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Education
The Egyptian system of education is not clearly
defined in the papyri, but it seems that most children, boys and
girls, whatever their social status, received some kind of education
up to a certain age. Until age four, most children were under the
control and guidance of their mothers and probably lived in the
women’s quarters of the house. They were expected to be obedient and
to show great respect to their mothers.
After this age, though, supervision of their education was assumed by their fathers, and a child was generally expected to follow his father’s trade or profession. (At this point, a girl’s formal education generally came to an end.) Some boys, therefore, attended the village school while others pursued courses at specialized schools; those intended for the priesthood and associated professions or the civil service received an academic education. Royal tutors taught some of the nobles’ children together with the king’s offspring, and future officials for the home and foreign services attended special training schools. Despite this hereditary pattern in the professions, some children of humble origin were able to receive education alongside the sons of the wealthy and powerful and to pursue important careers. However, education was not free, and each family was expected to pay in kind; in country areas they would have offered the produce of the land. . School Curriculum The curriculum at the schools included sports such as swimming, boating, wrestling, ball games, and shooting with bows and arrows as well as formal instruction. For those intending to pursue further education emphasis was placed on writing (which was taught to train the character) and also mathematics. Corporal punishment was considered a desirable means of correction for laziness and disobedience. The Egyptian educational system was famed in antiquity because it attempted to create a person who not only possessed scientific or scholarly attributes but could also exhibit selfcontrol, good manners and morals, and who would be a useful member of society. These concepts are set out in the Instructions in Wisdom, which provide one of the main sources for current knowledge of moral and ethical education in Egypt. This system of creating a “whole person” was highly regarded and praised by the Greeks in later times. From age fourteen, sons of farmers and craftsmen followed their fathers into the fields or became apprentices. Education for girls was elementary, and apart from some of the princesses, it is unlikely that they pursued further education. However, boys intended for careers as scribes (including doctors and lawyers) or civil servants were sent to temples or centers of administration where they would each receive personal tuition from a senior official. In addition to reading, writing, and the study of literature, specialist subjects such as foreign languages for future officials of the diplomatic service and mathematics for the architects and engineers of the home civil service were taught. The students, thus enrolled as junior scribes, were instructed by teachers from a variety of backgrounds: Some were scribes of the royal treasury of pharaoh’s workshop; one is known to have come from the royal stable. At the temples, priests with a wide range of knowledge instructed the pupils, probably within the area known as the House of Life. It is nowhere stated that the students had to take examinations, but their teachers certainly complained about their laziness and drinking bouts! Training took the form of copying out long compositions that were then corrected in the margins by the master. The exercise of copying out these texts, taken down by the students in dictation, had two purposes: It enabled the pupils to acquire reading and writing skills and an understanding of grammar, vocabulary, and composition; and the texts, selected for their moral content, helped to form a boy’s character. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms higher education had been mainly directed toward the nobility and upper classes and had concentrated on the Instructions in Wisdom. By the New Kingdom, however, the increasingly structured and organized education and training of scribes had been expanded to include the middle classes. New Instructions in Wisdom reflecting the social and educational concepts of that period were added to those of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and the Schoolboy Exercises (mainly dating to the Ramesside Period, c.1250 BC) have also survived. They are copies of moral compositions and letters, designed to give inspiration and guidance, which provide information about the contemporary social and religious background. They also preserve texts that have not survived elsewhere and, in some cases, are the only source for important, much earlier texts. However, there are difficulties in translating these, since the boys frequently misunderstood what they were copying and made many mistakes. Although the masters corrected these exercises, they concentrated on the handwriting rather than the content of the passages. Also, since these texts date to the time of Egypt’s empire, the inclusion of foreign names and words added to the pupils’ difficulties. Some of these model compositions were preserved on papyri, but excerpts of the texts were also found on ostraca, which schoolboys used as a cheaper writing material and then threw into garbage piles. Inscribed writing boards and tablets have also been found. At the Ramesseum (the mortuary temple built by Ramesses II at Thebes) large numbers of inscribed shards have been recovered from the nearby rubbish mounds. They were discarded by pupils of the school, situated within the temple precinct, when they had finished their writing exercises. The inscriptions indicate that there were set texts that the pupils copied out; these may have been important passages that they were expected to know. . Teaching Aids Although the educational system is not clearly defined in any of the papyri, two main literary sources preserve the concepts and teaching methods that were employed. .
THE INSTRUCTIONS IN WISDOM
The Instructions in Wisdom, or wisdom literature,
provided advice couched in terms of didactic or contemplative
concepts handed down by a sage to his charges or a father to his
son. They give us some idea of the ethics and morals that formed the
basis of educational instruction. The earliest known instruction is
attributed to Hardedef, a famous sage of the Old Kingdom. Both the
Instruction of Ptahhotep and the Instruction for Kagemni probably
originated in the Old Kingdom. The Instruction of Ptah-hotep was
attributed to a vizier of King Isesi of Dynasty 5, and the tomb of
an official of the same name has been discovered at Saqqara
(although the text was probably actually composed later toward the
end of Dynasty 6, c.2185 BC). The Instruction for Kagemni was set in
Dynasty 3 and addressed to the son of King Huni. There was a vizier
named Kagemni who lived several hundred years later, but again the
composition probably dates to Dynasty 6. Both of these texts survive
on a later papyrus (Papyrus Prisse, Middle Kingdom, c.1900 BC),
which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The
instructions generally reflect the stability of the social order as
it existed in Dynasty 6 and embody the values and virtues of Old
Kingdom society. They refer to well-known rulers and historical
figures of that era, and authorship of these texts is attributed to
famous sages and viziers. The Instructions in Wisdom counsel caution
in speech, prudence in friendship, and good behavior in the houses
of others and at the table. They recommend modesty and specify
correct behavior toward peers, superiors, and inferiors. The advice
is practical and seeks to ensure advancement in life and to promote
the skills required in good leaders. Although most instructions are
presented as guidance from a royal or noble sage, in one text (the
Satire on Trades) a man of humble origin advises his son, who has
gained a school place among the magistrates’ children, to aspire to
a career as a scribe. He highlights the advantages and compares the
benefits of this career with the hardships and problems encountered
in all other trades and professions. By the New Kingdom the
instructions underwent further changes and were now directed at the
sons of the expanded middle classes. In the Instruction of Any a
minor official addresses his son and eulogizes middle-class rather
than aristocratic values. The culmination of these wisdom texts
appears in the Instruction of Amenemope (composed in the Ramesside
Period, c.1250 BC) in which a new attitude and emphasis are
demonstrated material wealth and achievement are still regarded as
the legitimate goals of a righteous life, but the true ideal is now
a man who is humble in his dealings with gods and men. Wealth and
worldly status no longer have supreme significance: The new ideal
man is expected to be honest even if his wealth is limited. In the
earlier texts correct and modest behavior was deemed to bring
personal advancement, but it is the inner qualities of endurance,
self-control, and kindliness that are now considered most important.
Other themes present in the Old Kingdom texts such as the
superiority of the “silent” man over the “heated” man are developed
further, but there are also marked changes in attitude. Individual
humility before the god is now emphasized, and an important
innovation is the idea that no man can hope to achieve personal
perfection because only the gods are perfect. Another interesting
aspect of Amenemope’s text is the parallelism that has been observed
between some of its passages and those found in the biblical Book of
Proverbs.
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Schoolboy Exercises
Another important source for our understanding of the educational system are the Schoolboy Exercises of the Ramesside Period (c.1250 BC), which are known from numerous papyri and ostraca. Schoolboys were taught writing and grammar by copying out a variety of highly regarded texts, but the Egyptians also attempted to form their children’s characters by exposing them to the moral concepts found in these works. They included hymns, prayers, the Instructions in Wisdom, and letters. There were also business and legal documents, and the pupils gained wide experience in different types of literature. Some of the texts were taken from early periods such as the Satire on Trades and Instruction of King Amenemhet I composed in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. New compositions were also copied as models. Some of these works arose from the school system itself, and they reflect the process of education and the pupil’s relationship with his teacher. These texts composed by teachers and pupils became models that later generations copied for their own inspiration. They include three main themes: the teacher offering good advice to his pupil and encouraging him to work hard and reject excessive pleasure; praise for the scribal profession and its superiority over all others; and the grateful student praising his teacher and wishing him health and happiness. An important aspect of scribal activity was letter writing, and some of this advice is presented in the form of model letters exchanged between teachers and pupils; these sometimes insert the names of individual teachers and students. Model compositions are preserved on documents such as Papyrus Anastasi and Papyrus Sallier, which came from Memphis; they emphasized respect for the teacher, advised the pupil to follow a scribal career, and provided a warning against strong liquor and girls. Another particularly famous text is preserved in Papyrus Lansing, where a scribe has compiled selected passages to produce a “book” of model compositions for students’ use. In Papyrus Chester Beatty IV the text considers the value of the scribal profession and claims that the only immortality a man can ever achieve is through his writings, since there is no conclusive evidence for the existence of an afterlife. This indicates a profound skepticism and disregard for the supposed benefits conferred on the deceased by his tomb and funerary goods. One concept of the educated man that survived virtually unchanged was that he held a position in society that no other profession or trade could equal. Education was used to create an elite class, but the scribes, who enjoyed the benefits of this system, were also expected to exercise the highest standards of behavior and to protect with impartiality the interests of the weak and less fortunate. This code of behavior preserved in the texts was passed down through the generations. .
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Education
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