Rome Must Perish

At this moment, Kefisofon began to speak: "Leader, I have a few questions."

"Go ahead."

"Among the Scodis people who have joined our tribe, more than 60 children are over six years old, and among the Segestica prisoners, there are more than 200 children over six years old. Should our Cultivation Department also teach these children to read and do arithmetic?"

"Of course." Maximus replied without hesitation: "Doing so not only demonstrates our tribe’s goodwill to the Segestica people and the Skodisqi, showing them through action that we treat all ethnicities equally. It also aims to enhance the capabilities of the next generation of our tribe and accelerate their integration into our tribe."

"I understand." Kefisofon said seriously: "There is just an urgent issue in the Cultivation Department that needs to be addressed. The teachers who originally taught the children literacy and arithmetic were few in number, being slaves and poor people who had received specialized education from a young age. Now that the tribe has settled down, they will soon be allotted land and will be busy farming and supporting their families, leaving them no extra time to teach the children."

Maximus thoughtlessly said: "This issue is easy to solve. Those teachers in the Cultivation Department, like the artisans in the Public Works Department, will receive salaries from the tribe. Their land will be tilled by the Reserve Tribe Members, so they only need to focus on teaching the children.

After next year’s autumn harvest, we will begin to charge tuition fees for the children who come to learn. The fees can be set low enough for the parents to easily afford. With such an investment, the children will work harder, the parents will be more attentive, and it will also be a supplementary revenue for the tribe."

"But even if the fees are low, some stingy parents might not want to pay for their children to learn." Kadesos reminded.

"They will pay." Maximus smiled meaningfully: "In the future, the tribe will issue a decree stating that any tribesman who is illiterate or cannot do basic arithmetic cannot serve as officers in the military, cannot become tribal officials, or serve as subordinates in various departments. We will even stipulate that to receive a rank above Knight and become tribal nobles, one must be literate and numerate. For the sake of their own children’s future, do you think they will pay?"

"I think they definitely will." Kefisofon expressed admiration.