The Greeks refer the invention of written letters to
Cadmus, merely because he introduced them from
Phoenicia, then only sixteen in number. To these,
four more were added by Simonides. Evander brought
letters into Latium from Greece, the Latin letters being
at first nearly the same form as the Greek. The Romans
employed a device of scattering green sand upon tables,
for the teaching of arithmetic and writing, and in India
a "sand box" consisting of a surface of sand laid on a
board the finger being utilized to trace forms, was the
method followed by the natives to teach their children.
It is said that such methods still obtain even in this
age, in some rural districts of England.

After the invention of writing well-informed nations
and individuals kept scribes or chroniclers to record in
writing, historical and other events, mingled with claims
of antiquity based on popular legends.

These individuals were not always held in the highest
esteem. Among the Hebrews it was considered an
honorable vocation, while the Greeks for a long time
treated its practitioners as outcasts. It was an accomplishment
possessed by the few even down to the fifteenth
century of the Christian era. The rulers of
the different countries were deficient in the art and
depended on others to write their documents and letters
to which they appended their monogram or the
sign of the Cross against their names as an attestation.
So late as A. D. 1516 an order was made in London to