introduction, not uncommon in school dialogue-books, of well-known
persons, ancient and contemporary, amongst the interlocutors. In this
way Vives brings before the boys people like Prince Philip, Vitruvius,
Joannes Jocundus Veronensis, and Baptista Albertus Leo, all famous
architects (Vitruvius being an author of antiquity, the other two
nearer Vives’ time), Pliny, Epictetus, Celsus, Dydimus, Aristippus,
Scopas, Polaemon, and personal friends like Valdaura (one of the
Bruges family into which Vives married), Honoratus Joannius, Gonzalus
Tamayus; the painter Albert Dürer, the scholar Simon Grynaeus, and the
poet Caspar Velius, and the great Greek scholar and educationalist
Budaeus. Vives delights in devoting one of the dialogues to describe
his native town Valencia, and in introducing local references of
persons and places there. He also (in Dialogue X.) refers to Antonius
Nebrissensis, the first to use Spanish vernacular in connection with
Latin text-books. His references to schoolmasters are very numerous,
and include many types. They are probably founded upon teachers known
to him.
One point further should be mentioned. Vives wishes to supply details
in the richest profusion in his various subjects, if for no other
reason at least so as to increase the vocabulary of the pupils.
Accordingly for his subject-matter he quotes and borrows from many of
the old writers. J. T. Freigius, in his Nürnberg edition of 1582, not
only names the various ancient authors on technical subjects whom Vives
has consulted, but also suggests further reading of authors, whom he
might with advantage have also quoted. Looking on the _Dialogues_ as
a whole, it is remarkable that so many interests were conciliated,
as if by instinct—_e.g._, the schoolboy, the schoolmaster, the
general reader, even in some cases the readers desirous of technical
instruction. But the unifying factor was the desire of all those and
others to learn to speak Latin, and to know the Latin terms for all
useful objects.
POPULARITY
J. T. Freigius, in the preface to his edition of 1582, tells us that
the dialogues of Vives were read in his time “in well-nigh every
school.” Bömer quotes orders for the government of ten grammar schools
in Germany, between 1564 and 1661, in which the dialogues of Vives were
prescribed. In England they were required to be read at Eton College in
1561, at Westminster School about 1621, at Shrewsbury School 1562–1562,
at Rivington Grammar School 1564, and Hertford Grammar School 1614.
These ascertained and official instances are probably typical of very
many others, both in England and abroad, of which the traces are lost.
THE GREEK WORDS IN VIVES’ DIALOGUES
One of the criticisms frequently urged against Vives is that he used
Latinised Graecisms very frequently. It is not improbable that this
very fact helped to secure the success of the book, for though there
was by 1538 considerable enthusiasm in the aspiration of learning
Greek, there was little knowledge of that language as yet even amongst
the learned. To know even a small vocabulary of Greek words was a
distinction, and to have such knowledge whilst learning to speak Latin
was the basis for acquiring at least a smattering of Greek knowledge
later on. Sir Thomas Elyot in his _Gouvernour_ (1531) wishes the
child “to learn Greek and Latin authors at the same time, or else
to begin with Greek. If a child do begin therein at seven years of
age, he may continually learn Greek authors three years, and in the
meantime use the Latin as a familiar language.” It was, no doubt, the
desire of Vives, as of Sir Thomas Elyot, that children should learn
as much as possible of Greek at the same time as Latin, and although
the introduction of Greek words into the dialogues would not help the
systematic study of Greek, it helped to create the atmosphere into
which the study of Greek would find its place naturally enough in time.
The introduction of Greek words and phrases by Vives into his _School
Dialogues_ did not at any rate prevent the book from being in great
demand, whilst the acknowledged difficulty of school teachers in
translating the Greek terms brought about a series of expositions and
commentaries on the _School Dialogues_ that almost raised the book to
the dignity of an ancient classical work. Issued first in 1538, in 1548
an edition was produced at Lyons with a commentary by Peter Motta and
a Latin-Spanish index by Joannes Ramirus. In 1552, at Antwerp, Peter
Motta’s interpretation of Greek words, together with the old and
somewhat obscure points in Vives, was supplemented by an alphabetical
index of the more difficult words rendered into Spanish, French, and
German. In 1553 Aegidius de Housteville published at Paris an edition,
especially prepared for French boys, which gave the French for all
difficult Latin words and included the commentary of Peter Motta.
EUPHROSYNUS LAPINIUS
In 1568 was published by Euphrosynus Lapinius at the Junta Press
in Florence, an edition of Vives’ _School Dialogues_. This also
included the commentary of Peter Motta and, in addition, an index of
certain words in Vives’ _Dialogues_, with a translation of them into
Etruscan.[10]
Vives’ _School Dialogues_, we have seen, had a circulation, with
vernacular vocabulary, in Spain, France, Germany, Italy (there does
not seem to have been any edition with an English vocabulary). The
inclusion of the Greek words, it is not unreasonable to suppose, met a
need amongst learned schoolmasters, and since sufficient translations
of the hard words, both Greek and Latin, were forthcoming, the book
was made available even in those cases where schoolmasters had not
sufficient knowledge to translate all the passages in which the pupils
might stick.
STYLE
Erasmus in his _Ciceronianus_ thus describes the style of Vives: “I
find lacking in Vives neither innate power, nor erudition, nor power of
memory. He is well provided with luxuriance of expression even when, in
the beginning of a work, he is a little hard; day by day his eloquence
matures more and more as he proceeds.... Daily he overcomes himself,
and his genius is versatile enough for anything. Yet sometimes he has
not achieved some portion of the Ciceronian virtues, especially in the
direction of charm and mildness of expression.” (Quoted by Namèche,
_Mémoire sur la vie et les écrits de J. L. Vives_.)
CHARACTERISTICS OF VIVES AS A WRITER OF DIALOGUES
Vives’ characteristics have been well described by Bömer, who says: “In
the dialogues of Vives we constantly have the pleasure of listening to
conversations rich in thought, made spicy at the right moments with
pointed wit, so that we are obliged to make an effort to understand the
separate words.” It may be added that Vives is always desirous to help
forward the cause of learning, yet, on occasion, he can detach himself
from his learning and become a boy among boys. He has a strong sense of
humour. He can tell a joke against himself, as for instance about his
gout,[11] or again about his singing.[12]
VIVES AS A PRECURSOR OF THE DRAMA
It might, with some ground, be urged that Vives and other writers of
school dialogues are the precursors of the drama. For not only are
there touches of wit and humour in the conversations, but there is a
considerable amount of characterisation in the interlocutors. The right
person says and does the right thing, and situations are sometimes
hit off exquisitely with an epithet. It is clear that a training
in following the school dialogues in the generation preceding the
Elizabethan dramatists may have had a distinctly preparative place in
rendering the dialogue of the drama more familiar and attractive as a
literary method. For a preparation in the power of audiences following
the dialogues of the Elizabethan drama may be regarded as requiring an
explanation, when we remember that the interest in and concentration on
the dialogue was more urgent than now, owing to the absence of scenery
and the other visual effects to which we are accustomed. The element in
the drama which is conspicuous by its absence in the school dialogues
is the plot. Yet in the school dialogue there is a definite method
of construction observed. In the old methods of Latin composition,
wherever there is a thesis, the writer must have regard to the sequence
of the introduction, the narration, the confirmation, confutation, and
the conclusion.
With regard to the school training towards the appreciation of the
drama in the Tudor age, it must be remembered that the school-play
was a recognised institution, especially the acting of the old plays
of Terence, Plautus, and eventually of Greek tragedies. The school
dialogue, it should be noted, was one of the earliest of school
text-books, and its object, as already stated, was to train the child
in readiness of expression in _the speaking_ of Latin. The study of
rhetoric followed, and this included not only the study of apt figures
of speech in Latin conversation, but also the accompaniment of right
gestures of the face, hands, and body. Hence it will be seen that the
grammar schools of the early part of the sixteenth century paved the
way for an intelligent appreciation of the Elizabethan drama. For the
drama not only requires writers; to some extent an intelligent response
is necessary in the spectators, at any rate when the plays involve
the intellectual elements characteristic of the later part of the
sixteenth-century drama in England.
SOME EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF VIVES’ DIALOGUES
It is remarkable that an elementary text-book for teaching boys to
speak Latin should raise so many fundamental questions in the theory of
education. But any presentation of the _Dialogues_ of Vives would seem
to be incomplete which left unconsidered such points as Vives’ _idea
of the school_, _of the school-games_, _of nature study_, _of the use
of the vernacular in the school_, and Vives’ _view of the relation of
religion and education_.
VIVES’ IDEA OF THE SCHOOL
We learn from another book of Vives, the _De Tradendis Disciplinis_
(1531), that the “true academy,” as he calls his ideal school, is
“the association together and fellow sympathy of men equally good and
learned, who have come together themselves for the sake of learning,
and to render the same blessing to others.” Vives suggests that to
such a “school” not only should boys go, but also men. He suggests
that “even old men, driven hither and thither in a great tempest of
ignorance and vice, should betake themselves to the academy as it were
to a haven. In short, let all be attracted by a certain majesty and
authority.” Further, Vives informs us that in this academy it would
certainly be best to place boys there from their infancy, “where they
may from the first imbibe the best morals, and evil behaviour will be
to them new and detestable.” We thus see that “the academy” combines
our so-called elementary, secondary, and university education. The
idea of the continuity of education is thus firmly conceived by Vives,
and, in addition, the action and reaction of different ages of the
individual scholars of the academy on one another. Nowadays, we realise
that the association together of those with the same limitations,
_e.g._, orphans, the blind, the deaf, may be a necessary evil, but that
every progressive educational effort should be made to help all those
who suffer from such limitations to become capable of taking their
places amongst the normal pupils. But Vives goes much further; with
him, it is a defect in education to isolate the young from the old, the
old from the young. If all be bent on learning and scholarship, the
differences of age disappear as clearly as the differences of rank and
wealth.
It is necessary to bear in mind this conception of the academy in
reading the school dialogues, for we have in them little children
learning their alphabet[13] and the elements of reading[14] and
writing,[15] and we have also the youths (at our undergraduate stage)
going on their academic journey on horseback from Paris to Boulogne.
This reminds us of Milton’s sallying forth of students “at the vernal
seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, and it were an
injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her riches
and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.”
And we have the student of mature age, in his dressing-gown, at
midnight, pursuing his classical meditations. Thus infancy, youth,
manhood, all stages, come into the conception of education. Education
is a continuous process lasting throughout life, and for Vives the
educational institution of “schools” should embody and make facilities
for the achievement of that idea. In passing, it should be remarked
that John Milton, in his _Tractate of Education_ (1644), and John
Dury (1650), in his _Reformed School_, advocate what we may call the
Vives-Academy view of school![16] It must occur to every reader of
Vives’ _De Tradendis Disciplinis_ as highly probable that Milton’s
hurriedly dashed-off and eloquent tractate was written after a fairly
recent perusal of Vives’ book.
GAMES
The treatises on education in Tudor times have scarcely been surpassed
by any later works in their treatment of physical education and
advocacy of games. Particularly is this so in England, for in that
period were published Sir Thomas Elyot’s _Gouvernour_ (1531), Roger
Ascham’s _Toxophilus_ (1545), and Richard Mulcaster’s _Positions_
(1581). But outstanding in their importance as these works were,
Vives in his _School Dialogues_ makes an interesting supplementary
contribution.
Vives shows the value of “play” as an underlying spirit of school work,
for the school is a form of “ludus” or play.[17] The little child,
Corneliola, learns the alphabet “playing,” as indeed children had
done at any rate from the days of Quintilian. Indeed, one of the most
charming pictures of children provided by Vives is in Dialogue VI.,
which describes the mother, the boys Tulliolus, Lentulus, Scipio, and
the little girl Corneliola, on the return from school of the boys, as
they engage in children’s play and discussion of it. The games named
in that dialogue are the games of “nuts,” “odd and even,” dice-play,
draughts, and playing cards. Vives passes over the question of the
moral obliquity of dice-playing and card-playing, though much was said
in the Tudor period with regard to them.[18]
Vives represents the school-boys playing dice and cards for counters,
and in the case of the cards for money. But substantially he gives the
picture of the play without combining a sermon. In passing, perhaps it
is permissible to call attention to the pun in Dialogue XXI., where the
Latin word _charta_ is taken up ambiguously in the meaning of “map” as
well as of “card.” The discovery of America in 1492 was comparatively
recent in 1539, and much interest was felt in geographical questions.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the classical scholars like Vives
were so wrapt up in meditations on antiquity that they did not realise
the significance of contemporary events, and that educationalists were
not eager to turn current incidents to use in the class-room.[19]
An interesting example of the fascination of Vives in geographical
discoveries is to be found in the dedication of the _De Tradendis
Disciplinis_ to the renowned King John III., King of Portugal, in
which he relates the splendid deeds of the Portuguese in travel
and discovery, which bring glory to descendants and the obligation
to live up to their standard of achievement. In Dialogue XII., in
the description of the entrance-hall of a house, a map is referred
to in which “you have the world newly discovered by the Spanish
navigations.”[20]
But educationally more important than any description of the games of
the period described by Vives is the statement made by him of the
laws which should regulate all play. The account is given in Dialogue
XXII. Vives describes his native city of Valencia by sending three
characters, Borgia, Scintilla, Cabanillius, on a promenade through the
streets. They come to a public tennis-court, where the game of tennis
is described. They proceed to the Town Court of Justice, whereupon
one of the characters, Scintilla, is requested to state the laws of
play which he has previously mentioned a teacher, by name Anneus, had
written on a tablet which he had hung in his bed-chamber.
The six laws of play according to Anneus are:—
1. _Quando Ludendum?_ The Time of Playing.—This should be when the mind
or body has become wearied. Games are to refresh the mind and body, not
for frivolity.
2. _Cum Quibus Ludendum?_ Our Companions in Play.—These should be those
who bring to the game no other purpose than your own, viz., that of
thorough rest from labour and freedom from mental strain.
3. _Quo Ludo?_ The Sort of Game.—It must be known well by all the
players. It must serve for both bodily and mental recreation. It must
not be merely a game of hazard.
4. _Qua Sponsione?_ As to Stakes.—Small stakes are justifiable if they
increase interest in exercise without producing excitement or anxiety
of mind. Big stakes do not make a game; they introduce the rack.
5. _Quemadmodum?_ The Manner of Play.—Win and lose with absolute
equanimity. No game should serve to rouse anger. No oaths, swearing,
deceit, sordidness.
6. _Quamdiu Ludendum?_ Length of Play.—Until one is refreshed and the
hour of serious business calls.
NATURE STUDY
It has already been mentioned that Vives supplies a dialogue describing
an academic journey.[21] Two of the characters thus discourse:—
_Misippus._ Look how softly the river flows by! What a
delightful murmur there is of the full crystal water
amongst the golden rocks! Do you hear the nightingale and
the goldfinch? Of a truth, the country round Paris is
most delightful!
_Philippus._ How placidly the Seine flows in its
current.... Oh, how the meadow is clothed with a magic
art.
_Missippus._ And by what a marvellous Artist!
_Philippus._ What a sweet scent is exhaled.... Please
sing some verses as you are wont to do.
Then Vives introduces some lines by Angelus Politian praising the
joy of peaceful, silent days which pass by without the agitation of
ambition and the allurement of luxury, with blamelessness, though we
work as with the labour of the poor man. Again[22]:—
_Bambalio._ Listen, there is the nightingale!
_Graculus._ Where is she?
_Bambalio._ Don’t you see her there, sitting on that
branch? Listen how ardently she sings, nor does she leave
off.
_Nugo._ (As Martial says) _Flet philomela nefas_. (The
nightingale bemoans any injustice.)
_Graculus._ What a wonder she carols so sweetly when she
is away from Attica where the very waves of the sea dash
upon the shore, not without their rhythm.
Then Nugo tells the story of the nightingale and cuckoo.[23] One more
instance. Several boys are out for a morning walk:—
_Malvenda._ Don’t let us take our walk as if in a rush,
but slowly and gently....
_Joannius_ [_after contemplating the view_]. There is
no sense which has not a lordly enjoyment! First, the
eyes! what varied colours, what clothing of the earth and
trees, what tapestry! What paintings are comparable with
this view?... Not without truth has the Spanish poet,
Juan de Mena, called May the painter of the earth. Then
the ear. How delightful to hear the singing of birds,
and especially the nightingale. Listen to her (as she
sings in the thicket) from whom, as Pliny says, issues
the modulated sound of the completed science of music....
In very fact, you have, as it were, the whole study and
school of music in the nightingale. Her little ones
ponder and listen to the notes which they imitate. The
tiny disciple listens with keen intentness (would that
our teachers received like attention!) and gives back the
sound.... Add to this there is a sweet scent breathing in
from every side, from the meadows, from the crops, from
the trees, even from the fallow-land and neglected fields.
WINE-DRINKING AND WATER-DRINKING
There can be little doubt even from the descriptions of feasts in the
_School Dialogues_ of Vives, as well as of Mosellanus and Erasmus,
that drunkenness was not uncommon even amongst teachers in the Tudor
period.[24] Vives distinguished himself by boldly advocating the claims
of water against those of wines and beer. In Dialogue XI., “Getting
dressed and a Morning Constitutional,” we read [speaking of the food
for breakfast, after the walk]:—
_Malvenda._ Shall we have wine to drink?
_Bellinus._ By no means,—but beer, and that of the
weakest, of yellow Lyons, _or else pure and liquid water_
drawn from the Latin or Greek well.
_Malvenda._ Which do you call the Latin well and the
Greek well?
_Bellinus._ Vives is accustomed to call the well close to
the gate the Greek well; that one further off he calls
the Latin well. He will give you his reasons for the
names when you meet him.
J. T. Freigius, who is always ready to supply what Vives omits, gives
in his commentary the reasons for Vives. The Greek well is the well
close to the gate, because the Greek language is closer to the sources
of language; the “Latin” well, for similar reasons, is further off from
the gate.
In Dialogue XVII., called “The Banquet,” we read:—
_Scopas._ Don’t give one too much water (_i.e._ in his
wine). Don’t you know the old proverb, “You spoil wine,
when you pour water into it”?
_Democritus._ Yes, then you spoil both the water and the
wine.
_Polaemon._ I would rather spoil them both than be
spoiled by one of them.
But it is in Dialogue XVIII, on “Drunkenness,” that Vives specially
launches his thunderbolts against excessive drinking. With the
institution of lessons on temperance in schools under some Local
Education Authorities in England, we have a return to the methods
of Vives. For in the school dialogue referred to we have the matter
put very strongly, and probably Vives’ statements would not prove
unacceptable to modern teachers of this recently re-introduced
subject. After describing the moral effects of drunkenness, one of the
characters says: “Who would not prefer to be shut up at home with a dog
or a cat than with a drunkard? For those animals have more intellect in
them than the drunkard.” Another character remarks: “When you drink,
you treat wine as you like. When you have drunk, it will treat you as
it likes.”
THE VERNACULAR
It is surprising to find that though Vives, in 1538, produced his
_School Dialogues_ for the purpose of teaching children to _speak_
Latin, and though he regarded early and thorough acquaintance with
Latin, both for purposes of speaking and writing, as the very mark
and seal of a well-educated man, there was no learned man of his
age who went so far in advocacy of the importance of the teaching
in the vernacular of the pupil at a still younger age. As this
constitutes one of the grounds upon which the pre-eminence of Vives
as an educationalist would be rested, as for instance in comparison
with Erasmus, it may not be altogether irrelevant to quote here the
translation of a passage from the _De Tradendis Disciplinis_ explaining
Vives’ views on this subject.
“The scholars should first speak in their homes their mother tongue,
which is born with them, and the teacher should correct their mistakes.
Then they should, little by little, learn Latin. Next let them
intermingle with the vernacular what they have heard in Latin from
their teacher, or what they themselves have learned. Thus, at first,
their language should be a mixture of the mother-tongue and Latin.
But outside the school they should speak the mother-tongue so that
they should not become accustomed to a hotch-potch of languages....
Gradually the development advances and the scholars become Latinists
in the narrower sense. Now must they seek to express their thoughts
in Latin, for nothing serves so much to the learning of a language
as continuous practice in it. He who is ashamed to speak a language
has no talent for it. He who refuses to speak Latin after he has been
learning it for a year must be punished according to his age and
circumstances.”[25]