Various implements hang on the walls of the schoolroom: at one side a roll of manuscript with a handle; next to it a writing tablet, with a cord fastened round it, and a handle; next, a lyre and a curious cross, which is not easy to interpret; some think that it is meant for a sextant for the geometrical instruction. On the other side hang two drinking-cups, which the pupils are probably allowed to use during the intervals; two seven-stringed lyres; a basket with handle and feet, probably used to contain the manuscripts; and finally, a case for a flute, with the capsule for the mouthpieces hanging to it.
We must now examine more closely the special implements used in musical instruction, and the mode in which that instruction was given. Elementary knowledge of reading and writing was very common, at any rate in Attica, and people who were unacquainted with either were even rarer in ancient Greece than in our own day. In the school of the teacher who had charge of the boys' elementary grammatical instruction ([Greek: grammatistês]), the boy was probably first taught his letters, their names and shapes, and very likely some external helps were used for this purpose; at any rate, these were common in later periods. The next process was combining the letters in syllables; and thus gradually they advanced to reading whole words. At the same time, probably, instruction in writing began. The master made single letters and words for the pupils to copy in the space left free under his lines, and probably helped them a little by guiding their hands. The place of our slate was taken by a wax tablet. This was a wooden tablet covered with a thin coating of wax, in which the letters were scratched with a pointed style, made of bone, ivory, or metal; the broad end was used for flattening the wax when the slate was full, and then it could be used again. There were generally two, three, or more of these tablets connected by hinges, and these were called _diptych_, _triptych_, etc. It was only more advanced pupils who were allowed to use such expensive material as papyrus and reeds for writing, and even then, on account of the expense, they were not provided with new paper, but wrote on the back of what had already been used. Chance has preserved to us, in a discovery dating from the age of the Ptolemies, some very interesting specimens of Greek instruction in writing--several wax tablets, six inches long and four inches broad, all containing the same Greek trimeter verses, probably by Menander. The writing on one of these tablets, which was probably the master's copy, is good and careful; that on the others, the pupils' copies, is inferior. Under one the word "industrious" has been written by the master's hand. But slight demands seem to have been made on the pupils in the matter of writing, and more stress was laid on clearness than beauty or speed, since there were always experienced slaves ready to do work of this kind.