The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England during Tudor and Stuart Times / With an Introductory Chapter on the Preceding Period

by K. Rebillon Lambley

In addition to reading and translating, much importance was attached to pronunciation. It was generally considered best to learn the sounds of the language by repetition after a teacher with a good accent; but rules were thought necessary to confirm the knowledge thus acquired. As to rules of grammar, there was no question of learning the language by means of them. A grammar was treated as a book of reference, just as a dictionary. Thus the student usually learnt the pronunciation by reading the French aloud with his tutor, referring to the rules of pronunciation whenever necessary, and then translating and retranslating the dialogues, grammar being supplied as the need for it was felt. Although these early teachers strictly limited the place of grammar, they almost all agree in emphasizing its importance within the limits indicated. Grammar rules were reduced to a minimum. Attention was called to what were considered important general rules, but those with numerous exceptions, it is argued, were better learnt by "use" and persistent reading, "so as not to weary with long discourses which would be necessary to explain things learnt better by practice than by rule."

The dialogue form in which almost all the reading material is given, and the proverbs and familiar phrases, show the importance attached to a practical and colloquial knowledge of the language. The teaching of French was of a decidedly business-like nature, and closely in touch with the concerns of life. One of the chief reasons for this, no doubt, was that it was learnt for social or other immediate requirements. The fact that French was not taught in the grammar schools undoubtedly assisted it to maintain its close connexion with practical life. It is only about a century and a half later, when French began to gain a foothold in these schools, that it was taught more and more on grammatical lines, and less and less as a living language.

Latin, although most of the school statutes of the time encourage the scholars to speak it, was taught chiefly on grammatical lines.[451] The memorizing of Latin grammar was a foremost subject even in the Middle Ages.[452] LATIN AND FRENCHIn the sixteenth century the Latin grammar usually known as Lily's was the prescribed national grammar, with rules of accidence in English and of syntax in Latin.[453] Familiar dialogues in the style of those for French were also used, the chief difference between the Latin and French dialogues being that the Latin are separate and complete works in themselves, and are not, as a rule, provided with an English translation. They were memorized as the grammar was. From the dialogues, or colloquies as they were called, dealing with typical occurrences of life, the Latin scholar passed on to the reading of school authors—Cato, Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Terence, etc.[454] Nor was vocabulary neglected, for in the schools of the Renaissance the practice of learning so many words a day, prevalent in the Middle Ages, was still in vogue.

It thus appears that the books generally used in teaching Latin were not without some influence in determining the types of manuals employed for teaching French. The practice of including religious formulae, which we find in some books, was sanctioned by their place in the national Latin grammar, while it is clear that the Latin colloquia of the time had considerable influence on the French dialogues. In the early sixteenth century the dialogues of the scholar Vives,[455] who received honours at both Oxford and Cambridge during his short stay in England, were much in vogue. Like the French dialogues of the time, they kept closely in touch with the interests of the pupils and dealt with such topics as rising in the morning, going to school, returning home, and children's play and meals, and students' chatter. Similar works were the Sententiae pueriles,[456] a book for beginners, first published at Leipzig in 1544, and containing a collection of familiar phrases rather than dialogues, and the Pueriles Confabulatiunculae by Evaldus Gallus. In the second half of the sixteenth century two other manuals of conversation were added to those already in use in England: the Colloquia of Mathurin Cordier, first published in Latin in 1564, and Castellion's Sacred Dialogues based on the Scriptures, printed in Latin at Basle, in 1555.[457]

With the text-books, however, all close resemblance between the teaching of Latin in grammar schools and the teaching of French ends. As we have seen, reading, pronunciation, and conversation were the main concerns of the French student; translation held a large place and grammar rules a subsidiary one. The grammar-school boy, on the contrary, would first gain an elementary knowledge from rules written in English, and memorize the vocabulary and phrases; learn his Latin grammar, and then parse and construe[458] the usual school authors.[459] The sons of the aristocracy and well-to-do classes probably learnt by a more practical method, as they were able to have private tutors, who devoted all their time to providing the necessary atmosphere. As late as 1607, when Latin was less used colloquially, the writer Cleland, a great advocate of the teaching of French, condemns the practice of those parents who have their children brought up to speak Latin only; they neglect their mother tongue and the language of elegance, French, and soon forget their Latin when once removed from their tutor's care.[460] That such cases were the exception rather than the rule, even in the early sixteenth century, may be gathered from the two great educational writers of the time, Sir Thomas Elyot and Roger Ascham. Both the Governour (1531) and the Scholemaster are protests against the common school usage of placing grammar in the first place, and a summons to base the study of the language on the reading of authors. They believed with Quintilian that "Longum et difficile iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla." Colet in his Aeditio had laid down the same principle, to the effect that the "reading of good books, dyligent information of taught masters, studious advertence and taking heed of learners, hearing eloquent men speak, and finally busy imitation with the tongue and pen, more availeth shortly GRAMMAR AND TRANSLATIONto get the true eloquent speech than all the tradition of rule and precepts of masters"; and he adds, "men spoke not Latin because such rules were made, but contrariwise because men spoke such Latin, upon that followed the rules and so were made."[461] Yet it seems that the force of tradition prevailed, and that these precepts were only put into practice in exceptional cases.

It is striking to notice how close was the resemblance between the actual methods used by French teachers and those advocated by would-be reformers of the teaching of Latin. Colet's words express almost exactly the sentiments and practice of Holyband, De la Mothe, and other French teachers; and the same is true of Elyot and Ascham. "Nothing can be more convenient," writes Elyot in referring to students of Latin, "than by little and little to train and exercise them in the speaking of Latin, informing them to know first the names in Latin of all the things that come in sight, and to name all the parts of their bodies, and giving them somewhat that they covert or desire in most gentle manner to teach them to ask it again in Latin." He even goes so far as to say that the pupil may "as sone speake good latin" on this method "as he may do pure frenche,"[462] thereby showing that he probably derived suggestions from the prevalent methods of teaching French. Elyot, however, realized that the use of Latin as a familiar tongue was not as practicable in schools as in many noble families, where it might well happen that the pupil would have "none other persons to serve him or keep hym company but suche as can speake Latine elegantly." How successful the sole use of Latin could be in such circumstances is exemplified in the well-known case of Montaigne. Ascham, like Elyot, recognized the exceptional conditions required for such a method. He believed the "dailie use of speaking" would be the best way of learning the language if the child could only hear it spoken perfectly, but failing this he considered the practice dangerous.[463] It is probable, however, that in the best French schools, and certainly in that of Holyband, this ideal was realized in the case of French.

As regards the respective importance of reading and grammar, the French teachers of the time appear to have put into practice the ideas of the reformers. All agree that grammar rules should be as few as possible, and be taught in connexion with reading. The general method of French teachers was to refer to the rule as the need for it arose in reading. Ascham also pleads for the study of grammar, "so hardlie learned by the scholar in all common scholes," along with authors; and the educational reformer Mulcaster, in his Elementarie of 1582, writes that grammar is best learnt by being applied to the matter, and that the child's mind should not be clogged with rules. Elyot differs slightly from them in detail but not in principle. He allows grammar to precede the study of authors, provided it is reduced to the smallest possible amount. "Grammar," he says, "being but an introduction to the study of authors," care should be taken "not to detain the child too longe in that tedious labour, for a gentyll wytte is there with some fatigate," and "hit in a maner mortifieth his corage" before he "cometh to the most swete and pleasant readinge of olde authors."[464] Both these views as regards grammar—that of Ascham and Mulcaster, and that of Elyot—were prevalent among French teachers of the time. There are only small differences in detail; the general principles are identical.

In the matter of translation, "most common and most commendable of all other exercises of youth,"[465] there is a striking resemblance between the method of double translation common among French teachers, and the same method set out by Ascham, who marks the transition from oral to written methods of teaching Latin.[466] In the case of De la Mothe, the resemblance is so clear and close that we are led to believe he was acquainted with the work of Elizabeth's tutor,[467] published in 1570, over twenty years before the French Alphabet. Ascham's system consisted of the double translation of a model book, and it is interesting to compare it with the method of De la Mothe. The pupil has first to parse and translate the Latin into English; "after this the child must take a paper booke, and sitting in some place where no man shall prompe him, by him self, let him translate into Englisshe his former lesson. Then showing it to his master, let the BOOKS IN FRENCH AND ENGLISHmaster take from him his Latin booke, and pausing an houre, at the least, than let the childe translate his owne Englishe into latin againe, in an other paper booke." And when this is done, the master should compare it with the original Latin, "and laie them both togither."[468]

There was thus much in common between the teaching of Latin and the teaching of French. The dialogues, which form so important a feature in the French text-books of the time, were certainly indebted to the Latin Colloquia, although they also continue the tradition of the mediaeval French conversation-books. The Latin Dialogues of Vives had much influence on the French, and Holyband based one of his books, the Campo di Fior, on the Exercitatio translated in French, Italian, and English. Eliote also acknowledged his debt to the Spanish scholar. In other cases the debt was almost inevitable and probably unconscious; for the French teachers, who often taught Latin as well, would use such books daily, and had moreover probably acquired their own knowledge of Latin from them. Holyband, we have seen, read the Sententiae pueriles with his pupils.

The importance attached to reading and double translation by teachers of French led to the appearance of a great number of books in French and English, on the lines of Bellot's Jardin de Vertu. For instance, part of the Semaines of Du Bartas, the most popular French poet in England in the sixteenth century, was published in this form in 1596, and again in 1625, on the occasion of the marriage of Charles I. This translation is due to William L'Isle of Wilbraham,[469] the pioneer in the study of Anglo-Saxon, who dedicated it in the first place to Lord Howard of Effingham, Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admiral, and subsequently to Charles I. It is entitled Part of Du Bartas, English and French, and in his own kinde of verse, so near the French Englished, as may teach Englishmen French, or a Frenchman English. Sequitur Victoria Junctos,[470] and consists of the first two days of the Second Week, with the French and English arranged on opposite pages, followed by an English translation of the commentary of Simon Goulart de Senlis.