Ellis, Original Letters. Series I. vol. i. p. 341-3.
STUDIES OF YOUTHS, TEMP. HEN. VIII. AND ELIZABETH.
The next Letter gives further details of Gregory’s studies—
“But forcause somer was spente in the servyce of the wylde goddes, it is so moche to be regarded after what fashion yeouth is educate and browght upp, in whiche tyme that that is lerned (for the moste parte) will nott all holelie be forgotten in the older yeres, I thinke it my dutie to asserteyne yor Maistershippe how he spendith his tyme.... And firste, after he hath herde Masse he taketh a lecture of a Diologe of Erasmus Colloquium, called Pietas Puerilis, whereinne is described a veray picture of oone that sholde be vertuouselie brought upp; and forcause it is so necessary for hime, I do not onelie cause him to rede it over, but also to practise the preceptes of the same, and I have also translated it into Englishe, so that he may conferre theime both to-githers, whereof (as lerned men affirme) cometh no smalle profecte[32] ... after that, he exerciseth his hande in writing one or two houres, and redith uppon Fabian’s Chronicle as longe; the residue of the day he doth spende uppon the lute and virginalls. When he rideth (as he doth very ofte) I tell hime by the way some historie of the Romanes or the Greekes, whiche I cause him to reherse agayn in a tale. For his recreation he useth to hawke and hunte, and shote in his long bowe, which frameth and succedeth so well with hime that he semeth to be therunto given by nature.”
Ellis, i. 343-4.
Of the course of study of ‘well-bred youths’ in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign we have an interesting account by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, father of the great Bacon, in a Paper by Mr J. Payne Collier in the Archæologia, vol. 36, Part 2, p. 339, Article xxxi.[33] “Before he became Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon had been Attorney of that Court” [the Court of Wards and Liveries] “a most lucrative appointment; and on the 27th May, 1561, he addressed a letter to Sir William Cecil, then recently (Jan., 1561) made Master of the Wards, followed by a paper thus entitled:—’Articles devised for the bringing up in vertue and learning of the Queenes Majesties Wardes, being heires males, and whose landes, descending in possession and coming to the Queenes Majestie, shall amount to the cleere yearly value of c. markes, or above.’” Sir Nicholas asks the new Master of Wards to reform what he justly calls most “preposterous” abuses in the department:—“That the proceeding hath bin preposterous, appeareth by this: the chiefe thinge, and most of price, in wardeship, is the wardes mynde; the next to that, his bodie; the
last and meanest, his land. Nowe, hitherto the chiefe care of governaunce hath bin to the land, being the meaneste; and to the bodie, being the better, very small; but to the mynde, being the best, none at all, which methinkes is playnely to sett the carte before the horse” (p. 343). Mr Collier then summarises Bacon’s Articles for the bringing up of the Wards thus: “The wards are to attend divine service at six in the morning: nothing is said about breakfast,[34] but they are to study Latin until eleven; to dine between 11 and 12; to study with the music-master from 12 till 2; from 2 to 3 they are to be with the French master; and from 3 to 5 with the Latin and Greek masters. At 5 they are to go to evening prayers; then they are to sup; to be allowed honest pastimes till 8; and, last of all, before they go to bed at 9, they are again to apply themselves to music under the instruction of the master. At and after the age of 16 they were to attend lectures upon temporal and civil law, as well as de disciplinâ militari. It is not necessary to insert farther details; but what I have stated will serve to show how well-bred youths of that period were usually brought up, and how disgracefully the duty of education as regards wards was neglected.... It may appear singular that in these articles drawn up by Sir Nicholas, so much stress is laid upon instruction in music[35]; but it only serves to confirm the notion that the science was then most industriously cultivated by nearly every class of society.” Pace in 1517 requires that every one should study it, but should join with it some other study, as Astrology or Astronomy. He says also that the greatest part of the art had perished by men’s negligence; “For all that our musicians do now-a-days, is almost trivial if compared with what the old ones (antiqui) did, so that now hardly one or two (unus aut alter) can be found who know what harmony is, though the word is always on their tongue.” (De Fructu, p. 54-5.) Ascham, while lamenting in 1545 (Toxophilus, p. 29) ‘that the laudable custom of
England to teach children their plain song and prick-song’ is ‘so decayed throughout all the realm as it is,’ denounces the great practise of instrumental music by older students: “the minstrelsy of lutes, pipes, harps, and all other that standeth by such nice, fine, minikin fingering, (such as the most part of scholars whom I know use, if they use any,) is far more fit, for the womanishness of it, to dwell in the Court among ladies, than for any great thing in it which should help good and sad study, to abide in the University among scholars.”
[ NEGLECT OF EDUCATION BY MOTHERS.]
By 1577 our rich people, according to Harrison, attended properly to the education of their children. After speaking “of our women, whose beautie commonlie exceedeth the fairest of those of the maine,” he says: