Lithmorran Education
Education for Lithmorran children starts at the early age of five, although toddlers are taught rudimentary information such as colors and letter identification by their mothers or nurses, before entering the formal compulsory education system. Even the smallest of villages has a local school, usually taught by a younger woman or an acolyte of the church, for the Lithmorrans hold a basic education as much of a necessity as food and drink.
Boys and girls of all classes are taught the essential skills of reading, writing, counting and computation. These skills are taught by using the Erra Pater; children cut their teeth reading the holy text, and learn how to write by copying the Holy Scriptures. It is a rare occurrence for any Lithmorran child to have reached maturity without possessing these skills, as the church and state funds these mandatory schools, attended for 4 hours in the morning by the young pupils. For the lower classes, their education is completed by age twelve, leaving them free to work the fields or take up a trade with a master.
For all but the most base and impoverished of the classes, these are just the basic rudimentaries of an education that is built around diplomacy, theology and history. Children of the nobility, and those of aspirant gentry folk, spend longer hours with private tutors who drill children vigorously on church doctrine, foreign languages and historical fact. No child of fine birth would come away without having at least a sound knowledge of Vavardi as well, being a mark of pride to be at minimum bilingual.
In addition to those base sophisticated topics, children with a particular interest in a field will likely receive advanced training to prepare them for their vocation to come in the days ahead in areas such as economics, business, law, music theory, art appreciation or advanced theology. Commonly, the daughters of the nobility learn the practical skills such as embroidery, singing, dancing, poetry recitation and potentially a simple instrument or two. Some show promise and become aficionados that make for entertaining pastimes in the evenings. The sons while also learning the finer skills of dance, music and occasionally art, are more likely to be taught the more practical skills of weapon handling and warfare. By the age of their majority, such children are typically afforded the opportunity to further their educations at the University, although frequently they will forgo this save the most scholarly of souls, or dedicated of students.
