This ambitious book endeavors to consider Greek and Roman education from a fresh perspective. The author also shows a good grasp of material from a variety of other ancient writers and takes into account a wide range of secondary sources, including some studies on contemporary education. The novelty of this work is that it tries to reconcile the literary evidence with the educational material in the papyri of Greco-Roman in an attempt to provide a more concrete and less idealized picture of ancient education. This effort, however, is often unsuccessful for several reasons, but particularly because of the extreme conclusions that Morgan draws from the incomplete data that she considers. On the other hand, the minimalist view of both the contents of instruction and the breadth of ancient education that this book conveys is unwarranted and more applicable to lower levels of instruction than higher ones.
Some limitations are particularly noticeable.
28 or P.Oxy. The result is confusing for the reader, and the problem is complicated by some unjustified statements, for example that grammar, which together with literature was the province of the grammarian, was approached only after students had read large quantities of texts. Neither the literary sources nor the papyri, however, warrant such a conclusion. A detailed examination of this book's content will help clarify its strengths and weaknesses. M. also justifies her decision to exclude numerate and philosophical education, and to consider only early rhetorical instruction.