§ 1. Masters and scholars who sigh over what seem to them the intricacies and obscurities of modern grammars may find some consolation in thinking that, after all, matters might have been worse, and that our fate is enviable indeed compared with that of the students of Latin 400 years ago. Did the reader ever open the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei, which was the grammar in general use from the middle of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century? (v. Appendix, p. 532). If so, he is aware how great a step towards simplicity was made by our grammatical reformers, Lily, Colet, and Erasmus. Indeed, those whom we now regard as the forgers of our chains were, in their own opinion and that of their contemporaries, the champions of freedom (Appendix, p. 533).

§ 2. I have given elsewhere (Appendix, p. 533) a remarkable passage from Colet, in which he recommends the leaving of rules, and the study of examples in good Latin authors. Wolsey also, in his directions to the masters of Ipswich School (dated 1528), proposes that the boys should be exercised in the eight parts of speech in the first form, and should begin to speak Latin and translate from English into Latin in the second. If the masters think fit, they may also let the pupils read Lily’s Carmen Monitorium, or Cato’s Distichs. From the third upwards a regular course of classical authors was to be read, and Lily’s rules were to be introduced by degrees. “Although I confess such things are necessary,” writes Wolsey, “yet, as far as possible, we could wish them so appointed as not to occupy the more valuable part of the day.” Only in the sixth form, the highest but two, Lily’s syntax was to be begun. In these schools the boys’ time was wholly taken up with Latin, and the speaking of Latin was enforced even in play hours, so we see that anomalies in the accidence as taught in the As in prÆsenti were not given till the boys had been some time using the language; and the syntax was kept till they had a good practical knowledge of the usages to which the rules referred.[43]

§ 3. But although there was a great stir in education throughout this century, and several English books were published about it, we come to 1570 before we find anything that has lived till now. We then have Roger Ascham’s Scholemaster, a posthumous work brought out by Ascham’s widow, and republished in 1571 and 1589. The book was then lost sight of, but reappeared, with James Upton as editor, in 1711,[44] and has been regarded as an educational classic ever since. Dr. Johnson says “it contains perhaps the best advice that was ever given for the study of languages,” and Professor J. E. B. Mayor, who on this point is a higher authority than Dr. Johnson, declares that “this book sets forth the only sound method of acquiring a dead language.”

§ 4. With all their contempt for theory, English schoolmasters might have been expected to take an interest in one part of the history of education, viz., the history of methods. There is a true saying attributed by Marcel to Talleyrand, “Les MÉthodes sont les maÎtres des maÎtres—Method is the master’s master.” The history of education shows us that every subject of instruction has been taught in various ways, and further, that the contest of methods has not uniformly ended in the survival of the fittest. Methods then might often teach the teachers, if the teachers cared to be taught; but till within the last half century or so an unintelligent traditional routine has sufficed for them. There has no doubt been a great change since men now old were at school, but in those days the main strength of the teaching was given to Latin, and the masters knew of no better method of starting boys in this language than making them learn by heart Lily’s, or as it was then called, the Eton Latin Grammar. If reason had had anything to do with teaching, this book would have been demolished by Richard Johnson’s Grammatical Commentaries published in 1706; but worthless as Johnson proved it to be, the Grammar was for another 150 years treated by English schoolmasters as the only introduction to the Latin tongue. The books that have recently been published show a tendency to revert to methods set forth in Elizabeth’s reign in Ascham’s Scholemaster (1570) and William Kempe’s Education of Children (1588), but the innovators have not as a rule been drawn to these methods by historical inquiry.

§ 5. There seem to be only three English writers on education who have caught the ear of other nations, and these are Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. Of a contemporary we do well to speak with the same reserve as of “present company,” but of the other two we may say that the choice has been somewhat capricious. Locke’s Thoughts perhaps deserves the reputation and influence it has always had, but in it he hardly does himself justice as a philosopher of the mind; and much of the advice which has been considered his exclusively, is to be found in his English predecessors whose very names are unknown except to the educational antiquarian. Ascham wrote a few pages on method which entitle him to mention in an account of methods of language-learning. He also wrote a great many pages about things in general which would have shared the fate of many more valuable but long forgotten books had he not had one peculiarity in which the other writers were wanting, that indescribable something which Matthew Arnold calls “charm.”

§ 6. Ascham has been very fortunate in his editors, Professor Arber and Professor Mayor, and the last editions[45] give everyone an opportunity of reading the Scholemaster. I shall therefore speak of nothing but the method.

§ 7. Latin is to be taught as follows:—First, let the child learn the eight parts of speech, and then the right joining together of substantives with adjectives, the noun with the verb, the relative with the antecedent. After the concords are learned, let the master take Sturm’s selection of Cicero’s Epistles, and read them after this manner: “first, let him teach the child, cheerfully and plainly, the cause and matter of the letter; then, let him construe it into English so oft as the child may easily carry away the understanding of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done, then let the child by and by both construe and parse it over again; so that it may appear that the child doubteth in nothing that his master has taught him before. After this, the child must take a paper book, and, sitting in some place where no man shall prompt him, by himself let him translate into English his former lesson. Then showing it to his master, let the master take from him his Latin book, and pausing an hour at the least, then let the child translate his own English into Latin again in another paper book. When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must compare it with Tully’s book, and lay them both together, and where the child doth well, praise him,” where amiss point out why Tully’s use is better. Thus the child will easily acquire a knowledge of grammar, “and also the ground of almost all the rules that are so busily taught by the master, and so hardly learned by the scholar in all common schools.... We do not contemn rules, but we gladly teach rules; and teach them more plainly, sensibly, and orderly, than they be commonly taught in common schools. For when the master shall compare Tully’s book with the scholar’s translation, let the master at the first lead and teach the scholar to join the rules of his grammar book with the examples of his present lesson, until the scholar by himself be able to fetch out of his grammar every rule for every example; and let the grammar book be ever in the scholars hand, and also used by him as a dictionary for every present use. This is a lively and perfect way of teaching of rules; where the common way used in common schools to read the grammar alone by itself is tedious for the master, hard for the scholar, cold and uncomfortable for them both.” And elsewhere Ascham says: “Yea, I do wish that all rules for young scholars were shorter than they be. For, without doubt, grammatica itself is sooner and surer learned by examples of good authors than by the naked rules of grammarians.”

§ 8. “As you perceive your scholar to go better on away, first, with understanding his lesson more quickly, with parsing more readily, with translating more speedily and perfectly than he was wont; after, give him longer lessons to translate, and, withal, begin to teach him, both in nouns and verbs, what is proprium and what is translatum, what synonymum, what diversum, which be contraria, and which be most notable phrases, in all his lectures, as—

Every lesson is to be thus carefully analysed, and entered under these headings in a third MS. book.

§ 9. Here Ascham leaves his method, and returns to it only at the beginning of Book II. He there supposes the first stage to be finished and “your scholar to have come indeed, first to a ready perfectness in translating, then to a ripe and skilful choice in marking out his six points.” He now recommends a course of Cicero, Terence, CÆsar, and Livy which is to be read “a good deal at every lecture.” And the master is to give passages “put into plain natural English.” These the scholar shall “not know where to find” till he shall have tried his hand at putting them into Latin; then the master shall “bring forth the place in Tully.”

§ 10. In the Second Book of the Scholemaster, Ascham discusses the various branches of the study then common, viz.: 1. Translatio linguarum; 2. Paraphrasis; 3. Metaphrasis; 4. Epitome; 5. Imitatio; 6. Declamatio. He does not lay much stress on any of these, except translatio and imitatio. Of the last he says: “All languages, both learned and mother-tongue, be gotten, and gotten only, by imitation. For, as ye use to hear, so ye use to speak; if ye hear no other, ye speak not yourself; and whom ye only hear, of them ye only learn.” But translation was his great instrument for all kinds of learning. “The translation,” he says, “is the most common and most commendable of all other exercises for youth; most common, for all your constructions in grammar schools be nothing else but translations, but because they be not double translations (as I do require) they bring forth but simple and single commodity: and because also they lack the daily use of writing, which is the only thing that breedeth deep root, both in the wit for good understanding and in the memory for sure keeping of all that is learned; most commendable also, and that by the judgment of all authors which entreat of these exercises.”

§ 11. After quoting Pliny,[46] he says: “You perceive how Pliny teacheth that by this exercise of double translating is learned easily, sensibly, by little and little, not only all the hard congruities of grammar, the choice of ablest words, the right pronouncing of words and sentences, comeliness of figures, and forms fit for every matter and proper for every tongue: but, that which is greater also, in marking daily and following diligently thus the footsteps of the best authors, like invention of arguments, like order in disposition, like utterance in elocution, is easily gathered up; and hereby your scholar shall be brought not only to like eloquence, but also to all true understanding and rightful judgment, both for writing and speaking.”

Again he says: “For speedy attaining, I durst venture a good wager if a scholar in whom is aptness, love, diligence, and constancy, would but translate after this sort some little book in Tully (as De Senectute, with two Epistles, the first ‘Ad Quintum Fratrem,’ the other ‘Ad Lentulum’), that scholar, I say, should come to a better knowledge in the Latin tongue than the most part do that spend from five to six years in tossing all the rules of grammar in common schools.” After quoting the instance of Dion PrussÆus, who came to great learning and utterance by reading and following only two books, the PhÆdo, and Demosthenes de Falsa Legatione, he goes on: “And a better and nearer example herein may be our most noble Queen Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her hand after the first declining of a noun and a verb; but only by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, without missing, every forenoon, and likewise some part of Tully every afternoon, for the space of a year or two, hath attained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues, and to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with such a judgment, as there be few now in both Universities or elsewhere in England that be in both tongues comparable with Her Majesty.” Ascham’s authority is indeed not conclusive on this point, as he, in praising the Queen’s attainments, was vaunting his own success as a teacher, and, moreover, if he flattered her he could plead prevailing custom. But we have, I believe, abundant evidence that Elizabeth was an accomplished scholar.

§ 12. Before I leave Ascham I must make one more quotation, to which I shall more than once have occasion to refer. Speaking of the plan of double translation, he says: “Ere the scholar have construed, parsed, twice translated over by good advisement, marked out his six points by skilful judgment, he shall have necessary occasion to read over every lecture a dozen times at the least; which because he shall do always in order, he shall do it always with pleasure. And pleasure allureth love: love hath lust to labour; labour always obtaineth his purpose.”

§ 13. A good deal has been said, and perhaps something learnt, about the teaching of Latin since the days of Ascham. As far as I know the method which Ascham denounced, and which most English schoolmasters stuck to for more than two centuries longer, has now been abandoned. No one thinks of making the beginner learn by heart all the Latin Grammar before he is introduced to the Latin language. To understand the machinery of which an account is given in the grammar, the learner must see it at work, and must even endeavour in a small way to work it himself. So it seems pretty well agreed that the information given in the grammar must be joined with some construing and some exercises from the very first. But here the agreement ends. Our teachers, consciously or in ignorance, follow one or more of a number of methodizers who have examined the problem of language-learning, such men as Ascham, Ratke, Comenius, Jacotot, Hamilton, Robertson, and Prendergast. These naturally divide themselves into two parties, which I have ventured to call “Rapid Impressionists,” and “Complete Retainers.” The first of these plunge the beginner into the language, and trust to the great mass of vague impressions clearing and defining themselves as he goes along. The second insist on his learning at the first a very small portion of the language, and mastering and retaining everything he learns. It will be seen that in the first stage of the course Ascham is a “Complete Retainer.” He does not talk, like Prendergast, of “mastery,” nor, like Jacotot, does he require the learner to begin every lesson at the beginning of the book: but he makes the pupil go over each lesson “a dozen times at the least,” before he may advance beyond it. As for his practice of double translation, for the advanced pupil it is excellent, but if it is required from the beginner, it leads to unintelligent memorizing. I think I shall be able to show later on that other methodizers have advanced beyond Ascham. (Infra, 246 n.)