the future scribe had to learn how to write and read hieroglyphs beautifully and correctly; then - to make business papers. In some schools, in addition, they taught mathematics, geography, taught astronomy, medicine, and languages of other peoples. To learn to read, the student had to memorize over 700 hieroglyphs, to use fluent, simplified and classical ways of writing hieroglyphs, which in itself required a lot of effort. Here is what one priest said to his disciple in this regard: “Love writing and hate dancing. Write with your fingers all day and read at night." As a result of such classes, the student had to master two styles of writing:

Scale and education in Ancient Egypt

lovy - for secular needs, as well as statutory, on which religious texts were written.

In the era of the Old Kingdom (3 thousand years BC), they still wrote on clay shards, skin and bones of animals. But even in this

era, papyrus began to be used as a material for writing - paper made from a marsh plant of the same name. In the future, papyrus became the main material for writing. The scribes and their students had a kind of writing instrument: a cup of water, a wooden board with grooves for black paint from soot and red paint from

Writing under dictation in an ancient Egyptian school

ocher, as well as a reed stick for writing. Most of the text was written in black ink. Red paint was used to highlight individual phrases and indicate punctuation. Papyrus scrolls could be reused many times by washing away what was previously written. It is interesting to note that at school work they usually set the time for completing a given lesson. Pupils rewrote texts that contained different knowledge. At the initial stage, they taught, first of all, the technique of depicting hieroglyphs, without paying attention to their meaning. Later, schoolchildren were taught eloquence, which (■ was read as the most important quality of scribes: "Speech is stronger than weapons"; "The mouth of a man saves him, but his speech can destroy him" - said in ancient Egyptian papyri.

I? in some ancient Egyptian schools, students shared the rudiments of mathematical knowledge that could be needed in the construction of canals, temples, pyramids, etc.). With this, they also taught the elements of geography in combination with p-metry: the student had to be able, for example, to draw iiii.iii terrain. Gradually, the schools of ancient Egypt became VI and kick specialization of education. In the era of the New King-i that (5th century BC), schools appeared in Egypt where they prepared

28 Chapter 2. EDUCATION AND EDUCATION IN THE ANCIENT

Upbringing and school in the Israelite-Jewish kingdom 29

Doctors. By that time, knowledge had been accumulated and manuals for the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases had been created. The documents of that era describe almost fifty different diseases.

In the schools of ancient Egypt, children studied from early morning until
late evening. Attempts to disrupt the school regime
mercifully punished. To achieve academic success, students
had to sacrifice all children's and youthful
joys. Here is what is said in one of the letters of the XIX dynasty,
where the teacher instructs the negligent student: “Oh, write carefully
but do not be lazy, otherwise you will be severely beaten ... Your hand
must constantly rely on the sciences, not a single day of rest
ha don't give yourself, otherwise you will be beaten. At a young man
there is a back; he feels when he is beaten. Listen well
what they tell you, you will benefit from it. Goats are taught to swim
sat, horses are curbed, pigeons are forced to flock,
requirements to fly. You should not be burdened by the tension of the spirit,
books should not bother you, you will benefit from them.
The position of a scribe was considered very prestigious. Fathers are not very
noble families considered it an honor if their sons were
scribes were taken to schools. Children received instructions from their fathers,
the meaning of which boiled down to the fact that education in such a school
will provide them for many years, will make it possible to get rich and
take a high position, approach the tribal nobility.
Education and school IN THE HISTORY OF OTHER CIVILIZATIONS
in the Israeli runoff becoming religious

Kingdom of Judah the principle of monotheism was decided

factor in the development of culture, which was associated with the emergence of new moral ideas. Many sources that have come down to us testify to the difficulties in determining the criteria for Good and Evil that the peoples of that time faced. The numerous deities worshiped by humans were generally evil and their wrath was to be feared. The spirits of goodness helped, but could change mercy to anger at any moment. The mystical consciousness of people pushed them to a formal sacrifice in the form of ransom. Any sorcerer undertook to solve complex life and economic problems. The patronage of the pagan gods was weak, and their multitude brought great disagreements between people.

Already some Egyptian pharaohs, seeking to consolidate their power, tried to establish monotheism. So, Pharaoh Akhenaten was forgotten for this. Similar phenomena were observed in Mesopotamia and in Persia. For the first time in history, the Jewish people succeeded in establishing monotheism.

The ancient Jews were from Semitic nomadic tribes that settled in Mesopotamia during the time of Sumer. Later, some of these tribes migrated to Egypt, where they were enslaved by the Egyptians. It was during this period, as the legend says, that the Jewish god Yahweh concluded an agreement with this oppressed people, and Moses (Moshe) was chosen as the mediator through whom Yahweh spoke with the Jewish people. For his good deeds, Yahweh demanded the fulfillment of his will by all. The Old Testament describes both the miraculous salvation of the Jewish people from slavery, and the cruel punishment that fell to the lot of the enslavers, and mystical phenomena, and, possibly, real historical events. Mysticism and history are practically inseparable in ancient sources. It is unlikely that anyone will undertake to establish the true origin of the ten moral commandments allegedly handed over to Moses on Mount Sinai by Yahweh himself. But in this case it doesn't matter. What is important is that the boundary between Good and Evil has been drawn. Let it be conditional, not coinciding with modern ideas, but clear and understandable for people of that time. Yahweh did not accept sacrifices from sinners. A man who killed his neighbor was to be seized even near the altar and punished with death. It was supposed not only that every Jew should fulfill the commandments of Yahweh, but also the execution of judgment on those who violate them - the right to judge and punish.

Along with monotheism, another feature appeared in the Hebrew religion. Yahweh was considered powerful over all peoples and their gods, but he chose only the Jewish one for guardianship. Religious and national in the self-consciousness of the Jews became inextricably linked.

After fleeing from Egypt, the Hebrew tribes reached the country of Canaan (Palestine) and created the state of Israel, from which in 925 BC. separated independent i i.apcTBO Judea. In 722 BC The Assyrian king Sargon II destroyed Samaria, the capital of Israel, captured the Israeli people and took a significant part of them to Assyria. As a result, Israel ceased to exist. In 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar II captured the last stronghold of the Jews - Jerusalem and took the captives to Babylonia.

According to legend, it was during this period that the Jews rethinked their fate. They were dominated by the idea of the need to beg for forgiveness and freedom from the almighty Yahweh. The numerous prophets during this period became, as it were, teachers of their people. In 538 BC, the Iranian king Cyrus II released the Jewish people to freedom.

(the need for complex historical vicissitudes, as well as the misty-pichm of the consciousness of the ancient Jews, was reflected in their attitude towards

3 0 chapter 2. EDUCATION AND EDUCATION IN THE ANCIENT STATES

education, which can be described as a religious-national phenomenon, where both principles were a single whole. The procreation acquired a special spiritual meaning for this people, and the school began to be revered on a par with the temple. If the settlement was small and it was not possible to build a school, then the children studied in the synagogue, the prayer house. The teacher, most often a preacher, did not receive money for his work, since it was believed that the words of the Bible, especially the Torah (Pentateuch), were given to the people by God free of charge, which means that they should also be passed on to children free of charge. Respect for the teacher was brought up in the family long before the children entered school. Ancient wisdom said: “If you saw that your father and your teacher stumbled at the same time, then first give your teacher a hand,” although the father in the family was revered as an absolute master.

Education in Jewish families, although it was of a despotic nature, also involved instructive conversations with children, which was prescribed by the Torah.

School education and training was most often three-stage. The Jews created their own writing system, and at the first stage of education, children had to master the rudiments of reading and writing, which has survived to this day, as well as counting. In elementary school, the teacher and students sat on the floor, demonstrating their equality before God, but when older children got the opportunity to join the discussion, the teacher sat on a raised platform.

The Torah and the Talmud - a set of religious, ethical and legal dogmas of Judaism, as well as the interpretation of the Torah - served as the main subjects of school study. The Torah was memorized by heart, developing memory, which was considered by the ancient Jews to be the most important property of the mind. In the process of these lessons, the children learned to reason and express what they read and memorized. The third stage of training was associated with preparation for future professional activities. Since the profession was most often inherited by the boy, the father also played the role of a teacher.

The girls were also introduced to Torah and writing, but to a lesser extent. This knowledge was necessary to comply with strict and complex traditions in housekeeping. The ideal of a woman was considered a mother and an exemplary wife. The content of Hebrew education was very meager in terms of children's mastery of practical knowledge. The Jews did not build pyramids and complex irrigation systems, did not engage in navigation and led a secluded lifestyle, only to a certain extent controlling the caravan routes passing through their country between Iran and

Education and school in ancient Iran

Egypt. The ease with which Judea submitted to the Romans suggests that they did not succeed in military matters either. Apparently, the reasons for these phenomena lie in religion. The people chosen by God must not mix with other peoples. This position was considered the most important value in Hebrew education. Purity of soul, purity of blood, purity of food and purity of body were considered the paths to salvation, and the achievement of these ideals was the essence of all Hebrew education, to which the activities of the school were also oriented. v

The transition to monotheism was an important step towards considering the categories of Good and Evil, on which the ideals that underlay the views on education were formed. Of course, pre-Christian morality seems today alien to the modern European. Principles such as "an eye for an eye" are recognized today as immoral, but they already showed the embryos of morality, which differed from primitive taboos. And consequently, Jewish educators already had a subject for discussion with children, which was the first, albeit small, step towards understanding the norms and principles of justice through education.

After the conquest of Judea by Rome in the VI century. BC. Jewish
the people settled almost all over the world, but its elements
ancient faith and traditions of education to this day continue
persist, and centuries-old discussions have been going on around them.
Education and school Ancient Iran is a country that
in ancient Iran, ruyu was inhabited by °D IN from the most mysterious

nyh peoples of the Earth - the Aryans. Hindus, Germans, Celts, Italians, Greeks, Balts, some Slavic peoples are in historical kinship with the Aryans, traces of which were found not only in Western Europe, but also in the Himalayas, and in Mongolia, and in the Urals. I IjicMcua of the ancient Persians were in the 1st c. BC. the Middle Eastern branch of the Aryans and were united by a faith that originated, perhaps from the Indian Vedas, which later became the basis for many independent beliefs. Zoroastrianism is another example of monotheism. Here, the worship of the main god Ahurmazda, personifying Good in the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, left its mark on the nature of education.

I? Avesta - the prophecies of Zarathushtra, according to modern historians, contain elements that later entered both the Chilean and Roman cultures. Many provisions of the Avesta have something in common with the Torah, and with the Bible, and with the Koran. In ancient Iran, where Zarathushtra was from, peculiar ideas arose about the values of a person, his soul and its relationship with the body.

32 Chapter 2. EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN THE MOST ANCIENT STATES

Thus, Zarathushtra argued that man is like God, and his soul is part of God's power. The meaning of life consists in the realization of the power given by God to fight evil - evil spirits (devas) that live in the person himself in the form of death, infertility, deceit, laziness, envy, hypocrisy, and the establishment of the kingdom of Good. This made the religion of the Iranians, although abstract, but with a highly developed ethical principle.

Family education among the ancient Iranians, as well as among other Eastern peoples, was very strict. Until the age of seven, everything was allowed to the child, there were no prohibitions, but after this period he had the right to disobey only three times, for the fourth time the death penalty awaited him. Such cruelty, apparently, was the other side of the idea of purity. A child who was not able to master the requirement to obey three times was considered inferior, “impure”, and all impure was a product of the kingdom of Evil and had to be “cleansed”.

An important means of education in the family among the ancient Iranians was considered to be the accustoming of children to the performance of numerous rituals that accompanied the whole life of people of that time. At the same time, parents had to explain to their children the basics of religion, in which questions of morality occupied a large place.

Schooling for boys began at the age of 7. The main source of initial knowledge was the Avesta, a collection of sacred books written in a special Avestan script. The students wrote on earthenware shards and on wet clay, using a writing technique similar to that of Babylon. After leaving school, they had the opportunity to receive special military or bureaucratic training, and some - to master the profession of a priest. The future official had to master not only literacy, but also learn to be moderate in life, calm and submissive. Students often had to sleep right on the ground near schools and not always get food. The upbringing of future warriors was even more severe. Heavy exercises of various types were supposed to make the spirit of the future warrior unshakable, and the body - hardy and fast.

Education and School History of Ancient India conditionally
in ancient India divided into two periods: Dravid-

" - " "J" "Sco-Aryan - until the VI century BC and

Buddhist - from the VI century. BC. The peculiarity of Indian culture was its isolation, therefore it is advisable to consider the problems of the development of the school and pedagogical ideas in the Ancient and Medieval (meaning the period of European

Upbringing and school in ancient india 33

Middle Ages) of India, up to the moment of its colonization by Britain in the 18th century, in unity.

The culture of the Dravidian tribes - the indigenous population of India until the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. - approached the level of culture of the early states of Mesopotamia, as a result of which the upbringing and education of children was family-but-school in nature, and the role of the family was dominant. Schools in the Indus Valley presumably appeared in the pre-Aryan period in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. and were similar in character, as might be supposed, to the schools of ancient Mesopotamia. More than a thousand seals with inscriptions in a peculiar letter, clay inkwells for writing on palm leaves - that's all that has been preserved as cultural and educational monuments from those times. In the 2nd-1st millennium BC. Aryan tribes from ancient Persia invaded the territory of India. Relations between the main population and the Aryan conquerors gave rise to a system that later became known as the caste system: the entire population of Ancient India began to be divided into four castes. The descendants of the Aryans made up the three highest castes: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors) and Vaishyas (communal peasants, artisans, merchants). The fourth - the lowest - caste was the Shudras (employees, servants, slaves). The Brahmin caste enjoyed the greatest privileges. Kshatriyas, being professional soldiers, participated in campaigns and battles, and in peacetime they were supported by the state. Vaishyas belonged to the laboring part of the population. I Powders had no rights.

In accordance with this social division, the upbringing and education of children was based on the idea that each person should develop his moral, physical and mental qualities in order to become a full member of his caste. Among the Brahmins, righteousness and purity of thoughts were considered the leading qualities of eity, among the Kshatriyas - courage and courage, among the Vaishyas - diligence and patience, among the Shudras - humility and resignation.

The main goals of educating children of higher castes in ancient India by the middle of the 1st millennium BC. were: physical development - hardening, the ability to manage one's own tone; mental development - clarity of mind and reasonableness of command; spiritual development - the ability to self-knowledge. (it was read that a person was born to be filled with happiness and I and I. The children of the higher castes brought up such qualities as love for nature, a sense of beauty, self-discipline, (self-control, restraint. The ideal of moral behavior

34 Chapter 2 EDUCATION AND EDUCATION IN THE ANCIENT STATES

Education and school in Ancient India

Denia was considered to promote the common good, the rejection of actions that are detrimental to such a good. Models of education were scooped first of all in the legends about Krishna - the divine and wise king - warrior and shepherd. These legends give a detailed description of family and social education in ancient India.

The epic Krishna was originally brought up among peers in joint games and work. Later, his parents gave him to the teaching of a wise brahmin. Here, together with fellow students, he studied the Vedas and after sixty-four days had to master various arts and skills - "all human learning."

The ideal of ancient Indian education is revealed in the image of Prince Rama, one of the heroes of the Mahabharata, the epic of the peoples of India. For the Hindus, Rama was a model of a perfect man, the standard of the highest education. This is how Rama seemed to them: “No one could compare with the prince in strength and courage, and Rama surpassed everyone in learning, and education, and wise understanding. Full of virtues, he never boasted or looked for vices in others. Pure in soul, he was affable and meek in manner, gentle and straightforward, respectful with his elders. Constantly during the hours of rest, he practiced martial arts, conducted useful conversations with men wise in age, science and experience. He knew the Vedas, laws and customs, was eloquent and prudent and never deviated from the path of duty.

The Bhagavad Gita, a monument of the religious and philosophical thought of Ancient India, containing the philosophical basis of Hinduism (mid-1st millennium BC), can be considered a model of ancient Indian instructive literature. It was not only sacred, but also an educational book written in the form of a student’s conversation with a wise teacher. Krishna himself appears here in the form of a teacher, and the king's son Arjuna appears in the form of a student, who, getting into difficult life situations, sought advice from the teacher and, receiving explanations, rose to a new level of knowledge and performance of actions. The training was to be built in the form of questions and answers: first, the presentation of new knowledge in a holistic form, then consideration of it from various angles. At the same time, the disclosure of abstract concepts was combined with specific examples.

The essence of training, as follows from the Bhagavad Gita, was that the student was consistently set tasks of a particular sods, gradually becoming more complicated.

The first centers of culture arose on the coast of the Persian Gulf in Ancient Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia). It was here, in the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the 4th millennium BC. the Sumerians lived (it is interesting that only in the 19th century did it become clear that people lived in the lower reaches of these rivers long before the Assyrians and Babylonians); they built the cities of Ur, Uruk, Lagash and Larsa. To the north lived the Akkadian Semites, whose main city was Akkad.

In Mesopotamia, astronomy, mathematics, agricultural technology successfully developed, original writing, a system of musical notation were created, the wheel and coins were invented, and various arts flourished. In the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, parks were laid out, bridges were erected, canals were laid, roads were paved, and luxurious houses were built for the nobility. In the center of the city there was a cult building-tower (ziggurat). The art of ancient peoples may seem complex and mysterious: the plots of works of art, the methods of depicting a person, or the events of representing space and time were completely different then than they are now. Any image contained an additional meaning that went beyond the plot. Behind each character of a wall painting or sculpture was a system of abstract concepts - good and evil, life and death, etc. To express this, the masters resorted to the language of symbols. Not only scenes from the life of the gods are filled with symbolism, but also images of historical events: they were understood as a report of a person to the gods.

In the initial period of the emergence of writing in Sumer, the goddess of harvest and fertility, Nisaba, was considered the patroness of scribes. Later, the Akkadians attributed the creation of scribal art to the god Nabu.

Writing is believed to have originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia at about the same time. The Sumerians are usually considered the inventors of cuneiform writing. But now there is a lot of evidence that the Sumerians borrowed the letter from their predecessors in Mesopotamia. However, it was the Sumerians who developed this script and put it on a large scale at the service of civilization. The first cuneiform texts date back to the beginning of the second quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. e., and after 250 years, an already developed writing system was created, and in the XXIV century. BC. documents appear in Sumerian.

Clay served as the main material for writing from the time of the emergence of writing and at least until the middle of the 1st millennium. A reed stick (style) served as a writing tool, the angle of the cut of which pressed signs onto wet clay. In the first millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia, leather, imported papyrus, and long narrow (3-4 cm wide) tablets with a thin layer of wax, on which they wrote (probably with a reed stick) in cuneiform writing, also began to be used as writing material.

Temples were the centers of scribal work. Apparently, the Sumerian school arose as an appendage of the temple, but eventually separated from it, temple schools appeared.

By the middle of the 3rd millennium, there were many schools throughout Sumer. During the second half of the 3rd millennium, the Sumerian school system flourished, and tens of thousands of clay tablets, texts of student exercises performed during the course of the school curriculum, lists of words and various objects survived from this period.

School premises found during excavations were designed for a small number of children. Judging by the size of the yard, where classes were supposedly held in one Ur school, 20-30 students could fit there. It should be noted that there were no classes, older and younger studied together.

The school was called e dubba (in Sumerian for "tablet house") or bit tuppim (in Akkadian with the same meaning). A teacher in Sumerian was called ummea, a student in Akkadian talmidu (from tamadu, "to learn").

The Sumerian school, as in later times, prepared scribes for economic and administrative needs, primarily for the state and temple apparatus.

During the heyday of the ancient Babylonian kingdom (1st half of the 2nd millennium BC), palace and temple edubbs played a leading role in education. They were often located in religious buildings - ziggurats - had many rooms for storing tablets, scientific and educational activities. Such complexes were called houses of knowledge.

The main method of education at school, as well as in the family, was the example of the elders. The training was based on endless repetitions. The teacher explained the texts and individual formulas to the students, commenting them orally. The written tablet was repeated many times until the student memorized it.

Other teaching methods were also born: teacher-student conversations, teacher explanations of difficult words and texts. The method of dialogue-dispute was used, not only with a teacher or a classmate, but also with an imaginary object. At the same time, the students were divided into pairs and, under the guidance of a teacher, they proved, affirmed, denied and refuted certain judgments.

Severe cane discipline reigned in the school. According to the texts, students were beaten at every step: for being late to class, for talking during class, for getting up without permission, for bad handwriting, and so on.

In the centers of ancient culture - Ur, Nippur, Babylon and other cities of Mesopotamia - starting from the 2nd millennium BC, collections of literary and scientific texts were created in schools for many centuries. Numerous scribes of the city of Nippur had rich private libraries. The most significant library in ancient Mesopotamia was that of King Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC) in his palace at Nineveh.

Of course, in Mesopotamia, only boys studied in schools at all periods. The isolated cases in which women were educated can be explained by the fact that they studied at home with their scribe fathers.

Only a small part of the scribes who graduated from school could or preferred to engage in teaching and scientific work. Most, after completing their studies, became scribes at the court of kings, in temples, and much less often in the households of wealthy people.

We have considered the most important issues related to the emergence and development of the school. The value of the most ancient schools on Earth was great. Despite the difficult fate of the student, which fell out to him during his studies (as follows from the texts cited earlier), scribal education was necessary for subsequent promotion. Those who finished the tablet houses could be called happy. Without these houses of tablets, this ancient people would certainly not have had such a high culture - they could not only read, multiply and divide, but also write poetry, compose music, they knew astronomy and mineralogy, created the first libraries and much more. The study of history is always very exciting and, in addition, contributes to understanding the experience accumulated by mankind, comparing it with the present day, i.e. gives more and more "food for thought".