Many commentators have argued that the recent grading controversy indicates just how important public examinations are. Up to a point, Lord Copper.
Romans did jobs, not ‘education’. Most who went to school (there was no state provision) probably learnt not much more than the basic three Rs (peasant families — the majority of the population — needed their children to work the land). A freed slave in Petronius’s Satyricon boasts that he knows ‘no geometry or fancy criticism or any such meaningless drivel, but I do know the alphabet and I can work out percentages and measures and currency’; Horace mocked pupils for being asked what is left from 1/12th subtracted from 5/12ths.
One option for children was to be sent away as apprentices. That required no fees: they paid their way by the work they did around the shop, though parents were asked for help with food and clothing.
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