That pens other than quill were in use is evidenced by an advertisement re a lost pocket-book, which contained 'a Brass Pen.'
Stenography was practised somewhat extensively, to judge by the numerous advertisements; but William Mason, living at the Hand and Pen, in the Poultry, claimed to be 'the Author and Teacher of the shortest Shorthand extant.'
And yet, with all these scholastic advantages, some boys would not be happy; but, as boys have done ever since boarding schools have been invented, they sometimes ran away. Vide the following advertisements: 'A Gentleman's only Child is run from School; he is about 12 years of Age, with light Cloaths lin'd with red, a well favour'd brisk Boy, with a fair old Wig: speaks a little thro' the Scots, his Name Alex Mackdonald: he has been in Spain and Portugal, which makes his Parents fear that some Ship may entertain him.' Whoever captured this lad was to be 'sufficiently rewarded,' whilst the next runaway was only valued at 'half a guinea and charges,' although he was dressed so smartly: 'A little slim, fair hair'd handsome English Boy, who speaks French very well, between 11 and 12 Years of Age, with a sad colour, coarse Kersay Coat trim'd with flat new Gilded Brass Buttons, with a whitish Calla-manca Waistcoat with round Plate Silver Buttons, and a little Silver Edging to his Hat, with fine white Worsted rowl'd Stockings, and with Silver Plate Buttons to his sad colour Sagathy Stuff Britches: went away from School on Thursday, the 6th Inst. Supposed to be gone towards Wapping, Rotherif, Greenwich, or Gravesend, he having been seen near the Thames Side asking for a Master to go to sea.' Curious how, in every century since Elizabeth's time, the runaway English boy naturally flies to the water. Always the same tale: ran away and went to sea. Here were two well-nurtured lads, more than ordinarily accomplished, yet they were bitten by this same tarantula.
Let the Spectator describe the rising generation of that time after they had finished their academic career and had gone to the university. In No. 54, attributed to Steele, speaking of Cambridge, he says, 'Now for their manner of living: and here I shall have a large field to expatiate in; but I shall reserve particulars for my intended discourse, and now only mention one or two of their principal exercises. The elder proficients employ themselves in inspecting mores hominum multorum, in getting acquainted with all the signs and windows in the town. Some have arrived to so great knowledge, that they can tell every time a butcher kills a calf, every time any old woman's cat is in the straw; and a thousand matters as important. One ancient philosopher contemplates two or three hours every day over a sun-dial; and is true to the dial.
As the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shone upon.
Our younger students are content to carry their speculation as yet no further than bowling greens, billiard tables, and such like places.'
Of the reading men, he says, 'They were ever looked upon as a people that impaired themselves more by their strict application to the rules of their order than any other students whatever. Others seldom hurt themselves any further than to gain weak eyes, and sometimes headaches; but these philosophers are seized all over with a general inability, indolence, and weariness, and a certain impatience of the place they are in, with an heaviness in removing to another.
'The loungers are satisfied with being merely part of the number of mankind, without distinguishing themselves from amongst them. They may be said rather to suffer their time to pass than to spend it, without regard to the past or prospect of the future. All they know of life is only in the present instant, and do not taste even that. When one of this order happens to be a man of fortune, the expense of his time is transferred to his coach and horses, and his life is to be measured by their motion, not his own enjoyments or sufferings. The chief entertainment one of these philosophers can possibly propose to himself is to get a relish of dress. This, methinks, might diversify the person he is weary of, his own dear self, to himself. I have known these two amusements make one of these philosophers make a tolerable figure in the world; with variety of dresses in public assemblies in town, and quick motion of his horses out of it, now to Bath, now to Tunbridge, then to Newmarket, and then to London, he has, in process of time, brought it to pass, that his coach and his horses have been mentioned in all these places.' And this description, with a little alteration, would pass as a fair reflex of modern undergraduate existence at either Oxford or Cambridge.
Before closing the question of male education, we must not forget that in Queen Anne's time was inaugurated that system of charity schools which has played so prominent a part in our national system of education, and which has not yet been superseded by our Board Schools. Steele (Spectator, 380) notices this movement—
'St. Bride's, May 15, 1712.