Ascham's Scholemaster Its Object and Message Cambridge for nearly forty years, and the remainder of his long life was passed at court, chiefly as private tutor of Queen Elizabeth. His most important works are his Toxophilus, or Lover of the Bow, a treatise on archery, and The Scholemaster, not published until after his death. The Scholemaster. The Toxophilus is a manly book: English matter, in the English tung, for English men. Ascham would have the old national weapon restored to general use that the young might be trained in the vigorous school of the old yeomen. Physical culture was to be the basis of all sound education; the medieval idea that the soul shone more brightly and purely in a thin and emaciated body, looking out of sunken and hollow eyes" was to him the acme of absurdity. Toxophilus is 66 in reality an introduction to the more important work, The Scholemaster, whose aim it was to show the simple and rational laws that underlie all education. Teaching is a profession, he insists, more vital than almost any other, yet few regard it so. It is pitie, that commonly, more care is had, yea and that emonges verie wise men, to finde out rather a cunnynge man for their horse, than a cunnynge man for their children. For, to the one, they will gladlie giue a stipend of 200 Crounes by yeare, and loth to offer to the other, 200 shillinges. God, that sitteth in heauen laugheth their choice to skorne, and rewardeth their liberalitie as it should: for he suffereth them to haue tame and well ordered horse, but wilde and vnfortunate Children. He finds the methods of teaching deplorably at fault. The languages are taught, not in a natural way, but by a process that even the brightest pupil can scarcely comprehend; and the dull are flogged for their stupidity. "Many scholemasters, as I have seen, when they meet with a hard witted scholer, they rather breake him, than It Advocates Educational Reforms 66 66 Ascham's Methods bowe him, rather marre him, than mend him." In his opinion, loue is fitter thaen feare, ientlenes better than beating, to bring vp a childe rightlie in learninge.” “If your scholer do misse sometimes, chide not hastelie: For that shall both dull his witte, and discorage his diligence: but monish him gentelie: which shall make him, both willing to amende, and glad to go forward in loue and hope of learning." Learninge shold be alwaise mingled, with honest mirthe, and cumlie exercise." He scores the schoolmen roundly at every turn. "They were always learning, and little profiting"; "their whole knowledge was tied only to their tong and lips, and neuer ascended vp to the braine and head." Ascham would commence with simple exercises in the natural way, teaching the pupil to think for himself; leading him on and on by ingenious methods, which he describes at length, to perfect mastery. As an example of what his system can accomplish he points triumphantly to his pupil, Queen Elizabeth, who "goes beyond you all in excellencie of learnyng, and knowledge of divers tonges," and “whose onely example, if the rest of our nobilitie would folow, than might England be, for learning and wisedome in nobilitie, a spectacle to all the world beside." Truly the book contains, as Dr. Johnson well said, "the best advice that was ever given for the study of the languages." To enter Ascham's "little scholehouse " after having visited the halls of the schoolmen is like stepping from the dim medieval monastery into the full blaze of the nineteenth century. Even to-day the book may be read with delight. Its prose is vigorous and flexible. Its author is deeply in earnest; at times, as when he condemns the Ascham's Prose Style Lord Berners and George Cavendish new influences that were creeping in from Italy, he writes impetuously and with heat. He wanders constantly into wide fields, and never is he more delightful than when on such digressions. He never loses himself; ever and anon he returns to the little scholehouse " for a fresh start. "But, to cum downe, from greate men, and heir matters, to my litle children, and poore scholehouse againe, I will, God willing, go forward orderlie, as I purposed." His figures are most delightful; they seem to flow spontaneously from his daily life. "Therefore thou, that shotest at perfection in the Latin tong, think not thyselfe wiser than Tullie was;" and again, " I have bene a looker on in the Cokpit of learning thies many yeares" ;—and so we might go on and on. This, then, was Roger Ascham, "the strong, plain Englishman of Henry's day, with his love for all field sports and for cock-fighting, his warm generous heart, his tolerant spirit, his thorough scholarship, his beautiful penmanship: a man to be loved and honored."-Arber. REQUIRED READING. Ascham, Scholemaster, Book i., Arber's Edition. Other Writers. In the seventy years between the Utopia and The Scholemaster a whole new school of prose writers had arisen. Lord Berners had made his masterly translation of Froissart's Chronicles, identifying himself so thoroughly with the spirit of the old master, and expressing himself in such strong, simple, and idiomatic English that the work became well-nigh a new creation; George Cavendish had written his lively and interesting Life of Wolsey; and Wilson, our earliest academic critic," had put forth his Art of Rhetoric. English prose 66 William Tyndale An Intensely Practical Man had made a strong beginning; and the English language, that could serve as a medium for work so finished and flexible, was no longer to be used with hesitation and misgivings. 3. William Tyndale (1484–1536) Authorities. Deman, William Tyndale, London, 1871; Ten Brink, English Literature; Marsh, Lectures on the English Language; Froude, History of England; An Apology for Tindale, 1535, Arber's Edition. The representative of the new learning on its popular side was William Tyndale, a native of the Welsh border, a man from the middle classes, a latter-day Langland. Educated at Oxford, where he came under the influence of Colet, and later at Cambridge, where there still lingered the spell of Erasmus, he had eagerly absorbed all that was best in the new learning. He had delighted in Colet, to whom Greek was but the key to the truth in the Holy Scriptures, and he had translated with enthusiasm the Enchiridion of Erasmus, that handbook of handbooks for earnest men, and “in the school of the great Dutchman," says Ten Brink, "he became ripe for Luther's doctrine. Owing to the preeminently practical bent of his mind, he was less clearly conscious of the differences that existed between these two teachers, than he was of the principles upon which they agreed. rejected utterly the dreams of the new learning. would raise his generation to higher levels by pointing to an ideal world in the clouds; Erasmus would lift it up by sheer intellectual culture; Tyndale, with sturdy common sense, would accomplish it by turning to a world of which Erasmus and More knew nothing. Like Langland two centuries before, he saw the heart of the difficulty: who He More He Recognizes the English Masses 66 66 Tyndale and More ever would touch England must touch the common people. Their cries were ever in his ears, and to him they came as the very voice of God. The masses-poor, ignorant, oppressed-must be enlightened; they must have the truth, and what fountain of truth was there but the Holy Scriptures? His resolution was quickly made. If God spare my life," he declared to a learned prelate, ere many years I will cause a boy that drivest the plow shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost." From that moment, though exiled forever from the land of his birth, hunted from city to city, and threatened every day of his life with imminent torture and death, he held inflexibly to his great purpose, nor did the bitter hate of Henry and Wolsey and More overtake him till his work was well-nigh done. The first part of Tyndale's Bible was published at Worms in 1525, and other parts followed from time to time. They were brought secretly in great quantities into England, where they raised a tempest of opposition. Sir Thomas More launched against them seven volumes of controversy. "Our Saviour will say to Tyndale,” he cried, "Thou art accursed, Tyndale; the son of the devil; for neither flesh nor blood hath taught thee these heresies but thine own father, the devil, that is in Hell.' Mild, gentle Thomas More! Tyndale on his side kept up a vigorous warfare. In his answer to More, in his doctrinal treatises, in his introductions to different portions of the Scriptures, and in his expositions and notes, he made his position perfectly clear, and his works, in spite of opposition and denunciation, in spite of wholesale burnings, spread rapidly over England. The common people bought them eagerly and read them as the very words |