It will be noted that the expressed aim of Vives is to help boys who are learning to speak the Latin language. For this purpose, Vives realised that the method must be conversational, that the style of speech must be clear, correct, and as far as possible based on classical models, and that the subject-matter must consist of topics interesting to children and connected with their daily life. The Prince Philip, to whom the Dialogues are dedicated, it should be noted, was afterwards Philip II., the consort of the English Queen Mary I., daughter of Catharine of Aragon.
Contents of the Dialogues
The German historian of Latin School-Dialogues, Dr. Bömer, speaks of the characteristic power of Vives in introducing, in relatively short space, the ordinary daily life of boys, and tracking it into the smallest corners. “If a boy is putting on his clothes, we learn every single article of clothing, and all the topics of toilettes and the names of each object (Dialogues I. and XI.). When two school-boys pay a visit to a stranger’s house, we have shown to us its whole inner arrangement by an expert guide (XII.). Interesting observations are made on the different parts of the human body by a painter, Albert Dürer (XXIII.). With a banquet as the occasion, we are introduced to the equipment of a dining-room (XVI.), with ordinary kinds of foods and drinks (XVII.), and if we like we can betake ourselves to the cook in the kitchen and watch the direction of operations (XV.).[xxiii] We are told in another Dialogue (XVIII.) of a man’s fear to go home to his wife after too liberal a banquet, and how she would entertain him with longer homilies than those of St. Chrysostom. When a company of scholars wish to make a distant excursion, all kinds of horses and carriages, with their trappings, are presented to the notice of the reader (IX.).”[6] Then, to show us life under the most favourable of circumstances, Vives gives a dialogue on the King’s Palace (XIX.).
Whilst the general environments of boys’ lives are thus pourtrayed in considerable detail, Vives is particularly careful to show boys the general features and significance of home and school life, and regards it as part of his duty to expound, in the last two dialogues, some general guiding principles of education for the boys, their teachers, and readers of the book to ponder over.
Home and School Life
The first dialogue treats of getting up in the morning. The girl Beatrice tries to rouse the two boys Emanuel and Eusebius, the latter of whom makes the excuse, “I seem to have my eyes full of sand,” to which Beatrice replies, “That is always your morning song.” Then the boys dress. Beatrice enjoins them, “Kneel down before this image of our Saviour and say the Lord’s Prayer, etc. Take care, my Emanuel, that you think of nothing else while you are praying.” The interchange of wit between the boys and the maid is an interesting picture of child-life. In the second dialogue, after family morning greetings, which include playing with the little dog Ruscio, the father teaches his [xxiv]little boy the difference between the little dog and a little boy. “What have you,” he asks his child, “in you why you should become a man and not he?” He suggests to him that the difference really is contained in the magic word “school.” The boy says: “I will go, father, with all the pleasure in the world.” Whereupon the boy’s elder sister gets him his little satchel and puts him up his breakfast (i.e., lunch) in it. The father takes the boy to the school, and (in III.) discusses with a neighbour the comparative merits of the schoolmasters Varro and Philoponus. The father is told that Philoponus has the smaller number of boys, and at once decides: “I should prefer him!” Then as Philoponus comes into view, he turns to his boy, saying: “Son, this is as it were the laboratory for the formation of men, and Philoponus is the artist-educator. Christ be with you, Master! Uncover your head, my boy, and bow your right knee.... Now stand up!”
Philoponus. May your coming to us be a blessing to all! What may be your business?
Father. I bring you this boy of mine for you to make of him a man from the beast.
Philoponus. This shall be my earnest endeavour. He shall become a man from the beast, a fruitful and good creature out of a useless one. Of that have no doubt.
Father. What is the charge for the instruction you give?
Philoponus. If the boy makes good progress it will be little; if not, a good deal.
Father. That is acutely and wisely said, as is all you say. We share the responsibility then; you to instruct zealously, I to recompense your labour richly.
It will thus be seen that the idea of co-operation and consultation of parents and teachers is no new one.[7] But the enthusiasm of the parent, depicted by Vives, to recompense [xxv]the teacher “richly” can hardly be said to have continued, if it existed in the Tudor age, outside of Vives’ generous heart.
The next dialogue (IV.) shows how boys loitered on the way to school, their difference in powers, and in the practice of observations and the self-training of the senses and wits in the streets, such as made R. L. Stevenson wonder if the truant from school did not gain more by his self-chosen though casual wanderings than if he had gone orderly to school.
An account of actual school-work in the subjects of reading (V.) and writing (X.) is given, and the raison d’être of school instruction in these subjects suggested. The boys go home (VI.) and a most pleasing picture is given of home-life, with the mother, the boys, the girls, and the serving maiden, introducing children’s games and the interference of meals with games.