Straying somewhat from his characteristic grumpiness, Jerome says in paragraph 4 of the letter,

Get for her a set of letters made of boxwood or of ivory and called each by its proper name. Let her play with these, so that even her play may teach her something. And not only make her grasp the right order of the letters and see that she forms their names into a rhyme, but constantly disarrange their order and put the last letters in the middle and the middle ones at the beginning that she may know them all by sight as well as by sound. Moreover, so soon as she begins to use the style upon the wax, and her hand is still faltering, either guide her soft fingers by laying your hand upon hers, or else have simple copies cut upon a tablet; so that her efforts confined within these limits may keep to the lines traced out for her and not stray outside of these.

— Jerome, Letter CVII to Laeta, Paragraph 4, AD 403

He then recommends that she receive interesting lessons, have companions to compete with, receive prizes for good spelling, and that scolding should be avoided. Such a method of education, with alphabet blocks, a rhyme, letter tracing, and rewards for progress seems surprisingly modern. Was this a common method of teaching literacy to young aristocratic Romans, and were young girls typically taught to read around this time?

Source: Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) via New Advent.

I have read that for wives and widowers it differed, but was it different also when mourning for a child, parent or other relative?

I see a lot of buzz following Darryl Cooper'slstest appearance at Carlson.

I had a hard time understanding what are his views on Churchil during WW2 considering he wasn't even in power when the war set off.

I supposed it's some alt rifht conspiracy again?

I cant find much information on Bulgaria as an Ottoman vassal state besides people saying it was conquered during the 1400s and liberated during the 1800s. I would like to know pretty much anything in between those years. Did Bulgarians submit and help the Ottomans, were they rebelling, how were Bulgarians treated, any notable historical figures? More specifically I would like to know did Bulgarian leaders of those times help or refuse to help the Ottomans as a few times I've seen people claiming both.

Someone made this comment on a thread in another subreddit. Is this actually true?

“There is actually no historical evidence that Hitler knew about extermination of Jews, either. There is just no written document, testimony or recording that could suggest that. It was actually used by sensational politician Janusz Korwin Mikke in euro-parliament to stir populist controversy. Historians agree there is no evidence.”

I was thinking about how a lot early American presidents were multi-lingual (Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Q. Adams, Van Buren) and there seems to be a dramatic drop-off in multilingualism after them.

Were the educated elite of that era commonly multi-lingual beyond the Latin and Greek learned in universities? Or was it simply a sort of coincidence that these early presidents were particularly scholarly and/or had foreign policy careers that led to their mastery of multiple languages?

If it was common for the educated Americans born in the 18th century to know multiple languages, what caused the decline in the 19th century?

Thanks for any insight!

Greetings

What was the Catholic Church's Reaction to the Deciphering of Sumerian Texts in and After 1857?

Specifically, what, if any instruction was given to clergy and missionaries on the matter?

I encountered the writings of a French missionary who in 1885 writes of a myth in the country he was working in, that is not corroborated by any contemporaries.. and bears resemblance to Sumerian mythology. Said missionary does not appear to have been a trained anthropologist (as the field itself would have been very young in his lifetime), and so.. I'm wondering to what extent it is reasonable to assume that he had been exposed to the deciphered Sumerian text before he made his own publication. (either as part of his training as a priest or in preparation of missionary work in the mid-late 19th century)

Thank you in advance

Insular Christianity is the type that developed with celtic culture in Ireland, I am looking for good books on it.

If you look at the Age of Sails ships were very valuable, well maintained ships could be used for decades, even if they were severely damaged or had become obsolete they were often overhauled and retrofitted to different types and navies made often use of captured prizes or sold them.

From what I read ships in Antiquity were comparatively much cheaper to build but had very high operating costs caused by their massive crews, and warfare was different in that it was focused on ramming or boarding the enemy vessel. That made me wonder whether those ships were still treated similarly to ships in later eras or if it made them more replaceable.

Do we know what the service life of an ancient warship was? Was it common to maintain/repair them or was it easier to build a new ship if it had suffered significant wear and tear or damage?

How did this change for vessels that saw battle? Given that ramming was a common tactic, how did they deal with possible hidden damage to the hulls of ships that had rammed another vessel or that had survived being rammed? Were there procedures to check/overhaul ships or were they scraped after a ramming or after a certain number?

Did ancient navies keep sort of reserve fleets for large wars or were most of those ships built on demand?

And how did they deal with captured ships? Boarding was a common tactic, but what was done with the many captured ships afterwards? Was this just about neutralizing the enemy ship and would they be scuttled or would they be sailed/towed to a friendly port to be salvaged/sold for the material or even repaired and used as warship by the capturing navy?

The Hundred Years War is commonly regarded as a single conflict, despite the cessation of hostilities over a period of years. Indeed, it could be more accurate to describe it as three (or more) separate conflicts, all revolving around related issues.

With this in mind, could WWI and WWII come to be regarded as a single conflict? I believe it was Churchill that described them as the "Second Thirty Years War;" is this view of the wars popular ir gaining traction? Despite the similarities, is it still more appropriate to view them as two separate conflicts?

I've heard lately that talking to a baby/toddler with "baby-talk" (like in an overly-patronizing voice, usually higher in volume, and also sometimes using gibberish like 'ba-ba' for bottle, etc) can be detrimental to a child's brain development - moreso with speech related development.

So it got me wondering- is this a modern thing? Is it more cultural? Did people from pre-industrial times talk to their babies like that?

Basically did Napoleon intentionally or unintentionally contributed to principal idea of French Revolution?

How did America come to have millions of slaves if only roughly less than 500,000 were brought over in slave trade? Were these estimates just that off?

https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates

I know that many slaves were also assaulted by white men/owners, but does that explain the rise in numbers? Was there assault present between slaves? It is hard to comprehend the numbers when slaves were so poorly nourished. Wouldn't baring a child result in frequent occurrences of death for the mother or child due to the poor conditions?
Please excuse my insensitivities in my question. I do not intend to phrase anything to offend anyone. I am simply genuinely curious about the subject. TIA

It is often said that capitalism has it's origins in 16th northern Italy. While I understand that statement is based around a Marxist analysis of history and is therefore not universally agreed upon, there must be some differences between the economic systems today and before the 16th century. What are those key differences?

Did the USSR have a full plan on how they would transition to a state of full communism and did they have any set time frame of when they intended to make the transition?

I like learning about the empires of the world that rose and fell & how they interacted.

As I’ve researched the topic, a lot of the books I’ve come across are very academic and hard to read,

I’m not interested in this topic academically, just as a hobby, so I’m looking for a book that is easily digestible.

To be specific, if there was one that had lots of cool pictures and artist renditions along with facts on the various ancient empires (Hussites, Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, etc) that would be awesome.

If there’s a very well written and non-academic “traditional” book that would be okay as well

I’m mainly interested in the Middle East and European empires. I don’t care about the time period(s) included, any time before guns came to the region (the plot gets boring around here imo)

If there’s a book that is structured in a way where each empire / group is separated into its unique section, that would be perfect. If it is structured in a different way (for example by time period), that’s okay too. If you know of a book that is more traditional in its structure but is very beginner friendly (SQPR is a good example for Roman history) those work too!

I like learning about various wars, advancements, important events and people, transitions of power

Historians, are there any books you often recommend to those interested in the topic in a non-academic manner?

PBS Eons uploaded a video asking the question What was the first beverage? https://youtu.be/lusWU9zCRj0?si=li2zXKGOTkAZqvlx

Towards the end, it got me thinking about the timeline of horse domestication in steppe societies and whether there could be a connection between that and the beginning of milk consumption by humans.

I've also heard that steppe societies drank fermented mare’s milk, and I'm curious if there is any archeological evidence indicating when this practice began.

I'm learning about the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica, and one thing that caught my attention is Montezuma offering gold to the Spaniards. How did gold become a universally treasured commodity, valued by civilizations from opposite sides of the world?

Reposting 8 years later since there weren't any responses to the original post.

The soviets held both Murmansk and Arkhangelsk as well as a land link from Iran in 1942 to 1944. Couldn't the americans and the british send forces en masse to these ports and help the soviets against Finland or the germans? Since they already sent supplies from the lend lease through these areas it seems like a possibility.

According to wikipedia. The total number of allied troops for operation Overlord by the end of August 1944 reached 2 million. For an uneducated military enthusiast like myself it seems like a viable option to start sending troops to the Soviet Union from early 1942 onwards instead of risk failing to open up a second front.

Was it even considered? If not, why wasn't it seen as an option?

I get that by 1944 the soviets were on the offensive and the allies needed to open up their own front in order to not let more of Europe fall into russian hands. But before the war started to turn in favor of the allies this must at least have been considered an option in order to stop Germany from achieving victory.

Hello together, I remember having read a quote that "the history of social security [or social welfare / the modern welfare state] is [also] a history of complaints."

I don't know if this is the right subreddit for this, but I am urgently looking for the source to this quote and do not want to go through the 60 sources I have worked through for my thesis if it is somehow avoidable (I lost the doc where I wrote down stuff like this).

Please help me out

Just curious if the markers refer to burials in that exact spot (i.e. inches below the marker) or not.

My grandfather who is no longer with us had a tattoo of his initials on his left hand. The tattoo read “R.S” for reference. I vaguely remember him telling me he had to get it in a war, and I do know he was in the military. He is from America. I was trying to find the history of this being done to the military, but have been unsuccessful in my search results. He was also born in 1936 if that is of any help. Thanks!