Part 10 (2/2)

It is not too much to assert, probably, that if the appearance of this tract had been followed by the execution of the ideas enunciated in it, the force of opinion would by this tiinal promoters

II The _Musaeum Minervae_, instituted by Sir Balthazar Gerbier d'Ouvilly at Bethnal Green in 1635, presents a thorough contrast to those philanthropic or eleemosynary institutions of which I have lately spoken, inasmuch as it was a novel and costly apparatus of Continental origin, calculated only for the children of rich persons and for those who desired to complete themselves in various accomplishments Lectures were delivered on several subjects, and printed afterwards for circulation; but the enterprise did not succeed, and the outbreak of the Civil War probably sealed its dooement, or the founder himself, issued a prospectus of the different branches of learning and culture which were taught at this establishh to append entire, portends the approaching collapse, and reads like a final appeal to public spirit and patronage:--

”To all Fathers of nobLE FAMILIES and Lovers of VERTUE: Sir Balthazar Gerbier desires once reat labours and indeavours by the Erection of an Acadeate To teach _Hebrew_, _Greek_, _Latine_, _French_, _Italian_, _Spanish_, _High Dutch_, and _Low Dutch_, both Ancient and Modern _Histories_, joyntly with the Constitutions and Governments of the most famous _Empires_ and _Dominions_ in the World, the true Naturall and Experimentall _Philosophy_, the _Mathe _Bookes of Accounts_ by _Creditor_ and _Debitor_ All excellent _Handwriting, Georaphy, Perspective, Architecture, Secret Motions of Scenes, Fortifications, the besieging & Defending of Places, Fire-Works, Marches of Ar the Great Horse, Musick, Playing on all sorts of Instru, &c_”

It is at once apparent that the programme of the Bethnal Green Academy was too ambitious and expensive to suit moderate careers and limited resources Perhaps if it had been so fortunate as to outlive the Restoration it e was sufficiently capacious to accommodate those who contented thee routine; those who preferred a study of the sciences and arts; and, again, such as desired a special professional training

The establishurated by a dramatic performance, which the Court honoured with its presence; and in the following year the _Constitutions_, as they are called, were printed

These give, but of course with more detail, the particulars which present themselves in the advertisement just noticed; and they also shew that there was a preparatory school attached to the _Musaeuher one

The subjects taught exhibit a diversity of character and a width of syrammes of the old-fashi+oned public foundations They co, Coriculture, Arithes, and Elocution, withthat now for the first tiue was included in the list of those which were recommended and set down for study, while the Dutch also occurs in the list Elocution or ”the art of well-speaking,” as it is termed, was also a novel feature; and, in point of fact, Gerbier, who had travelled much abroad and observed the superior educational systeht to introduce here the same catholic and liberal spirit, instead of the ilished from mediaeval simplicity and crudity

The _Musaeuentleent, collapsed about 1650; but its example and influence survived, and it was the forerunner of a broader and htened educational policy and of the es, into which even those ancient endowed schools which remain have been compelled by the force of public opinion, one by one, to resolve themselves

These Academies present a very powerful contrast to the archaic school in the multiplicity of acquirements, and in the breadth or variety of culture which they afforded and encouraged They betoken a development of social wants and refine countries It was a supply which responded to a demand; and it helped to create or extend a field of literary industry in the for with the principal subjects, which the _Musaeuous institutions included in their sche, and a few other arts were added Manuals for the use of those who studied, at the College or under private instructors, the sciences of Fencing, Vaulting, Small Sword Exercise, Fortification, and the accoramme of the Minerva Museum A constant succession of text-books for pupils in nearly all these branches of a polite education kept the e of Elizabeth doard; and long lists ht be furnished of contributions to every department, both by professional experts and by amateurs of practical experience

Ladies, who desired to learn anything special in excess of the narrow educational routine then deemed sufficient for the call of their sex, depended on private tutors, who usually waited upon theht Mrs Pepys the flageolet, for exa frory at first, because he was asked by Mrs Pepys to stay dinner sometimes, and to sit at table with her husband

The i before the date of any literary monuments of its development The earliest professor of the art who appeared in print a us was a Frenchman, Jean de Beauchesne, who resided in Blackfriars, and published in 1570 his writing-book, in which he affords specilish and French secretary, Italian, Chancery, and Court Even the extant productions of this class, including those of the immortal cocker, would fill a considerable space in a bookcase; andwithout the parade of authorshi+p, while of such fugitive performances the remains are apt to be incomplete, and to present us with a list of names far from exhaustive

In his ”Pen's Triumph,” 1660, cocker, who is better remembered as an author on arithmetic, perhaps for no farther reason than the force of the adage, but as also a lexicographer and a volu-books, instructs his pupils and the public not merely in all the hands at that tiold,” which was, of course, no novelty, but had been ue on the Continent than here

Entire works were executed in autograph MS by experts, both in England and abroad, for the purpose of presentation to noble or royal personages; and Ballard gives a copious account of a lady, nalis, who, in the early portion of the seventeenth century, signalised her talent and ingenuity in this way Her as remarkable for the minuteness and exquisite delicacy of its characters; but nearly all the professional writing-masters introduced into their copybooks bold and intricate designs, and figures of ani the volu the capabilities of the goose-quill

A our foremost literary celebrities, Shakespear wrote the Court hand, judging fronature, and Bacon and Ben Jonson the Italian

Charactery, or the art of shorthand, was introduced into the Nonconfor youths or others to take notes of sermons and lectures; and some of the discourses from the pulpit in the time of Elizabeth purport to have been printed froht, as the writer of a work on Melancholy long antecedent to Burton's, procured an exclusive right in 1588 to publish a system which he had invented for this purpose, and which we find described by hi” He set in motion an idea which ue of the publications on Tachygraphy down to the present date forht was nearly a century before the more celebrated Rich, who flourished about the Restoration of the Stuarts, and whose cypher was adopted by Pepys in the composition of his diary

III The public schools were not the first in e the policy which Gerbier had laboured so hard and so long to establish On a less expensive and ostentatious scale certain private acadeht in the great foundations by soured in the old Bethnal Green prospectus

At the end of a Musical Entertainment, prepared in 1676 for recitation by some school-boys in the presence of certain persons of quality, the master favours us with soht take up in his establishment, and it is also inferable that the hours of study extended to at least five o'clock in the evening He says in a kind of postscript to the printed tract:--

”The Arts and Sciences taught and practis'd in the Acade and Dancing

French and Italian

The Mathe and Arith and Wrastling_”