weakness of body, but more trouble of mind, by some such sores as grieve me to touch them myself; and therefore I purpose not to open them to others."

What is said about Westminster-Hall here is in allusion to a lawsuit in which Ascham was then, or had lately been involved. To add to all his troubles came the death of Sir Richard Sackville. "When he was gone," continues the author, " my heart was dead; there was not one that wore a black gown for him who carried a heavier heart for him than I; when he was gone, I cast this book away; I could not look upon it but with weeping eyes, in remembering him who was the only setter on to do it, and would have been not only a glad commender of it, but also a sure and certain comfort to me and mine." Almost two years together, he says, the book lay scattered and neglected, and would have been quite given over by him, if the goodness of one (he no doubt means Cecil) had not given him some life and spirit again. "God," he continues, "the mover of goodness, prosper always him and his, as he hath many times comforted me and mine, and, as I trust to God, shall comfort more and more. Of whom most justly I may say, and very oft and always gladly I am wont to say, that sweet verse of Sophocles, spoken by Edipus to worthy Theseus:

Εχω γὰρ ἅχω διὰ σὲ, κἐκ ἄλλον βροτῶν.*

This hope hath helped me to end this book; which, if he allow, I shall think my labours well employed, and shall not much esteem the misliking of any others."

In writing the book, he states, he has had earnest respect to three special points-truth of religion, honesty

For whatsoever I have I have through thee, and through none other of living men.

of living, and right order in learning. "In which three ways," he concludes, I pray God my poor children may diligently walk; for whose sake, as nature moved and reason required, and necessity also somewhat compelled, I was the willinger to take these pains.

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For, seeing at my death I am not like to leave them any great store of living, therefore, in my lifetime, I thought good to bequeath unto them, in this little book, as in my will and testament, the right way to good learning; which if they follow, with the fear of God, they shall very well come to sufficiency of living.

"I wish also, with all my heart, that young Mr. Robert Sackville may take that fruit of this labour, that his worthy grandfather purposed he should have done; and if any other do take either profit or pleasure hereby, they have cause to thank Mr. Robert Sackville, for whom specially this my Schoolmaster was provided.

"And one thing I would have the reader consider, in reading this book, that because no schoolmaster hath charge of any child before he enter into his school, therefore I, leaving all former care of their good bringing up to wise and good parents, as a matter not belonging to the schoolmaster, I do appoint this my Schoolmaster then and there to begin where his office and charge beginneth. Which charge lasteth not long, but until the scholar be made able to go to the University, to proceed in logic, rhetoric, and other kind of learning.

"Yet if my Schoolmaster, for love he beareth to his scholar, shall teach him somewhat for his furtherance and better judgment in learning, that may serve him seven years after in the University, he doth his scholar no more wrong, nor deserveth no worse name thereby, than he doth in London, who, selling silk or cloth unto his

friend, doth give him better measure than either his promise or bargain was. Farewell in Christ."

Book I.

The title of the first book of the Schoolmaster describes it as "Teaching the bringing up of Youth;" and it may be said to treat of the general principles according to which the education of children at school ought to be conducted. Much of it has, however, a particular reference to what was then, as it is still, the usual commencement of a liberal education, the study of the Latin tongue.

The author begins by condemning the method pursued in common schools for "the making of Latins," that is, the mode of teaching the writing of Latin by means of books of exercises of the ordinary fashion. He says: "After the child hath learned perfectly the eight parts of speech, let him then learn the right joining together of substantives with adjectives, the noun with the verb, the relative with the antecedent. And in learning farther his syntaxis, by mine advice he shall not use the common order in common schools for making of Latius, whereby the child commonly learneth, first, an evil choice of words (and right choice of words,' saith Cæsar, is the foundation of eloquence,') then a wrong placing of words, and, lastly, an ill framing of the sentence, with a perverse judgment both of words and sentences. These faults, taking once root in youth, be never, or hardly plucked away in age. Moreover, there is no one thing that hath more either dulled the wits or taken away the will of children from learning, than the care they have to satisfy their masters in making of Latins.

"For the scholar is commonly beat for the making, when the master were more worthy to be beat for the mending, or rather marring of the same, the master many times being as ignorant as the child what to say properly and fitly to the matter.

"Two schoolmasters have set forth in print, either of them, a book of such kind of Latins, Horman and Whittington. A child shall learn of the better of them that which, another day, if he be wise and come to judgment, he must be fain to unlearn again.

"There is a way touched in the first book of Cicero de Oratore, which wisely brought into schools, truly taught, and constantly used, would not only take wholly away this butcherly fear in making of Latins, but would also with ease and pleasure, and in short time, as I know by good experience, work a true choice and placing of words, a right ordering of sentences, an easy understanding of the tongue, a readiness to speak, a facility to write, a true judgment both of his own and other men's doings, what tongue soever he doth use.

"The way is this: After the three concordances learned, as I touched before, let the master read unto him the Epistles of Cicero, gathered together and chosen out by Sturmius for the capacity of children.

"First, let him teach the child cheerfully and plainly the cause and matter of the Letter; then let him construe it into English, so oft as the child may easily carry away the understanding of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done thus, let the child, by and by, both construe and parse it over again; so that it may appear that the child doubteth in nothing that his master taught him before. After this, the child must take a paper book, and sitting in some place where no man shall prompt

him, by himself, let him translate into English his former lesson. Then, showing it to his master, let the master take from him his Latin book, and pausing an hour at least, then let the child translate his own English into Latin again in another paper book. When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must compare it with Tully's book, and lay them both together; and where the child doth well, either in choosing or true placing Tully's words, let the master praise him, and say, 'Here you do well;' for I assure you there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

"But if the child miss, either in forgetting a word, or in changing a good with a worse, or misordering the sentence, I would not have the master either frown, or chide with him, if the child hath done his diligence and used no truantship therein; for I know by good experience, that a child shall take more profit of two faults gently warned of, than of four things rightly hit; for then the master shall have good occasion to say unto him, Tully would have used such a word, not this; Tully would have placed this word here, not there; would have used this case, this number, this person, this degree, this gender; he would have used this mood, this tense, this simple rather than this compound; this adverb here, not there; he would have ended the sentence with this verb, not with that noun or participle,' &c.

"In these few lines I have wrapped up the most tedious part of grammar, and also the ground of almost all the rules that are so busily taught by the master, and so hardly learned by the scholar in all common schools, which after this sort the master shall teach without all error, and the scholar shall learn without great pain;