CONTENTS.

PAGE
The method of treatment,[1]
The purpose of writing,[2]
Reasons for writing in English,[4]
First principles,[4]
The use of authority,[7]
The ideal and the possible,[11]
When school education should begin,[12]
Risk of overpressure,[13]
Mens Sana in corpore sano,[14]
Physical exercise needs regulation,[15]
Physical and mental training should go together,[15]
Exercise specially necessary for students,[16]
The best kinds of exercise,[17]
Football as a form of exercise,[17]
Is education to be offered to both sexes?[18]
All cannot receive a learned education,[19]
Choice of scholars both from rich and poor,[20]
The number of scholars limited by circumstances,[21]
The number of scholars kept down by law,[22]
Talent not peculiar either to rich or poor,[22]
Choice of those fit for learning,[23]
How the choice of scholars, should be determined,[24]
Grounds for promotion,[25]
Co-operation of parents,[27]
Admission into colleges,[28]
Preferment to degrees,[29]
Natural capacity in children,[30]
Encouragement better than severity,[32]
Moral training falls chiefly on parents,[32]
Elementary instruction—reading,[33]
The vernacular first,[34]
Material of reading,[35]
Writing,[36]
Elementary period a time of probation,[37]
Drawing,[37]
Music,[39]
Four elementary subjects,[42]
Study of languages,[44]
Follow nature,[45]
Education of girls,[50]
Aim of education for girls,[53]
When their education should begin,[54]
All should have elementary education,[55]
Higher studies for some,[57]
What higher studies are suitable,[58]
Who should be their teachers,[60]
The education of young gentlemen,[60]
Private and public education,[61]
What should a gentleman learn?[65]
What makes a gentleman?[68]
Learning useful to noblemen,[70]
Course of study for a gentleman,[72]
Foreign travel,[73]
Gentlemen should take up the professions,[77]
The training of a prince,[78]
Boarding-schools,[79]
School buildings,[82]
Best hours for study,[84]
Elementary teacher most important,[85]
The grammar school teacher,[87]
The training of teachers,[90]
University reform,[91]
A college for languages,[92]
A college for mathematics,[93]
A college for philosophy,[95]
Professional colleges,[96]
General study for professional men,[96]
A training college for teachers,[97]
Use of the seven colleges,[98]
Uniting of colleges,[99]
University readers,[100]
Evils of overpressure,[101]
Limit of elementary course,[103]
Difficulties in teaching,[104]
Uniformity of method,[105]
Choice of school books,[110]
School regulations,[113]
Punishments,[113]
Condition of teachers,[117]
Consultation about children,[118]
Systematic direction,[121]
The standard of English spelling,[124]
The Peroration,[171]
Critical Estimate,[209]

[BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.]

Richard Mulcaster came of a border family that could trace its descent back to the eleventh century. On his wife’s tomb he describes himself as “by ancient parentage and lineal descent, an esquire born,” and there is evidence that some of his ancestors held positions of importance, both administrative and academic. In the fourteenth century we hear of a Richard de Molcastre, who, as the second son, inherited from his father, Sir William, the estates of Brakenhill and Solport, and the family retained its consideration up to our own time. But in the reign of Elizabeth the ancestral lands were no longer in the possession of the branch to which our author belonged. He was probably born in the border district, and the date of his birth must have been about 1532. He was sent to Eton, then under Nicholas Udall, who as a headmaster was known alike for his learning and his severity, and who as the writer of the first regular English comedy, may have given Mulcaster his taste for the drama. In 1548 he went to Cambridge as a King’s Scholar, but in 1555 we hear of his election as a Student of Christchurch, Oxford. In the following year he was “licensed to proceed in Arts.” He had a reputation for a knowledge of Hebrew as well as of Latin and Greek, and seems shortly afterwards to have chosen the profession of a schoolmaster, making his way to London about 1558 or 1559.

In 1560 the Guild of Merchant Taylors decided to establish the well-known day Grammar School for boys which still bears their name, and in the following year Mulcaster was appointed the first headmaster, having charge of two hundred and fifty scholars, with the assistance of three undermasters. The school hours were from 7 to 11 a.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m., with one half holiday in the week, besides the ordinary church festival days, and for this the headmaster received the salary of £10 (equivalent to £80 or £100 now), besides a dwelling in the school and a small sum from entrance fees. He was granted twenty days’ leave of absence in the year, but was not allowed to hold any other office, though his appointment was only held from year to year.

The reputation Mulcaster had already gained as a teacher before his appointment is shown in the fact that the post was offered to him without his application, and that he accepted it only after some hesitation, when he was promised an additional £10 of salary, on the private and personal guarantee of one of the Governors. He held the position for twenty-five years, and his successful conduct of the school is fully attested by the verdict of eminent scholars who acted as examiners, by the expressions of satisfaction in the minutes of the Council, and by the testimony of the pupils themselves, many of whom attained distinction in after-life.

Of Mulcaster’s scholars at Merchant Taylors’ School the most famous was Edmund Spenser, but in the absence of any reference to his teacher by the poet, we have to be content with the direct evidence of Lancelot Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Sir James Whitelock, Justice of the King’s Bench. Of the former it is recorded that he “ever loved and honoured” his former headmaster, befriending him and his son after him, and keeping his portrait over the door of his study. The latter tells us that Mulcaster besides instructing him well in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, was careful to increase his skill in music, and chose him to act with other scholars in the plays he presented at Court, by which means the boys were taught good manners and self-confidence. The account of him in Fuller’s Worthies may perhaps represent the impressions of less gifted scholars—“Atropos might be persuaded to pity, as soon as he to pardon, where he found just fault. The prayers of cockering mothers prevailed with him as much as the requests of indulgent fathers, rather increasing than mitigating his severity on their offending child.... Others have taught as much learning with fewer lashes, yet his sharpness was the better endured, because impartial, and many excellent scholars were bred under him.”