(In den Abkürzungen für die einzelnen Stücke wird sich das Jahrbuch regelmäßig den von Alex. Schmidt für sein Wörterbuch gewählten anschließen.)

Bildung und Schule in Shakespeare's England.

Von

Th. Vatke.

Die Gründung von Schulen in Alt-England war der Privat

Wohlthätigkeit der Fürsten wie der Unterthanen, sowie der einzelnen Korporationen überlassen. Man stiftete auch Hospitäler, die mit Schulen verbunden waren.1)

1)

In tymes paste when any ryche man dyed in London, they were wonte to healp the pore scholers of the universitye wyth exhibition.) When any man dyed, they woulde bequeth greate summes of money towarde the releue of the pore. When I was a scholer in Cambrydge my selfe, I harde verye good reporte of London, and knewe manie that had releue of the rytche men of London, but nowe I can heare no such good reporte, and yet I inquyre of it, and herken for it, but nowe charitie is waxed colde, none helpeth the scholer nor yet the pore. And in those dayes what dyd they whan they helped the scholers? Mary, they maynteyned and gave them liuynges that were verye papists and professed the popes doctrine; and nowe that the knowledge of Gods word is brought to lyght, and many earnestelye studye and laboure to set it forth, now almost no man healpeth to maynteine them. Oh! London! London! repente, repente, for I thynke God is more displeased wyth London then euer he was with the citie of Nebo. Repente, therfore, repent, London, and remembre that the same God liueth nowe that punyshed Nebo, euen the same god and none other, and he wyl punyshe synne as well nowe as he dyd then, and he will punishe the iniquitie of London as well as he did then of Nebo.

I assure you,

I shall employ it [the gold] all in pious uses,
Founding of Colleges and Grammar schools,

Building of Hospitals.

Ben Jonson, Alch. II. 3.

2) Ein Stipendium (exhibition) hatte Ben Jonson gehabt. Scholarship ist wohl dasselbe, cf. Staunton, Great Schools.

So klagt Bishop Latimer, A. D. 1549, bereits darüber, daß wohlhabende Bürger nicht mehr in dem Grade wie es in seiner Jugend der Fall gewesen, Mittel für Schüler und Schulen hergeben.1)

Hugh Latimer, A. D. 1549, Sermon on the Ploughers (Specimens of English Literature, 1394–1579, by W. W. Skeat, Oxf. 1871).

Der Unterricht pflegte, wie auch im kurfürstlichen Berlin, um 6 Uhr früh zu beginnen: daher spricht Shakespeare von den shining morning faces der Schulknaben. Furnivall, Education in Early England p. IXI.

Es wird von Wykeham, Bischof von Winchester, um 1366, berichtet:

At the same time, he seems to have formed the plan of those noble foundations at Oxford and Winchester upon which he had determined to bestow the bulk of his abundant wealth. In pursuance of his design, he purchased ground at Oxford for the site of his College there, and supported a Grammar School at Winchester preparatory to the erection of Winchester College, the intended nursery for that at Oxford. (Staunton p. 52.) Ueber die Gründung von St. Paul's School schreibt Staunton p. 139:

„For many years it had been his (Colet's) practice to expend the greater part of his revenues in acts of piety and benevolence. Being now in possession of an ample fortune, and, since the deaths of his brothers and sisters, without any near relations, he at length resolved to consecrate a good portion of his estate to some great and enduring benefaction. After much deliberation as to what design would promise most benefit to the Church and the nation, he determined to provide a Grammar School in London, as near as possible to the Metropolitan Church. Accordingly, about the year 1509, the first of Henry's reign, Dean Colet commenced the erection of suitable buildings, and employed himself in framing the Statutes, providing proper Masters, and settling the endowments of St. Paul's School. The structure was completed in three years, and is said by Wood to have cost £4,500. This is, no doubt, an exaggerated estimate, for, at a time when a quarter of malt cost three shillings and four pence, an ox six shillings, a sheep one shilling, and a capon twopence, such a sum could scarcely have been absorbed by any edifice which a man in his senses would erect for the purposes of a School. Be this as it may, by the conveyance of certain of his estates in Bucks to the Mercer's Company, in trust, he endowed the Foundation with a yearly income of something more than one hundred and twenty pounds, a revenue which is understood to have increased to about £12,000, with the prospect, it is generally reported, of a further and enormous augmentation.

1) Citizen. I'll have his nose, and at mine own charge build
A College (B. Fletcher, Philaster V. 4).

In his Statutes of the School, Dean Colet declares that it shall be open to the children of all nations and countries indifferently". What a beautiful and noble catholicity this provision displays! We are supposed in these days to have more enlightened notions of toleration than in the days of Dean Colet, but in some respects there reigned a more exalted and embracing charity at the beginning of the 16th century than in the middle of the 19th. The number of children attending the school was to be one hundred and fifty-three. No children to be admitted but such as could say their Catechism, as well as read and write „competently“.

Each child was required to pay fourpence on his first admission to the School, which sum was to be given to the poor scholar" who swept the school and kept the seats clean. The hours of study were to be from seven until eleven in the morning and from one till five in the afternoon, with prayers in the morning, at noon, and in the evening. It was expressly stipulated that the pupils should never use tallow candles, but only wax, and those at the cost of their friend".1)

Vgl. Sh. H. VIII. IV, 2: die Gründung der Schule von Ipswich durch Kardinal Wolsey.

Auch in den Old Plays XII, 59: The Old Couple, A Comedy, London 1658, wird unser Gegenstand erwähnt:

And all the charitable deeds, which you

After your death shall do, as building schools
Or hospitals, shall go in your own name.

Uebrigens scheinen die „Freischulen" in gutem Ruf gestanden zu haben:

The Free-Schooles generally afford the best breeding in good letters. Tom of All Trades p. 144, New Shakspere Society VI, 2.2)

1) Aus Staunton, The Great Schools of England, p. 101, führen wir an: It was at „untaintedly loyal" Westminster that the famous South,3) then a boy at school, heard the monitor pray publicly for King Charles I. by name on the fatal 30th of January, 1648, „but an hour or two before the monarch's head was struck off". Here, too, the famous Busby is reported to have walked beside Charles II. with his head covered, apologizing at the same time to the King for his apparent breach of decorum by saying that, if his boys supposed there were any greater in the realm than he, there would be at once an end to his authority. Ueber eine Schulbelustigung des mittelalterlichen Englands berichtet William Fitzstephen (Vita Sancti Thomae, auctore Wilhelmo filio Stephani (Names) ed. Giles p. 178):,,Außerdem, um mit den Spielen der Knaben von London anzufangen, denn wir alle sind ja Knaben gewesen, bringt zur Fastnachtszeit jeglicher Schulknabe seinem Lehrer einen Kampf hahn, und der ganze Vormittag vergeht, indem die Knaben in den Schulen den Kämpfen ihrer Hähne zusehen." (Alwin Schultz, Das höfische Leben I, 134.)

2) The Free Schools of Edward VI. werden häufig erwähnt. Dieser König ist überhaupt Wiederhersteller des Schulwesens in England: The grammar school at Stratford was suppressed in the usual way by royal mandate, but after 3) Dr. South † July 13, 1716.

Kleinere Knaben aber wurden, wie später Oliver Goldsmith, auch in Alt-England wohl von Lehrerinnen unterrichtet:

tell their school-mistress

What truants they are and bid her pay them soundly.

(The Antipodes, by Rich. Broome 1633.)

Diese Sitte war sehr alt: thet (auarice) is the maystresse thet heth zuo greate scole thet alle guoth thrin uor to lyerni, as zayth the wrytinge. (Ayenbit of Inwyt, bei Mätzner, Alt-Engl. Sprachproben S. 88).

,Ine this clergie heth dame auarice uele scolers, and of clerkes and of leawede, and specialliche zeue manyeres of uolke thet alle thus studieth'. (ib. S. 94.)

Reichere Leute schickten ihre Kinder oft gar nicht zur Schule, sondern hielten ihnen Hauslehrer. 1)

Dagegen eifert auch Ben Jonson: Kinder im Hause erziehen, sagt er, heiße sie im Schatten erziehen, während in der Schule sie Licht und Sonne hätten.

Es war auch Mode in Shakespeare's London seitens der Erwachsenen Privatlehrer zu halten, und sich von denselben mit französischen und italienischen Phrasen ausstatten zu lassen. Das thaten die Pedants:

Your pedant should provide you some parcels, or some pretty commodity of Italian, to commence with, if you would be exotic and exquisite. Asot. Yes, sir, he was at my lodging, t'other morning, I gave him a doublet (Ben Jonson, Cynth. Rev.).

Gewiß war der Rock nicht neu: damit stimmt die Behandlung, welche der Pedant, Shrew IV, 2, erfährt:

Pedant ist aber auch der school-master überhaupt:

"He's in yellow stockings.

Sir To. And cross-gartered?

Mar. Most villanously, like a pedant that keeps a school i'the church. (Tw. Night III, 2.)

being in abeyance for a few years it was restored by Edward VI; in the last year of his reign (1553).' (Baynes, What Shakespeare learnt at School: Frazer's Magazine 1879/80.)

1) One of the conditions prescribed to a humble chaplain and tutor, in an esquire's family, according to Hall, 1599, was

First that he lie upon the truckle-bed,

While his young master lieth o'er his head. Virg. B. II. Sat. 6. Vgl.: Holofernes, bei den Eltern eines seiner Schüler eingeladen, spricht das grace bei Tische.

Fen's Paston Letters (middle of the fifteenth century): Agnes Paston, enters among her errands in London a commission to her son's tutor, Greenfield, to belash" his charge till he amend, he being then fifteen and having been some time at Cambridge.