The Educational Writings of Richard Mulcaster

by Richard Mulcaster

The Standard of English Spelling.

Because I take upon me to direct those who teach children to read and write English, and because the reading must needs be such as writing leads to, therefore I will thoroughly examine the whole certainty of our English writing, as far as I am able, because it is a thing both proper to my subject and profitable to my country. For our natural tongue being as beneficial to us for our needful expression as any other is to the people who use it, and having as pretty and fair phrases in it, and being as ready to yield to any rule of art as any other, why should I not take some pains to find out the correct writing of ours, as men have done in other countries with theirs? And so much the rather because it is asserted that the writing of it is exceedingly uncertain, and can scarcely be rescued from extreme confusion without some extreme measure. I mean, therefore, to deal with it in such a way that I may wipe away the opinion that it is either uncertain and confused or incapable of direction, so that both native English people may have some secure place to rest in, and strangers who desire it may have some certain means of learning the language. For the performance of this task, and for my own better guidance, I will first examine the means by which other tongues of most sacred antiquity have been brought to artistic form and discipline for their correct writing, to the end that by following their way I may hit upon their method, and at the least by their example may devise some means corresponding to theirs, where the custom of our tongue and the nature of our speech will not admit of the same course being exactly followed. That being done, I will try all the variety of our present writing, and reduce the uncertain force of all our letters to as much certainty as any writing can attain.

I begin at the subject of correct writing, because reading, which is the first elementary study, must be directed both in precept and practice according to the way that the thing which is to be read is written or printed. And considering that the correct writing of our tongue is still in question, some, who are too far in advance, esteeming it quite unfit, some, who are too far behind, thinking it perfect enough, some, who have the soundest opinion, judging it to be on the whole well appointed, though in certain particulars requiring to be improved, is it not a very necessary labour to fix the writing, so that the reading may be sure? Now, in examining the correct method of our writing, I begin at that which the learned tongues used, to find out what was right for themselves, when they were in the same position in which ours now is. For all tongues keep one and the same rule for their main development, though each has its special features. In this way I shall be able to answer all those objections which charge our writing with either insufficiency or confusion, and also to examine, as by a sure touchstone, all the other supplements which have been devised heretofore to help our writing, by either altering the old characters, or devising some new, or increasing their number. For if the other tongues that have been so highly esteemed, when they were subject to, and charged with, these same supposed wants with which our writing is now burdened, delivered themselves by other means than either altering, or superseding, or increasing their characters, and made use of their own material, why should we seek means that are strange and not in keeping with our language when we have such a pattern to perfect our writing by so well-warranted a precedent? That the finest tongue was once quite rude is proved by the very course of nature, which proceeds from weakness to strength, from imperfection to perfection, from a low degree to a high dignity. What means, then, did those languages use, which have won the opinion of being correctly written, to come by the method that produced that opinion? There are two considerations in regard to speech concerning the way that has been followed in its refining. For if we look into the first degree of refining, before which no tongue at all had any beauty in the pen, we have to consider how the very first language proceeded from her first rudeness to her fullest perfection. Again, we have to consider how other secondary languages have improved and purified themselves by following the same method as that used by the primitive tongue.

But I desire to be warranted by them both, that is, to follow the first refiners and also the second improvers in this course, which, as far as I know, no man has yet kept in this subject, though several have written orthographies. And my opinion is, that it best beseems a scholar to proceed by art to any recovery from the claws of ignorance. Therefore, I will examine, even from the very root, how and by what degrees the very first tongue seems to have come by her perfection in writing, and what means were taken to continue that perfection, ever since the time that any tongue was perfected. Consideration, however, must always be had to the special peculiarities of any particular tongue, as these cannot be comprised under a general precept along with any other tongue, but must be treated as exceptions to the common rule. And yet even these particular features are not omitted in the general method of the first refining, and thus it is commended to us by means of translations, which come in the third degree, and refine after the first, by following the intervening process. Now, in this long passage from the first condition of extreme rudeness to the last neatness of finished skill, I will name three stages, each naturally succeeding the other, where the reader’s understanding may alight and go on foot, if it be wearied with riding. The first stage is while the sound alone bore sway in writing. The second is while consent in use removed authority from sound alone to the joint rule of reason, custom, and sound. The third, which is now in progress, is while reason and custom secure their own joint government with sound by means of art. For as sound, like a restrained but not banished Tarquinius, desiring to be restored to his first sole monarchy, and finding supporters only in the province of sound, sought to make a tumult among the writers, ever after that reason and custom were joined with him in commission. I will, therefore, first deal with the government in writing which was under sound, when everything was written according to the sound, though that stage came to an end long ago.

I should begin too far back in seeking out the ground of correct writing, if I should enquire either who devised letters first, or who wrote first,—a thing as uncertain to be known as it would be fruitless if it were known. For what certainty can there be of so old a thing, or what profit can arise from knowing one man’s name, even if one were the founder, which can scarcely be? For though he be honoured for the fruit of his invention, yet his authority would do small good, seeing that the matter in question is to be confirmed not by the credit of the inventor, who dwells we know not where, but by the user’s profit, which everyone feels. And therefore as they who devised the thing first (for it was the invention of no one man, nor of any one age), did a marvellously good turn to all their posterity, so we, as their posterity, must think well of the inventors, and must judge that pure necessity was the foundress of letters, and of all writing, as it has been the only general breeder of all things that better our life, need and want forcing men’s wits to seek for such helps. For as the tongue conveyed speech no further than to those that were within hearing, and the necessity of communication often arose between persons who were further off, a device was made to serve the eye afar off by the means of letters, as nature satisfied the ear close at hand by the use of speech. For the handing down of learning by the pen to posterity was not the first cause of finding out letters, but an excellent use perceived to be in them to serve for perpetuity a great while after they had been found by necessity. The letters being thus found out in order to serve a needful turn, took the force of expressing every distinct sound in the voice, not by themselves or any virtue in their form (for what likeness or affinity has the form of any letter in its own nature to the force or sound in a man’s voice?) but only by consent of the men who first invented them, and the happy use of them perceived by those who first received them.

Hereupon in the first writing the sound alone led the pen, and every word was written with the letters that the sound commanded, because the letters were invented to express sounds. Then for the correct manner of writing, who was sovereign and judge but sound alone? Who gave sentence of pen, ink, and paper, but sound alone? Then everyone, however unskilful, was partaker in the authority of that government by sound. And there was good reason why sound should rule alone, and all those have a share in the government of sound, who were able even to make a sound. In those days, all the arguments that cleave so firmly to the prerogative of sound, and plead so greatly for his interest, in the setting down of letters, were esteemed most highly, as being most agreeable to the time, and most serviceable to the State. But afterwards when sound upon sufficient cause was deposed from his monarchy, as being no fit person to rule the pen alone, and had others joined with him in the same commission, who were of as good countenance as he, though not meant to act without him, then their credit was not at all so absolute, though reasonably good still. This any well-advised supporters of sound may well perceive, and be well content with, if they will but mark the restriction in the authority of sound, and its causes. For as great inconveniences followed, and the writing itself proved more false than true, when the pen set down the form that the ear suggested to answer a particular sound, and as the sound itself was too imperious, without mercy or forgiveness whatever justification the contrary side had, men of good understanding, who perceived and disliked this imperiousness of sound, which was maintained with great uncertainty,—nay rather with confusion than assurance of right,—assembled themselves together to confer upon a matter of such general interest, and in the end, after resolute and ripe deliberation, presented themselves before sound, using the following arguments to modify his humour, but seeking rather to persuade than compel:

That it would please him to take their speech in good part, considering that it concerned not their private good, but the general interest of the whole province of writing: That he would call to his remembrance the reasons which moved them at the first to give him alone the authority over the pen, as one whom they then thought most fit for such a government, and indeed most fit to govern alone: That they now perceived, not any fault in him, for using like a prince what was his peculiar right, granted by their own commission, but an oversight in themselves in unadvisedly overcharging him with an estate which he could not rule alone without a sacrifice of his honour, whereof they were as tender as of their own souls: That their request therefore unto him was not to think more of his own private honour than of the good of the whole province: That they might with his good leave amend their own error, which however it concerned his person yet should not affect his credit, the fault being theirs in their first choice.

They paused a little while, before they uttered the main cause of their motion, for they noticed that sound began to change colour, and was half ready to swoon. For the fellow is passionate, tyrannous in authority but timorous.

Howbeit, seeing that the common good urged them to speech, they went on, and told him in plain terms that he must be content to refer himself to order, and so much the rather because their meaning was not to seek either his deprivation or his resignation, but to urge him to qualify his government, and make use of a further council which they meant to join with him, as a thing likely to bear great fruit, and of good example in many such cases, since even great potentates and princes, for the general weal of their states, were very well content, upon humble suit made to them, to admit such a council, and use it in affairs: That the reasons which moved them to make this suit, and might also move him to admit the same, were of great importance: That because letters were first found only to express him, therefore they had given him alone the whole government therein, and were well contented with it, until they had espied, not his misgovernment, but their own mischoice: That the bare and primitive inventions, being but rude, and being ruled accordingly, and experience at the time affording no more growth in refinement, why should they not now yield to refinement, upon better cause, what they yielded to rudeness from mere necessity? That no man having any sense of the correctness in writing that is commended by experience would yield the direction to sound alone, which is always altering, and differs according as either the pronouncer is ignorant or learned, or the parts that pronounce are of clear or stop delivery, or as the ear itself has judgment to discern: That considering these defects, which crave reform, and the letter itself, which desires some assurance of her own use, it might stand with his good pleasure to admit to his council two grave and great personages, whom they had long thought of, and through whose assistance he might the better govern the province of the pen.

Since they praised the parties so much, he desired their names. They answered—Reason, to consider what will be most agreeable upon sufficient cause, and Custom, to confirm by experience and proof what Reason would like best, and yet not to do anything without conference with sound.

The personages pleased him for their own worthiness, but the very thing that recommended them to him for their own value made him dislike them for the danger to himself. For is not either reason or custom, if it please them to aspire, more likely to rule the pen than sound? said he to himself. Howbeit, after they had charged his conscience with all those reasons in one throng, which they had used individually before, urging that it were no dishonour to yield a little to those who had given him his whole rule: That they might have leave to amend their own error in overcharging him: That though they seemed to lower his rank, yet they did not seek to defraud him of his own: That the wrongs done to writing, which they indicated to him were matters worthy of redress: That the councillors whom they appointed were honourable and honest: That the common benefit of the whole province of writing earnestly sued for it, and they were very well assured that so good a father as he was to that poor estate would never be unwilling, but rather voluntarily condescend without any request, that he might not be half dishonoured in delaying the request from not knowing the grievances. After they had pressed him so closely, though he was very loth, after being once a sole monarch, to become almost a private person by admitting controllers, as it seemed to him, rather than councillors, as they meant, yet perceiving that their power was such that they might force him to grant what they begged of him if he should try to make terms with them, he was content to yield, though with some show of discontent in his very countenance, and to admit Reason and Custom as his fellow-governors in the correct method of writing.

For in very deed wise and learned people, whatever they may lend ignorance to play with for a time, reserve to themselves judgment and authority to exercise control, when they see unskilfulness play the fool too much, as in this same quarrel for the alteration of sounds according to a presumptuous rule they had very great reason to do. For as in faces, though every man by nature has two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, and so forth, yet there is always such diversity in countenances that any two men may easily be distinguished, even if they are as like as the two brothers, the Lacedaemonian princes, of whom Cicero speaks; so likewise in the voice, though in everyone it passes through by one mouth, one throat, one tongue, one barrier of teeth, and so forth, yet it is as different in everyone, as regards the sound, by reason of some diversity in the vocal organs, as the faces are different in form, through some evident distinction in the natural cast of features. And this diversity, though it hinders not the expression of everyone’s mind, is yet too uncertain to rule every man’s pen in setting down letters.

And again, what reason had it to follow every man’s ear, as a master scrivener, and to leave every man’s pen to its own sound, where there were such differences, that they could not agree where the right was, everyone laying claim to it? Again, why should ignorance in any matter be taken for a guide in a case demanding knowledge? Because of the clamour of numbers? That were to make it an affair of popular opinion, whereas the subject is one of special difficulty, requiring wisdom. And therefore if any number, though never so few, deserve to be followed, it were only they who could both speak best, and give the best reason why. But that kind of people were too few at the first to find any place against a popular government, where the ear led the ear, and it was asked why sound should give over his interest, seeing letters were devised to express sound in every one of us, and not merely the fancy of a few wise fellows. And yet when corn was once introduced, acorns grew out of use though a fit enough meat in a hoggish world. For naturally the first serves the turn till the finer and better comes forward. And as something worthily took the place of nothing, so must that something again give place to its better; as sound did something to expel rudeness, though it may not set itself to keep out progress in refinement.

Wise men would stand no longer to that diversity in writing, which necessarily followed, when everyone spelt as his vocal organs fashioned the sound, or as his skill served him, or as his ear could discern. All these means are full of variety, and never in agreement, as appears by the example of whole nations, which cannot sound some letters that others can.

Owing to these discontentments, and by consent of those who could judge and pronounce best, they arrived at a certain and reasonable custom—or rather, truth to say, to a customary reason—which they held for a law, not inadvertently hit on through error and time, but advisedly resolved on by judgment and skill. Nor yet did they, contrary to their promise, deprive sound of all his royalty, which was like that of a dictator before, but they joined reason with him, and custom too, so as to begin then in acknowledged right, and not in corruption after, as a Caesar and a Pompey, to be his colleagues in a triumvirate. From that time forward sound could do much, but not at all so much as before, being many times very justly overruled by his well-advised companions in office. Thus ended the monarchy of sound alone.

We are now come to that government in writing which was under sound, reason and custom jointly, and which proceeded in this way. Reason, as he is naturally the principal director of all the best doings, and not of writing alone, began to play the master, but yet wisely and with great modesty. For considering the disposition of his two companions, first of sound, which the letters were to express in duty, being devised for that purpose, and then of custom, which was to confirm and pave the way to general approval, he established this for a general law in the province of writing—that as the first founders and devisers of the letters used their own liberty, in assigning by voluntary choice a particular character for the eye, to a particular sound in the voice, so it should be lawful for the said founders and their posterity, according as the necessity of their use and the dispatch in their pen did seem to require it, either to increase the number of letters, if the supply seemed not to satisfy the variety in sound, or to apply one and the same letter to diverse uses, if it could be done with some nice distinction, in order to avoid a multitude of characters, as we apply words, which are limited in number, to things which are without limit; and generally, like absolute lords in a tenancy at mere will, to make their own need the test of all letters, of all writing, of all speaking, to chop, to change, to alter, to transfer, to enlarge, to lessen, to make, to mar, to begin, to end, to give authority to this, to take it from that, as they themselves should think good. This decree being penned by reason, both sound and custom at once approved—sound, because there was no remedy, though his heart longed still for his former monarchy, which was now eclipsed; custom, because that served his turn best. For if necessary use and dispatch in the pen could have authority, which was given them in law, by consent of the men who were successors to those that first founded the letter (which were men of the most learned and wisest sort), then were custom indeed, having reason for a friend, and sound no foe, a very great prince in the whole province in both writing and speaking. And good reason why. For custom is not that which men do or speak commonly or most, upon whatsoever occasion, but only that which is grounded at the first upon the best and fittest reason, and is therefore to be used because it is the fittest. If this take place according to the first appointment, then is custom in his right; if not, then abuse in fact seems to usurp upon custom in name. So that I take custom to build upon the cause, and not to make the cause.

After reason had brought both sound to this order, and custom to this authority, then was there nothing admitted in writing but that only, which was signed by all their three hands. If the sound alone served, yet reason and custom must needs confirm sound; if reason must have place, both sound and custom must needs approve reason; if custom would be credited, he could not pass unless both sound supported him and reason ratified him.

During the combined government of these three, the matter of all our precepts that concern writing first grew to strength; then rules were established and exceptions laid down, when reason and custom perceived sufficient cause. But none of all these were as yet commended to art and set down in writing; they were only held in the memory and observation of writers, having sufficient matter to furnish the body of an art, but lacking in method, which came next in place, and joined itself with the other three for this purpose.

All this time, while reason and custom governed the pen as well as sound, the discontented friends of sound never rested, but always sought means to supplant the other two, ever buzzing into ignorant ears the authority of sound and his right to his own expression; and the same errors that troubled the pen while sound alone was the judge, began to creep in again, and cause a new trouble, inasmuch as all of the more ignorant sort were clearly of opinion that the very sternness of sound was simply to be accepted without all exception, though those of learning and wisdom, who had first set up reason and custom as companions to sound, and still continued of the same mind, could very well distinguish usurpation from inheritance, and right from wrong.

Reason therefore, finding by the creeping in of this error both that he himself was being injured by senseless time, and his good custom sorely assailed by counterfeit corruption, perceived the fault to lie in the want of a good notary, and a strong obligation, by which to set in everlasting authority, by right rule and true writing, what he and custom both, by the consent of sound, had continued in use, though not put down in writing. This would ever be in danger of continual revolt from the best to the worst, by the uncertainty of time and the elvishness of error, unless it were set down in writing, and the conditions subscribed by all their consents, for a perpetual evidence against the repiner. For this is the difference between a reasonable custom and an artificial method, that the first does the thing for the second to confirm, and the second confirms by observing the first.

While nothing was set down in writing, sound and his accomplices were in hopes of some recovery, but this hope was cut off when the writings were made, and the conditions settled. The notary who was to cut off all these controversies and breed a perpetual quiet in the matter of writing, was Art, which gathering into one body all those random rules that Custom had beaten out, disposed them so in writing, that everyone knew his own limits, Reason his, Custom his, Sound his. Now when Reason, Custom, and Sound were brought into order, and driven to certainty by the means of art and method, then began the third, the last, and the best assurance in writing.

Art, being herself in place, perceived the direction of the whole tongue to be an infinitely hard task—nay to be scarcely possible in general, considering the diverse properties of the three rulers, reason, custom, and sound, which alter always with time. For what people can be sure of their own tongue any long while? Does not speech alter sometimes for the better, if the State where it is used itself continue and grow to better countenance, either for great learning, or for any other matter, which may help to refine a language? And does it not sometimes change to the more corrupt, if the State where it is used chance to be overthrown, and a master-tongue coming in as conqueror, command both the people, and the people’s speech also? In consideration of this uncertainty, Art betook herself to some one period in the tongue, when it was of most account, and therefore fittest to be made a pattern for others to follow, and pleasantest for herself to work and toil in. Upon this period she bestowed all those notes, which she perceived by observation (the secretary to reason) to be in the common use of speech and pen, either clear in sound, or suitable to reason, or liked by custom, but always supported by them all.

Such a period in the Greek tongue was the time when Demosthenes lived, and that learned race of the father-philosophers: such a period in the Latin tongue was the time when Cicero lived, and those of that age: such a period in the English tongue I take this to be in our own day, both for the pen and for speech.

Art choosing such a period in the primitive tongue, and having all the material gathered into notes, wherewith to set up her whole frame and building of method, distributed them in such a way that there was not any one thing necessary for correct writing, but she had it in writing, saving some particulars which will be always impatient of rule, and make fresh matter for another period in speech; though that which is now made so sure by means of art can never be in danger of any alteration, but will always be held for a precedent to others, being most perfect in itself. For a tongue once enrolled by the benefit of art, and grown to good credit, is established in such assurance that its right cannot be denied, and opposition would be soon espied, however it should wrangle; then it is made a common example for the refining of other languages, which have material for such a method, and desire to be so refined.

This course was kept by the first tongue that ever was refined, from the first invention of any letters, until corruption which had slily crept in, but had been wisely perceived, made a reform necessary. This reform grew again to corruption, in the nature of a relapse, because, though it was soundly made, yet it was not armed with sufficient security against the festering evil of error and corruption. Therefore, when it felt the want of such an assurance, it begged aid from art, which, like a beaten lawyer, handled the matter with such forethought in the penning of his books, that each of those who were in any way interested was taught to know what was his own. Other tongues besides the first to be refined, on marking this current of events, applied the same to their own writing, and were very glad to use the benefit of those men’s labour, who wrestled with the difficulties of sound, error, corruption, and the residue of that ill-humoured tribe.

This original precedent in the first, and transferred pattern in the rest, I mean to follow in finding out our correct English writing, and whether it will prove to be fashioned accordingly and framed like the pattern, shall appear when the thing itself shall come forth in her own natural hue, though in artificial habit.

Before I deal further with this matter, I must examine two principal points in our tongue, of which one is, whether it has material in it for art to build on, because I said that art dealt where she found sufficient matter for her labour. The other is, whether our writing is justly challenged for those infirmities with which it is charged in our time, because I said that this period of our own time seems to be the most perfect period in our English tongue, and that our custom has already beaten out its own rules, ready for the method and framework of art. These two points are necessarily to be considered. For if there be either no material for art owing to the extreme confusion, or if our custom be not yet ripe enough to be reduced to rule, then that perfect period in our tongue is not yet come, and I have entered upon this subject while it is yet too green. However, I hope it will not prove premature, and therefore I will first show that there is in our tongue great and sufficient stuff for art to work upon; then that there is no such infirmity in our writing as is pretended, but that our custom has become fit to receive this framing by art by the method which I have laid down, without any outside help, and by those rules only which may be gathered out of our own ordinary writing.

It must needs be that our English tongue has matter enough in her own writing to direct her own practice, if it be reduced to definite precepts and rules of art. The causes why this has not as yet been thoroughly perceived are the hope and despair of those who have either thought upon it and not dealt with it, or have dealt with it but not rightly thought upon it.

For some, considering the great difficulty which they found to be in the writing of our language, almost every letter being deputed to many and various—even well-nigh contrary—sounds and uses, and almost every word either wanting letters for its necessary sound, or having more than necessity demands, began to despair in the midst of such a confusion of ever finding out any sure direction on which art might be firmly grounded. Perhaps either they did not seek, or did not know how to seek, the right form of method for art to adopt. But whether difficulty in the search, or infirmity in the searchers, gave cause for this, the parties themselves gave over the thing, as in a desperate case, and by not meddling through despair they fail to help the right.

Again some others, bearing a good affection to their natural tongue, and being resolved to burst through the midst of all these difficulties, which offered such resistance, devised a new means, in which they placed their hope of bringing the thing about. Whereupon some of them who were of great place and good learning, set forth in print particular treatises with these newly conceived means, showing how we ought to write, and so to write correctly. But their good hope, by reason of their strange means, had the same result that the despair of the others had, either from their misconceiving the things at first, or from their diffidence at the last.

The causes why their plans did not take effect, and thus in part hindered the thing, by making many think the case more desperate than it really was, were these. The despair of those who thought that the tongue was incapable of any direction, came of a wrong cause, the fault arising indeed not from the thing which they condemned as altogether rude and incapable of rule, but from the parties themselves, who mistook their way. For the thing itself will soon be put into order, though it requires some diligence and careful consideration in him that must find it out. But when a writer takes a wrong principle quite contrary to common practice, where trial must be the touchstone, and practice must confirm the means which he conceives, is it any marvel if the use of a tongue resist such a means, which is not in conformity with it? From this proceeded the despair of hitting aright, because they missed their intention, whereas in reality they should have changed their intention, in order to hit upon the right, which is in the thing and will soon be found out, if it be rightly sought for.

Again, the hope of the others deceived them too quite as much. For they did not consider that whereas common reason and common custom have been long engaged in seeking out their own course, they themselves will be councillors, and will never yield to any private conception, which shall seem evidently either to force them or cross them, in acting as they themselves do, never giving any precept how to write correctly, till they have railed at custom as a most pernicious enemy to truth and right, even in the things where custom has most right, if it has right in any. Therefore when they proceeded in an argument of custom, with the enmity of him who is Lord of the soil, was it any wonder if they failed of their purpose, and hindered the finding out of our correct writing, which must needs be compassed by the consent of custom and the friendship of reason? So in the meantime, while despair deceives the one, and hope beguiles the other, the one missing his way, the other making a foe, and both going astray, they both lose their labour, and hinder the finding out of the best mode of writing, because the true method of finding out such a thing has another course, as I have shown before.

Yet notwithstanding all this, it is very manifest, that the tongue itself has matter in it to furnish out an art, and that the same means which has been used in reducing other tongues to their best form, will serve this of ours, both for generality of precept and for certainty of foundation, as may be easily proved on those four grounds—the antiquity of our tongue, the people’s intelligence, their learning, and their experience. For how can it be but that a tongue which has continued for many hundreds of years not only a tongue, but one of good account, both in speech and pen, should have grown in all that time to some refinement and assurance of itself, by so long and so general a use, the people that have used it being none of the dullest, and labouring continually in all exercises that concern learning, and in all practices that procure experience, either in peace or in war, either in public or private, either at home or abroad?

As for the antiquity of our speech, whether it be measured by the ancient Teutonic, whence it originally comes, or even but by the latest terms which it borrows daily from foreign tongues, either out of pure necessity in new matters, or out of mere bravery to garnish itself with, it cannot be young—unless the German himself be young, who claims a prerogative for the age of his speech, of an infinite prescription; unless the Latin and Greek be young, whose words we enfranchise to our own use, though not always immediately from themselves, but mostly through the Italian, French, and Spanish; unless other tongues, which are neither Greek nor Latin, nor any of the forenamed, from which we have something, as they have from ours, will for company’s sake be content to be young, that ours may not be old. But I am well assured that every one of these will strive for antiquity, and rather grant it to us than forgo it themselves. So that if the very newest words we use savour of great antiquity, and the ground of our speech is most ancient, it must needs then follow that our whole tongue was weaned long ago, as having all her teeth.

As for the importance of our tongue, both in pen and speech, no man will have any doubt who is able to judge what those things are that make any tongue to be of account, which things I take to be three—the authority of the people who speak it, the subject-matter with which the speech deals, and the manifold uses which it serves. For all these three our tongue need not give place to any of her peers.

First, to say something of the people that use the tongue, the English nation has always been of good credit and great estimation, ever since credit and estimation in the course of history came over to this side of the Alps, which appears to be true—even by foreign chronicles (not to use our own in a case that affects ourselves), which would never have said so much of the people if it had been obscure, and unworthy of a perpetual history.

Next, as to the matter with which it deals, whether private or public, it may compare with some others that think very well of themselves. For not to touch upon ordinary affairs of common life, will matters of learning in any kind of argument make a tongue of account? Our nation then, I think, will hardly be proved to have been unlearned at any time, in any kind of learning, not to use any stronger terms. Therefore, having learning by confession of all men, and uttering that learning in their own tongue for their own use, they could not but enrich the tongue, and bring it consideration.

Will matters of war, whether civil or foreign, make a tongue of account? Neighbouring nations will not deny our people to be very warlike, and our own country will confess it, though loth to feel it, both on account of remembering the suffering, and of fearing to gall our friends by vaunting ourselves. Now, in offering material for speech, war is such a breeder that, though it is opposed to learning because it is an enemy to the Muses, yet it dares compare with any department of learning for the multitude of its discourses, though these are not commonly so certain or useful as learned subjects. For war (besides the many grave and serious considerations about it) as sometimes it sends us true reports, either privately in the form of projects and devices that are intended, or publicly in events which are blazed abroad because they have occurred, so mostly it gives out—I dare not say lies, but—very incredible news, because it can hatch these at will, being in no danger of control, and commonly free from witnesses. Every man, moreover, seeks both to praise himself and to harm his enemy, besides procuring some courteous entertainment by telling what is not true to those that love to hear it. All these tales about stratagems and engines of war and many other such things, give matter for speech and occasion for new words, and by making the language so ready, make it of renown.

Will all kinds of trade, and all sorts of traffic, make a tongue of account? If the spreading sea and the spacious land could use any speech, they would both show you where and in how many strange places they have seen our people, and also let you know that they deal in as much, and in as great a variety of matters, as any other people, whether at home or abroad. This is the reason why our tongue serves so many uses, because it is conversant with so many people, and so well acquainted with so many matters, in such various kinds of dealing. Now all this variety of matter and diversity of trade, both make material for our speech, and afford the means of enlarging it. For he who is so practised will utter what he practises in his natural tongue, and if the strangeness of the matter requires it, he who is to utter, will rather than stick in his utterance, use the foreign term, explaining that the people of the country call it so, and by that means make a foreign word an English denizen.

All these reasons concerning the tongue and its importance being put together, not only prove the nation’s exercise in learning, and their practice in other dealings, but seem to infer—to say the least—no base-witted people, because it is not the part of fools to be so learned, so warlike, and so well-practised in affairs. I shall not need to prove any of these positions, either from foreign or home history, as my readers who are strangers will not urge me for them, and those of my own nation will not, I think, gainsay me in them, since they know them to be true, and may use them for their honour.

Therefore I may well conclude my first position, that if use and custom, having the advantage of such length of time to refine our tongue, of so great learning and experience to furnish material for the refining, and of so good intelligence and judgment to direct it, have attained nothing which they refuse to let go in the correct manner of our writing, then our tongue has no certainty to trust to, but writes all at random. But the antecedent is, in my opinion, altogether impossible; therefore the consequent is a great deal more than probable, which is that our tongue has in her own possession very good evidence to prove her own correct writing; and though no man as yet, to judge by any public writing of his, seems to have seen this, yet the tongue itself is ready to show it to anyone who is able to read it, and to judge what evidence is trustworthy in regard to the standard of writing. Therefore, seeing I have proved sufficiently in my own opinion that there is great cause why our tongue should have some good standard in her own writing, and consider myself to have had the sight of that evidence by which such a standard appears most capable of justification, and am not altogether ignorant of how to give a decision upon it, I will do my best, according to the course which I said was kept in the first general refining of any speech, and has also been transferred to every secondary and particular tongue, to set forth some standard for English writing. This I will base upon those notes which I have observed in the tongue itself, the best and finest therein, which by comparison with themselves offer the means of correcting the worse, without either introducing any innovation, as those do who set forth new devices, or mistaking my way, as those do who despair that our tongue can be brought to any certainty without some marvellous foreign help. Thus much for the material fit for art in our tongue; now for the objections which charge it with infirmities.

Those who see imperfections in our tongue either blame certain errors which they allege to be in our writing, or else they will seem to seek its reformation. In pointing out errors they rail at custom as a vile corrupter, and complain of our letters as miserably deficient. In their desire for redress they appeal to sound as the only sovereign and surest leader in the government of writing, and fly to innovation, as the only means of reforming all errors in our writing.

In their quarrel with custom they seek to bring it into general hatred, as a common corrupter of all good things, declaring it to be no marvel if it abuse speech, which in passing through every man’s mouth, and being imitated by every man’s pen, must needs gather much corruption by the way, because the ill are many just as the good are few, and common corruption, which they term custom, is an ill director to find out a right. Hereupon they conclude that, as it seems most probable, so it is most true that the chief errors which have crept into our pen take their beginning from the sole infection of an evil custom, which ought not so much as once to be named, for direction to what is right, in either pen or speech, being so manifestly false, notwithstanding whatever any writers, old or new, can pretend to the contrary. Then they descend to particularities, proving that we sometimes burden our words with too many letters, sometimes pinch them with too few, sometimes misshape them with wrong sounding, sometimes misorder them with wrong placing. And are not these marvellously great causes of discontent with custom, which is the breeder of them? And yet if good writers seem to favour custom, then the case is not so clear as you take it to be, that it is nothing but a hell of most vile corruptions; that it alone infects all good things; that it alone corrupts correct writing. For if it were indeed only this, they would not warrant it, and give it such great credit, as I remember they do. Is there not, then, some error in the name, and may not custom be misconstrued? For certainly these writers, when they speak of custom, mean that rule in conduct and virtuous life in which good men agree, and their consent is what these men term custom, as they call that rule in speaking and writing the custom wherein the most skilful and learned agree. And is it likely that either the honest in act will mislead virtue in living, or the learned will disapprove of correctness in writing? And, again, those honest men who approve of custom in matters of life complain very much of corruption in manners and evil behaviour; and the learned men, who approve of custom in matters of speech and pen, complain very much of error in writing and corruption in speech; and both accuse the majority of people as the leaders to error, and set down the common abuse at the door of the multitude. And therefore it cannot be otherwise but that the double name is what deceives. For those who accuse custom mean false error which counterfeits custom, and is a great captain among the impudent for evil and the ignorant for rashness, and yet has the chief part in directing all. And those who praise custom mean plain truth, which cannot dissemble, which is the companion of the honest in virtue, and of the learned in knowledge, and directs all best. Now will ye see? This mistermed “custom” in the pen is that counterfeit abuse which was the only cause why the monarchy of sound, of which I spoke before, was dissolved, and itself condemned by those wise people who joined reason with sound; and the right custom which writers commend so is that companion of reason which succeeded in its place when the counterfeit was cast out. Now you see the error. So neither do writers approve of such a corruption, nor is custom your opponent, but both writers and custom, as well as you and I will scratch out the eyes of common error, for misusing good things and belying custom. If good things are abused it is by bad people, whose misnamed custom is rightly named error. If words are overcharged with letters, that comes either by the covetousness of those who sell them by lines, or the ignorance of those who, besides pestering them with too many, both weaken them with too few, and wrong them with the change of force and position.

When they have dealt thus with custom, and with their opponents (as they consider those who are really their friends) without marking what their reasons are, or by whose authority custom is established, which they so impugn by suggestion of a counterfeit, then they begin to complain sorely of the insufficiency and poverty of our letters. While these are as many as in other tongues, yet they do not suffice, it is alleged, for the full and right expression of our sounds, though they express them after a sort, but force us to use a number of them, like the Delphic sword of which Aristotle speaks, for many sounds and services contrary to the nature of such an instrument, each letter being intended at first for one sound. Thus it comes to pass that we both write improperly, not answering the sound of what we say, and are never like ourselves in any of our writing, but always vary according to the writer’s humour, without any certain direction. Therefore, foreigners and strangers wonder at us, both for the uncertainty in our writing and the inconstancy in our letters. And is it not a great shame that so able a nation as the English, who have been of very good note for so many years, either should not notice, or would not amend, in all this time the poverty of their pen, and the confusion in their letters, but both let their writing thus always run riot, and themselves be mocked by foreign people?

If foreigners do marvel at us, we may requite them with as much, and return their wonder home, considering that they themselves are subject to the very same difficulties which they wonder at in us, and have no more letters than we have, and yet both write and are understood in spite of all these insufficiencies, just as we also write and are understood in this our insufficiency even by their own confession. But the common use of writing among those strangers, which agrees so with ours in our uncertainty, makes me think that this complaint of insufficiency is not general either with them or with us, but in both cases belongs to a few, who objecting to what they know nothing of, and not observing what they cannot, therefore blame what they should not. For if their blaming upon good cause, and marking upon wise judgment concurred with their number, though not so great, I should be afraid lest they should have the better, because they were the fewer; but being both the fewer and the weaker, they carry no great weight in condemnation. Other folks also, who see something as well as they, do not quite disapprove of all their disapproval, but desire some redress, where there is good cause, though they may not agree as to the means of bringing about the redress, nor yet admit that the error is as great as these objectors pretend. For we confess that this multiplicity and manifold use in the force and service of our letters requires some distinctions to be known by, if general acquaintance with our own writing do not help us to perceive in use what we put down by use; but still we defend and maintain the multiplicity itself, as a thing much used even in the best tongues, and therefore not unlawful, even though there were no distinctions.

And again, we do not think that every custom is an evident corruption, where the general usage of those who cannot be suspected of writing with other than good judgment, lays the groundwork for precept, as leading to the exercise of art, and assurance to the pen. And we rest content with the number of our letters. Some people in studying to increase this number, only cumber our tongue, both with strange characters and with needless diphthongs, forcing us away from what the general rule has won and is content with. And why not these letters only? Or why may they not be put to many uses? This paucity and poverty of letters has contented the best and bravest tongues that either are, have been, shall be, or can be, and has expressed by them, both in speech and pen, as great variety and as much difficulty in all subjects as possibly can be expressed or understood by the English tongue or be devised by any English intelligence. The people that now use them, and those that have used them, have naturally the same organs of voice, and the same delivery in sound, for all their speaking, that we English have, because they are men, just as we English folk are; and they handed down the use of the pen to us, and not we to them. And finding in their own use this necessity which you note, they fled to that help which you think naught, and were bold with their letters, to make them serve diverse turns, sometimes with change, sometimes with some ingenious mark of distinction. That this kind of distinction is enough, is known to all who are acquainted with the foreign letters, and with those writers who treat of them. Nor is there any difficulty which they are not subject to, either in the same or in very similar things, just as we are. And will strangers wonder at us? Or do not those of our own people who are learned perceive these things? For in the ignorant I require no such discretion. I certainly think that all people, as they have the same natural organs to speak by, though from habit some may harp more on one sound than on others, and some—even whole nations—may lean more upon one organ, such as the throat or the teeth, than others do, yet naturally all are made able to sound all kinds of speech and all letters, if they are accustomed to them at the most fitting age and by the best means. I hold also that it is only education and custom that make the difference, and therefore rule all, or at least most, in speech, wherein if there be any reason, it is not natural and simple, as in things, but artificial and compound, based upon such and such a cause in custom and consent. And though the Hebrew grammarians alone divide their letters according to the vocal organs on which they lean most, such as the throat, the roof of the mouth, the tongue, the lips, or the teeth, yet not the Hebrews alone have that distinction in nature, but every people which has throat, teeth, palate, tongue, lips, and with those organs use the utterance of sounds. This is an argument to me, both that use is the mistress, and that he who sounds on any one method by the usage of his country, may be smoothed to some other by the contrary use, and that therefore the same letters will serve all people, if they choose to frame themselves accordingly. For, otherwise, why do we persuade our people to sound Latin in one way, Greek in another, Hebrew in another, Italian in another, if it is not a thing that we can become acquainted with through customary usage? And this being so in all nations, what need have we for more letters to utter our minds, seeing that the organs of utterance are all one, and that nothing can be uttered either more diverse or difficult than those have uttered from whom we have the letters we possess? Nor is it any discredit to our people to rest content with those letters, and with that number, which antiquity has approved and held for sufficient. Is nature, therefore, which was fruitful in them, now so barren that we may not invent, and add something to theirs? No, forsooth. All mankind is one, without any respect of this or that age, both to nature herself, and to the God and Lord of nature, and therefore what is given to one man, or delivered in one age of common service, is meant for all men and all ages, and always for their benefit; nor is either God himself, or nature his minister, tied to any time for the delivery of their gifts, but whenever man’s necessity compels him to seek, then they help him to find. We understand, therefore, that as no one age brings forth everything, so no one age can but confess that it has some one or other particular invention, though not the self-same, because it is enough to have received it once to use ever after. So is it in this use of letters, which being once perfected is never to be shaken, unless a better means be found of uttering our speech, which I shall not see, nor can foresee by any secret prophecy. In these inventions, though the first receiver have the prerogative in taking, yet the whole posterity has the benefit in using, and generally with greater perfection, because time and continuance increase and prune, and when it is at the full, it is a mistake to seek further, which I take to be the case in the matter of penning. Nor is the restraint from innovating, altering, or adding to things already perfected any discourtesy in reason, or any discountenance in nature, but the simple delivery of a perfect thing to our elder brethren to be conveyed unto us; as we in like case must be the transporters to our posterity of such things as it pleases God to continue by our means, whether received from our elders or devised by ourselves.

But why may we not use all our four-and-twenty letters, even for four-and-twenty uses each, if occasion serve, seeing that the characters being known are more familiar and easier to be discerned than any new device—yea, even though the old resembled each other more, and there were but one new? It has been sufficiently declared already, that those men who first devised letters, reserved the authorities over them and their use to themselves for life, and to their successors for ever, to modify and use them as it should please them best by consent among themselves, as necessity arose. And why not so, where the invention is their own, and the right use of it? This general reservation is enrolled already in all reason and antiquity, and the particular consent for the writing of our language is given already by our general use, and will be registered also in a very good record, I hope, and that shortly. And will you make that sovereign which is but subaltern? Or will you take that to be immovable like a steady rock, which roams by nature, to serve the finder? There is no such assurance in sound for the establishing of a right as you conceive, nor any such necessity in letters to be constant in one use as you seek to enforce.

The philosopher says that nature makes one thing for one use, and that every use has its particular instrument naturally, but that our own inventions—nay, that even the most natural means—may through our application, serve for sundry ends and uses. And will letters stand so upon their reputation as not to seem to admit of our applying them to their own purposes, seeing that they are both our creatures, and by creation our bondmen, both to sound as we shall think good, and in as many ways as we may wish them to serve? No, surely, they do not think so, but they are most ready to serve as we appoint, both by creation and by covenant. The letters yield readily, but some letters seek to delay their dutiful obedience, holding that their substance is adamant, and that they were not born to yield so.

With the same pen we make letters and mar them; with the same we direct and destroy them; which are contrary uses, though meant to compass the same right end. And will letters seem to serve but for one use, being nothing but elves of the pen’s breeding? They will not, but prove their own dutifulness to the pen, their parent, by following his direction in very many points, as they yield to reason and reasonable custom in many of their powers, whereby they seem to argue against contention, they themselves being satisfied.

The number of things which we write and speak about is infinite, yet the words with which we write and speak are definite and of limited number. Therefore we are driven to use one and the same word in very many—nay sometimes in very contrary senses—and that is the case in all the best languages, as well as in English, where a number of our words are of very various powers, as in the sentence: “A bird flies light, wherever she may light,” and many others that need not now be mentioned. And will letters stand aloof, so as to sound always in but one way, and to serve always but one use, where their great-grandfathers, even the words themselves, are forced to be manifold—nay, are very well content so to be, because of their founder’s command to be pliable, and at the voluntary disposal of wisdom and learning? Letters must not stand aloof, but approve of the service allotted to them, be it never so manifold, seeing that without confusion, customary acquaintance will make the distinctions clear; as a disputer will sift out the difference of manifold words, so that the variety in their senses may cause no quarrel in the argument.

If through want of skill and mere ignorance, we do not write always in the same way, then knowledge is the helper, and he that will follow the right usage must have the desire to learn aright.

If distinctions are wanted then accent must be the means of avoiding confusion, or some such device which may serve the purpose without pestering the writing by anything too strange. For it is most certain that we may use our letters like all other things whose end is the convenience of man. Nor is it any abuse when those who use can give a reason that is sufficient to the wise, and not contrary to good custom. And though some may not be persuaded, yet when an act is passed by division of the house, it is law by parliament. Then the objectors must relent and follow, though they may not favour it. They must make the best of what they thought worst, when lawful authority restrains their will. A thing originally free, being once controlled by order, has lost its freedom, and must then keep the current appointed for it, being itself subject to man for his uses.

Our letters are limited in number, but their usage is certain even in their greatest uncertainty, and therefore I take it that we may rest content both with their number and with their use. So much concerning the complaint of our poverty in letters, and the confusion in their powers, which I do not wonder at, because I see it so in all things; and I see no cause why we cannot overcome the difficulty by our own inventions and devices, where we are to take account of nothing but our own consent, guided by the judgment of the wisest men, and imitation of uncorrupted nature.

If there be need, the increase in the number of our letters is not refused to us any more than to other people, but the need is denied, because we entered upon other people’s most perfect inventions, and though this came later in time, yet it was so much the surer, because all things necessary were devised to our hands, and because our need can be no new need. Whatever we need to write we are able to write, and when we have written it we are able to read it. If there be any fault, the remedy must be, not to seek what we have not, but to mark what we have, seeing that we have sufficient.

The credit of sound being well established in their opinion, as the natural lord and leader of all our letters, and custom being condemned as a traitor, intruding against all right upon the territory of sound, then they turn to the cure of this diseased corruption, and pray Hippocrates to be judge. To amend that which is amiss in the writing of our tongue, their ground-work being laid in the shaken monarchy of deposed sound, they proceed in a full course of general innovation, though some more and some less. First, they increase the number of our letters and diphthongs, as if it were not possible either heretofore to have written, or at this day to write, any word correctly, for want of some increase in the number of our letters. For as the overcharging of our words with too many letters comes by using too much those which we have already, so the difficulty through using them so diversely proceeds from the mere want of material to answer each particular purpose.

Then they change the form of our letters and bring us in new faces with very strange lineaments, how well-favoured to behold, I am sure I know, and how unready for a penman to run on with, methinks I foresee,—yet such readiness in the character to follow the hand roundly is a special service belonging to the pen. Nor do I myself in these observations so much regard what the print will stamp well,—for it will express anything well whose form can be imitated,—as what the pen will write well and that with good dispatch, because printing is but a peculiar benefit for the few, while writing is general and in every man’s fingers. A form that is fair to the eye in print and cumbersome to the hand in penning, will not pass in writing. To conclude, this, they say, is the only help to amend all misses: for defect, to enlarge; for what is old and corrupt, to bring in what is new and correct; need enforces redress, and duty requires these changes.

Must we then alter all our writings anew? Or from what day is this reform to take full place? It is a strange point of physic when the remedy itself is more dangerous than the disease. Besides, I take the alteration in this sort to be neither necessary, as there is no such insufficiency, nor yet expedient, seeing that such inconveniences follow. For speech being an instrument and means of uttering what the mind conceives, if by the delivery of the mouth the mind be understood, the speech is sufficient in fully answering so needful a purpose. If writing, in which I include both the print and the pen, so fully express the pith of the voice that the reader may understand the writer’s meaning in full, I cannot persuade him that the letters which he reads are not sufficient to express the writer’s meaning, as he is ready to confute this by the proof that he understands it most completely.

But these objectors will say that this understanding comes, not through the writing, but by the intelligent reader, who understands correctly by means of the so usual, though so corrupt, writing, which is imperfectly and improperly written, and that propriety in using the pen is wrongly refused, when it may be had easily with very small effort.

I like the reason well, as I admit some imperfection. But neither is the imperfection so great as they conceive, nor is their reason so near to redress as they think. As for the imperfection, how it comes and how to help it, my whole labour will prove that in the sequel. As for their reason, I cannot see that it would be a small effort, because they alter entirely, or at least they quite change the superficial appearance, which in this case, where propriety in writing is the possession of custom, would be too great a strain. For custom, being so secure, will not be content to be overruled in his own province, or to admit the claim of any reform where he is proprietor, however private men’s notions, upon never so probable appearances, may offer support to the contrary side.

The use and custom of our country has already chosen a kind of penning, in which she has set down her religion, her laws, her private and public dealings; every private man has, with the approval of his country, so drawn his private writings, his evidence, his letters, that the thing seems impossible to be removed by so strong an alteration, though it be most willing to receive some reasonable pruning, so that the substance may remain, and the change take place in such points only as may please without novelty, and profit without forcing. For were it not in good sooth too violent a step to offer to overthrow a custom so generally received, so definitely settled—nay, grounded so securely as shall shortly appear—by altering either all or most of our letters? Were it not a sign of a very simple orator to think that by so strange an innovation he could persuade custom to divorce himself from so long and so lawful a match? Nay, were it not wonderful even but to wish that all our English scripture and divinity, all our laws and policy, all our evidence and writings were penned anew, because we have not that set down in writing which our forefathers meant, but either more or less, owing to the insufficiency of our writing, which is not able to set faithfully and fully down what the mind conceives? They will say that they do not mean so radical a change. But they must needs mean it, because it must either follow at once upon the admitting of this new alteration, which is too great in sense, or, after a term of years, which is too great in thought. For with a new writing coming in, and the old character growing out of knowledge, all records of whatever kind must needs either come over to the new fashion, or remain worm-eaten like an old relic, to be read as the Roman religion written down under Numa Pompilius was read by those of Cicero’s time, when every word was as uncouth and strange as if it had come from some other world. But am I not undertaking a needless task in disapproving what I need not fear, because there is no danger in it, the very usage of our country refusing it already? I grant I am. But yet I must say something that I may not seem to contemn, since if I say nothing my opponents may then seem to have said something. But certainly I hold the thing to be much too cumbersome and inconvenient, even though it were likely to be profitable, but where no likelihood of any profit at all is in sight, and the change itself seems neither necessary nor easy, I cannot approve the means, though I bear no grudge to its proposers, who deserve great thanks for their good intentions. For their labour is very profitable to help forward some redress, though they themselves have not hit on it. For while different men attempt to solve the problem, some one or other will hit it at last, whereas the case would be desperate if it were never dealt with. But this amendment of theirs is too far-fetched, and without its help we understand our print and pen, our evidence, and other writing. And though we grant some imperfection, as in a tongue not yet fully developed, yet we do not admit that it is to be perfected either by altering the form or by increasing the number of our familiar letters, but only by observing where the tongue by her ordinary custom yields to the refining process, as the old, and therefore the best, method leads us. For it is no argument, when faults are found, to say this is the help, and only this, because no other is in sight. But whenever the right is found by orderly seeking, then the argument is true, that it was not thoroughly sought, when it was denied to exist. And to speak impartially between the letter and sound on the one side, and custom and the letter on the other side, letters can express sounds with all their joints and properties no more fully than the pencil can the form and lineaments of the face, whose merit is not life but likeness; for the letters, though they yield not always what sound exactly requires, give always the nearest, and custom is content with this. And therefore if a letter do not sound just as you wish, yet hold it as the next best, lest if you change you come not so near. And though one letter be used in diverse, or even contrary sounds, you cannot avoid it by any change, seeing that no other has been liked hitherto but this which we use. Certainly, so far as I have observed, we are as well appointed for our necessity in that way, and as much bound to our general custom for the artificial tones of our natural tongue as any other nation is to any other language, whether ancient in books or modern in speech. And whatever insufficiency seems to be in its writing, it will excuse itself, and lay the whole blame upon the insufficient observer for not seeking the solution in the right way. This will be found true, when it shall be seen that by sufficient care it may be made clear and pure without any foreign help, and without either altering the form or increasing the number of our ordinary letters, but only by notes of its own breeding, which, being already in use, desire nothing else but some direction from art. This I am in good hopes of performing, according to the plan of the best refiners in the most refined tongues, with such consideration as either breeds general rules, or else must bear with particular exceptions. I will mark what our customary writing will yield us in the way of notes, without dreaming of change, which cannot stem so fatal a current as custom runs with. I will therefore do my best to confirm our custom in his own right, which will be easily obtained, where men are acquainted with the matter already, and would be very glad to see wherein the correct manner of their writing stands, and a great deal more glad to find it so near when they thought it to be further off. Thus have I run through these alleged infirmities in our tongue, whose physicking I like not this way, and therefore I will join close with my own observation to see if that will help.

Those men who will give any certain direction for the writing of any tongue, or for anything else that concerns a tongue, must take some period in its history, or else their rules will prove inapplicable. For every tongue has a certain ascent from the lowest to the highest point, and a descent again from the highest to the lowest; and as in the ascent it has not reached a secure position, because it is not thoroughly reduced to art, so in the descent it comes to be not worth noting, because it gets rude again, and in a manner withered. Hence it comes that the age of Demosthenes is the prince of Greece, as that of Cicero is the flower of Rome, and if the languages of these countries had not been committed to the security of books, they would have been of little worth; nay, they would have been forgotten altogether, long before our day, as the spoken tongues of those nations, changing continually since the periods named, are now quite altered, or at least are nothing like what they were in their prime, though still blooming in another form. So that books give life where bodies bring only death. Consider the Greek and Latin writers before the ages of those men, and by comparing them with these, you will see the difference that I spoke of, the earlier being too rude to be brought under rule, and the later departing from established rules and yielding to change. This period of full development, with the ascent to it and the decline leading to decay, shows us that everything belonging to man is subject to change, the language changing also, but never dying out. It must needs be therefore that there is something of the nature of a soul in every spoken tongue that feeds this change even with perceptible means. For if any tongue be fixed, and free from movement, it is enshrined in books, not subject to ordinary use, but made immortal by the register of memory.

This secret mystery, or rather quickening spirit, that dwells in every spoken tongue, and therefore in our own, I call “prerogative,” because when sound has done his best, when reason has said his best, and when custom has carried into effect what is best in both, this prerogative will resist any of them, and take exception to all their rules, however general and certain. It thus makes way for a new change, which will follow at some stage of the language, if the writer’s period be chosen at the best. I cannot compare this customary prerogative in speech to anything better than to those who devise new garments, and are left by law to liberty of device. Hence it comes in the matter of apparel, that we do not remain like ourselves for any length of time, though what is most seemly, like a rule of art, pleases the wisest people best. From this same liberty of speech to carve out a way for itself, come the exceptions to our general rules. Hence it comes that enough, bough, tough, and such other primitives are so strangely written, and more strangely sounded. In this way prerogative seems to be like quicksilver, ever stirring and never settled, though the general custom always offers itself to be ordered by rule, as a close friend to reason. This stirring quintessence, leading to change in a thing that is naturally changeable and not blameworthy for changing, some not very well-advised people consider as an error, and a private misuse, contrary to custom, because it seems to be a very imperious controller, but in this they are deceived. For indeed, though this prerogative, by opposition in particular cases, checks general conclusions, yet that opposition came not from individual men; it is a private thing itself, and the very life-blood which preserves tongues in their best natural form, from the first time that they grew to be of any account till they come to decay, and begin a new period, different from the old, though excellent in its kind, which in its turn must give way to another when the time is ripe.

I take this present period of our English tongue to be its very height, because I find it as excellently refined, both in its general substance and in its customary writing, as either foreign workmanship can give it gloss, or home-wrought handling can give it grace. When the period of our nation which now uses the tongue so well is dead and departed, another will succeed, and with the people the tongue will alter. A later period may in its full harvest prove comparable to the present, but surely this which we now have seems to be at its best and bravest, and whatever may become of the English State, the English tongue cannot prove fairer than it is at this date, if it may please our learned class to think so of it, and to bestow their labour on a subject so capable of adornment, and so fitting to themselves. The force of prerogative is such that it cannot be disobeyed, though it seems to derange some well-ordered rule, and make people wonder who do not weigh the cause.

For this reason, when any case arises quite contrary to the common precept, though not to the common custom, then we must needs think of the power of prerogative, a great princess in influence, and a parent to corruption, but intending to raise another Phœnix from the former ashes. He who refuses to grant such a prerogative to any tongue, denies it life, unless he means, by registering some period in it of most excellent note, to restrain prerogative, and preserve the tongue, which he secures by writing from being profaned by the people; it becomes then a learned tongue and exempt from corruption, as our book-languages are, whose rules are so secure that they dream of no change. This prerogative and liberty which the nation has, to use both speech and pen at will, is the cause why English writers are finer now than they were some hundred years ago, though some antiquary may consider the old writing finer. But the question is wherein fineness consists. So was Sallust deceived among the Romans, living with Cicero, and writing like ancient Cato.

In this prerogative of writing, the very pen itself is a great influence and has marvellous authority, for being the secretary who carries out what is expressed by the intelligence, it presumes upon this to venture, as far as any counsellor may, though never against reason, whose instrument it is to satisfy the eye as the tongue satisfies the ear. Custom, whose charge prerogative is, as the pen is his conveyer, favours the pen very greatly and will not hesitate to maintain that a dash with a pen may hold for a warrant, when both speed and grace bid the pen be bold. Hence it comes that in our language so many z’s are heard, and so few seen, owing to the regard for dexterity and speed in the fluency of writing; and as the pen can do this, I take it as a matter of prerogative, for the sake of smoothness, that our tongue uses z so much for s.

But it may be said that all our exceptions, due to most reasonable prerogative, may well be reduced to a general form, which I do not at all deny, though I see some difficulty in altering what our custom has thus grasped, and it were almost too much to require any wise and learned man so to arrest exceptions, particularly where no standard can be fixed. He who wishes this seems to conceive of such a thing, but even if it were attempted, the stream of custom would break out again immediately in some other way, and cause an even greater gap, for no banks can keep it in so narrowly but those that are content to be sometimes overflowed, and no strength can withstand such a current but those stays which in the fury of water will bend like a bulrush.

If any pen, either through ignorance or pretension, offend against reason, and intrude upon prerogative, that is no good quill, and it will not be upheld by me; nor is that current to be called custom which holds by usurpation; nor is that cause to be accounted reason which has any other beginning than genuine knowledge, or any other ending than the nature of the thing will seem to admit. Certainly, when I consider the matter deeply—and my thoughts on it have not been slight or superficial—I cannot see why, when the imperfections are removed that always accompany perfection, and can easily be removed, to the satisfaction of the wise who are not blinded with their own habits, the tongue as well as the pen may not quite well have its prerogative, since our custom has become so well-ordered that it may be ruled without chopping or changing a single letter, or otherwise begging more aid from foreign invention than I have already sufficiently set down.

These are my suggestions for the regulation of our tongue and the fixing of a standard in its writing. If I have in any way hit the mark, I shall be warranted by the right, though it may not seem so to some, and in this I must be comforted, even if I cannot content all.

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[THE PERORATION.]

To my gentle readers and fellow-countrymen, wherein many things are handled concerning learning in general, and the nature of the English and foreign tongues, besides some particular remarks about the writing of books in English.

My fellow-countrymen and gentle readers, my first purpose in taking up this subject, and venturing into print, of which till lately I have stood in awe, was to do some good in the profession in which I have for many years been engaged, and by giving my experience in the teaching of the learned tongues, to lighten the labour of other men, because I had discovered some defects that required a remedy. But the consideration of these led me a great deal further than I dreamed of at first. Intending to deal only with the teaching of languages in the Grammar School, I was enforced by the sway of meditation to think of the whole course of learning, and to consider how every particular thing arose in a definite order. For without that consideration how could I have discerned where to begin and where to end, in any one thing that depends on a sequel and proceeds from a principle? For the subject I am dealing with is a matter of ascent, where every particular that goes before has continual reference to what comes after, if the whole scheme is scientifically arranged. In this course of mine, the elementary principles may be compared to the first groundwork, the teaching of tongues to the second storey and the after-learning to the upper buildings. Now as in architecture and building he were no good workman who did not plan his framework so that each of the ascents should harmonise with the others, so in the stages of learning it were no masterly part not to show a similar care, and that cannot be done till the whole is thought of and thoroughly shaped in the mind of him who undertakes the work.

After I had formed an opinion both as to where lay the blemishes which disfigured learning and as to how they might be redressed, as well for my own practice as by way of advice to others, I came down to particulars and began to examine even from the very first what went before the tongues in the orderly upbringing of children. This was the first task that claimed me before I fell to further thoughts and the last too, even when I had considered all that followed, but it was then undertaken more advisedly. I entered upon an investigation into the whole early training all the more readily because I perceived great backwardness in the learning of tongues through infirmities in the elementary groundwork. What a toil it is to a grammar master when the young child who is brought to him to teach, has no foundation laid on which anything can be built! I undertook, therefore, to enquire into all those things that concern the elementary training, as a stage in teaching preceding the study of grammar, hoping by my own labour to be of use to a multitude of masters. Moreover, as this matter concerns learners who have not yet entered upon Latin, and teachers who may have only mediocre learning, I thought it best to publish in the tongue that is common to us all, both before and after we learn Latin.

But here there are three questions that may perhaps be asked: First, what those blemishes are which I observed in the main body of learning, a subject so closely investigated in our day by such a variety and excellence of learned wits that every branch of it is thought to have recovered the consideration it had at its highest point; secondly, why in regard to methods of teaching I do not content myself with following the precedent of other writers, who in great numbers have written learned treatises with the same end in view, but rather toil myself with a private labour, the issue of which is uncertain, whereas the previous writers on the subject, being themselves learned, and having achieved success, may be followed with assurance; thirdly, if it is my endeavour to handle a learned subject in the English tongue, why I take so much pains and such a special care in handling it, that the weaker sort, whose benefit I profess to consider—nay, often others also of reasonable study—can with difficulty understand the couching of my sentence and the depth of my meaning.

While I answer these questions, I must pray your patience, my good masters, because the things may not be lightly passed over, and in satisfying your demands I shall pave the way for the suit I have to make to you.

First, as for my general care for the whole course of learning, I have thus much to say. The end of every individual man’s doings for his own advantage, and the end of the whole commonweal for the good of us all, are so much alike in aspect, and so entirely the same in nature, that when the one is seen the other needs little seeking. Each individual man labours in this world in order to win rest after toil, to have ease after work; he does not wish to be always engaged in labour, which would be exceedingly irksome if it were endless. The soldier fights in his own intention perhaps to gain ease through wealth, which he may win by spoil; in outward appearance he labours for the advantage of his country by way of defence and security. The merchant traffics in his own intention to procure personal ease through private wealth; to the public he seems to labour for the common benefit, by supplying wants in necessary wares for general use. Indeed, all men, whatever be their occupation, while seeking private ends in their actions, at the same time concur in serving general ends. Thus it appears that ease after labour is the common aim of both private and public efforts, because everyone in the natural course of his whole conduct has regard to the general prosperity and quiet, which maintain his own personal well-being. Then the means both of coming by this end, and when it is come by, of maintaining it in state, must needs lie in such directions as make for the peace and quietness of a State, for the keeping of concord and agreement without any main public breach, both in private houses and generally throughout the whole government. These peaceable directions I call, and not I alone, by the simple name of general learning, comprising under it all the arts of peace and the ministry of tranquillity—a matter of great moment, being the only right means to so blessed a thing as fortunate peace, imparting the benefit of public quietness to every household, as a central fountain serves every man’s cistern by private pipes, and if it be not sound, conveying the blemish like the infected water of a fountain, or the corrupt blood that escaping from the liver poisons the whole body. Even war itself, a professed enemy to learning, because it is in feud with peace, may by just handling be shown to work for peace at home by uniting the minds of all against a common foe. By the employment of learning in every department all princes govern their States; the general control is exercised through grave and learned counsellors and wise and faithful justiciaries, and the particular control, in religion by divines, in the health of the body by physicians, in the maintenance of right by lawyers, and so on in every particular profession, from the greatest to the meanest, throughout the whole government—a most blessed means to a most blessed end, a learned maintenance of a heavenly happiness in an earthly State of a heavenly constitution. Therefore, any error in this means is an injury indeed, and deserves to be thought of as a hindrance to peace, and a pernicious destroyer of the best public end, beginning perhaps as a small spark, but always gathering strength by the confluence of similar infection in some other parts, till at last it sets all on fire, and bursts out in a confusion, the more to be feared that it festers before it breaks into flame, and shrouding itself under a show of peace, consumes without suspicion, and escapes being brought to terms as a professed enemy. I may say that in my reflection on this subject of the ascent of learning from the elementary stage, I thought I found these four imperfections in the whole body of learning—in some places an excess, in others a defect, in others too great a variety, in others too much disagreement. These are four great enormities in a peaceable means, breeding great diseases, and bidding defiance to quiet, both within the State in the governing direction, and outside it by evident inflammation, and they are therefore to be thought of not only for complaint in particular cases, but by magistrates in regard to their amendment.

As for excess I conceive that as in every natural body the number of sinews, veins, and arteries to give it life and motion, is definite and certain, so in a body politic the distributive use of learning, which I compare to those parts, is everywhere certain. And whatever is more than nature requires in either of them, as in the one it breeds disease, so in the other it causes destruction by breach of proportion, and so consequently of peace. In natural bodies excess appears when one or more parts encroach on the others and enfeeble them. In communities this excess in learning is to be discerned when the private professions swell too much and so weaken the whole body, either by the multitude of professional men, who bite deeply where many must be fed and there is little to feed on, or by unnecessary professions, which choke off the more useful, and fill the world with trifles, or by an infinitude of books, which cloy up students, and weaken them by an intolerable diffuseness of treatment, fattening the carcass but lowering the strength of pithy matter. Do not all these surfeits exist at this day in our own State? Are they not enemies to the common good, being grown out of proportion? Are they not worth consideration and redress?

I pass now to the question of defect. In a natural body there is too little, when either something necessary is wanting, or what is there is too weak to serve its purpose. And does not learning show the same defects, disquieting to a State, when the necessary professional men are wanting either in number or in worthiness; where show takes the place of sound stuff; where in place of real learning only superficial knowledge is sought, enough to make a shift with; when necessary professions are despised and trampled under foot, because the cursory student has to post away in haste; when there is a lack of needful books to further learning, and those we have are of little use owing to insufficiency of treatment? This corruption in learning any man may see who desires to seek out either the malady or its cure; it is a breach of proportion, and therefore of peace, in a commonwealth, a pining evil which consumes by starving.

As for diversity in matters of learning, I think that as it proceeds from differences in ability, in upbringing, in intelligence, in judgment, because these are much finer in some than in others, it does a great deal of harm to the peace of any State, especially where its leaders, though they may not fall out, but merely express their opinions, yet divide studies according to their favourites, considering the importance of the subjects less than the attraction of the authors. If this diversity breaks out in earnest, as it has frequently done in our time, while printing itself, which in its natural and best uses is the instrument of necessity and the exponent of learning, becomes very often too easy an outlet for vaunting ambition, for malicious envy and revenge, for all passions to all purposes, what a sore blow is given to the public quiet, when the means to welfare is made an instrument of distemper! For will not he fight in his fury who brawls in his books? Do not those minds seem armed for open conflict—nay, do they not arm others too by pressing enmity forward—which in private studies enter into combats on paper; which by too much eagerness make a great ado in matters better quenched than stirred to life; which whet their wits beforehand to be wranglers ever after, and as far as lies in them disturb the general welfare? What I disapprove of is needless combats in learning; those that are fruitful may go on, yet with no more passion than common civility and Christian charity will allow. Excess overburdens, defect weakens, diversity distracts, but dissension destroys. You know yourselves, my learned readers, what a wonderful stir there is daily in your schools, through diverging opinions in logic, in philosophy, in mathematics, in physics. The lawyer generally abstains from controversal writing, because he does not gain by it what he seeks; pleading in the Common Courts offers a better pasture for a lean purse than a busy pen. The dissension in divinity is specially fierce, the more so because it often falls out that the adversaries intermingle their own passions with the matters they treat of. For while our religious doctrines sometimes require defence, disputes might often be compounded, if men’s feelings were as readily cooled as they are inflamed. But in the meanwhile how greatly is the general peace disturbed by dissensions that turn aside a worthy means, to maintain a wrong and become a slave to some inordinate passion! I cannot enter fully upon this subject, but touch upon it merely that my good readers may understand how much my desire for the furtherance of learning was increased after I had noticed these inconveniences, though at first I meant only to help the teaching of the learned tongues. Agreement among the learned is the mother of general contentment; by carping and contradicting they trouble the world and taint themselves, bearing all the while the name of Christians—a title which enjoins us to avoid contention, even by the submission of those who are wronged, and charges us to defend our religion, not with passionate minds, but with the armour of patience and truth. These were the blemishes which I saw by the way, and lamented in the body of learning. The amendment which I desire rests upon two great pillars—the professors of learning, who must give intelligence of the error, and the principal magistrates—nay, even the sovereign prince—who being God’s great instruments to procure quietness for our souls and bodies, our goods and actions, must bring about redress in so important a matter as the course of learning.

The prince may cut off what is in excess, make up what is deficient, reconcile diversities, expel dissensions, by his lawful authority for the general good; and everyone will submit, because everyone is benefited. This, indeed, confirms Plato’s saying that kings should be philosophers; that is, that all magistrates should be learned. It is a great corrosive to the whole body of learning, which is the procurer of peace, when those who have to direct gain their wisdom only through experience. That is much, but experience and learning together make the better equipment. It is an honourable conception, besides that it tends to the general good, for a learned and virtuous prince, assisted by wise counsel, to reduce the number of those that follow learning, by some principle of selection in every department, to decide what kinds of learning are most useful to the State, and to appoint a reasonable number of such books as have the best methods of treatment. The final authority in regard to every profession has always lain with the prince. Action has been taken before in all the directions I have spoken of, both by consent of the learned and by command of good princes. As our country is small, the thing could be the more easily done; as our livings are limited, it is the more needful; as the evil is great, we are the less able to bear it; as our sovereign is learned, we shall be the readier to give ear; as our people are of good understanding, they are the better able to inform her. But as the physician does not thrive by the prevention of disease, nor the lawyer grow rich by arresting contentions, nor a divine prosper so much in a heaven where all is good as on earth where all is evil, and as private profit will be followed, though it bring confusion to the State, redress will not stir, because it judges the world to be in some fault which it is loth to confess. However, to secure some redress and help in this matter at the hand of the ruler, is the duty of all who make a profession of learning, if they will but consider the reputation of learning in our day, whether from the contempt in which some professions are held, or from a deficiency in those who enter them.

In the professors of learning, to whose solicitation this point is recommended, two things are chiefly required. First, that with minds given to peace they should study soundly themselves, and that the matter be worthy and taken in due order. For sound learning will not so soon be shaken at every eager point of controversy as that which is shallow. Orderly progress gives security, and a pacific temper furthers the end that is desired both privately and publicly. The consent of the learned and their quiet inclination are a great blessing to any Commonwealth, but especially to ours in this contentious time, when overwhetted minds do very little good to some worthy professions. The distracting division of minds into sects and sorts of philosophy did much injury in the countries where it befel, and those nations among which religious dissensions arose have never been quiet since. The second point required in a student is not to seek his own advancement so much as that of the things he professes, and indeed the possession of these things is the best means to advance himself, for, where ignorance is blamed, knowledge is approved, even though the approver may not be learned. He who studies soundly recommends letters by his own example; he who solicits the help of those in authority advances learning still further; he who uses his pen to strengthen the best current of opinion proves the genuineness of his desire by his own practice. In this last form my own labour seeks to recommend uniformity, to strip off what is needless, to supply some defects, to help everyone to as quiet a course as I can temper my style to.

The second question which I said might be demanded of me, why I do not follow the precedent of those learned writers who have handled the subject with great admiration may be very soon answered. I admit that the number of those who have written upon the upbringing of children might be considered sufficient, and I grant the excellence of many of them, such as Bembus, Sturmius, and Erasmus. But the situation is different. A free city and a country under a monarchy are not in the same position, though they agree in some general respects, in which indeed these writers do not dissent from me. Nor do I fail to follow good writers, taking example from those authors who taught all the later ones to write so well. I am the servant of my country; for her sake I labour, her circumstances I must consider, and whatsoever I shall pen I shall myself see it carried out, by the grace of God, in order the better to persuade others by offering the proof of trial.

The third question, as to my writing in English, and my being so careful—I will not say fastidious—in expression, concerns me more nearly, for it has some importance. It is the opinion of some that we should not treat any philosophical subject, or any ordinary subject in a philosophical manner, in the English tongue, because the unlearned find it too difficult to understand in any case, and the learned, holding it in little esteem, get no pleasure from it. In regard both to writing in English generally, and my own writing in particular, I have this to say: No one language is finer than any other naturally, but each becomes cultivated by the efforts of the speaker who, using such opportunities as are afforded by the kind of government under which he lives, endeavours to garnish it with eloquence, and enrich it with learning. Such a tongue, elegant in form and learned in matter, while it keeps within its natural soil, not only serves its immediate purpose with just admiration, but in foreigners who become acquainted with it, it kindles a great desire to have their own language resemble it. Thus it came to pass that the people of Athens beautified their speech in the practice of pleading, and enriched it with all kinds of knowledge, bred both within Greece and outside of it. Thus it came to pass that the people of Rome, having formed their practice in imitation of the Athenian, became enamoured with the eloquence of those from whom they were borrowing, and translated their learning also. However, there was not nearly the same amount of learning in the Latin tongue during the time of the Romans as there is at this day by the industry of students throughout the whole of Europe, who use Latin as a common means of expression, both in original works and in translations. Roman authority first planted Latin among us here, by force of their conquest, and its use in matters of learning causes it to continue. Therefore the so-called Latin tongues have their own peoples to thank, both for their own cultivation at home and for the favour they enjoy abroad. So it falls out that, as we are profited by means of these tongues, we should pay them honour, and yet not without cherishing our own, in regard both to cases where the usage is best and to those where it is open to improvement. For did not these tongues use even the same means to cultivate themselves before they proved so beautiful? Did the people shrink from putting into their own language the ideas they borrowed from foreign sources? If they had done so, we should never have had the works we so greatly admire.

There are two chief reasons which keep Latin, and to some extent other learned tongues, in high consideration among us,—the knowledge which is registered in them, and their use as a means of communication, in both speaking and writing, by the learned class throughout Europe. While these two benefits are retained, if there is anything else that can be done with our own tongue, either in beautifying it, or in turning it to practical account, we cannot but take advantage of it, even though Latin should thus be displaced, as it displaced others, bequeathing its learning to us. For is it not indeed a marvellous bondage, to become servants to one tongue for the sake of learning, during the greater part of our time, when we can have the very same treasure in our own language, which forms the joyful title to our liberty, as the Latin reminds us of our thraldom? I love Rome, but I love London better; I favour Italy, but I favour England more; I honour the Latin tongue, but I worship the English. I wish everything were in our tongue which the learned tongues gained from others, nor do I wrong them in treating them as they did their predecessors, teaching us by their example how boldly we may venture, notwithstanding the opinion of some among us, who desire rather to please themselves with a foreign language that they know, than to profit their country in their own language, which they ought to know. It is no argument to say: Will you dishonour those tongues which have honoured you, and without which you could never have enjoyed the learning of which you propose to rob them? For I honour them still, as much as any one, even in wishing my own tongue to be a partaker of their honour. For if I did not hold them in great admiration, because I know their value, I would not think it any honour for my own language to imitate their grace. I wish we had the stores with which they furnished themselves from foreign sources. For the tongues that we study were not the first getters, though by learned labour they prove to be good keepers, and they are ready to discharge their trust, in handing on to others what was committed to them for a term, and not in perpetuity. There can be no disgrace in their delivering to others what they received on that understanding. The dishonour will lie rather with the tongue that refuses to receive the inheritance intended for it and duly offered to it, and from this dishonour I would our language were free. I admit the good fortune of those tongues that had so great a start over others that they are most welcome wherever they set foot, and are always admired for their rare excellence, disposing all men to think little of any form of speech that does not resemble them, and to rank even the best of these as marvellously behind them. The diligent labour of the learned men of ancient times so enriched their tongues that they proved very pliable, as I am assured our own will prove, if our learned fellow-countrymen will bestow their labour on it. And why, I pray you, should such labour not be bestowed on English, as well as on Latin or any other language? Will you say it is needless? Certainly that will not hold. If loss of time over tongues, while you are pilgrims to learning, is no injury, or lack of sound skill, while language distracts the mind from the sense, especially with the foolish and inexperienced, then there might be some ground for holding it needless. But since there was no need for the present loss of time in study through labouring with tongues, and since our understanding is more perfect in our natural speech, however well we may know the foreign language, methinks necessity itself calls for English, by which all that bravery may be had at home that makes us gaze so much at the fine stranger. But you will say it is uncouth; so it is, through being unused. So was it with Latin, and so it is with every language. Cicero himself, the paragon of Rome while he was alive, and our best pattern now though he is dead, had great wrestling with such wranglers, and their disdain of their natural speech, before he won from the public of his time the opinion in which he was held by the best of his friends then, and is held by us now. Are not all his prefaces to his philosophical writings full of such conflicts with these cavillers? English wits are very well able, thank God, if the good will were present, to make that uncouth and unknown learning very familiar to our people in our own tongue, even by the example of those very writers we esteem so highly, who having done for other languages what I wish for ours in the like case, must needs approve of us, unless they assert that the merit of conveying knowledge from a foreign tongue died with them, not to revive among us. But whatever they may say to continue their own credit, our fellow-countrymen cannot but think that it is our praise to obtain by purchase and transplanting into our own tongue what they were so desirous to place in theirs, and are now so loth to forgo again; it is indeed the fairest flower of their whole garland, for these tongues would wither soon, or decay altogether, but for the great knowledge contained therein. If our people were not readier to wonder at their workmanship than to take trouble with their own tongue, they might have the same advantage. Our English is our own, and must be used by those to whom it belongs, as were those others that were ranked with the best.

But it may be replied that our English tongue is not worthy of such cultivation, because it has so little extent, stretching no further than this island of ours, and not even over the whole of that. What though this be true? Still it reigns here and serves our purpose; it should be brushed clean in order to be worn. Are not English folk, I pray you, as particular as foreigners? And is not as much taste needed for our tongue in speaking, and our pen in writing, as for apparel and diet? But, it will be said, our State is no empire, hoping to enlarge itself by ruling other countries. What then? Though it be neither large in possession, nor in present hope of great increase, yet where it rules it can make good laws to suit its position, as well as the largest country can, and often better, since in the greatest governments there is often confusion.

But again, it will be urged, we have no rare knowledge belonging to our soil to make foreigners study our tongue as a treasure of such store. What of that? We are able by its means to apply to our use all the great treasure both of foreign soil and of foreign language. And why may not English wits, if they will bend their wills to seek matter and method, be as much sought after by foreign students for the increase of their knowledge as our soil is already sought after by foreign merchants for the increase of their wealth? As the soil is fertile because it is cultivated, so the wits are not barren, if they choose to bring forth.

Yet though all this be true, we are in despair of ever seeing our own language so refined as were those where public orations were held in ordinary course, and the very tongue itself made a chariot to honour. Our State is a monarchy, which controls language, and teaches it to please; our religion is Christian, and prefers the naked truth to refinement of terms. What then? If for want of that exercise which the Athenian and the Roman enjoyed in their spacious courts, no Englishman should prove to be a Cicero or a Demosthenes, yet in truth he may prove comparable to them in his own commonwealth and in the eloquence that befits it. And why not indeed comparable to them in all points that concern his natural tongue? Our brain can bring forth; our ideas will bear life; our tongues are not tied, and our labour is our own. And eloquence itself is limited neither to one language nor to one soil; the whole world is its measure, and the wise ear is its judge, having regard not to greatness of state, but to the capacity of the people. And even though we should despair of altogether rivalling the excellence of foreign tongues, must our own therefore be unbeautified? It should certainly strive to reach its best if I could help. We may aspire to come to a certain height, even though we can pass no further. The nature of our government will admit true speaking and writing, and eloquence will be approved if it gives pleasure and is worthy of praise, so long as it preaches peace, and tends to preserve the State. Our religion does not condemn any ornament of language which serves the truth and does not presume overmuch. Nay, may not eloquence be a great blessing from God, and the trumpet of his honour, as Chrysostom calls that of St. Paul, if it be religiously bent? Those who have read the story of the early church find that eloquence in the primitive Christians overthrew great forces bent against our faith, and persuaded numbers to embrace the cause, when the power of truth was joined to force in the word. We should seek eloquence to serve God, but shun it to serve ourselves, unless we have God’s warrant.

But will you thus break off communication with learned foreigners by banishing Latin, and putting her learning into your own tongue? Communication will not cease while people have cause to interchange dealings, and it may easily be continued without Latin. Already in some countries, whose languages are akin to the Latin, the learned class are weaning their tongues and pens from the use of Latin, both in written discourse and spoken disputation, to their own natural speech. It is a question not of disgracing Latin, but of gracing our own language. Why should we honour a stranger more than our own, if the purpose be served? And although, on account of the limitations of our language, no foreigner would seek to borrow from us as we do from other tongues, because we devise nothing new, though we receive the old, yet we ourselves gain very much in study by being set from the first in the privy chambers of knowledge, through the familiarity of our native speech. Justinian the emperor said to the students of law, when he gave imperial force to his Institutes, that they were most happy in the advantage of hearing the Emperor’s voice at first hand, while those of earlier times were delayed for four whole years. And does not our study of foreign languages take us fully four years? If this were the only hindrance indeed, and if we gained otherwise, we could bear the loss. But it is not only time that is lost in studying foreign tongues, though we must use them till we learn to do without them. Who can deny that we understand best in our natural speech, seeing that all our foreign learning is applied through the medium of our own language, and learning is of value only in so far as it is applied to particular uses?

But why not everything in English, a tongue in itself both deep in meaning and frank in utterance? I do not think that any language whatsoever is better able to express all subjects with pith and plainness, if he who uses it is as skilful and well-instructed as the foreigner. Methinks I myself could prove this in regard to the most varied subjects, though I am no great scholar, but only an earnest well-wisher to my own country. And though in dealing with certain subjects we must use many foreign terms, we are only doing what is done in the most renowned languages, that boast of their skill and knowledge. It is a necessity between one country and another to interchange words to express strange matter, and rules are appointed for adapting them to the use of the borrowers. It is an accident which keeps our tongue from natural growth out of its own resources, and not the real nature of the language, which could strain with the strongest and stretch to the furthest, either for the purposes of government, if we were conquerors, or for learning if we were its treasurers, no whit behind the subtle Greek for couching close, or the stately Latin for spreading fair. Our tongue is capable of all, if our people would bestow pains upon it. The very soil of Greece, it is noted by some, had a refining influence on Philelphus, who was born in Italy. Italy, says Erasmus, would have had the same effect on our Sir Thomas More, if he had been trained there. And cannot labour and practice work as great wonders in English wits at home as the air can do abroad? Is a change of soil the best or the only means of furthering growth? Nay, surely wits are equally sharp everywhere, though where there is less intercourse and a heavier climate, the labour must be greater to make up for what is wanting in nature. If such pains be taken we may boldly arm ourselves with that two-worded and thrice worthy question—Why not? But grant that it were an heresy, seeing that we are trained in foreign tongues, even to wish everything to be in English. Certainly there is no fault in handling in English what is proper to England, though the same subject well handled in Latin would be likely to please Latinists. But an English benefit must not be measured by the pleasure of a Latinist. It is a matter not for scholars to play with, but for students to practise, where everyone can judge. Besides, how many shallow things are often uttered in Latin and other foreign tongues, which under the bare veil of a strange form seem to be something, but if they were expressed in English, and the mask pulled off so that everyone could see them, would make but a sorry show, and soon be disclaimed even by those who uttered them, with some thought of the old saying—“Had I known, I would not!” And were it not better to gain judgment throughout in our own English than either to lose it or hinder it in Latin or any other foreign tongue? Such considerations make me thankful for what we have gained from foreign sources, but at the same time desirous of furthering the interest of my own natural tongue, and therefore in treating of the first rudiments of learning I am very well content to make use of English, without renouncing my right to use Latin or any other learned tongue, when I come to speak of matters where it may be suitable.

But while my writing in English may seem not amiss for the service of my country, my manner of writing may offend some in seeming fastidious and obscure, and I may be brought to task as failing in what I professed, by dealing with matters too hard for the ignorant to understand, or using too close a style and too rare terms for plain folks to follow. All these difficulties are very great foes to the perception of the ordinary man, who can understand only so far as he has been trained, and they are no good friends to my purpose, as I write for the benefit of the many, who are untrained and unskilful. But although these objections make a very plausible show, yet I must beg leave to plead my own cause in regard to matter, style, and the use of terms. Indeed half my answer is given when I say that I mean well to my country, for in attempting difficulties one may claim pardon for defects, and what I do is in the interest of our tongue, which I desire to see enriched in every way and honoured with every ornament of eloquence, so that it can vie with any foreign language.

But first to examine the charge of hardness in the subject-matter, which the reader is said to have difficulty in understanding. In what, I pray you, consists this hardness that is said to lie in the matter? Or rather does not all hardness belong to the person, and not to the thing, in this case as everywhere else? If the person who undertakes to teach does not know his subject well enough to make it properly understood, is the thing therefore hard that is not thoroughly grasped? Or if the learner either fails to understand owing to deficient knowledge, or will not make the needful effort owing to some evil disposition, is the thing therefore hard which is so crossed by personal infirmity? Surely not. There is no hardness in anything which is expressed by a learned pen, however far removed from common use, (though to shield negligence the charge is often made), if the teacher knows it sufficiently, and the learner be willing and not wayward. For what are the things which we handle in learning? Are they not of our own choice? Are they not our own inventions? Are they not meant to supply our own needs? And was not the first inventor very well able to open up the thing he invented before he commended it to others? Or did those who received it do so before they were instructed as to its use? Or could blunt ignorance have won such credit in a doubtful case, though professing to bring advantage, that it was believed before it had persuaded those who had any foresight, by plain evidence that the thing was profitable, as well for the present as for the time to come? If the first inventor could both find and persuade, his follower must do likewise, or be at fault himself; he must deliver the matter from the suspicion of hardness, which arises from his own defect in exposition. If he who reads fails to grasp the meaning through ignorance, he is to be pardoned for his infirmity; if having some capacity he fails from lack of will, he is punished enough by being left in ignorance; and if while able to follow with the best he keeps with the worst, blinded understanding is the greatest darkness, and punishes the evil humour with the depraving of reason. If an expounder, such as I am now, be himself weak, he is ill-advised if he either writes before he knows, or does not mend when he has written amiss, provided he knows where and how. Yet the reader’s courtesy is some protection against error to him who writes, as the writer’s pardon is a protection to him who reads, if simple ignorance is the only fault, without defect in goodwill.

It will be admitted that hardness must arise either from the thing itself or from the handling. If the thing itself is hard it must be because it is strange to the reader, because it is outside of his ordinary interests and occupations, or because he does not give full study and attention to it. To illustrate the former difficulty, what affinity is there, in respect of occupation, between a simple ploughman, a wary merchant, and a subtle lawyer, or between manual trades and metaphysical discourses, whether in mathematics, physics, or divinity? Again, even to students who profess some alliance with what they study, can anything be easy if they have not laboured sufficiently in it? I need say no more than this, that where there is no acquaintance in profession there is no help to understanding, where there is no familiarity there is no facility, where there is no conference there is no knowledge. If the man delves the earth, and the matter dwells in heaven, there is no means of uniting them over so great a distance. But when the understanding, though in affinity, is clearly insufficient, there is far more hardness than where there is a difference of occupation, because a vain conceit brings much more error than weak knowledge. Some good may come out of an ignorant fellow if he begin to take hold, but the lukewarm learned mars his way by prejudiced opinion. But in all this, if there be any difficulty about the matter, its cause lies in the man, and not in the nature of the thing. I am quick in teaching, and hard of understanding, but towards whom and why? Towards him, forsooth, who is not sufficiently acquainted with the matter in hand. Well, then, if want of familiarity is the cause of the difficulty, acquaintance once made and continued will remedy that complaint, if the matter seem worth the man’s acquaintance in his natural tongue, for that is a question in a vision blinded by foreign glamours, or if the learner is really desirous to be rid of his ignorance, for that is another question where a vain opinion over-values itself. For in the case of a book written in the English tongue there are so many Englishmen well able to satisfy fully the ignorant reader, that it were too great a discourtesy not to lighten a man’s labour with a short question, and an equally short answer. But where the matter, being no pleasant tale nor amorous device, but a serious and worthy argument concerning sober learning, not familiar to all readers, or even to all writers, professes no ease without some effort, then if such effort be not made an unnatural idleness is betrayed, which desires less to find ease than to find fault. For why should one labour to help all, and none be willing to help that one? Nay, why should none be willing to help themselves out of the danger and bondage of blind ignorance? If the book were all in Latin, and the reader were not acquainted with a single word, then the case would be desperate, but as it is, any man may compass it with very little inquiry from his skilful neighbour. Therefore if anything seems hard to an ignorant man who desires to know, and fails owing to the unfamiliarity of the subject, he must handle the thing often, so that it may become easy, and when a doubt arises he must confer with those who have more knowledge. For all strange things seem great novelties, and are hard to grasp at their first arrival, but after some acquaintance they become quite familiar, and are easily dealt with. And words likewise which express strange matters, or are strangers themselves, are not wild beasts, nor is a term a tiger to prove wholly untractable. Familiarity and acquaintance will bring facility both in matter and in words.

If the handling seems to cause the difficulty, and if that proceeds from him who presents the argument, not only in the opinion of the unpractised reader, but truly in the view of those who are able to judge, then such a writer is worthy of blame, in seeking to expound without sufficient study; but if the defective handling is due not to the writer, but to plain misunderstanding, then there is small praise to the reader who misconstrues without regard to courtesy or reverence for truth.

As for my style in treatment, if it be charged with difficulty, that also proceeds from choice, being intended to show that I come from the forge, being always familiar with strong steel and pithy stuff in the reading of good writers, and therefore bound to resemble that metal in my style. To argue closely and with sequence, to trace causes and effects, to seek sinews and sound strength rather than waste flesh, is seemly for a student, especially when he writes for perpetuity, where the reader may keep the book by him to study at his leisure, not being forced either to take it all at once or forgo it altogether, as is the case in speech. Discourses that are entirely popular, or are written in haste for the moment, may well be slight in manner, for their life is short; and where what is said is at once to be put to present use, the plainer the style the more plausible it will be, and therefore most excellent in its kind, since the expression must be adapted to the immediate end in view, leaving nothing to muse on, as there is no time for musing. But where the matter is no courier to post away in haste, and there must be musing on it, another course must be taken, and yet the manner of delivery must not be thought hard, nor compared with others of a different kind, considering that it is meant to teach, and can use such plainness only as the subject admits of. Does any man of judgment in learning and in the Latin tongue think that Cicero’s orations and his discourses in philosophy were equally well known and of equal plainness to the people of Rome, though both in their own way are plain enough to us, who know the Latin tongue better than our own, because we pore over it, and pay no attention to our own? Certainly not, as appears from many passages in Cicero himself, where he notes the difference, and confesses that the newness of the subjects which he transported from Greece was the cause of some darkness to the ordinary reader, and of some contempt to the learned because they fancied the Greek more. Yet neither ignorance nor contempt could discourage his pen from seeking the advantage of his own language, by translating into it the learning which others wished to remain in the Greek; he kept on his course, and in the end the tide turned in his favour, bringing him the credit which he enjoys to this day. And he himself bears witness that the resistance he met with was due not only to the matter of which he treated, but also to his manner of expression, and even to the very words he used, which being strange and newly-coined were not understood by the ordinary reader. “I could write of these things,” he says, meaning philosophical subjects, “like Amasanius” (an obscure writer of apophthegms) “but in that case not like myself; as plainly as he, but not then so as to satisfy myself, or do justice to the subject as I should handle it. I must define, divide, distinguish, exercise judgment, and use the terms of art. I must have regard as well to those from whom my learning is borrowed, that they may say they meant it so, as to those for whom it is borrowed, that they may say they understand it.”

The writer who does otherwise may be thought plain by those who seek nothing far, but if those who call for plainness are always to be pleased, and dealt with so daintily that they are put to no pains to learn and enquire, when they find themselves in a difficulty through their own ignorance; if they must be made a lure for learning to descend to, rather degenerating herself than teaching them to look up, what is the use of skill? He who made the earth made hills and dales, heights and plains, smooth places and rough, and yet all good of their own kind. Plainness is good for a pleasant course, and a popular style is in place in ordinary argument, where no art is needed because the reader knows none, and the matter can be simply expressed, being indeed in her best colours when she is dressed for common purposes. Likewise this alleged hardness, though it belong to the matter, has its special use in whetting people’s wits, and making a deep impression, where what seems dark contains something that must be considered thrice before it is mastered.

Labour is the coin which is current in heaven, for which and by which Almighty God sells His best wares, though in His great goodness He sometimes does more for some in giving them quickness and intelligence, even without great labour, than any labour can do for others, in order to let us know that His mercy is the mistress when our labour learns best. But in our ordinary life, if carpeting be knighting, where is necessary defence? If easy understanding be the readiest learning, then wake not my lady; she learns as she lies. If all things are hard which everyone thinks to be so, where is the privilege and benefit of study? What is the use of study, if what we get by labour is condemned as too hard for those that do not study. I will not allege that the learned men of old made use of obscure expressions in matters of religion in order to win reverence towards a subject that belonged to another world and could not be fully dealt with in ordinary speech, nor that the old wisdom was expressed in riddles, proverbs, fables, oracles, and mystic verses, in order to draw men on to study, and fix in the memory what was carefully considered before it was uttered. Are any of our oldest and best writers whom we now study, and who have been thought the greatest, each in his kind, ever since they first wrote, understood at once after a single reading, even though those who are studying them know their tongue as well as we know English—nay, even better, because it is more intricate? Or is their manner of writing to be disapproved of as dark, because the ignorant reader or fastidious student cannot straightway rush into it? That they fell into that compressed kind of writing owing to their very pith in saying much where they speak least, is clearly shown by the comments of those who expand at great length what was set down in one short sentence—nay, even in a single phrase of a sentence. Are not all the chief paragons and principal leaders in every profession of this same character, inaccessible to ordinary people, even though using the same language, and giving of their store only to those who will study?

But may not this obscurity lie in him who finds it rather than in the matter, which is simple in itself, and simply expressed, though it may not seem so to him? Our daintiness deceives us, our want of goodwill blinds us—nay, our lack of skill is the very witch which bereaves us of sense, though we profess to have knowledge and favour towards learning. For everyone who bids a book good-morrow is not necessarily a scholar, or a judge of the subject dealt with in the book. He may have studied up to a certain point, but perhaps neither hard nor long, or he may be very little acquainted with the subject he is seeking to judge of. Perhaps the desire of preferment has cut short his study when it was most promising, or there is some other of the many causes of weakness, although pretension may impose upon the world with a show of learning. Any man may judge well of a matter which he has sufficiently studied, and thoroughly practised (if it be a study that requires practice), and has regarded in its various relations. A pretty skill in some particular direction will sometimes glance beyond, and show a smattering of further knowledge, but no further than a glance, no more than a smattering. Therefore, in my judgment of another man’s writings, so much only is just as I should be able to prove soundly, if I were seriously challenged by those who can judge, not so much as I may venture uncontrolled, in seeking merely to please myself or those as ignorant as myself. Apelles could admit the opinion of the cobbler, so far as his knowledge of cobbling justified him, but not an inch further.

As for my manner of writing, if I do not meet expectation, I have always some warrant, for I write rather with regard to the essence of the matter in hand than to superficial effect. For however it may be in speech, and in that kind of writing which resembles speech, being adapted to ordinary subjects with an immediate practical end, certainly where the matter has to stand a more lasting test, and be tried by the hammer of learned criticism, there should be precision, orderly method, and carefully chosen expression, every word having its due force, and every sentence being well and deliberately weighed. Such writing, though it may be without esteem in our age through the triviality of the time, may yet win it in another, when its value is appreciated. Some hundreds of years may pass before saints are enshrined, or books gain their full authority.

As for the general writing in the English tongue, I must needs say that for some points of handling there is no language more excellent than ours. For teaching memory work pleasantly, as in the old leonine verses, which run in rhyme, it admits more dalliance with words than any other tongue I know. In firmness of speech and strong ending it is very forcible, because of the monosyllabic words of which it so largely consists. For fine translation in pithy terms I find it as quick as any foreign tongue, or quicker, as it is wonderfully pliable and ready to express a pointed thought in very few words. For apt expression of a good deal of matter in not many words it will do as much in original utterance as in any translation. This compact expression may sometimes seem hard, but only where ignorance is harboured, or where indolence is an idol, which will not be persuaded to crack the nut, though it covet the kernel. I need give no example of these, as my own writing will serve as a general pattern. No one can judge so well of these points in our tongue as those who find matter flowing from their pen which refuses to be expressed in any other form. For our tongue has a special character as well as every other, and cannot be surpassed for grace and pith.

In regard to the force of words, which was the third note of alleged obscurity, there are to be considered familiarity for the general reader, beauty for the learned, effectiveness to give pleasure, and borrowing to extend our resources and admit of ready expression. Therefore, if any reader find fault with a word which does not suit his ear, let him mark the one he knows, and learn to value the other, which is worth his knowing. Do we not learn from words? No marvel if it is so, for a word is a metaphor, a learned translation, something carried over from its original sense to serve in some place where it is even more properly used, and where it may be most significant, if it is properly understood. Take pains to learn from it; you have there a means of gaining knowledge. It is not commonly used as I am using it, but I trust I am not abusing it, and it may be filling a more stately place than any you have ever seen it in. Then mark that the place honours the parson, and think well of good words, for though they may be handled by ordinary, or even by foul lips, yet in a fairer mouth, or under a finer pen, they may come to honour. It may be a stranger, and yet no Turk, and though it were the word of an enemy, yet a good thing is worth getting, even from a foe, as well by the language of writers as by the spoil of soldiers. And when the foreign word has yielded itself and been received into favour, it is no longer foreign, though of foreign race, the property in it having been altered. But he who will speak of words need not lack them. However, in this place there is no further need of words, to say either which are familiar, or beautiful, or effective, or which are borrowed; nor is there need to say that in regard to any ornament in words we give place to no other tongue.

As for my own words and the terms that I use, they are generally English, and if any be an incorporated stranger, or translated, or freshly-coined, I have shaped it to fit the place where I use it, as far as my skill will permit. The example and precept of the best judges warrant us in enfranchising foreign words, or translating our own without too manifest insolence or wanton affectation, or else inventing new ones where they are clearly serviceable, the context explaining them sufficiently till frequent usage has made them well known. Therefore, to say what I mean in plain terms, he who is soundly learned will straightway recognise a scholar; he who is well acquainted with a strong pen, whether in reading authors or in actual use, will soon master a compact style; he who has skill in language, whether old and scholarly or newly received into favour, will not wonder at words whose origin he knows, nor be surprised at a thought tersely expressed, in a way familiar to him in other languages. Therefore, as I fear not the judgment of the skilful, because courtesy goes with knowledge, so I value their friendship, because their support gives me credit.

As for those who lack the skill to judge rightly, though they may be sharp censors and ready to talk loudly, I must crave their pardon if I do not bow to their censure, which I cannot accept as a true judgment. Yet I am content to bear with such fellows, and pardon them their errors in regard to myself, as I trust that those who can judge will in their courtesy pardon me my own errors. Those who cannot judge rightly for want of knowledge, but will not betray their weakness by judging wrongly, if they desire to learn in any case of doubt, have the learned to give them counsel. The profit is theirs, if they are willing to take it, but if not, they shall not deter me from writing, and I shall hope at length by deserving well to win their favour, or at least their silence. In conclusion as to the manner of writing and use of words in English, this is my opinion, that he who will justify himself may find many arguments, some closely related to the particular subject that may be in question, others more general but likely to be serviceable, and if in his practice he hath due regard to clear and appropriate expression, then even though one or two things should seem strange to those who judge, the writer is free from blame. As for invention in matter and eloquence in style, the learned know well in what writers they are to be found, and those who are not scholars must learn to think of such things before they presume to judge, lest by failing to measure the writer’s level, they should have no just standard to apply. As for the matter itself which is to be treated by any learned method, as I have already said, familiarity will make it easy, though it seem hard, just as it will make the manner of expression easy, though it seem strange, if the thing really deserves to be studied, which will not appear until some progress is made. And a little hardness, even in the most obscure philosophical discussions, will never seem tedious to an enquiring mind, such as he must have who either seeks to learn himself, or desires to see his native tongue enriched and made the instrument of all his knowledge, as well as of his ordinary needs.

But I have been too tedious, my good readers, yet perhaps not so, since no haste is enjoined, and you may read at leisure. I have now to request you, as I mentioned at first, to grant me your friendly construction, and the favour due to a fellow-countryman. The reverence towards learning which leads the good student to embrace her in his youth, and advances him to honour by her preference in later years, will plead for me with the learned in general, in my endeavour to assert the rights of her by whose authority alone they are themselves of any account. Among my fellow-teachers I may hope that community of interest will help me more with the courteous and learned than a foolish feeling of rivalry will harm me with ignorant and spiteful detractors. Regard for my own profession, and this hope of support from learned teachers, move me to lay stress upon one special point, which in duty must affect them no less than me, namely, the need for careful thought in improving our schools. I say nothing here of the conscientious and religious motives that influence us, nor of the need for personal maintenance that demands our labour. But I would acknowledge the special munificence of our princes and parliaments towards our whole order in our country’s behalf, partly in suffering us to enjoy old immunities, partly in granting us divers other exemptions from personal services and ordinary payments to which our fellow-subjects are liable. These favours deserve at our hands an honourable remembrance, and bind us further to discharge the trust committed to us. I doubt not that this feeling which moves me strongly, moves also many of my profession, whose friendship I crave for favourable construction, and whose conference I desire for help in experience, as I shall be glad in the common cause either to persuade or be persuaded. Of those that are not learned I beg friendship also, and chiefly as a matter of right, because I labour for them, and my goodwill deserves no unthankfulness. God bless us all to the advancement of His glory, the honour of our country, the furtherance of good learning, and the well-being of all ranks, prince and people alike!

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CRITICAL ESTIMATE.

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[CRITICAL ESTIMATE.]

If the saying of Plato may be applied to another sphere, not very far removed from civil government, we may believe that education will never be rightly practised until either teachers become philosophers, or philosophers become teachers. It is certainly remarkable how seldom in the history of educational progress there has arisen any writer whose authority was based alike on the power of the abstract thinker to rise above the conditions of the immediate present into the atmosphere of pure reason, and on the instinct of the professional worker, whose conceptions of what is possible have been chastened by direct experience of the actual. Of the five classical English writers who have made any noteworthy contribution to educational thought, all but one have failed to gain a lasting influence, through the limitation in their outlook caused by deficient practical knowledge. Ascham’s experience was too exclusively academic and courtly to suggest much to him beyond questions of method in the advanced teaching of Latin and Greek. Milton’s vision, restricted by his short and partial attempt at instructing a few selected boys, narrowed itself to one school period of one rank of society of one sex, and his genius could not save him from wild extravagance in his ideas of the acquirements possible for the average scholar. The suggestions of Locke, while in one aspect they were more comprehensive, are yet essentially those of a theorist, who had never faced the difficulty that the upbringing of a child by a private tutor is possible only to the merest fraction of any population. Herbert Spencer, as the heir of previous centuries, has naturally been able to command a wider view, but even those who have gained most from his book, must have felt that owing to his highly generalised mode of treatment he has at many points failed to grapple with the problems that chiefly beset the professional teacher. A little experience, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing, and it may be that those writers, all of whom claim to have made trial of the actual work of education, would have been more convincing if they had written from an avowedly detached standpoint. Richard Mulcaster alone holds the vantage-ground of being at once a thinker and a practical expert in matters of education. Nor does this mean only that his right to speak with authority will for that reason be more readily admitted; the evidence of his fuller equipment for the task may be seen through the whole texture of his writings. He had not Ascham’s ease in expression and charm of manner, nor Milton’s commanding intellect and power of utterance, nor the fearlessness and philosophic grasp of Locke, nor the encyclopædic knowledge and acumen of Herbert Spencer, but he had beyond them all two essential gifts that will in the end give him a unique place in the history of our educational development—a clear insight into the realities of human nature, and an enlightened perception of the conditions that determine the culture of mind and soul.

To those who know little or nothing of Mulcaster such a claim will seem extravagant, and it will naturally be doubted whether any writer who deserves to be put upon so high a pedestal, could possibly have remained so long in neglect. It may be rejoined that in a subject like education many factors have a part in the making of reputations. It is no mere coincidence that the authors named above, whose views on education are so much more widely-known than those of Mulcaster, all gained their chief fame in some other sphere of thought; we read what they have to say on this subject because it comes from writers who have caught the world’s ear in some field of more general interest. This advantage is naturally to be associated with gifts of expression such as Mulcaster unfortunately possessed only in a very limited degree, though his deficiency is due much more to the rudimentary condition of English prose in general in the sixteenth century, than to any lack of clear thinking on his own part. It is true, indeed, that no fine sense of harmony in sound can be credited to a writer who perpetrates such a sentence as—“I say no more, where it is too much to say even so much in a sore of too much.” But even if Mulcaster had spoken with the tongue of an angel, he would probably have remained a voice crying in the wilderness, for the time was not yet come. The ultimate value of Rousseau’s message to the world in the realm of education was far less, but his unique powers of persuasive eloquence, the fame he had achieved in other ways, and the ripeness of the time, combined to give the later writer an extraordinary influence. When Mulcaster’s judgments and suggestions are studied from the vantage-ground of the present, and in a form that divests them of adventitious difficulties of understanding, they will be recognised as giving him a place of high importance, not only in the chain of historical succession, but in the final hierarchy of educational reformers.

It is necessary to take into account the state of opinion on matters of learning and on the general conduct of life, in the England of Queen Elizabeth’s day, before we can appreciate the significance of our author’s thought. We must place ourselves in the atmosphere of the Renascence and the Reformation, for although these great movements, which represented the intellectual and moral aspects in the awakening of modern Europe, had been some time in progress, and had even given place to reaction in the countries of their birth, their full influence did not reach our shores till towards the close of the sixteenth century. The phase of English national life represented by Mulcaster is that immediately preceding the great expansion of conscious mental activity to which voice was so memorably given by Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, and their contemporaries. The prestige of Elizabeth, depending as it did so largely on the secure establishment of the Protestant faith, had not yet reached the height it attained through the final repulse of Spanish aggression, but yet the power of the crown retained much of the absolute sway over individual freedom that had been built up and impressed on the popular imagination by the earlier Tudors. It was not a time either of revolt or of reaction. The more galling forms of political and intellectual despotism had already disappeared in the general overthrow of the medieval régime, and it was a more pressing question how to maintain existing charters of liberty than how to extend them. This conservative temper is to be discerned in all the purely English writers of the period, though in the northern part of Britain Knox and his companions were troubling the waters of controversy in a more strenuous fashion.

Apart from the influence of an atmosphere of general conformity to established authority and prevailing sentiment, Mulcaster was constitutionally cautious. He was no zealot, defiant of opposition, and careless of the esteem in which he might be held. His respect for tradition, and, it must be added, his sympathetic instincts, disposed him always to seek grounds of agreement rather than of difference, to support his suggestions by the weight of authority and precedent, to carry his readers with him by winning their consent unawares rather than by startling them into reluctant acquiescence through the use of paradox and exaggeration. Yet there was no timidity or half-heartedness in his temperament. He was profoundly convinced of the justice of his criticisms and the value of his proposals, and he was not backward in urging his views, in season at least if not out of season, on all who shared the responsibility of rejecting them or giving them effect. He has been accused, indeed, of overweening self-conceit, and it is to be feared that this is the only persistent impression of the man that remains with a number of those who know little of him beyond his name. He has been cited as a classical example of the folly into which a misplaced vanity can lead one who enters with a light heart into the region of prophecy, that “most gratuitous form of error,” on the ground that he believed the highest possible perfection of English prose to be represented by the style of his own writings. This conception, however, is due to a misunderstanding which it will be worth while to remove. The remark that is quoted against him occurs in the Peroration of the Elementary, “I need no example in any of these, whereof mine own penning is a general pattern.” Taken apart from the context, as it usually is, such a sentence sounds fatuous enough, being naturally understood to mean that Mulcaster thought he had nothing to learn from any other writers, and had himself devised a perfect model of English composition. But anyone who will take the trouble to read the whole passage ([p. 201]) will see at once that the statement really means, “I need give no example of any of these [idiosyncrasies of our language, especially compactness of expression], as they are sufficiently illustrated in my own writing.” This is a very different matter, and though Mulcaster had little sense of style, and was curiously mistaken in his idea that English prose had no greater heights to reach than the standard of his own time, the error was due to defects of literary taste and judgment, not of character or temper. When his writings are taken as a whole, they offer ample evidence that he was singularly modest in his pretensions, losing all self-consciousness in his enthusiasm for the causes he had at heart.

This attitude may account for the disposition in some quarters to deny Mulcaster any special originality in regard to his leading principles. But in a subject like education, which concerns so many departments of life and character, what is the precise meaning of originality? As the essential traits of human nature have remained unaltered in the last two or three thousand years, except for a slow development along lines in continuity with the past, it is vain to expect that the broader truths which underlie the arts of social improvement will be subject to any radical change. In such matters we must build on the wisdom of the ancients, and the only possible originality consists in discerning the new applications that are suited to the present time and place. It is safe to say that there is hardly a single educational doctrine that has ever won acceptance, the germs of which are not to be found in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Yet every age and every country must work out its own salvation by choosing, combining, and applying to its needs the general principles that have been laid down by those that came before. Such eclecticism, if it cannot strictly be called originality, is at least the highest wisdom, and he who first proclaims the doctrine as true for his own time and place deserves the credit of the pioneer. The discoveries of the Greek philosophers in social politics, if discoveries they could be called, had to be made over again for the modern world, and it may even be said that they had to be made independently for each separate country. In the sixteenth century there was less uniformity in political and social conditions, and less mutual influence among the different States of Europe than there is now. Although the English nation under Elizabeth could not remain wholly unaffected by the more drastic changes of opinion and sentiment that marked the course of the reforming spirit in Germany and in Scotland, it certainly demanded a rare sagacity and independence of mind, if not absolute originality, to discern how far the new outlook could be shared by those whose experience had been less revolutionary. To understand the value of Mulcaster’s work it is of less moment to ask what may have been his indebtedness to Plato or Quintilian, or even to Luther and Knox, than to consider whether he had been directly anticipated by any of his own countrymen, and whether he himself anticipated, if he did not influence, later English writers on education.

A right estimate of Mulcaster’s temperament, and of his relation to the surrounding conditions of thought and feeling, is due not only as a matter of personal justice, but as affording a key to a proper estimate of his writings. For these have a significance beyond that of most works of the kind, in forming a somewhat unique record of historical facts for a bygone period. The attempt to trace the lines of progress by comparing one phase of culture with another, has hitherto had imperfect success in the sphere of education, for, like the arts of music and acting, it works in a perishable medium, and makes a direct impression only on a single generation. Even indirect testimony has until recently been almost entirely wanting. To hardly any writer of earlier times has it occurred to make any report of the actual conduct of teaching as it existed around him, for the benefit of future ages. Those who were interested in the subject have been more concerned to offer speculative suggestions of reform that have apparently little organic relation to the conditions of their own community. It is not so much to the formal treatises of Plato and Aristotle that we must look for such knowledge as we can obtain of Athenian education in the fourth century before Christ, as to the incidental references of writers who had no thought of conveying any definite or detailed information on the matter. We find the same dearth of evidence when we try to ascertain the actual working of educational methods and organisation in the most advanced countries of Europe during the two or three centuries that succeeded the Renascence. The contemporary writers on the subject are for the most part idealists; and while we gladly acknowledge their services in that capacity, we must regret that to the visionary outlook of the reformer they did not add the careful observation of the historian. If Mulcaster is a noteworthy exception to this rule, it is not because of set purpose he undertook the task of record and criticism. It was no part of his plan to offer any narrative or statistical report; indeed he expressly refrains from commenting on the current practice of teaching, and alludes to it only incidentally. His intention, as with the great majority of educational writers, was to suggest improvements, to propose an ideal; but his responsible position as a headmaster gave him an ever-present sense of what was practicable, and enabled him to base his efforts on the firm ground of accomplished fact. His proposals are so evidently related to the existing state of affairs that they may almost be taken as affording an historical record of contemporary practice. The common-sense criticisms of a shrewd observer like Montaigne, and the dreams of an idealist such as Rabelais, have their own value; but we shall listen even more readily to the words of one who speaks out of the fulness of immediate knowledge, yet with equal power to rouse our aspiration and energy.

Before considering Mulcaster’s contributions to the theory and art of education strictly so-called, it will be well to glance at his influence in the more general aspects of learning and literature. He must be credited with an important share in the movement towards the dethronement of Latin in favour of the vernacular tongues, as the medium of communication in subjects hitherto held to belong exclusively to the domain of the learned class. The initiative in this matter goes back, of course, to the time of Dante, but even with the examples of Italy, France, and Spain to suggest the change, it was a distinct and difficult task to work it out for our own language. Mulcaster was not the first Englishman to write a book in his native tongue which everyone would have expected to be written in Latin. Sir Thomas More, in some of his historical and controversial works, Roger Ascham, and a few other writers of lesser note, had anticipated him in practice, and had been more successful in attaining a lucid and graceful style, but it may fairly be claimed that Mulcaster was the first to give a reasoned justification of the course he followed and recommended, and to further the end in view by taking definite steps to elaborate the means. Nor is it only for his service in helping to establish a canon of literary English, and show the way to others by using it himself to the best of his ability, that acknowledgment is due. It was a still more conspicuous merit to see clearly, and to enforce by these means, the truth that the increase of learning, and the methods by which it may be furthered, are subjects of interest not to any limited class alone, but to every member of the community. There may be comparatively little present value in his judgments as to the proper content of the English vocabulary, and the forms of spelling which he thought should be made authoritative, but at least it is noteworthy that, at a time when linguistic science was at a rudimentary stage, he had reached a singularly just conception of the essential nature of a language, and the conditions of its growth and decay. The interesting allegory where he traces the process by which speech came to be represented by written symbols, proves him to have grasped the idea, only in later times fully understood, that language, as a product of human activity, shares in all the features characteristic of organic development.

It is not only the more formal aspects of language, moreover, that he treats with discrimination. On the still subtler question of its relation to thought and knowledge he speaks with a discernment far beyond his time. The usurping tyranny of words over the minds of men, in place of the lawful domination of the realities they symbolised, had in the movement of the Renascence changed its form without relaxing its severity. If they were no longer so frequently used as mere counters in vain disputations, they were yet apt to be regarded with unreasoning idolatry, as the sacred embodiment of the thoughts and feelings of settled forms of civilisation in the past, exempt from any enquiry as to the conceptions they expressed. Mulcaster does not share this illusion. In his view language is primarily a means of communication, and though the acquirement of foreign tongues may be a necessity for the time, yet they “push us one degree further off from knowledge.” He may not have fully realised the degree in which language is to be reckoned with as a form of artistic expression and as an instrument of thought, though his appreciation of the possibilities of the English tongue shows that he did not forget these invaluable uses; but in any case he saw clearly, and he was one of the first to see, that the crying need of his time was to be set free from the despotism of words, which made them rather a hindrance than a help to real knowledge. “We attribute too much to tongues, in paying more heed to them than we do to matter.” The bearing of this opinion on educational theory will be considered presently, but it deserves to be noted at the outset in evidence of the advanced philosophical standpoint of a writer who belonged to the generation preceding Francis Bacon.

Mulcaster’s independence of conventional practice is further set beyond doubt by his conception of the place of authority in argument. Anticipating Locke in deprecating the constant use of great names in support of a writer’s thesis, he is of course laying down a principle now so universally accepted that it seems unnecessary to refer to it, but those who are acquainted with the Renascence writers of any country know how widely a slavish regard for the opinions of the classical authors took the place of a direct appeal to the rational judgment of the reader. It was no needless service to assign limits to this controversial habit, to discriminate between superstitious servility and justifiable deference to previous thinkers, to call for a fearless statement of the truth as it appeared to each new enquiring spirit, and claim that it should be tested wholly by its conformity to reason and nature and experience. Especially valuable for his time was his insistence on the difference of circumstance between the ancient and the modern worlds, and between the characters of the various nations. He may seem to us to carry these distinctions to an excess when in considering ideal types of human nature he takes account of the form of government under which each individual has to live, holding certain qualities appropriate to a monarchy and others to a republic, but at least he laid a useful emphasis on the relativity of progress, and on the need for harmony in the component institutions of a particular form of society.

Another proof of Mulcaster’s general enlightenment may be found in the fact that he was the first of his countrymen to affirm seriously that education was the birthright of every child born into the community. It is not intended to suggest by this that he anticipated the full assumption by the State of the duty of providing and enforcing universal education, but rather that he desired to foster a public sentiment and social conditions which would be favourable to the idea that the rudiments of learning should by one means or another be distributed throughout the whole body of the nation. Efforts in this direction had been made in other countries under the levelling influence of the reforming spirit in religion, but in England, where the change of faith had been less associated with a democratic impulse, nothing had as yet been done to popularise education in the proper sense of the term, and public opinion had still to be prepared for the movement. It is true that the sharp distinctions of rank which the sixteenth century inherited from the Middle Ages were never so absolutely marked in the sphere of learning as in other departments of life. Though the child of lowly birth could never become a gentleman, he could become a scholar. The helping hand extended by the Church to the promising boy of low degree did not, however, imply any relaxation of caste feeling so far as the general supply of educational facilities was concerned. The humble scholar was raised out of his own class, and was always regarded as an exception. Taken in the mass, the gentry and the commonalty were clearly separated, and no kind of training was thought in any way due to the latter except such as might make them directly serviceable to their betters. For the first notable attack on this fundamental article of medieval faith, apart from the indirect and interested claims of the Reformation leaders to the means of influencing the young, credit is generally given to Comenius. But it must be remembered that half a century before his time, and in a country where the régime of social status has always held a firm position, a strong protest against educational exclusiveness was raised by Richard Mulcaster, who maintained that the elements of knowledge and training should be recognised as the privilege of all, irrespective of rank or sex, and without regard to their future economic functions. “As for the education of gentlemen,” he writes, “at what age shall I suggest that they should begin to learn? Their minds are the same as those of the common people, and their bodies are often worse. The same considerations in regard to time must apply to all ranks. What should they learn? I know of nothing else, nor can I suggest anything better, than what I have already suggested for all.” And his unwillingness to recognise any kind of disability in matters of education, except what was proved by the test of experience to be natural, is further shown in his insistence that, as far as may be possible, girls should have the same advantages as boys. Though, as he says, in deference to the general feeling of his time and country he will not go so far as to propose that girls should be admitted to the grammar schools and universities, he not only wishes them to share in all the opportunities of elementary education, but he wholly approves of the ideal of higher culture for women, which was represented in the attainments of Queen Elizabeth herself.

We may now turn to matters that are less the concern of the philosophic thinker and social observer than of the expert in educational practice. Let us first examine Mulcaster’s conception of the content of a liberal education, from the two points of view, as to how far it should embrace a culture of the whole nature, and as to the proper range of distinctively mental studies. It is a matter of history that in both these respects the Renascence ideal had fallen away from the example of the Greeks. Intellectual culture had to a large extent been dissociated from physical and moral training. The life of the scholar was a thing apart from the conception of chivalry, which encouraged the physical prowess and regard to a code of honour that were developed by the military class. The formal profession of a religious end in learning took the place of a genuine cultivation of character, and while this restricted path was open to the more gifted of the poorer classes, the alternative ideal was reserved for the upper social ranks. It is true that in our own country in the Elizabethan era there was some reconciliation of these diverse aims in the persons of such men as Walter Raleigh and Philip Sidney, but the type they represented was quite exceptional, and had no apparent influence on general educational methods. There was great need for Mulcaster’s plea that in the upbringing of children we should return to the ideal expressed in Juvenal’s familiar phrase, “mens sana in corpore sano.” No stress need be laid on the particular forms of physical exercise which he recommended. His suggestions here were not original, and the present time has little to learn from the physiological conceptions of the sixteenth century. But what was really instructive in his own day, and is scarcely less so in ours, is the intimate relation he conceived to exist between the body and the mind—a relation that demanded a harmonious training of the whole nature. “The soul and the body being co-partners in good will, in sweet and sour, in mirth and mourning, and having generally a common sympathy and mutual feeling, how can they be, or rather why should they be, severed in education?... As the disposition of the soul will resemble that of the body, if the soul be influenced for good, it will affect the body also.” His use of the term soul, moreover, is significant of the conviction which underlies all his writing, that the end of all physical intellectual training is the development of the feelings that prompt to right conduct. He was not carried away by the current craze for book-learning into accepting as a legitimate end of education the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake; in his view the teacher must always have regard to the unfolding of the whole character that would bear fruit in the discharge of the duties of citizenship and other activities of a complete life. Not that he wished the school to assume any preponderating control over the child, either in the direction of opinion or in moral ascendency. He had too clear an insight into the springs of conduct to ignore the potency of the earliest influences of the home, and so far from seeking to usurp the authority of parents in determining their children’s lives, he urges the closest co-operation and good feeling among all who have the pupil’s welfare at heart. Some further insight will be gained into his comprehensive ideal of upbringing when we come to consider his appreciation of home influence more closely, but it may first be asked what his conception was of the mental cultivation that should be aimed at in a liberal curriculum. In regard to the secondary or grammar school period of education, with which he was most intimately acquainted, though he has many acute criticisms and luminous suggestions to offer, his expressed intention of supplying a systematic treatment was unfortunately left unfulfilled; and of his ideas as to university teaching we have little more than a sketch of proposed reforms. On these points something may presently be said, but we may turn first to his contributions towards the establishment of a sound elementary system, which he held to be the most important stage of all, because it was the only form of education that could be brought within the reach of every child, and was the foundation of all further progress in learning. Even this part of the task that he imposed on himself remains incomplete, but there is material enough for a judgment of his point of view. It would seem that in England, up to the Elizabethan era at least, no provision had ever been made for rudimentary instruction for any except those who were destined to proceed to the higher stages of learning, and that the elementary training given to these select few was limited to the barest preparation for the traditional study of the classics. The reading and writing of the vernacular must have been acquired up to a certain point before the Latin grammar could be attacked, but it is clear that no adequate justice was done even to these preliminary subjects, and that no attempt was made to include a deliberate training of the senses and activities of the child. Mulcaster’s proposals as to an elementary course certainly do not sound revolutionary. His subjects coincide pretty nearly with our familiar “three R’s,” and he is himself careful to show that he is merely “reviving” what is commended by the precepts of the wise men of old, and by the practice of the greatest States. But it was no small merit to be the first to perceive that such a revival was possible and desirable in his own time and country, and when his proposals are examined it will be found that in the spirit in which he conceived them they were far in advance alike of contemporary, and of much later, thought and practice. It is a well-known criticism of his contemporary, Montaigne, that teachers were apt to think too much of the matter that was to be taught, and too little of the nature of the learner. That this remark was just in relation to these times we can well believe when we consider how recently the traditional bearing of the schoolmaster has been associated rather with the harsh enforcement of uncongenial tasks under the threat of penalties than with the sympathetic encouragement of willing and interested labours. Ascham had protested against the short-sighted severity of teachers, but failed to see that its root lay in the fact that the studies presented were generally ill-adapted to the capacities and inclinations of the scholars. Mulcaster, on the other hand, recognised that the remedy must be sought in the discovery of a more reasonable method, towards which he had definite constructive proposals to offer. He may even be said to have anticipated by a couple of centuries the doctrine of Rousseau, afterwards utilised by Pestalozzi and Froebel, that the paramount aim of the teacher is not to communicate knowledge, but to stimulate and guide the natural activity of the child. It is to be noted that every one of the five subjects he proposed to teach in the elementary school is of the nature of an art, calling for independent action on the part of the learner, and giving pleasurable exercise to the senses and bodily organs as well as to the intelligence. It was more than a happy intuition that led him to give so honourable a place to drawing and music; it was a consistent application of his doctrine that the minds of young children must be fed through the channels of sense perception, and that faculty is to be developed by placing the outlets of energy in immediate contact with the powers of acquisition. Drawing was intended to give a direct and practical knowledge of space relations and of the forms of natural objects, by combining the activities of eye and hand, while at the same time it favoured the cultivation of artistic expression. Music, being based on varied arrangements of number in pitch and time, was counted on to supply the ground-work of arithmetic, while in accordance with the persuasion of the Greeks it was held to exercise a definite æsthetic and moral influence on character. That Mulcaster had not only thought out his theories on the matter, but had verified them by individual child-study, is clear from the terms of his recommendations. “We must seek for natural inclinations in the soul, which seem to crave the help of education and nurture, and by means of these may be cultivated to advantage.... The best way to secure good progress, so that the intelligence may conceive clearly, memory may hold fast, and judgment may choose and discern the best, is so to ply them all that they may proceed voluntarily and not with violence.”

The same insight into the heart of the educational process appears in his treatment of the grammar-school curriculum. When we remember the absorbing pre-occupation with classical learning that was the distinctive mark of the Renascence scholars, and the prominence given in consequence to linguistic study in education, we should not wonder if Mulcaster were found acquiescing in some degree in the narrow ideal that exalted knowledge at the expense of faculty, and laid more stress on the interpretation of words than of things. What will rather excite our surprise and admiration is the extent to which he was able to rise above the contemporary estimate of the value of Latin and Greek as instruments of culture. It is from the pen of one whose reputation in his own day was based on his mastery of ancient languages and his success as a teacher of the classics, that we have the clearest statement of the contrast between the indirect, incidental value of linguistic training, and the direct, formative influences of scientific study. “In time all learning may be brought into one tongue, and that naturally understood by all, so that schooling for tongues may prove needless, just as once they were not needed; but it can never fall out that arts and sciences in their essential nature shall be anything but most necessary for every commonwealth that is not utterly barbarous.... The sciences that we term ‘mathematical’ from their very nature always achieve something good, intelligible even to the unlearned, by number, figure, sound, or motion. In the manner of their teaching also they plant in the mind of the learners a habit of resisting the influence of bare probabilities, of refusing to believe in light conjectures, of being moved only by infallible demonstrations.”

It has been stated above that Mulcaster had reached a conception distinctly in advance of his time in regard to the true significance of words, as the signs of realities in the outer world and of the impressions these realities make upon the mind. We may here notice the influence of this conception on his treatment of linguistic study as a means of education. While fully admitting the necessity for acquiring the classical languages as long as these continued to be the only vehicles of learning, he never fails to regret the loss of time absorbed in studying them, and he anticipates with satisfaction the time when modern tongues, and especially his own, will be sufficiently developed and refined to replace Latin and Greek, believing as he does that “all that bravery may be had at home that makes us gaze so much at the fine stranger.” Not that he ever forgets that words are something more than mere symbols, that indeed they come to have a certain objective reality of their own, which must be apprehended as directly as that of any other natural phenomenon. “Do we not learn from words?” he asks. “No marvel if it is so, for a word is a metaphor, a learned translation, something carried over from its original sense to serve in some place where it is even more properly used, and where it may be most significant, if it is properly understood. Take pains to learn from it; you have there a means of gaining knowledge.” But this appreciation of the inner significance of language does not blind him to the fact, apparently unperceived by all his contemporaries, that the unfortunate need for devoting so much time and energy to linguistic study was a very serious hindrance to the natural unfolding of the mental faculties through a reasonable education. In his own words, “we were forced ... to deal with the tongues, ere we pass to the substance of learning; and this help from the tongues, though it is most necessary, as our study is now arranged, yet hinders us in time, which is a thing of great price—nay, it hinders us in knowledge, a thing of greater price. For in lingering over language, we are removed and kept back one degree further from sound knowledge, and this hindrance comes in our best learning time.” And in another passage he bewails the “loss of time over tongues, while you are pilgrims to learning,” and the “lack of sound skill, while language distracts the mind from the sense.” Where could we find a stronger indictment of the Public School tradition that banishes every form of nature study during the “best learning time,” the years when the powers of observation are in their first freshness, for the sake of a premature initiation into the subtleties of Latin Grammar?

We may pass to another important question with which Mulcaster deals in a spirit in harmony with his enlightened conception of general instruction. His assumption that the day-school is the normal arrangement, and that either an entirely private or a boarding-school education requires to be justified by special circumstances, gives him a far wider outlook and a safer standpoint than can be claimed for theorists, whose ideal, like that of Locke, regards only the upbringing of a gentleman’s son at home under a tutor, or, like that of Milton, involves the collection of large numbers in boarding establishments of a conventual nature. This is a matter that is naturally related to the extension of educational opportunities throughout all classes of the community. As long as only a select few were thought fit for learning, residence in the monastery was almost an affair of necessary convenience, but when teaching came to be more widely offered, the day-school became a recognised institution, and such other arrangements as implied greater expenditure were retained only by the rich, as instruments of social exclusiveness. It is in countries where distinctions of rank are comparatively little marked that the day-school system has flourished most, and the partiality shown in Mulcaster’s day for the services of a private tutor, and in subsequent times for the boarding-school, is certainly to be taken in great measure as an assertion of class superiority. Mulcaster was no democrat, but he saw that the rich had more to lose than to gain by arrangements that unduly restricted their experience. Moreover he clearly discerned the importance of the family as the true social unit, the nursery of the virtues that should be developed in the school, and find exercise in the public, as well as the private, conduct of life. It is not his fault that his countrymen have become bound hand and foot to a system under which the vast majority of well-to-do parents hand over their children, body and soul, from the tenderest years to the care of professional upbringers, divesting themselves with a light heart of the most precious responsibilities that nature has conferred on them. “How can education be private?” he asks, “It is an abuse of the name as well as of the thing.” But on the other hand he urges—“All the considerations which persuade people rather to have their children taught at home than along with others outside, especially with regard to their manners and behaviour, form arguments for their boarding at least at home, if the parents will take their position seriously.... They are distinct offices, to be a parent, and a teacher, and the difficulties of upbringing are too serious for all the responsibilities to be thrown into the hands of one alone.”

On the question of the position and standing of the teacher Mulcaster’s contentions were scarcely more timely and just for his own generation than they are for the present time. Though certain ranks of the teaching profession have never been without social consideration, it remains true that teachers as a whole were long regarded as an inferior order of the clergy, who did not reach the goal of their ambition until they had succeeded in leaving their first calling, to take the more tranquil and dignified position of a cure of souls. As he puts it—“The school being used but for a shift, from which they will afterwards pass to some other profession, though it may send out competent men to other careers, remains itself far too bare of talent, considering the importance of the work.” It was only natural that the profession should suffer from this want of independence, in the general esteem, and therefore in its substantial rewards, but the claim which our author puts forward for greater public consideration, is obviously based, not on any petty resentment on behalf of himself or his fellows, but on broad general grounds of social advantage. He had a high sense of the importance of the teacher’s task for the national welfare, and he was anxious on all grounds that those most fitted to fulfil it with success, should in the first place be induced to enter the profession by the prospect of adequate recognition, and in the second place have sufficient opportunity of training to enable them to do justice to it. “I consider that in our universities there should be a special college for the training of teachers, inasmuch as they are the instruments to make or mar the growing generation of the country ... and because the material of their studies is comparable to that of the greatest profession, in respect of language, judgment, skill in teaching, variety in learning, wherein the forming of the mind and exercising of the body require the most careful consideration, to say nothing of the dignity of character which should be expected from them.” Mulcaster, it will here be seen, has good grounds to offer for magnifying his office, and striving to win a place of honour for it in the social economy. Subsequent experience has tended to suggest that his effort to gain greater consideration for his profession was more utopian than could perhaps have appeared to his contemporaries. There are certain general reasons why in a country like ours the teaching profession cannot be expected to reach the solidarity that belongs, for example, to the profession of medicine or of law. The wide economic differences in our civilisation inevitably perpetuate distinctions of rank, which are nowhere more clearly shown than in the choice of schools. It is natural and right that parents should be no less concerned about the companionship they provide for their children than about the quality of the teaching, and since a free and compulsory education has brought into the national schools not only the poorest but the lowest class, those who can afford it must be excused, and even commended, if they take advantage of other opportunities, where some principle of selection is applied. And as there are different classes of children, representing on the whole different kinds of home-upbringing, so there will be different ranks of teachers, varying widely in their status and emoluments. The question of numbers will always among day-schools give the town teacher an advantage over his country brother; the question of fees, in so far as these are not counter-balanced by endowments or State support, will draw the most highly-qualified teachers to the schools that serve the rich; and the secondary teacher will, on the whole, rank above the elementary teacher, partly because greater attainments are required from him, and partly because the higher teaching, requiring a prolonged school course, is demanded chiefly by the well-to-do classes. That this economic differentiation would become so marked could scarcely have been foreseen three centuries ago, and even though it already existed, Mulcaster was doing good service in protesting against its extremer forms. His claim that the elementary teacher is the most important of all, that he should have the smallest classes to deal with, and that he should be the most highly paid, must of course be taken as a counsel of perfection, but if there is no present prospect of its being fully admitted in practice, there is certainly a growing acceptance of the principle underlying it, that the most critical period of education is in the early years, when the first impressions are being received, and that no influence deserves to be so well considered as that which is to call forth an individual response from the awakening intelligence.

Difficult as the attainment of Mulcaster’s ideal of the position of teachers may have been, he was undoubtedly on the right path to seek it, when he advocated that their training should be entrusted to the universities. The demand for adequate preparation is the only reasonable means of securing at once a fitting status, and a reward sufficient to attract the best talent, and the recognition of the work of education as deserving to rank with the other learned professions for which a special academic training is required, is the natural expression of a healthy public sentiment on the matter. The higher the requirements are pitched, the safer will be the guarantee that aspirants will be drawn to the work by a genuine belief in it as their true vocation, for the sake of which it is worth while to make some sacrifice. The atmosphere of a university, moreover, offers the fullest opportunity to the teacher of acquiring the breadth of general culture, and the savoir vivre, in which he is so apt to be deficient.

Mulcaster’s proposals for university reform in general will be found in several important respects to have anticipated the course of subsequent legislation. He wished the State to have a free hand in controlling the uses of private endowments according to the special needs of each generation, as long as the confidence of the original founders was not betrayed, and he was not slow to point out directions where he considered that changes were urgently needed. We know that in his time the condition of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge was far from satisfactory, partly because definite abuses had crept in, and partly because their constitution naturally offered a passive resistance to regulative organisation. Mulcaster’s suggestions all tend to greater concentration of aim and facility of classification. He may have carried his desire for uniformity too far when he advocated the specialisation of every college to a particular study, and even to a particular stage in that study. So far as residence is concerned there is surely no need to forgo the benefits of a varied social intercourse among students of different standing and pursuits, but it cannot be doubted that every effort should be made to counteract the loss this may entail by providing full opportunities throughout the whole university for the emulation of those who are in the same academic position. In Elizabethan days there was not the same freedom of interchange in lectures among the various colleges that now obtains, and Mulcaster was doing good service in deprecating the isolation and dispersion of interest that interfered with progress. We must also commend the discernment he showed in presenting the claims of a definite and comprehensive curriculum in general learning to the attention of those who wished to engage in professional studies, as well as his zeal for the more careful selection of candidates for scholarships, fellowships, and degrees. Nor is it to be forgotten that he was probably the first to suggest the appointment of “readers” in the universities,—an arrangement that was not adopted till almost our own time.

The significance of Mulcaster’s theories may best be appreciated by comparing them with those of the great educational reformer who came next in order of time. The services rendered to the world by Comenius are too well accredited, and too widely acknowledged, to suffer any serious loss of prestige by such a comparison. It has been already urged that true originality in social affairs means an enlightened judgment as to what is possible and desirable for one’s own time and country, and the reform of education had to be worked out and proclaimed for continental Europe on independent lines. It is not likely that Mulcaster’s writings had any direct influence on Comenius, though they could hardly fail to make some contribution to the general stock of ideas that is successively inherited by each generation, and spreads almost imperceptibly over an ever widening area. Even apart from any claim to priority in doctrine, the forcible personality of the Moravian writer, expressing itself in a singularly exhaustive treatment of educational problems and their practical application, will always assure to him an unquestioned authority, while his assertion of the weighty principle that words and things must be taught together, spoken and written signs being constantly associated with the objects, qualities, or actions they represent, is in itself enough to secure him a lasting reputation. But from the national point of view, which in tracing such historical successions it is not unreasonable to assume, we may justly note that there are a considerable number of educational doctrines, now generally accepted among us in theory if not in practice, the earliest formulation of which, though generally ascribed to Comenius, is really to be found in the writings of Richard Mulcaster. More than this, it may be maintained that on several important points a more penetrating insight was shown by our own countryman, in spite of his disadvantage in time. In regard both to the end and the scope of education, for example, a more humanistic conception seems to have been held by Mulcaster. Unlike Comenius, who lays chief stress on the preparation for eternity, he sets forth as the main purpose of youthful training the more proximate aims of self-realisation and useful service to one’s fellowmen. “The end of education and training is to help nature to her perfection in the complete development of all the various powers ... whereby each shall be best able to perform all those functions in life which his position shall require, whether public or private, in the interest of his country in which he was born, and to which he owes his whole service.” And while both writers insist that the rudiments of learning should be taught to children of every social class and of both sexes, the Englishman alone expresses sympathy with the ideal of a higher education for girls where circumstances permit. It would seem also that Mulcaster took the more reasonable view of the relation of a teacher to his class, for his claim that the elementary master should have the smallest number to deal with, at least shows a fuller sense of the importance of individual treatment than is conveyed in the later writer’s dictum that it does not matter how large a class is if the teacher has monitors to help him.

Among the doctrines of Comenius to which his expositors have attached special importance may be numbered the following: that the earliest teaching should be given in the vernacular; that the first subjects taught should be such as give scope to the child’s activity; that knowledge should be communicated through the senses and put to immediate use; that examples should be taught before rules; that the arts should be taught practically; that in language-study grammar should accompany reading and speaking; that learning should be spontaneous and pleasant without undue pressure; that children should not be beaten for failure in study, but only for moral offences; and that education should follow in general the guidance of nature. These principles now rank among the commonplaces of educational method, and in so far as their acceptance has been furthered by the persuasive advocacy of Comenius the gratitude of the world is due to him; but why should Englishmen forget that they had all been proclaimed with unmistakable clearness in this country half a century earlier? Readers of the foregoing pages must be already convinced that the doctrines in question form an essential part of Mulcaster’s theory of education; but it may be worth while to recall in a connected form a few of the more striking passages in which they are expressed. On the use of the vernacular in the early years: “As for the question whether English or Latin should be first learned, hitherto there may seem to have been some reasonable doubt, although the nature of the two tongues ought to decide the matter clearly enough, ... but now ... we can follow the direction of reason and nature in learning to read first that which we speak first, to take most care over that which we use most, and in beginning our studies where we have the best chance of good progress, owing to our natural familiarity with our ordinary language, as spoken by those around us in the affairs of everyday life.” No particular quotation is needed to illustrate Mulcaster’s dependence for his elementary training on studies that called forth individual effort from the child, for the course he planned includes no other kind of occupation, but the following sentences may stand for a proof that he recognised the natural channels through which knowledge is acquired and utilised in the guidance of action: “Nature has ... given us for self-preservation the power of perceiving all sensible things by means of feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting. These qualities of the outward world, being apprehended by the understanding and examined by the judgment, are handed over to the memory, and afterwards prove our chief—nay, our only—means of obtaining further knowledge.... To serve the end both of sense-perception and of motion, nature has planted in the body a brain, the prince of all our organs, which by spreading its channels through every part of our frame, produces all the effects through which sense passes into motion.” On the point of subordinating rules to the imitation of examples, and learning the arts by practically engaging in them, Mulcaster writes: “Children know not what they do, much less why they do it, till reason grow into some ripeness in them, and therefore in their training they profit more by practice than by knowing why, till they feel the use of reason, which teaches them to consider causes.... When the end of any art is wholly in doing, the initiation should be short, so as not to hinder that end by keeping the learners too long musing upon rules.... We must keep carefully that rule of Aristotle which teaches that the best way to learn anything well which has to be done after it is learned, is always to be a-doing while we are a-learning.” To the question of the best method in linguistic study, Mulcaster was ready to apply this principle of learning directly through practice, and his sense of the proper place of grammatical knowledge is shown in the following passage: “Grammar in itself is but the bare rule, and a very naked thing.... In grammar, which is the introduction to speech, there should be no such length as is customary, because its end is to write and to speak, and in doing this as much as possible we learn our grammar best, when it is applied to matter and not clogged with rules. As for understanding writers, that comes with years and ripeness of intelligence, not by means of the rules of grammar.” It has already been seen that Mulcaster shared fully in the humaner views upon the treatment of children that were beginning to assert themselves in his day; but it is interesting to notice that he based his conviction not only on the general claims of sympathy, but also on grounds of purely educational expediency. “These three things—perception, memory, and judgment—ye will find peering out of the little young souls. Now these natural capacities being once discovered must as they arise be followed with diligence, increased by good method and encouraged by sympathy, till they come to their fruition. The best way to secure good progress, so that the intelligence may conceive clearly, memory may hold fast, and judgment may choose and discern the best, is so to ply them that all may proceed voluntarily, and not with violence, so that the will may be ready to do well and loth to do ill, and all fear of correction may be entirely absent. Surely to beat for not learning a child that is willing enough to learn, but whose intelligence is defective, is worse than madness.... Beating must only be for ill-behaviour, not for failure in learning.” Finally we must admit that the principle urged by Comenius, and afterwards pushed to an extreme by Rousseau and Froebel, of following the guidance of nature in planning the procedure of instruction was explicitly stated by Mulcaster. “The third proof of a good elementary course was that it should follow nature in the multitude of its gifts, and that it should proceed in teaching as she does in developing. For as she is unfriendly wherever she is forced, so she is the best guide that anyone can have, wherever she shows herself favourable.”

It not infrequently happens that the doctrines of a notable reformer, while they are full of light and leading for his contemporaries, have no more than a historical interest for succeeding generations. The rapidity of their absorption in the general current of established theory must be largely determined by the strength of the influence with which they were first asserted, so that in one aspect it may be said that the more potent the impress of the original mind, the sooner will its individual effects become imperceptible. But it would be as rash to make this rule the measure of an estimate of relative greatness, without taking account of other contributing conditions, as it would be unreasonable to be misled into the opposite error of undervaluing proposals which had only a temporary fitness and are of no present significance. In truth it is a good deal a matter of accident whether the words of wisdom which fall from men of genius and insight bear fruit early or late, and while distance in time offers a vantage-ground for the just assignment of the tributes of admiration and gratitude, the question of immediate applicability must not bulk too largely among the elements on which our judgment of a reputation is based. As has been already suggested, Mulcaster lost his opportunity of speedy acceptance for his ideals through his inability to commend them with persuasive eloquence, though such an impediment to appreciation is happily not irremovable. The more searching investigation of our time into the history of educational thought might or might not have discovered a high present value in the aspirations to which he gave somewhat inadequate expression, without his title to fame being materially affected. But it will undoubtedly give to his writings a great additional interest if it should appear that they set forth lessons which the three intervening centuries have failed to learn, and which are still clamouring for acceptance in our own day.

It would not be difficult to show that many of the reforms which he urged and anticipated, while they have been formally admitted as necessary or expedient, have as yet made little way in leavening the whole mass of educational practice. There is good reason to maintain, for example, that the impartial diffusion of the opportunities of learning throughout all classes of the community, which was a fundamental part of Mulcaster’s gospel, has been much less completely realised among us than is generally supposed. We are apt to rest satisfied with the idea of universal education without over-careful a scrutiny into the nature of what is offered in its name. In so far as elementary instruction was concerned Mulcaster drew no distinction between rich and poor, between those of gentle and of lowly birth; all were to have the same treatment, irrespective of the uses to which their knowledge might afterwards be turned. Our State system of education may profess to carry out this aim, but the justice of the claim must be denied so long as the nature and quality of what is forcibly imposed upon the mass of the people is seriously at fault. Our system of public elementary education in this country, however efficiently it may be organised, fails entirely to provide a sound general training owing to its adoption of a curriculum that is unduly utilitarian in aim. It is undeniable that this is largely due to an implicit caste feeling which prescribes that the education of the masses shall fit them directly for the performance of certain industrial tasks in a state of economic subjection. The well-to-do citizen wishes his own child, even from the first, to be taught differently from the child of poorer parents, whose schooling he helps to pay for and has some share in regulating. The course of study he chooses may be no better,—in some respects it is undoubtedly worse; but at least it is different, and conforms to the conventional standard of a liberal training for life as a whole. The codes drawn up for our national system are not framed for any such purpose. Partly from ingrained class prejudice, partly to get tangible results to show for the public money expended, and partly from a benevolent but short-sighted regard for supposed utilities, we have overburdened the curriculum with the more mechanical parts of learning. We put too much of the drudgery into the years when we can make sure of the children, so that a minimum of interest is taken in the work for its own sake, with the result that when the compulsory term is reached, the great majority of them use their liberty to throw aside their books for ever. While this reproach remains just, can we say that the ideal of a true universal elementary education has yet been reached?

It is perhaps idle to expect any equalisation of opportunities by postponing every kind of specialism to a period beyond the elementary stage, until there is a more general agreement as to what constitutes a liberal education. If we apply the touchstone of Mulcaster’s conception, how much of the traditional lumber which is now obstructing our progress would have to be cleared away! We are the bond-slaves of two tyrants—the spirit of an outworn classicism and the spirit of a utilitarianism falsely so-called. Under the domination of the former we distort the curriculum of our higher-class schools, preparatory as well as secondary, by projecting into the elementary period and practically imposing on every scholar linguistic studies that should form a specialism only for a very few during the later years of school life. Misguided by the latter we debase our public primary education by filling up the time with subjects of mere information that neither arouse the interests of the learner nor afford a genuine mental discipline. It would indeed astound the Elizabethan schoolmaster who tolerated pre-occupation with the learned tongues only until his native English should reach a high enough point of cultivation to become a worthy receptacle of learning, and who lamented the temporary need for a medium which kept the student “one degree further off from knowledge” to find that after more than 300 years the shackles had not yet been cast aside. Nor would he be less dismayed to discover that the sole alternative offered to those who were excluded from what professed to be a liberal culture, consisted only to a very small extent of that direct knowledge of the facts and laws of Nature which he conceived to be the proper food during “our best learning time,” but mainly of the dry bones of second-hand experience. Mulcaster’s ideal will not be attained until we have devised a course of study up to the age of at least 14 or 15 years, which shall form a preparation for life that is applicable to all pupils alike—to boys and girls, to rich and poor, to those who can pursue their systematic education further, and to those who must discontinue it then to enter into the world of affairs.

Enough perhaps has been already said, though it would be an easy task to continue the catalogue of reforms suggested by Mulcaster, which have been approved by the consensus of judgment among thinkers on education, but have not yet been fully carried out in this country. When we remember the over-pressure and cramming that have resulted from the abuse of examinations in the treatment of learning as a marketable commodity subject to the severest struggles of competition; or the widespread neglect of the arts and sciences as instruments of general training; or the unholy separation of parents and children during the most critical years of mutual influence, through the acceptance of the boarding-school system as a normal institution; or the anomalous position of teachers, left as they are without recognition as members of an acknowledged profession, and having to depend for their training on the voluntary provision made by religious sects,—when we reflect that on these and on many kindred matters of high urgency the wisest guidance was offered to us more than three centuries ago, we shall have little hesitation in admitting the claim of Richard Mulcaster to be considered the Father of English Pedagogy.

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