ROGER ASCHAM.

ASCHAM, ROGER, a noted English classical scholar, born in Yorkshire in 1515; died in London, December 30, 1568. His father was house-steward in the family of Lord Scroope. At the age of fifteen he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in Greek and Latin, and was three years after chosen a fellow of his College. In 1544 he became public orator of the University, and was made Latin Secretary to the boy-king, Edward VI., then only seven years old. In 1548 he was invited by the Princess Elizabeth, afterward Queen, to direct her studies in Latin and Greek. In 1550 he went as secretary to Sir Richard Morysine, who had been appointed ambassador to the Emperor Charles V., and remained abroad for three years. Upon the accession of Queen Mary, in 1553, Ascham was appointed her Latin Secretary, and he was continued in this office upon the accession of Elizabeth, three years later. When he died, Elizabeth said that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor. Ascham has been styled, perhaps somewhat too emphatically, "the father of English prose.”

THE BRINGING UP OF YOUTH.

(From "The Schoolmaster.")

LEARNING is both hindered and injured, too, by the ill choice of them that send young scholars to the universities. Of whom must needs come all our divines, lawyers, and physicians.

These young scholars be chosen commonly, as young apples be chosen by children, in a fair garden, about St. James tide: a child will choose a sweeting, because it is presently fair and pleasant, and refuse a runnet, because it is then green, hard, and sour when the one, if it be eaten, doth breed both worms and ill humors; the other, if it stand his time, be ordered and kept as it should, is wholesome of itself and helpeth to the good digestion of other meats: sweetings will receive worms, rot, and die on the tree, and never or seldom come to the gathering for good and lasting store.

For very grief of heart I will not apply the similitude: but hereby is plainly seen how learning is robbed of her best wits, first by the great beating, and after by the ill choosing of scholars to go to the universities. Whereof cometh partly that lewd [popular] and spiteful proverb, sounding to the great hurt of learning and shame of learned men that the greatest clerks be not the wisest men.

And though I, in all this discourse, seem plainly to prefer hard and rough wits before quick and light wits, both for learning and manners, yet am I not ignorant that some quickness of wit is a singular gift of God, and so most rare amongst men, and namely such a wit as is quick without lightness, sharp without brittleness, desirous of good things without newfangleness, diligent in painful things without wearisomeness, and constant in good will to do all things well. . . .

But it is notable and true that Socrates saith in Plato to his friend Crito: That that number of men is fewest, which far exceed, either in good or ill, in wisdom or folly, but the mean betwixt both be the greatest number: which he proveth true in diverse other things: as in greyhounds, amongst which few are found exceeding great or exceeding little, exceeding swift or exceeding slow: And therefore, I speaking of quick and hard wits, I meant the common number of quick and hard wits, amongst the which, for the most part, the hard wit proveth many times the better, learned, wiser, and honester man: and therefore do I the more lament that such wits commonly be either kept from learning by fond [foolish] fathers, or bet from learning by lewd [churlish] schoolmasters.

And speaking thus much of the wits of children for learning, the opportunity of the place and goodness of the matter might require to have here declared the most special notes of a good wit for learning in a child after the manner and custom of a good horseman, who is skilful to know, and able to tell others, how by certain sure signs a man may choose a colt, that is like to prove another day excellent for the saddle. And it is pity, that commonly more care is had, yea and that amongst very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse, than a cunning man for their children. They say nay in word, but they do so in deed. For, to the one, they will gladly give a stipend of 200 crowns by year, and loath to offer to the other 200 shillings. God, that sitteth in heaven, laugheth their choice to scorn, and rewardeth their liberality as it should: for he suf

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fereth them to have tame and well-ordered horse, but wild and unfortunate children: and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse than comfort in their children.

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 our reasons serve only to breed forth talk, and pass away time, but we never saw good schoolmaster do so, nor never read of wise man that thought so.

Yes, forsooth as wise as they be, either in other men's opinion, or in their own conceit, I will bring the contrary judgment of him, who, they themselves shall confess, wax as wise as they are, or else they may be justly thought to have small wit at all and that is Socrates, whose judgment in Plato is plainly this in these words: . . . in English thus, No learning ought to be learned with bondage: For, bodily labors, 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 troth, will say that 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: . . . 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 ye 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, judgment, 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 Socrates 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 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' tomb, as Strabo witnesseth:

"Darius the king lieth buried here,

Who in riding and shooting had never peer."

But, to our purpose, young men who, by any means, lose the love of learning, when by time they come to their own rule, carry commonly, from the school with them, a perpetual hatred of their master, and a continual contempt of learning. If ten gentlemen be asked why they forget so soon in court that which they were learning so long in school, eight of them, or let me be blamed, will lay the fault on their ill-handling by their schoolmasters. . . .

Yet some will say that children, of nature, love pastime and mislike learning: because, in their kind, the one is easy and pleasant, the other hard and wearisome: which is an opinion not so true as some men ween: For the matter lieth not so much in the disposition of them that be young, as in the order and manner of bringing up by them that be old, nor yet in the difference of learning and pastime. For, beat a child if he dance not well, and cherish him though he learn not well, ye shall have him unwilling to go to dance, and glad to go to his book. Knock him always, when he draweth his shaft ill, and favor him again though he fault at his book, ye shall have him very loath to be in the field, and very willing to be in the school. Yea, I say more, and not of myself, but by the judgment 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 [vulgar] 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 sees (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 well to serve God and country both by virtue and wisdom.

But if will and wit, by farther age, be once allured from innocency, delighted in vain sights, filled with foul talk, crooked with wilfulness, hardened with stubbornness, and let loose to disobedience, surely it is hard with gentleness, but unpossible with severe cruelty, to call them back to good frame again. For where the one perchance may bend it, the other shall surely break it; and so instead of some hope, leave an assured desperation, and shameless contempt of all goodness, the farthest point in all mischief, as Xenophon doth most truly and most wittingly mark.