THE

FIRST BOOK,

TEACHING

THE BRINGING UP OF YOUTH.

FTER 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 Latins: 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 pluckt away in age. Moreover, there is no one thing, that

* Cicero de claris Orat. sect. 72, p. 165, Gronov. edit. in 4to. "Quinetiam in maximis occupationibus quum ad te ipsum (inquit ad me intuens) de ratione Latinè loquendi accuratissimè scripserit; primoque in libro dixerit, Verborum delectum, originem esse eloquentiæ.

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 Making of Latins

the making, when the master were

marreth Children.

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 judgement, 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 judgement

* I have formerly seen Mr. Horman's book, who was master of Eton school. The book itself could be of no great use, for, as I remember, it was only a collection of single sentences, without order or method, put into Latin.

The passage here referred to, is in Tully's first book de Orat. p. 92, edit. Gron. "Postea mihi placuit, eoque sum usus adolescens, ut summorum oratorum Græcas orationes explicarem. Quibus lectis hoc assequebar, ut, quum ea, quæ legerem Græce, Latine redderem, non solum optimis verbis uterer, et tamen usitatis, sed etiam exprimerem quædam verba imitando, quæ nova nostris essent, dummodo essent idonea."

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.

The order of teaching.

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 perfitly. 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 the least, then let the child translate Two paper books. 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 of Tully's words, let the master praise him, and say, "Here ye do well." For I assure by praise. you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

Children

learn

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 have done his

diligence, and used no truantship therein. For I know by good experience, that a child Gentleness in shall take more profit of two faults teaching. gently warned of, than of four things rightly hit: for then the master shall have good occasion to say unto him; "N., 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; the master being led by so sure a guide, and the scholar being brought into so plain and easy a way. And therefore we do not contemn rules, but we gladly teach rules; and teach them more plainly, sensibly, and orderly, than they be commonly taught in common schools. For when the master shall compare Tully's book with the scholar's translation, let the master, at the first, lead and teach his scholar to join the rules of his grammar book with the examples of his present lesson, until the scholar by himself be able to fetch out of his grammar every rule for every example; so as the grammar book be ever in the scholar's hand, and also used of him as a dictionary for every present use. This is a lively and perfit way of teaching of

rules; where the common way used in common schools, to read the grammar alone by itself, is tedious for the master, hard for the scholar, cold and uncomfortable for them both.

Let your scholar be never afraid to ask you any doubt, but use discreetly the best allurements ye can to encourage him to the same; lest his overmuch fearing of you drive him to seek some misorderly shift; as to seek to be helped by some other book, or to be prompted by some other scholar; and so go about to beguile you much and himself more.

With this way of good understanding the matter, plain construing, diligent parsing, daily translating, cheerful admonishing, and heedful amending of faults, never leaving behind just praise for well doing, I would have the scholar brought up withal, till he had read and translated over the first book of Epistles chosen out by Sturmius, with a good piece of a comedy of Terence also.

All this while, by mine advice, the child shall use to speak no Latin: for as Cicero saith in like Latin speaking. matter, with like words, Loquendo, male loqui discunt: and that excellent learned man G. Budæus, in his Greek commentaries, sore complaineth, that when he began to learn the Latin tongue, use of speaking Latin at the table and elsewhere unadvisedly, did bring him to such an evil choice of words, to such a crooked framing of sentences, that no one thing did hurt or hinder him more, all the days of his life afterward, both for readiness in speaking, and also good judgment in writing.

*

In very deed, *if children were brought up in such

"Magni interest, quos quisque audiat quotidie domi, quibuscum loquatur à puero; quemadmodum patres, pædagogi,