Looking to human nature as a whole, Montaigne and Mulcaster saw that “it was not a mind, it was not a body that we have to educate, but a man, and we cannot divide him.” A writer of the present day who is supposed to be in the van of modern thinkers has given us his notion of “Education as a Science.” In some respects the conception of the Elizabethan writer seems to me more complete and truly scientific. Mulcaster thinks that the educator should care both for mind and body, and adapt his “train” to each of them. The treatment of the body recommended in the “Positions” will surprise some Continental authors, who seem to think that physical education had hardly been considered before the appearance of Locke’s “Thoughts.”
There are several other points where Mulcaster seems to me to show remarkable wisdom. He does not approve of a very early start in the learned languages, and is specially strong against the “hastening on” of a “sharp young wit;” so that one of the earliest English writers on education warns us against some of the latest English practices (see “Positions,” pp. 19, 33; also “Elementarie,” xi, pp. 52 ff).
Another of our head-masters, whose teaching now, alas! comes to us also recommended by the proverb, Optimi consiliarii mortui, Edward Thring, has testified to the difficulty and to the importance of instructing the younger classes properly. Mulcaster is so strong on this point that instead of handing over the younger boys in a crowd to the least experienced and worst paid master, as the custom still is, he would have the forms smaller at the bottom than at the top of the school, and would have the best and best paid teacher for them (“Positions,” pp. 233 ff.)
His wisdom appears, too, in his curriculum for the young. What a blessing for them could he have arranged their studies all over Europe instead of his contemporary, Sturm! He would have taught them to read and write their own language, to draw, to sing, and to play some musical instrument, and he maintains that if instead of beginning with Latin the child were put through a preliminary course in these five things, he would learn “the tongue” sooner and do more between 12 and 16 than from 7 to 17 the other way (“Elementarie,” chap. xi). So school instruction in drawing and singing was recommended by this old schoolmaster more than 300 years ago. I take up the New England “Journal of Education,” dated 2nd February, 1888, and I find a well-known writer, Col. T. W. Higginson, telling us: “I can remember when the introduction of singing, and later of drawing, into our public schools was regarded as a finical whim, suitable for girls’ schools only. Emollit mores, each of these practices is found to help school discipline and refine the taste, so that the whole tone of school life is elevated.” Thus we are at length adopting Mulcaster’s proposals, and quoting in their favour what Ovid said 2,000 years ago.
It is interesting, by the way, to observe that the unfortunate “three R’s” had not been invented in Mulcaster’s time, and his “Elementarie,” with its five studies, ignores arithmetic.
The five studies are intended for those who are to be put to learning, and those only; but we see that Mulcaster would have had every one taught to read and write (“Positions,” p. 139).
We have seen that we are at length introducing drawing and singing, as Mulcaster advised. In one particular he is still in advance of us. He would have at the University a college for training teachers. “Is the framing of young minds,” he asks, “and the training of their bodies so mean a point of cunning? Be schoolmasters in this realm such a paucity as they are not even in good sadness to be soundly thought on?... He that will not allow of this careful provision for such a seminary of masters is most unworthy either to have had a good master himself or hereafter to have a good one for his.” (“Positions” p. 248.)
In another respect Mulcaster showed much good sense, and though perhaps not in advance of his own generation he was far before the generations of the two succeeding centuries. I was at a private meeting connected with the founding of Girton College, when, I remember, the late Professor Brewer denied that girls in the Elizabethan age were better educated than in the days that followed. Joseph Payne, who was also present, expressed a strong opinion that they were. If he had had his copy of the “Positions” with him (his collection of rare books on education included this work) he might have proved his point by apposite quotation. This was twenty years ago. Much has been done for girls’ education since then; and in one respect at least the Victorians have advanced beyond the Elizabethans, for no English writer can now say with Mulcaster, “I set not young maidens to public grammar schools, a thing not used in my country; I send them not to the universities, having no precedent thereof in my country.” (“Positions,” p. 167.)
I have now, I think, said enough so show that at least for the history of education Mulcaster’s books are of great interest and value. Travellers are always ready to run any risks in exploring the source of great rivers. When we consider how many millions of the human race using English as their mother tongue receive instruction in school, it might seem worth while to spend some little time and trouble in tracing back the history of that instruction, and seeing what it was in its earliest days. Such knowledge as is now obtainable must be derived from a few books, among which Mulcaster’s are almost the first, both in time and in importance. I know of nothing earlier except Elyot’s “Governor” and Ascham’s “Schoolmaster.” The next English work on education known to me is W. Kemp’s “The Education of Children” in 1588, which probably furthered his wish that the good town of Plymouth might “bring forth some young imps and buds of learning;” but this is in every way a small book. The next important book is John Brinsly’s “Ludus Literarius; or, the Grammar School,” and this was not published till 1612.
The first edition of the “Positions” was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. This, which is as far as I have seen the second, I should dedicate to no contemporary, not even to the Queen herself; but to the coming New Zealander. The prescient eye of Macaulay sees that Mulcaster’s scheme of instruction will by that time have been adopted, and our intelligent descendant will be able to draw. I hope he will know of the old book in which drawing in schools was first recommended. He will, I feel certain, take a deep interest in the most important discovery of his age, the new science of education, and gratitude for this science will make him think kindly of those quaint old writers, standing almost together, “foreshortened in the tract of time,” who in the days of Elizabeth and Victoria made the first crude suggestions and surmises towards it.