‘Albeit many have written, and have made certain introductions into Latin speech, called Donates and Accidens, in Latin tongue and in English; in such plenty that it should seem to suffice, yet nevertheless, for the love and zeal that I have to the new school of Paul’s, and to the children of the same, I have also ... of the eight parts of grammar made this little book.... In which, if any new things be of me, it is alonely that I have put these “parts” in a more clear order, and I have made them a little more easy to young wits, than (methinketh) they were before: judging that nothing may be too soft, nor too familiar for little children, specially learning a tongue unto them all strange. In which little book I have left many things out of purpose, considering the tenderness and small capacity of little minds....[378] I pray God all may be to his honour, and to the erudition and profit of children, my countrymen Londoners specially, whom, digesting this little work, I had always before mine eyes, considering more what was for them than to show any great cunning; willing to speak the things often before spoken, in such manner as gladly young beginners and tender wits might take and conceive. Wherefore I pray you, all little babes, all little children, learn gladly this little treatise, and commend it diligently unto your memories, trusting of this beginning that ye shall proceed and grow to perfect literature, and come at the last to be great clerks. And lift up your little white hands for me, which prayeth for you to God, to whom be all honour and imperial majesty and glory. Amen.’
The man who, having spent his patrimony in the foundation of a school, could write such a preface as this to one of his schoolbooks, was not likely to insist ‘upon having none but flogging masters.’
Colet will not trouble them with many rules.
Moreover, this preface was followed by a short note, addressed to his ‘well-beloved masters and teachers of grammar,’ in which, by way of apology for its brevity, and the absence of the endless rules and exceptions found in most grammars, he tells them: ‘In the beginning men spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, contrariwise, because men spake such Latin the rules were made. That is to say, Latin speech was before the rules, and not the rules before the Latin speech.’ And therefore the best way to learn ‘to speak and write clean Latin is busily to learn and read good Latin authors, and note how they wrote and spoke.’ ‘Wherefore,’ he concludes, ‘after “the parts of speech” sufficiently known in your schools, read and expound plainly unto your scholars good authors, and show to them every word, and in every sentence what they shall note and observe; warning them busily to follow and to do like, both in writing and in speaking, and be to them your own self also, speaking with them the pure Latin, very present, and leave the rules. For reading of good books, diligent information of taught masters, studious advertence and taking heed of learners, hearing eloquent men speak, and finally busy imitation with tongue and pen, more availeth shortly to get the true eloquent speech, than all the traditions, rules, and precepts of masters.’
Lilly’s Epigram.
Nor would it seem that Colet’s first headmaster, at all events, failed to appreciate the practical common-sense and gentle regard for the ‘tenderness of little minds,’ which breathes through these prefaces; for at the end of them he himself added this epigram:—
Pocula si linguæ cupias gustare Latinæ,
Quale tibi monstret, ecce Coletus iter!
Non per Caucaseos montes, aut summa Pyrene;
Te ista per Hybleos sed via ducit agros.[379]
II. HIS CHOICE OF SCHOOLBOOKS AND SCHOOLMASTERS (1511).
Linacre’s rejected Grammar.
‘Lilly’s Grammar.’
The mention of Colet’s ‘Latin Grammar’ suggests one of the difficulties in the way of carrying out of his projected school, his mode of surmounting which was characteristic of the spirit in which he worked. It was not to be expected that he should find the schoolbooks of the old grammarians in any way adapted to his purpose. So at once he set his learned friends to work to provide him with new ones. The first thing wanted was a Latin Grammar for beginners. Linacre undertook to provide this want, and wrote with great pains and labour a work in six books, which afterwards came into general use. But when Colet saw it, at the risk of displeasing his friend, he put it altogether aside. It was too long and too learned for his ‘little beginners.’ So he condensed within the compass of a few pages two little treatises, an ‘Accidence’ and a ‘Syntax,’ in the preface to the first of which occur the gentle words quoted above.[380] These little books, after receiving additions from the hands of Erasmus, Lilly, and others, finally became generally adopted and known as Lilly’s Grammar.[381]