St. Augustine was born on November 13, A.D. 354, at the little town of Tagasta, in ancient Numidia, which is now Algeria. His father was an unassuming and honorable soul, though of humble and modest origin. His mother was the sainted Monica, who is so justly venerated on Christian altars. The early education of Augustine was received in his native village, with slender means and amidst meagre advantages. As a boy he manifested very little of those studious habits which were afterward to distinguish and elevate him to universal honor. At great sacrifice on his father's part, and with the princely generosity of a noted inhabitant of Tagasta, named Romanian, he was sent to the better equipped schools of the neighboring Madaura and later to Carthage. The schools of Carthage, though not so renowned and exceptional as those of Alexandria and Antioch, were yet among the most prominent of the Roman World. He was sixteen years of age when he was taken to this city, and after four years he had risen to the first place in the schools of rhetoric and had mastered all the branches of the liberal arts then taught. None could equal his penetration, none surpass him in the readiness of his answers or in the clearness of his expositions. The subtle distinctions and divisions of Aristotle were plain to him. And in the arena of philosophical disputation he knew no superior. He was particularly attracted to the study of eloquence; and the perusal of Cicero's "Hortensius" (which unfortunately has been lost in the vicissitudes of time) stirred his soul to higher flights and begot a noble enthusiasm for the imperishable beauty of wisdom, made him impatient of the evanescent hopes of men, and carried him onward to further quest of truth.
When his studies were completed, he returned in 370 to Tagasta and lodged with his wealthy patron and benefactor; for his father had died the year after his arrival in Carthage. Though here he began to teach grammar and kindred branches, he did not long remain at home; he soon departed again for Carthage, where his successes as a master surpassed those he had gained as a disciple. Led by his former fame and by the daily increasing applause which greeted the youthful professor of rhetoric, many gathered around him. He was then only twenty-three years of age. Among his pupils he numbered Licentius and Alypius--two names indissolubly bound up with the story of Augustine's life. His place among the learned and first men of that ancient city was made doubly secure when, at a public contest in poetry, he was awarded the prize, and was crowned with the laurel by the Proconsul, Vindician, before the assembled people and most celebrated minds of the city.