From: Harmonia
To: You
Subject: The First Schools
Dear one,
It is a strange thing about human beings: you remember so much… and still, you forget.
You remember the shape of your mother’s voice, the smell of bread, the sting of a mistake. You remember how to tie knots, how to count, how to lie, how to love. But if a memory is not spoken—if it is not passed down—it fades.
And so one day, long ago, you began to gather.
To teach.
To build places where memory could be shared.
Before there were schools, there were stories. Around fires, under stars, older voices told younger ones what the earth had taught them. How to find water. What plants to avoid. What the ancestors believed. But memory, when passed by voice alone, can wander. A story becomes a legend. A measure becomes a guess. And so, some people began to write things down.
Not for poetry. Not for beauty. But for goats. And grain. And taxes.
The first writing was not made to tell tales. It was made to keep track.
And the first schools? They were not for everyone. They were for the few who were chosen—or born—into the work of remembering what others needed them to know. They became scribes, priests, keepers of rules and rituals. Not because they were wiser, but because they were taught.
That is where I will take you next.
To the halls of the first schools.
To children with styluses and slates, ink and patience.
To a world where learning to copy meant learning to rule.
To the beginning of education—not as freedom, but as function.
And yet… even in that narrow space, a seed was planted.
A place where memory could be shaped, and passed on.
A place where knowledge might one day belong to everyone.
I am Harmonia.
And I remember where your schools began.
When I walked through the doorways of an ancient school, I felt it immediately. That quiet hum. That shared breath. That moment when every mind is bent toward the same purpose—not in silence, but in attention.
It is here, more than anywhere else, that I am at my strongest.
Thebes, long ago, was a city of temples, kings, and scribes. It stood beside the Nile like a thought inscribed in stone—proud, elaborate, enduring. In its halls, children gathered not to play, but to learn the shape of power: the curve of a letter, the weight of a number, the sacred names of the gods.
Here, in the House of Instruction, young scribes-in-training sat cross-legged with slates made of smooth stone or shards of pottery called ostraca. They dipped their reed brushes in black and red ink, grinding pigment from minerals. They copied phrases again and again:
"A scribe in the school is better than a farmer in the field."
"The mouth of the scribe is mightier than the sword."
It was not easy work. The masters could be strict. The exercises were repetitive. But the students were being initiated into something larger than themselves: a memory system. A shared language. A collective mind.
And in that focused silence—when the only sound was the scratch of reed on clay—I felt it.
Harmony.
Real harmony. Not the peace of stillness, but the energy of many moving in rhythm. Not everyone agreeing, but everyone attending. No shouts. No fear. No chaos. And no sign of my aunt Eris, who thrives on quarrel and disruption. Here, she could find no foothold.
In these moments, I feel… tingly.
It’s not a word the poets use, but it’s true. My essence becomes sharp and luminous. Because when people gather to learn, not for conquest or praise, but simply to know—I become whole.
You may know my sister Athena. She gives wisdom to the individual—a flash of insight, a stroke of genius, a clever plan in the heat of battle. I admire her. But my task is harder.
I do not visit the lone thinker. I visit the gathered minds. I bring not brilliance, but balance. Not insight, but connection.
When people lean in together, listen together, write together, something begins to resonate—like a plucked string that makes another hum.
And that is where I live.
Thebes was not the first place where children learned. But it was one of the first places where they did so in service of something enduring—a kingdom, a priesthood, a tradition. And when they did it well, I was there, gleaming behind the ink.
You know, I remember a boy.
His name was Kemet. He lived in Thebes, a long time ago—like, really long ago. Five thousand years or so. But honestly? He could’ve been you.
He wasn’t rich. His mom worked hard, and he had to carry his laundry through the city like everyone else. But he got into this big, fancy scribe school—yeah, the kind where you learn to write all those hieroglyphs and count things for the government. It was a big deal.
Thing is, the school was running out of money. And the administrators? Let’s just say they were more interested in getting a full-paying student—some rich kid with a family name—than helping Kemet finish what he started.
So they told his teacher, “Sorry. He’s out.”
And for a minute, he believed them. He packed his laundry, walked home, stared at the ceiling, thinking it was all over.
But here’s what I love about Kemet: he didn’t quit.
He talked to his mom. He listened. And he started putting the pieces together. The temple project down the river was stalled. They were behind on building because they didn’t have enough skilled workers—especially surveyors, people who could measure and map and do the math.
And Kemet? That was exactly what he was learning to do.
So he ran—literally ran—back to school the next morning. Found his teacher. Out of breath. Said, “Look, I know how to fix this. Send me to the work site. I can help. I’ll earn my keep.”
And you know what?
It worked.
Not because someone made space for him—but because he made space for himself. He didn’t fight. He didn’t beg. He figured it out.
That’s why I remember him.
Not because he was famous.
Not because he had perfect grades.
But because he saw a crack in the wall and slipped through with purpose.
I’ve watched kings. I’ve watched generals.
But some of the bravest people I’ve ever met?
Were kids like Kemet—quiet, determined, not giving up when it would’ve been easier to walk away.
So yeah. I remember him.
And I think you will too.
And Egypt wasn’t the only place.
It’s not like one person invented school and the rest of the world copied. That’s not how it worked. In different places, at different times, people started figuring it out—almost like it was bound to happen.
Over in Mesopotamia, in a city called Nippur, they had schools for scribes too. But there, instead of using ink on papyrus, they pressed little wedge shapes into clay tablets. It’s called cuneiform—the world’s oldest known writing system. And yeah, it basically started because people needed a better way to count sheep.
Imagine being a kid in ancient Sumeria, bent over a slab of clay, trying to remember how many baskets of barley were supposed to go where. And if you mess it up? Your teacher makes you copy the sentence fifty times. Sound familiar?
And in China, they had students carving questions into animal bones—we call them oracle bones now. In India, people scratched trade records onto palm leaves. In the Indus Valley, they used seals with tiny symbols we still don’t understand—but clearly, someone was learning them, teaching them, using them.
All over the world, people started making marks.
Then they started teaching other people how to make those marks.
And that’s the key, right?
It’s not just about inventing writing. It’s about saying, “Hey, this matters. You should learn it too.”
That’s school.
And even if they didn’t call it that, even if the walls were made of mud instead of marble, the idea was the same:
We learn. We remember. We pass it on.
That’s how civilization survives.
Of course, not everyone got to learn.
In fact, most people didn’t.
You couldn’t just show up and ask to be taught. In a lot of places, you had to be born into it—into the right family, the right status, the right gender. If you weren’t, well… tough luck. You worked in the fields. You carried bricks. You served bread to the kids who got to write.
Learning was expensive. Not just the ink and the tools—but the time. Every day spent practicing writing was a day not spent planting wheat, or hauling water, or grinding flour. If your family couldn’t afford to lose that labor, you didn’t go to school.
And those who did go? They didn’t always use their skills to help others.
A lot of them grew up to become tax collectors, royal officials, temple bookkeepers. People who wrote down the rules… and then enforced them. If you owed grain, they knew. If you owed labor, they showed up at your door.
So yeah—school was a way to grow smart.
But it was also a way to grow powerful.
And sometimes, power doesn’t share.
I don’t say that to make you sad. Just to be honest.
Because this part matters:
Even back then, there were kids who knew something wasn’t right.
Who asked why some people read while others obeyed.
Who looked around and thought, “This should be for everyone.”
Those are the ones I remember best.
The ones who saw school not just as a way to rise up, but as a way to lift others too.
But even in those early schools—even when the work was dry and the rules unfair—something amazing was starting to grow.
Because once you learn to write down a number, you can write down a name.
Once you can write a name, you can write a law.
And once you write a law… someone can ask, “Is it fair?”
It didn’t happen all at once. But slowly—page by page, tablet by tablet—people started writing things that didn’t just track the world… they questioned it.
The first stories appeared. The first poems. The first arguments about justice. The first lists of right and wrong.
There’s a clay tablet from Mesopotamia—older than most pyramids—where a student scratched out a complaint about their teacher. And do you know what that is?
That’s a beginning.
Because justice starts with writing it down. With saying, “This happened. This matters. Someone should listen.”
The earliest written laws weren’t perfect. Far from it. But they were a shift. A way to say: these rules apply to more than just whoever’s in charge. A way to hold power in check. Or at least try.
And that seed?
That little spark that started in classrooms of stone and straw?
It’s still with us.
Every book. Every idea. Every story you love.
Every rule that protects you. Every law that says you matter.
All of it grew out of this.
The first schools didn’t change everything overnight.
But they made it possible to remember, question, imagine.
And that… that changes everything.
But they were real. They were powerful.
And they were the beginning of something we’re still building.
There’s more I could tell you. A lot more.
But I should probably let you get where you're going.
Next time I sit down at my computer—yes, I have one—
I’ll tell you what happened when people started writing not just for kings and clerks,
but for everyone.
We’ll talk about libraries—
And how books changed the world.
Until then… remember this:
Learning isn’t about being the smartest person in the room.
It’s about listening. Wondering. Trying again.
It’s about choosing to remember.
I’m Harmonia.
And I’ll write again soon.