But Pace was equal to him. “You do not seem to me to think aright, good man,” said I, “for if any foreigner were to come to the king, such as are ambassadors of princes, and an answer had to be given to him, your son if he were educated as you wish, could only blow his horn, and the learned sons of rustics would be called to answer, and they would be far preferred to your hunter or fowler son,” &c.

The fashion among noblemen of sending their sons abroad to study, either at a university or with a tutor, did not prevail widely until later. In the twelfth century, indeed, the “English nation” was famous at the University of Paris, but was composed largely of poor but earnest students, some of whom became famous men; and even these had ceased to study there before the fifteenth century.

Younger sons of good birth, in the service of a man of rank, were usually taught by a “maistyr” or tutor in the household in which they were placed. It is only in later books like Seager’s that these rules of demeanour were applied extensively to schoolboys. Doubtless gentlemen’s sons went to Winchester (after 1373) and to Eton (after 1440); but of the thirty grammar-schools endowed before 1500, all the others were attended chiefly by the middle classes. The early monastic schools doubtless entertained young noblemen; but the cathedral schools founded by Henry VIII. seem to have been for citizens’ children, such as the boy in Symon’s Lesson of Wisdom, who is urged to learn fast so that when the old bishop dies he may be ready to take his place. However, even earlier we find complaints of the monastic schools which helped each shoemaker to educate his son, and each beggar’s brat to be a writer and finally a bishop, so that lords’ sons must kneel to him.

In general, the system of education implied in the Babees’ Book is that described in the household ordinances of Edward IV. for the young henchmen in charge of a “maistyr,” who should teach them to ride cleanly and surely, to draw them also to jousts, to ... “wear their harness, to have all courtesy in words, deeds, and degrees, diligently to keep them in rules of goings and sittings, after they be of honour.” They learned also “sundry languages,” and harping, piping, singing and dancing. Likewise, their master sat always with them at table in the hall, to see “how mannerly they eat and drink, and to their communication and other forms of court, after the book of Urbanitie[[8]].” Clearly it would seem that one of the very treatises in this collection was studied by these young pages of Edward IV.

What languages they learned and what else studied we are not told in detail; but in Henry VIII.’s time, young Gregory Cromwell, son of the Earl of Essex, studied French, writing, fencing, “casting accounts,” instrumental music, &c. He was also made to read English aloud for the pronunciation, and was taught the etymology of Latin and French words. His day was as follows: After Mass, he read first the Colloquium on Pietas Puerilis (De Civilitate Morum Puerilium) by Erasmus (written 1530), of which he had to practice the precepts. Now this is nothing more than a collection of maxims similar to the Facet mentioned in the Babees’ Book, together with learned Scholia in Latin and Greek; hence, he had the same kind of thing to learn—only more elaborate—as the boys mentioned a hundred years earlier studied in Urbanitie. Doubtless his master approved the beginning of Erasmus: “Est autem uel prima uirtutis ac honestatis pars, tenere præcepta de moribus.” The specific nature of these directions appears in the following:

“Cleanliness of teeth must be cared for, but to whiten them with powder does for girls. To rub the gum with salt or alum is injurious.... If anything sticks to the teeth, you must get it out, not with a knife, or with your nails after the manner of dogs and cats, or with your napkin, but with a toothpick, or quill or small bone taken from the tibias of cocks or hens. To wash the mouth in the morning with pure water is both mannerly and healthful; to do it often is foolish.” Indeed, Erasmus’s treatise is only a superior book of courtesy.

His manners attended to, young Gregory wrote for one or two hours, read Fabyan’s Chronicle, and gave the rest of the day to his lute and virginals. When he rode, his master used to tell him stories of the Greeks and Romans, which he had to repeat; and his recreations were hunting, hawking and shooting with the long bow.

A harsher system prevailed with Queen Elizabeth’s wards, according to Sir Nicholas Bacon. They went to church at 6 o’clock, studied Latin until 11, dined from 11 to 12, had music from 12 to 2, French from 2 to 3, Latin and Greek from 3 to 5, then prayers, supper, and “honest pastimes” until 8, then music until 9, and so to bed.

The curricula in these various schools doubtless emphasized the usual Latin subjects (Greek was not taught in England before 1500) of the Middle Ages. Thus we find an account of the “disputations” in a London grammar-school, dating from 1174. But that athletic sports were popular even at that early time, appears from the same narrative, in which we read of football, sham fights, water-quintain, archery, running, leaping, wrestling, stone-casting, flinging bucklers, sliding and skating (on bones), besides the brutal sports of hog-, boar- and cock-fighting, bull- and bear-baiting.

At the other extreme we find the account of a school-day in 1612. Work begins at 6, and those who come first have the best places. At 9 o’clock, there is given 15 minutes for breakfast and recreation; then work continues until 11 or past (to balance the 15 minutes off). Dinner follows, and then work until 3 or 3.30, then 15 minutes off, and work until 5.30, when school closes with a piece of a chapter, two staves of a psalm and prayer by the master.