[7] This became a fixed practice, Latin being the one language of the school. A century later, when it was attempted by the Jansenists, in France, to teach Greek directly through the vernacular, the practice was loudly condemned by the Jesuits as impious, because it broke the connection between France and Rome.
[8] His phrase book, De Copia Verborum et Rerum, went through sixty editions in his lifetime, and was popular for a century after his death. His book of proverbs, the Adagia, was in both Latin and Greek, and was widely used. His Book of Sayings from the Ancients (Apophthegmata) was a collection of little stories, much like some of our best modern books for elementary-school use. His Colloquies, or Latin dialogues, were widely used for two centuries in Protestant countries. These four were written between 1511 and 1519, and largely for use in Saint Paul's School. His Latin edition of Theodorus Gaza's Greek Grammar (1516) gave English schools for the first time a standard text.
[9] They were On the First Liberal Education of Children (1529), and On the Order of Study (1511).
[10] His Praise of Folly (1509), and his Ciceronian (1528).
[11] The introduction of the new learning into the English universities was easier than elsewhere, because the English universities had broken up into groups of residence halls, known as colleges. If the old colleges could not be reformed new ones could be created, and this took place. Trinity College, at Cambridge, founded in 1540, was from the first a center of humanistic studies. That same year the King founded royal professorships of Civil Law, Hebrew, and Greek at Cambridge.
[12] Elizabeth had had for her tutor Roger Ascham, author of The Scholemaster, and a teacher of Greek at Cambridge (R. 139).
[13] For generations this famous grammar was to England what Donatus was to mediaeval Europe. It was also used in the grammar schools of New England. Lily visited Jerusalem and studied under the best Latin teachers in Rome, so that he ranks with Linacre, Grocyn, and Colet as an introducer of classical culture into England.
[14] Winchester was the first of the so-called "great public schools" of England, of which Eton, Saint Paul's, Westminster, Harrow, Charterhouse, Rugby, Shrewsbury, and Merchant Taylors' are the other eight. The foundation statutes of Winchester made elaborate provision for "a Warden, a Head Master, ten Fellows, three Chaplains, an Usher, seventy scholars, three Chapel Clerks, sixteen Choristers, and a large staff of servants," as did Henry VIII later on for Canterbury (R. l72 a). The Warden and Fellows were the trustees. In addition to the seventy scholars (Foundationers) other non-foundationers (Commoners) were to be admitted to instruction. The admission requirements were to be "reading, plain song, and Old Donatus," and the school was to teach Grammar, the first of the Liberal Arts. Except for the change in the nature of the instruction when the new learning came in, this and the other "public schools" remained almost unchanged until the second half of the nineteenth century.
[15] Statutes for this school had provided the following entrance regulations: "But first see that they can the Catechisme in English or Latyn, that every one of the said two hundred & fifty schollers can read perfectly & write competently, or els lett them not be admitted in no wise."
[16] His The Positions (1581), and The Elementarie (1582). See Chapter XVIII.