Schools, School-Books and Schoolmasters Part 8

II. Allowing for the possibility of editions of which we have no present knowledge having formerly existed, if they do not yet do so, it may be that Dean Colet caused some text-book to be prepared for the use of the scholars at St. Paul's; and I shall by and by adduce some evidence in favour of such an hypothesis. But, at any rate, in 1529 Cardinal Wolsey gave his sanction, and wrote a preface, to an impression of Lily's _Rudiments_ with certain alterations, more especially for the use of his school at Ipswich, but also, as the terms of the t.i.tle state, for the benefit of all other similar inst.i.tutions in the country.

The Cardinal's preface is dated August 1, 1528. It is followed by the _Docendi Methodus_, the _Rules_, the _Articles of Faith_, _Precepts of Living_, _Apostles' Creed_, _Decalogue_, &c.; and the rest of the book is occupied by the _Introduction of the Eight Parts of Speech_ and the _Rudiments of Grammar_.

Of this collection there was no exact reprint, but portions of the contents appear in the Antwerp impressions of 1535 and 1536, designed for the English learners in Flanders; and Lily's _Rudiments_, with and without the other accessories, were periodically republished even later than the so-called Oxford Grammar of 1709.

Now, as St. Paul's was the more ancient foundation, it is allowable, at all events, to suspect that the book issued nominally for the Ipswich school was borrowed by the Cardinal or the person employed by him from one drawn up by Lily in his lifetime for Colet. St. Paul's had been established in 1510; the Dean survived till 1519; and surely so many years would hardly have elapsed without witnessing the preparation of some Pauline text-book on lines parallel to those of the Ipswich one of 1529, more particularly when we see that in the Preface to his 1534 _Rudiments_ he speaks of the "new school of Paul's," and that in 1518 Erasmus had executed a Latin metrical version of the _Lord's Prayer_ and _Precepts of Good Living_ for the school under the t.i.tle of _Christiani hominis Inst.i.tutum_.

The short paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in English by Colet, which I have found at present only in an edition of the Salisbury Primer, 1532, was made for his own scholars, and had, of course, been in existence prior to 1519; so that we find ourselves groping in the dark a little in the inquiry which deals with such a fugitive and perishable description of literature, and have to do the best that we can with the fragmentary relics which survive or have been so far recovered.

The _Coleti aeditio_, &c., of 1534 had much in common with Wolsey's book; but the Dean of St. Paul's claims the honour of having adapted some portions of the Delectus to what he considered to be the special requirements of his own inst.i.tution. For he says in the Proem:--

"Al be it many have wryten, and have made certayne introducyons into Latyn speche, called _Donates_ and _Accidens_, in Latyn tongue and in Englysshe, in suche plenty that it shoulde seme to suffyse; yet never the lesse, for the love and zele that I have to the newe schole of Powles, and to the children of the same, somwhat have I also compyled of the mater; and of the viii. partes of grammer have made this lytell boke; ... in whiche lytell warke if any new thynges be of me, it is alonely that I have put these partes in a more clere ordre, and have made them a lytell more easy to yonge wyttes, than (me thynketh) they were before."

The pa.s.sage here quoted may be taken to supply a sort of testimony to the original publication of the Dean's alleged recension of the accepted text of Lily's _Introduction_ (including the _Rudiments_) not very long, if at all, posterior to 1510, as in 1534 St. Paul's had been founded a quarter of a century. The modification of the Grammar for Pauline use was almost unquestionably due to Lily, and merely the Proem the Dean's own.

III. The St. Paul's book has, on the whole, a strong claim to precedence over that of 1529. But under any circ.u.mstances, in or before the last-named date, we possessed an uniform Grammar in lieu of the archaic sectional series of Stanbridge and Whittinton.

But even that of Wolsey went no farther than to recommend itself to general acceptance. It had no official character. Nor was it till late in the protracted reign of Henry VIII. that a general Primer for the whole country was prepared and published. In 1540 a volume in two parts appeared under the royal authority, without any clue to the editor, reducing the text to a more convenient method and compa.s.s. This book is anonymous; but Thomas Hayne says in 1640 that it was done by sundry learned men, among whom he had heard that one was Dr. Leonard c.o.x, tutor to Prince Edward.

Another probable coadjutor was John Palsgrave, author of the _Eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_.

The Address to the Reader before the first part proceeded, no doubt, from the compiler's pen, and contains an energetic eulogy of Prince Edward, to whom "the tender babes of England" are exhorted to look up as a model and example. This portion includes the _Parts of Speech_ and other rudiments in English, while the second part contains a digested recension of the Latin series under the t.i.tle of _A Compendious Inst.i.tution of the whole Grammar_.

This bipart.i.te manual formed, of course, an improvement on the system formerly in vogue, which must have been very puzzling to boys. But it seems very doubtful indeed if this Primer of 1540 was practically recognised, or whether the Government took any measures to enforce what purported to have been done under its immediate sanction.

Whoever they were who arranged for publication the Primer had probably a hand in the _Alphabetum Latino-Anglic.u.m_ of 1543, which is here incidentally noticed, and which is more than it professes to be. For it comprises, in addition to a series of alphabets, the Lord's Prayer, the Salutation of the Virgin, the Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and a few prayers, in Latin and English. It was, in fact, a supplement to the Primer itself.

IV. In January 1547, Henry was succeeded by his son, and the change is marked by the subst.i.tution of _A Short Introduction of Grammar generally to be used_, in two parts, the English followed by the Latin, for the original Primer of 1540. A complaint appears to have arisen at the same time that the large book was inconvenient for beginners; and we are told that Fox the martyrologist was commissioned to prepare _Tables of Grammar_ for the use, probably, of the lower forms in schools. But we know nothing farther of them; and the _Introduction_, to which they were designed as a companion, was not reprinted more than once in Edward's life. Nor is there any vestige of it till we arrive quite at the close of the rule of Mary, when the Paris press produced an edition under some circ.u.mstances not at present explainable, yet, of course, with the peculiarity of being entirely unofficial. So that when we sum up, it amounts to this, that the first and second types of the so-named universal Grammar, as settled in 1540 and 1548 respectively, reached four impressions in seventeen years, not including that of 1557, which lies outside the series.

Making due allowance for the far scantier population and the momentous difference of social conditions, this remains a strange phenomenon, if we reflect that, in addition to the public and private schools previously in existence, the Government of Edward had planted throughout the country the endowments of which Christ's Hospital is the most familiar type.

But even when there was a change in the Administration in 1558, and the authority of Elizabeth was established in Church and State, the interest in educational development led to no revival of the _Introduction_, and, unless all intervening copies have perished, there was a clear lapse of ten years before the new Protestant _regime_ took steps to re-issue the book.

This was in 1567. In the Preface very just stress is laid on the mischief proceeding from what is termed "a diversity of Grammars," and from different schoolmasters adopting different methods and books. The proclamation attached expresses at large the objects and advantages of the publication, while it certainly seems to claim for the Queen's father more credit than, looking at the circ.u.mstances, he deserved. For the Primer of 1540 had been preceded by those of Linacre and Wolsey, just as the _Short Introduction_ of 1548 and 1567 was, in the main, a reproduction of Henry's book. But the same unqualified encomium is p.r.o.nounced on Henry by John Palsgrave, the celebrated lexicographer and teacher of languages, in the prolix and fulsome dedication to his English _Acolastus_, 1540, which must have been written and in type when the copies of the Primer had scarcely left the binder's hands. Palsgrave does not intimate here any personal concern in the undertaking.

The Preface of 1567 is followed by the Latin letters, the vowels and consonants, and the Greek letters; after which comes a prayer, "O Almighty G.o.d and merciful Father," which is still retained at some of our public schools. The _Introduction of the Eight Parts of Speech_ const.i.tutes the body and remainder of the English part.

There are six forms of grace before meat, and six others of grace after meat.

The Latin section opens with the Greek alphabet, and proceeds to the parts of grammar, concluding with Erasmus's _De Ratione_. But, as I have stated more than once, this later text-book does not substantially vary from that of 1548. The royal proclamation granted the monopoly of printing to Reginald Wolfe, and forbad the employment of any other Grammar throughout her Highness's dominions. The doc.u.ment declares that Henry VIII., in the midst of weighty affairs belonging to his office, had not forgotten nor neglected the tender youth of his realm, but had, from a fervent zeal for the G.o.dly bringing up of the said youth, and a special desire that they might learn the Latin tongue more easily, inst.i.tuted a new uniform Grammar; which was so far really the case, inasmuch as the 1540 volume was the first official one, and also at the date of its promulgation the most complete and satisfactory.

V. But in examining this general Grammar for all England and the dominions annexed, one at once misses the graphic and amusing ill.u.s.trations which present themselves in many of the earlier books which we have been studying. The examples, instead of being drawn from the occupations and various phases of everyday life, are almost without exception purely technical and commonplace. There is no allusion which one would welcome as casting an incidental light on contemporary history or manners. It is mostly a dead level. The learned men have done this! It makes us cheerful, amid the habitual dearth of something to leaven the text, to stumble upon a few of the little touches in the older books retained as an exception, such as: "Vivo in Anglia. Veni per Galliam in Italiam," or "Vixit Londini: Studuit Oxoniae."

How differently Horman in his _Vulgaria_, 1519, handled his subject, and his pages were intended for schoolboys and students too!

The frequency with which the Primer was henceforth reprinted, contrasted with the very limited call for copies from 1540 to 1566, seems to furnish an indication that the book and the system were at last gaining ground, and beginning to meet with more general acceptance.

But the irreconcilable diversity of opinions, which has always prevailed, respecting etymology, syntax, p.r.o.nunciation, and other cardinal points, militated against the success on any very grand scale of an official Primer; and the Tudors, arbitrary and absolute as they were in all questions of political significance, were not prompted by the feeling of the time to resort in such a case as this to penal and peremptory legislation. The eighteenth century saw Lily's Grammar still more or less in vogue under the name of the original author, not to speak of the obligations of its successors to it; but the Tudor book, constructed in some measure out of it, and ushered into existence under the most auspicious and powerful patronage, sank after a not very robust or influential life of six decades (1540-1600) into complete oblivion.

Our great Elizabeth has been dead near three hundred years, and no genuine popular demand for mental improvement has yet come from the people. In the sixteenth century--in the Queen's time and in her father's--the spirit which promoted education was based either on political or commercial motives.

The universities and schools reared a succession of preceptors who deserted the monastic traditions, and to whom learning was a mere vocation. One large cla.s.s of the English community sought to acquire the accomplishments which might be serviceable in the Government and at court; another limited its ambition to those which would enable them to prosper in trade or in the wars.

V. A cla.s.s of school-book destined for special use, besides those enumerated in another place, presents itself in the shape of grammatical works dedicated by their authors, not to particular inst.i.tutions, but to particular localities or parts of the Empire. Edward Buries, who kept school at East Acton in Cromwell's day, accommodated his plan to the requirements of adults, but at the same time announces that it is printed for the advantage of the schools in the counties of Middles.e.x and Hertford, which strikes us as at once a curious limitation and a sanguine proposal, unless Buries was a Hertfords.h.i.+re man. This was in 1652.

A later writer was more catholic and ambitious in his flight; for in 1712 John Brightland projected a Grammar of the English tongue "for the use of the schools of Great Britain _and Ireland_,"--a fact more particularly noticeable, because it is the first hint of any scheme comprehending the Emerald Isle. I allude elsewhere to the early Accidence drawn up for Scotland by Alexander Hume; and in 1647 the interests of the rising generation in Wales were specially considered by the unnamed introducer of a simplified Latin Primer _in usum juventutis Cambro-Britannicae_, which aimed at a monopoly of the Princ.i.p.ality without prejudice to persons beyond the border.

Besides the Grammar itself, certain Manuals purported to be, not for general educational purposes, but for a given school, and even for a specified cla.s.s in it. Such was the _English Introduction to the Latin Tongue_ for the use of the lower forms in Westminster School; and at Magdalen School, Oxford, they had, at least as far back as 1623, a small text-book on the declensions and conjugations. I take another opportunity to speak of a Latin phrase-book designed for Manchester in 1660, and of the printed examination papers, exhibiting the lines laid down at Merchant Taylors' about the same time. In a few cases a more elaborate compilation was framed, at all events originally, with the same restricted scope, like the _Roman Antiquities_ of Prideaux, in 1614, for Abingdon.

Perhaps, however, the most conspicuous example of this localisation was the _Outlines of Rhetoric_ for St. Paul's, of which we meet with a third edition in 1659; and which must have been in connection with some new and temporary effort to enlarge the range of studies during the Protectorate, partly under the stimulus of the promoters of the famous _Musaeum Minervae_ and the commencing taste for a more complex platform. For such subjects do not seem to have made part of the ordinary course of training anywhere since the mediaeval period, when the Aristotelian system was paramount at our Universities; although, at the same time, among more advanced students philosophical treatises never ceased to possess interest and attract perusers. But the relevance of the handbook for St Paul's lies in its professed destination for the young.

It is questionable whether, outside the Universities and the establishments affiliated upon them, the sciences were acquirable as part of the normal routine. At Oxford, in the reign of Henry VIII., they taught what was then termed Judicial Astronomy, which was a mere burlesque on the true study of the planetary bodies; and Logic was on the list of accomplishments within the reach of boys, who were sent up either to college or to school; for in _A Hundred Merry Tales_, 1526, the son of the rich franklin comes back home for the holidays, and declares, as the fruit of the time and money expended on his education at Oxford school, whither his indulgent father had sent him for two or three years, his conversance with subtleties and ability to prove the two chickens on the supper-table to be sophistically three.

IX.

Merchant Taylors' School founded in 1561--Its limited scope and stationary condition during two centuries and a half--The writer's recollections of it from 1842 to 1850--William Dugard and his troubles.

I. I cannot enter very well, in a general view of the subject, into the history of all the civic foundations which rose up one by one subsequently to St. Paul's, such as the City of London School, the Mercers' and the Skinners', beyond the incidental notices which I have taken occasion to introduce of such inst.i.tutions, as well as of the system of public grammar schools endowed by Edward VI. But I may be allowed to speak of one with which I enjoyed personal a.s.sociations between the years 1842 and 1850, and to mention that in the third chapter of his _Autobiography_ Leigh Hunt sheds some interesting light on the condition of Christ's Hospital when Lamb, Coleridge, and himself were there in the last years of the last century.

Christ's Hospital has produced some very eminent men, but whether by virtue of its system or in spite of it, I hardly venture to say. The biographer of the author of _Elia_ tells us what books his distinguished friend read at school; how little he learned, Lamb himself seems to suggest in that paper on "The Old and the New Schoolmaster."

The origin of Merchant Taylors' School is thus described by Wilson:--

"Towards the close of the year 1560, or early in the following spring, the Merchant Taylors' Company conceived the laudable design of founding a grammar school; and part of the manor of the Rose, in the parish of St.

Lawrence-Pountney (a mansion which had successively belonged to the Duke of Buckingham, the Marquis of Exeter, and the Earls of Suss.e.x), seeming eligible for the purpose, Mr. Richard Hills, a leading member of the court, generously contributed the sum of five hundred pounds towards the purchase of it; but the inst.i.tution was not thoroughly organised till the 24th September 1561, on which day the statutes were framed and a schoolmaster chosen."

With the statutes I have no farther concern than with the clause which directs that the two hundred and fifty scholars, to which the school was limited, were "to be taught in manner & forme as is afore devised & appointed. But first see that they can the catechisme in English or Latyn, & that every of the said two hundred & fifty schollers can read perfectly & write competently, or els lett them not be admitted in no wise."

It is rather curious that the hours of attendance were originally from seven till eleven A.M. and from one till five P.M., and that in winter the boys were to bring no candles of tallow, but candles of wax. This was following the statutes of Dean Colet. Thrice in the day there were prayers; but instead of one of the sixth form saying them for the rest, as was subsequently customary, each boy seems at first to have prayed for himself.

The printed form usually employed was brief enough, and not, like the Manual prepared by Bishop Ken for Winchester, adapted for the use of "all other devout Christians."

The staff consisted at the outset of a head-master and three ushers, whose united emoluments were forty pounds a year, and the first chief teacher of the school was Richard Mulcaster. It appears that the earliest Probation-Day, as it was termed, was in November 1564, when Dean Nowell and others examined the ushers and the boys with a very gratifying result.

These appositions were renewed in 1565, and probably still continue from year to year. They commenced in 1564 at eight o'clock in the morning, and so they did in my time. The practice of visitation by the Court on this day seems to have ceased in 1606.

Alderman Sir Thomas White, some time subsequently to the foundation of the school by the Company, augmented the endowment, so as to enable the inst.i.tution to develop itself, and enlarge its sphere of utility in connection with Oxford University and in other ways. White was a member of the Court when the scheme was adopted, but he was not, strictly speaking, as he has been usually termed and considered, the founder of Merchant Taylors'.

We do not arrive, meanwhile, at any clear or complete notion of the books which were used at the school, but it is to be inferred that Lily's Grammar was the Latin text-book. In the rules made for Probation-Day in 1606-7, I find aesop's _Fables_ in Greek, Tully's _Epistles_, and the _Dialogues_ of Corderius named as works in which the boys were to be tested. The subjects taken on this day were Greek, Latin, and dictation, writing being necessarily included. Neither Hebrew, nor arithmetic, nor the mathematics are enumerated; there are the six forms, but no monitors or prompters.

The _School's Probation_ presents itself for the first time as a printed production, or at least as something compiled in book form, under the date of 1608. It is printed entire by Wilson; but he does not state, nor do I know, what original, whether printed or not, he employed.