The writer then warns the boys he is addressing to behave themselves when leaving school. On their way home they would do well to walk two and two, and “not in heaps, like a swarm of bees.” Another educator, Old Symon, in his “Lesson of Wysedom for all maner chyldryn,” urges diligence and plodding upon his pupils, with a jest as to possible positions to which the student may in time attain.
“And lerne as faste as thou can,
For our byshop is an old man,
And therfor thou must lerne faste
If thou wilt be byshop when he is past.”
It is unnecessary to pursue the subject of the education of the parochial clergy further. After his elementary education had been received in the schools, the student’s preparation for the reception of Orders was continued and completed at the Universities. The ordinary course here was lengthy. Grammar, which included Latin and literature with rhetoric and logic, occupied four years. The student was then admitted a Bachelor. In the case of clerical students this was followed by seven years’ training before the Bachelor’s degree in Theology was bestowed, and only after a further three years’ study of the Bible, and after the candidate had lectured at least on some one book of the Scriptures, was he considered to have earned his degree of Doctor in Theology.
ACOLYTHES
SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM