There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary,
which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be
these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea,
perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university,
commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were
required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula.
Secondly, others who are able, use it only as a passage to better
preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can
provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling.
Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the
miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to
their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown
rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the
proxy of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself.
His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had
as well be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, as
Cooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desk
therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are
bunglers in this. But God, of His goodness, hath fitted several men
for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State, in all
conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric
thereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie in
this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth
most excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life,
undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with
dexterity and happy success.
He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books;
and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may
seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all
particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar
of boys' natures, and reduce them all--saving some few exceptions--to
these general rules:
1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two
such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a
frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their
master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such
natures he useth with all gentleness.
2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in the
fable, that running with snails--so they count the rest of their
schoolfellows--they shall come soon enough to the post, though
sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would
finely take them napping.
3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be, the
more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till
they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best.
Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature,
and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough
and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth, acquit
themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their
dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That
schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy
for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can
make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before
the hour nature hath appointed.
4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may
reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world
can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such
boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and
boat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other
carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics
which will not serve for scholars.
He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them
rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children
to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his
scholars may go along with him.
He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school. If
cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons' exemption
from his rod--to live, as it were, in a peculiar, out of their
master's jurisdiction--with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the
late custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, and
ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn
youth, correction-proof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting
with him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacy
hath infected others.
He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster
better answereth the name _paidotribes_ than _paidagogos_, rather
tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good
education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented
unto them in the shape of fiends and furies.
Such an Orbilius mars more scholars than he makes. Their tyranny hath
caused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whose
stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their
speech at their master's presence; and whose mauling them about their
heads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master.
He makes his school free to him who sues to him _in forma pauperis_.
And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he is
a beast who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, pays
the scholar in his whipping; rather are diligent lads to be encouraged
with all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heard
concerning Mr. Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton, who would
never suffer any wandering begging scholar--such as justly the statute
hath ranked in the fore-front of rogues--to come into his school, but
would thrust him out with earnestness--however privately charitable
unto him--lest his schoolboys should be disheartened from their books,
by seeing some scholars after their studying in the university
preferred to beggary.
He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to
teach his scholars logic. For, besides that logic may have an action
of trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties,
syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they are
forced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they
had before.
Out of his school he is no way pedantical in carriage or discourse;
contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not gingle with
it in every company wherein he comes.
To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasters
careful in their place--that the eminences of their scholars have
commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who,
otherwise in obscurity, had altogether been forgotten. Who had ever
heard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned
Ascham, his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brundly School, in the same
county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr. Whitaker?
Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as his
scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made the
Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus, their founder,
to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas, his schoolmaster, that
first instructed him.
_Thomas Fuller._