A student at Botoșani's A. T. Laurian gymnasium and high school after 1881, the young Iorga received top honors, and, beginning 1883, began tutoring some of his colleagues to increase his family's main revenue (according to Iorga, a "miserable pension of pittance"). Aged thirteen, while on extended visit to his maternal uncle Emanuel "Manole" Arghiropol, he also made his press debut with paid contributions to Arghiropol's "Romanul" newspaper, including anecdotes and editorial pieces on European politics. The year 1886 was described by Iorga as "the catastrophe of my school life in Botoșani": on temporary suspension for not having greeted a teacher, Iorga opted to leave the city and apply for the National High School (ro) of Iași, being received into the scholarship program and praised by his new principal, the philologist Vasile Burlă. The adolescent was already fluent in French, Italian, Latin and Greek, later referring to Greek studies as "the most refined form of human reasoning".