Part 7 (2/2)

”Also ye shal fynde him waxe in winter

”Also ye shal fynde hie

”If the offerer be content with these articles, than let his childe be admytted”

The founder of St Paul's, in his statutes, 1518, prescribed what Latin authors he would have read in the school He recites, in the first place, the Latin version by Erasmus of his _Precepts_ and the _Copia Verborum_ of the same Dutch scholar He then proceeds to enumerate some of the early Christian writers, whose piety was superior to their Latinity, Lactantius, Prudentius, and others But while he does not say that Virgil, Cicero, Sallust, and Terence are to be used, he utterly eschews and forbids such classics as Juvenal and Persius, whom he evidently indicates when he speaks of ”Laten adulterate which ignorant, blinde foles brought into this worlde, and with the same hath dystained and poysonyd the olde Laten speche and the veray Roue which in the tyill, and Terence, was usid,”--which is so far reasonable froh: ”whiche also sainte Jerome, and sainte Ambrose, and saint Austen, and many holy doctors lernid in theyre tymes” Whereby we are left at liberty to infer that these holy doctors were on a par with Virgil and Sallust, Cicero and Terence

What sort of Latin would be current now if all the great writers had perished, and we had had only the works of the Fathers as text-books? We all have pretty sis, as the _prima stamina_ of a uishable to a certain point; and as St Jeroot his rudiments But much as e to St Jerome, it was a mischievous error to adopt him or such authors as Lactantius in a public school, where the real object was to instil a knowledge of the Latin language in its integrity and purity It was a mischievous error, and it was, at the same time, a perfectly natural one We are not to bla been so narrow and so biassed; but it ret and surprise that St Paul's, and all our other training institutions, public and proprietary, should, down to the present era, have been under the sway and ement of men whose intellectual vision was as contracted and oblique as that of Colet, without the excuse which it is so easy to find for hie by Knight, were unquestionably of a very austere character, though in harht, in his Life of the founder, ascribes the apparent harshness of the discipline enforced under his direction to the laudableboys for the troubles of the world, and inuring them to hardshi+p But Erasmus was not on the side of thestrictness of discipline, which made no allowance for the difference in the tempers of boys; and another point hich he quarrelled was the horse-in-a-un to find favour both in his own country and with us

It is vain, however, to expect that there should have been many converts to such a man's opinions on educational questions at that period Even in the slish friends and correspondents there was a wide diversity of sentiree with him mainly; but, on the other hand, Colet was clerical in his leaning and Spartan in his notions of scholastic life; and he deeood, as I have above said, to work on the tenderness of youth before it acquired corruption or prejudice, that ”the neine of Christ ht be put into new bottles”

IV There can be no desire to deprive Colet of any portion of the honour which e to hi the cause of education in London; but it would at the saood Dean was the first who established a school in the metropolis The foundation which he established about 1510 consolidated and centralised the systeanised Hear what Knight says:--

”The state of schools in London before Dean Colet's foundation was to this effect: the Chancellor of Paul's (as in all the ancient cathedral churches) wasthe direction and government of literature, not only within the church, but within the whole city, so that all the rammar depended on him, and were subject to him; particularly he was to find a fit master for the school of St Paul, and present hiive hies to repair the houses and buildings belonging to the school This raood and laudable learning He was in all intents the true vice-chancellor of the church, and was so of chancellors and vice-chancellors in the two universities or great schools of the kingdom”

The same writer traces back St Paul's school to Henry the First's reign, when the Bishop of London granted the school a residence in the bell-tower, and bestowed on him the custody of the library of the church A successor of this person had theschool in London conferred on hihts only of the schoolmasters of St Mary-le-Bow and St

Martin-le-Grand

The old cathedral school, which that of Colet doubtless gradually extinguished, lay to the south of his, and appears curiously enough not to have occupied the basement, but to have been, as we should say, on the first floor, four shops being beneath it It was close to Watling Street

A passage in the _Monuinal school, which perished in the Great Fire, had been in the possession of bookbinders, and in the ile, which, as we learn from documentary testimony, was still there in 1550

At the epoch to which I a, the vocation of a bookbinder was, I think, invariably joined with that of a printer, and I apprehend that these shops forle_ was an emporium for the sale of books, and it is to be recollected that in early days, where the typographical part was done in some more or less unfrequented quarter of the city, it was a common practice to have the voluhfare

St Paul's Churchyard, in the days of Colet and in the infancy of his valuable endowreat resort, but a favourite seat of the booksellers For in the iin_, printed at Paris, the copies are said to be on sale at London ”apud bibliopolas in cimiterio sancti Pauli 1514;” and of this fact I could readily bring forward numerous other evidences

Besides the vendors of literature, however, the site soon becaes, to whom the immediate proximity of St Paul's served as an useful introduction and advertisement; and in the time of Elizabeth a French school was established here, for the benefit of the general public, of course, but more especially, doubtless, with a view to such Paulines as ht desire an extension of their studies

VIII

Thomas Linacre prepares his Rudiments of Latin Grammar for the use of the Princess Mary (1522)--Probably the earliest digest of the kind--Cardinal Wolsey's edition of Lily's Grammar for the use of Ipswich School (1529)--Inquiry into the priority of the Ipswich and St Paul's Grammars--First National Primer (1540)--Lily's _Short Introduction of Grammar_ (1548)--Its re-issue by Queen Elizabeth (1566-7)--Some account of its contents--Its failure

I Thons and tutor to the Princess Mary, is understood to have prepared for the service of his august pupil certain Rudiments of Grammar, doubtless in Latin, at the same time that Giles Du Wes or Derote for her his _Introductory_ to the French language The biographer of Dean Colet informs his readers that the production of Linacre was translated into Latin by George Buchanan for Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, whose studies he directed; but the book as printed is in that language, and bears no indication of a second hand in it The undertaking, however, was deemed by Queen Catherine too obscure, and Ludovicus Vives was accordingly engaged to draw up soin of his little book _De ratione studii puerilis_, where, fro the labours of Linacre and the abridgment of the _Rudiments_ by Erasmus

The volume, edited by Linacre about 1522, appears, anyhow, to be entitled to rank as the earliest effort in the way of a graest; and, apart from its special destination, it was calculated to supply a want, and to find patrons beyond the range of the court

Except its utilisation by Buchanan for Lord Cassilis, we hear little or nothing of it, nevertheless, after its original publication by the royal printer Perhaps it did not compete successfully with the editions of Lily, as they received from time to time improvements at the hands of professional experts, and united within certain lies of consolidation and corown considerable, and in the case of a technical book it has always been difficult or iainst a specialist