Bantu. Oui, monsieur.
Lady Lurewell. Heyday! French too! Why, sure, sir, you could never be bred at Oxford!
To the same intent Pepys relates[555] how an Oxford scholar, "in a Doctor of Lawe's gowne," whom he met at dinner at the Spanish ambassador's, sat like a fool for want of French, "though a gentle sort of scholar"; nor could he speak the ambassador's language, but only Latin, which he spoke like an Englishman. Pepys, on the other hand, was very pleased at the display he was able to make of his own French on this occasion. The famous diarist was a competent judge, and spoke and wrote the language with ease. Unfortunately we know nothing of how he acquired this knowledge, beyond the fact that he had not been to France.[556] ONE-SIDEDNESS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONHe often criticizes the French of those he meets, and a certain Dr. Pepys, according to him, "spoke the worst French he had ever heard from one who had been beyond sea." Pepys's brother spoke French, "very plain and good," and Mrs. Pepys, the daughter of a refugee Huguenot, was as familiar with that language as with English.[557]
Thus the universities, like the schools, failed to keep in touch with practical life by their neglect of the broader education necessary to persons of quality and fashion. At the Inns of Court, where gentlemen usually spent some time on leaving the university,[558] or where they sometimes went instead of to the university,[559] the state of things was somewhat better. Some knowledge of French was indispensable to those studying the law, and the position of the Inns, almost all of them within the boundaries of the ward of Farringdon Without, the favourite abode of the French teachers, was such as to offer exceptional facilities for the study of the language. When Robert Ashley was at the Inner Temple he studied Spanish, Italian, and Dutch, as well as French. We are told[560] that in earlier times "knights, barons, and the greatest nobility of the kingdom often placed their children in those Inns of Court, not so much to make the laws their study, much less to live by the profession ... but to form their manners and to preserve them from contagion of vice." There, could be found "a sort of gymnasium or academy fit for persons of their station, where they learn singing and all kinds of music, dancing, and other such accomplishments and Diversions ... as are suitable to their quality and such as are usually practiced at Court." French was, without doubt, one of these accomplishments. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the Inns of Court were still much in favour, and gentlemen's sons could enjoy there good company and the innocent recreations of the town, as well as improve themselves in the "exercises." Clarendon calls the Inns of Court the suburbs of the Court itself.
None the less, the gentleman with a university education, even when it was followed by residence at one of the Inns of Court, was felt to be inadequately equipped. Almost invariably he sought on the Continent the polite accomplishments and knowledge of languages, which were necessary qualifications for high employment at Court, in the army, and elsewhere. Travel came to be regarded as "an especial part"[561] of the education of a gentleman, and as such occupies an important place in the educational treatises of the time. The usual course advised for the sons of gentlemen was an early study of Greek and Latin, followed by residence at one of the Universities and at the Inns of Court, and, finally, "travel beyond seas for language and experience" and the study of such arts as could not be easily acquired in England.
In some cases gentlemen were educated quite independently of the English schools and universities[562]—at home with private tutors, and in France. Lady Brilliana Harley, for instance, feared that her son would not find much good company at Oxford. "I believe," she wrote, "that theare are but feawe nobellmens sonne in Oxford, for now, for the most part, they send theaire sonnes into France when they are very yonge, theaire to be breed."[563]
FOOTNOTES:
[515] J. Heywood, Cambridge Statutes (sixteenth century), London, 1840, p. 267.
[516] Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, 1852, iii. p. 429; Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, iii. p. 368.
[517] Printed in Peacock's Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge, 1841 (Appendix).