Schools and their Teaching in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
From the fifteenth century at least the local Grammar School was the
normal place of education for all classes but the highest. In 1410 an
action for trespass was brought by two masters of Gloucester Grammar
School against a third master, who had set up an unlicensed school in
the town and "whereas they used to take forty pence or two shillings a
quarter, they now only took twelve pence," and therefore they claimed
damages. In the course of the argument the Chief Justice declared that
"if a man retains a Master in his house to teach his children, he
damages the common Master of the town, but yet he will have no action."
Instances such as this tend to shew that it was the exception for boys
to be taught either at home by a private tutor or under a man other than
the Public Schoolmaster.
In England, Schools, from the first, that is from their introduction
together with Christianity, had been exclusively ecclesiastical
institutions and were under ecclesiastical authority and regulation. In
1215 the Fourth Lateran Council had said that there should be a
Schoolmaster in every Cathedral, and that he should be licensed by the
Bishop. In 1290 at Canterbury the Master had even the power of
excommunicating his Scholars. At a later date many chantry priests by
the founder's direction, a few voluntarily undertook the task of
teaching. In 1547 they were compelled to do so by a law, which after a
year was rendered nugatory by the confiscation of Chantries. In 1558
Elizabeth ordained that every Schoolmaster and Teacher should take the
oath, not only of Supremacy but also of Allegiance. Even after the
Reformation they had still to get the Bishop's license and this
continued till the reign of Victoria, save for a brief period during the
Commonwealth, when County Committees and Major-Generals took the
responsibility.
The curriculum in Schools at the beginning of the sixteenth century
consisted of what was called the Trivium, Grammar, Dialectic, and
Rhetoric. The Quadrivium or Music, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy,
was relegated to the Universities and only pursued by very few. In 1535
Henry VIII wished "laten, greken, and hebrewe to be by my people
applied and larned." Latin was not in those days a mere method of
training the youthful mind, it was much more a practically useful piece
of knowledge. It was a standard of communication and a storehouse of
phrases. It was taught in the most approved fashion, as a language to be
spoken to fit them, as Brinsley says, "if they shall go beyond the seas,
as gentlemen who go to travel. Factors for merchants and the like."
Almost every boy learned his Latin out of the same book. Lily's Grammar
was ordered to supplant all others in 1540. The smallest local Grammar
Schools had much the same text-books and probably as good scholars as
Eton or Winchester or Westminster. The Master and Scholars must not talk
any language other than Latin, Greek or Hebrew according to the
Giggleswick Statutes, and at Eton and Westminster the same rule applied;
at those Schools any boy discovered talking English was punished with
the name of Custos, a title which involved various unpleasant duties.
Greek and Hebrew are both in the Giggleswick curriculum. Hallam says
that in 1500 not more than three or four persons could be mentioned, who
had any tincture of Greek. Colet, in his re-foundation Statutes of S.
Paul's School ordained that future Headmasters "must be learned in good
and clean Latin Literature" and also "in Greek, if such may be gotten."
But towards the close of the century Greek had become well-established.
Durham introduced it in 1593, the Giggleswick Statutes imply its use in
1592, and Camden, Headmaster of Westminster, in 1597 brought out a Greek
Grammar, which became as universal as Lily's Latin Grammar.
Of Hebrew there are few records, and none at Giggleswick, it was
probably allotted very little time, and certainly at the Universities,
it was for long at a very low ebb.
With regard to English very little was done. Erasmus was responsible for
a slightly wider outlook and he encouraged History in Latin books and in
a less degree Geography as a method of illustration. Mulcaster who
published his book "Positions" in 1561 deplored the fact that education
still began with Latin, although religion was no longer "restrained to
Latin." The Giggleswick Statutes set it forth that the Master shall
instruct his scholars--for more knowledge of the Liberal Sciences and
catechize them every week in the knowledge of Christian Religion.
If the Liberal Sciences were the appointed task, and, if in addition, he
must speak Latin or Greek or Hebrew, the boy of 1592, long as his school
hours undoubtedly were, would be well occupied. We have no evidence on
the point, but we can conjecture from other sources the nature of the
knowledge of Christian Religion that they were expected to have.
The Primer was the layman's service-book, and consisted largely of
matter taken from the Horæ or Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
This litel child his litel book lerninge,
As he sat in the scole at his prymer.
In 1545 Henry VIII had issued a new edition in consequence of the
Reformation and he now set it forth as the only edition to be used, and
emphasized the importance of learning in the vernacular, the Pater
Noster--Ave Maria--Creed--and Ten Commandments.
The Primer was a book of devotion, the Catechism was rather a summary of
doctrines. Alexander Nowell, Dean of S. Paul's and possibly a brother of
the Giggleswick John Nowell had published a Catechism in 1570, which
supplanted all others even those "sett fourth by the Kinges majesties'
authoritie for all scolemaisters to teache," and it was Nowell's
Catechism that the School Statutes expected to be used.
The Bible was not definitely a school subject till 1604, and although it
was in earlier use in some places of education, there is no mention of
it at Giggleswick. There is however one more religious aspect of school
life that was very general and is mentioned in these particular
Statutes. The Master shall not begin to teache or dismiss the School
without convenient Prayers and Thanksgivings. The Prayers would probably
consist of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed.
Of Grace there is no mention, but in 1547 Edward VI had issued
injunctions that "All Graces to be said at dinner and supper shall be
always said in the English Tongue."
Every year the Master was allowed to appoint three weeks for the boys to
be exercised in writing under a Scrivener. There were in Yorkshire
peripatetic Scriveners, who used to wander from school to school and
teach them for a few weeks in the year, after which the writing in the
school would be neglected. At Durham School the writing had to be
encouraged by a system of prizes, by which the best writer in the class
would receive every Saturday all the pens and paper of his fellows in
the form. St. Bees Grammar School in 1583 tried a similar system from
another point of view, they paid the Usher 4_d._ yearly for every boy
"that he shall teach to write, so long as he takes pains with them." But
paper was a very great expense; for by the year 1600 there were only two
paper factories in England and the price for small folio size was nearly
4_d._ a quire. Writing indeed was only beginning to be common in the
schools, it had long been looked upon merely as a fine art and for
ordinary purposes children had been taught by means of sand spread over
a board. Henceforward steps are taken all over England to ensure its
teaching; at first the expert, the Scrivener, goes round from school to
school, but later the ability of the Ushers improves and no longer need
they fear the competition of a rival, they begin to teach the boys
themselves and writing becomes a part of the ordinary curriculum.
It will be recognized that there is a central motive of religion
pervading the teaching and conduct of schools towards the close of the
sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth, as there always had been. "We
have filled our children's bones with sin" says Hezekiah Woodward, "and
it is our engagement to do all we can to root out that which we have
been a means to root in so fast." A more serious spirit was abroad. The
young man was to abstain from singing or humming a tune in company
"especially if he has an unmusical or rough voice." Schoolmasters were
to abstain from "dicing and carding," scholars from misdemeanour and
irreverent behaviour towards others.
Latin, Greek and Hebrew, became the "holy languages" because they were
so closely allied with the Sacred Scriptures. Throughout education a
deeper sense of the value of religious teaching, a deeper conviction
that sin was detestable, a greater respect for outward sobriety fastened
upon the minds of those who were responsible for education, and the
children whom they trained grew up to be the fathers and mothers of the
intense enthusiasts, who enforced religious freedom by the execution of
their King.