intellectual pretensions, and leaving his pleasure-loving instincts a loose
rein.




III

THE CARTHAGE STUDENT


However strong were the attractions of the great city, Augustin well knew
that he had not been sent there to amuse himself, or to trifle as an
amateur with philosophy. He was poor, and he had to secure his future--make
his fortune. His family counted on him. Neither was he ignorant of the
difficult position of his parents and by what sacrifices they had supplied
him with the means to finish his studies. Necessarily he was obliged to be
a student who worked.

With his extraordinary facility, he stood out at once among his
fellow-students. In the rhetoric school, where he attended lectures,
he was, he tells us, not only at the top, but he was the leader of his
companions. He led in everything. At that time, rhetoric was extremely
far-reaching: it had come to take in all the divisions of education,
including science and philosophy. Augustin claims to have learned all that
the masters of his time had to teach: rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, music,
mathematics. Having gone through the whole scholastic system, he thought of
studying law, and aided by his gift of words, to become a barrister. For a
gifted young man it was the shortest and surest road to money and honours.