his Rhetorick ad Theodecten; "Liberty kindleth love; love refuseth no labour; and labour obtaineth whatsoever it seeketh." And yet, nevertheless, goodness of nature may do little good, perfection of memory may serve to small use, all love may be employed in vain, and labour may be soon gravelled, if a man trust always to his own singular wit, and will not be glad sometime to hear, take advice, and learn of another; and therefore doth Socrates very notably add the fifth note:

5. ΦΙΛΗΚΟΟΣ,

He that is glad to hear and learn of another: for otherwise he shall stick with great trouble, where he might go easily forward; and also catch hardly a very little by his own toil, when he might gather quickly a good deal by another man's teaching. But now there be some that have great love to learning, good lust to labour, be willing to learn of others; yet, either of a fond shamefacedness, or else of a proud folly, they dare not, or will not, go to learn of another: and therefore doth Socrates wisely add the sixth note of a good wit in a child for learning, and that is

6. ΖΗΤΗΤΙΚΟΣ,

He that is naturally bold to ask any question, desirous to search out any doubt; not ashamed to learn of the meanest, nor afraid to go to the greatest, until he be perfectly taught and fully satisfied. The seventh and last point is,

7. ΦΙΛΕΠΑΙΝΟΣ,

He that loveth to be praised for well doing, at his father or master's hand. A child of this nature will earnestly love learning, gladly labour for learning, willingly learn of other, boldly ask any doubt.

esse tacere, cùm Barbaros; hic autem, cùm Isocratem pateretur diDe Orat. lib. 3.

cere.

The parody he used, though ingenious, was too severe on so great

a man:

Αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾷν, Ισοκράτην τ ̓ ἐᾷν λέγειν :

Inverting this verse of Euripides,

Αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾷν, βαρβάρους τ ̓ ἐᾶν λέγειν,

* See the beginning of the second book.

And thus, by Socrates' judgement, a good father, and a wise schoolmaster, should choose a child to make a scholar of, that hath by nature the foresaid perfect qualities, and comely furniture both of mind and body; hath memory quick to receive, sure to keep, and ready to deliver; hath love to learning; hath lust to labour; hath desire to learn of others; hath boldness to ask any question; hath mind wholly bent to win praise by well doing.

The two first points be special benefits of nature; which, nevertheless, be well preserved and much increased by good order. But as for the five last, love, labour, gladness to learn of others, boldness to ask doubts, and will to win praise, be won and maintained by the only wisdom and discretion of the schoolmaster. Which five points, whether a schoolmaster shall work sooner in a child by fearful beating, or courteous handling, you that be wise, judge.

Yet some men, wise indeed, but, in this matter, more by severity of nature than any wisdom at all, do laugh at us, when we thus wish and reason, that young children should rather be allured to learning by gentleness and love, than compelled to learning by beating and fear: they say reasons serve only to breed forth talk, and pass away the time; but we never saw good schoolmasters do so, nor never read of wise men that thought so.'

66

our

Yes forsooth, as wise as they be, either in other men's opinion, or in their own conceit, I will bring the contrary judgement of him, who, they themselves shall confess, was as wise as they are, or else they may be justly thought to have small wit at all; and that is Socrates, whose judgement in Plato is plainly this, in these words; which, because they be very notable, I will recite them in his own tongue: Οὐδὲν μάθημα μετὰ δουλείας τὸν ἐλεύθερον χρὴ μανθάνειν. οἱ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ σώματος πόνοι βίᾳ πονούμενοι, χεῖρον οὐδὲν τὸ σῶμα ἀπεργάζονται ψυχῇ δὲ βίαιον οὐδὲν ἔμμενον μάθημα. In English thus: “ No learning ought to be learned with bondage: for bodily labours, wrought by compulsion, hurt not the body; but any learning learned by compulsion, tarrieth not long in the mind." And why? For whatsoever the mind doth learn unwillingly with fear, the same it doth quickly forget without care. And lest proud wits, that love not to be contraried, but have lust to wrangle or trifle away truth, will say, that

* This passage is cited in the preface of this book.

Socrates meaneth not this of children's teaching, but of some other higher learning; hear what Socrates in the same place doth more plainly say: Μὴ τοίνυν βίᾳ, ὦ ἄριστε, τοὺς παῖδας ἐν τοῖς μαθήμασιν, ἀλλὰ παίζοντας τρέφε: That is to say ; "And therefore, my dear friend, bring not up your children in learning by compulsion and fear, but by playing and pleasure. And you that do read Plato as you should, do well perceive, that these be no questions asked by Socrates as doubts, but they be sentences, first affirmed by Socrates as mere truths, and after given forth by Socrates as right rules, most necessary to be marked, and fit to be followed of all them that would have children taught as they should. And in this counsel, judgement, and authority of Socrates I will repose myself, until I meet with a man of the contrary mind, whom I may justly take to be wiser than I think So

crates was.

Fond schoolmasters neither can understand, nor will follow, this good counsel of Socrates; but wise riders in their office can and will do both; which is the only cause that commonly the young gentlemen of England go so unwillingly to school, and run so fast to the stable. For in very deed, fond schoolmasters, by fear, do beat into them the hatred for learning; and wise riders, by gentle allurements, do breed up in them the love of riding. They find fear and bondage in schools, they feel liberty and freedom in stables; which causes them utterly to abhor the one, and most gladly to haunt the other. And I do not write this, that, in exhorting to the one, I would dissuade young gentlemen from the other; yea, I am sorry with all my heart that they be given no more to riding than they be. For of all outward qualities, to ride fair is most comely for himself, most necessary for his country; and the greater he is in blood, the greater is his praise, the more he doth exceed all other therein. It was one of the three excellent praises amongst the noble gentlemen, the old Persians; " Always to say truth, to ride fair, and shoot well:" and so it was engraven upon Darius's tomb, as Strabo witnesseth:

*This inscription is twice mentioned in his Toxophilus. Strabo's words are these: Μέμνηται δ ̓ Ονησίκρατος καὶ τὸ ἐπὶ τοῦ Δαρείου τάφῳ γράμμα τόδε·

ΦΙΛΟΣ ἦν τοῖς φίλοις· ἱππεὺς καὶ τοξότης ἄριστος ἐγενόμην. κυνη γῶν ἐκράτουν. πάντα ποιεῖν ἠδυνάμην.

Darius the king lieth buried here,

Who in riding and shooting had never peer.

But to our purpose: Young men, by any means losing love of learning, when by time they come to their own r they carry commonly from the school with them a per hatred of their master, and a continual contempt of learni If ten gentlemen be asked, why they-forgot so soon in co that which they were learning so long in school, eight them, or let me be blamed, will lay the fault on their handling by their schoolmasters.

Cuspinian doth report, that that noble Emperor Maxin lian would lament very oft his misfortune herein.

Yet some will say, that children, of nature, love pastim and mislike learning; because, in their kind, the one is ea and pleasant, the other hard and wearisome. Which is opinion not so true, as some men ween. For the matt lieth not so much in the disposition of them that be youn as in the order and manner of bringing up by them that old; nor yet in the difference of learning and pastime. F beat a child if he dance not well, and cherish him though learn not well, you shall have him unwilling to go to dance and glad to go to his book: knock him always when h draweth his shaft ill, and favour him again though he faul

*This is the passage Ee alludes to in Cuspinian: “Ubi habilis pe ætatem ad literas addiscendas fuit, magistro Petro, qui postea Nov Civitatis Antistes erat, traditus, aliquot annis cum nobilium quorundar filiis contubernalibus Latinas didicit literas. Sed cum ejus præceptor solis Dialecticis argutiis doctus, Sophismata illi inculcare vellet, a quæ capessenda aptus non erat, sæpius atrociter verberatus ab eo magis ipse verberandus (cùm verbera servos deceant, non liberos tandem effecit, ut literas magis odio haberet, quàm diligeret. Quod tamen præcipuum esse debet addiscenti literas, quemadmodum omnes docent boni præceptores.

"Audivi ex ore divi Maximiliani hoc verbum, quod nunquam è memoria mea excidet, quod jam Romanorum rex factus, in mensa, ut solebat de variis loqui, multis adstantibus, dixerat. Si,' inquit, hodie præceptor meus viveret Petrus, quanquam multa præceptoribus debeamus, efficerem, ut se instituisse me pœniteret. Quàm multa enim bonis præceptoribus, qui recte instituunt pueros, debemus, tam multis plagis sunt onerandi indocti pædagogi, qui pretiosissimum ætatis tempus perdunt, et ea docent, quæ dediscere multo labore necesse

est.

at his book, you shall have him very loth to be in the field, and very willing to go to school. Yea, I say more, and not of myself, but by the judgement of those from whom few wise men will gladly dissent; that if ever the nature of man be given at any time, more than other, to receive goodness, it is in innocency of young years, before that experience of evil have taken root in him: "For the pure clean wit of a sweet young babe, is like the newest wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing; and, like a new bright silver dish never occupied, to receive, and keep clean, any good thing that is put into it."

And thus will in children, wisely wrought withal, may easily be won to be very well willing to learn: "And wit in children, by nature, namely memory,* the only key and keeper of all learning, is readiest to receive, and surest to keep any manner of thing that is learned in youth." This lewd and learned, by common experience, know to be most true. For we remember nothing so well when we be old, as those things which we learned when we were young. And this is not strange, but common in all nature's works. "Every man seeth (as I said before) new wax is best for printing, new clay fittest for working, new shorn wool aptest for soon and surest dyeing, new fresh flesh for good and durable salting. And this similitude is not rude, nor borrowed of the larder-house, but out of his schoolhouse, of whom the wisest of England need not be ashamed to learn. Young grafts grow not only soonest, but also fairest, and bring always forth the best and sweetest fruit; young whelps learn easily to carry; young popinjays learn quickly to speak." And so, to be short, if in all other things, though they lack reason, sense, and life, the similitude of youth is fittest to all goodness; surely nature in mankind is most beneficial and effectual in this behalf.

Therefore, if to the goodness of nature be joined the wisdom of the teacher, in leading young wits into a right and plain way of learning; surely children, kept up in God's fear, and governed by his grace, may most easily be brought

"Quid dicam de thesauro rerum omnium Memoria, quæ nisi custos inventis cogitatisque rebus et verbis adhibeatur, intelligimus omnia, etiamsi præclarissima fuerint, in oratore peritura?" Cic. de Orat. lib. 1.