1568. On the 4th of January Roger Ascham died, and was buried at St.
Sepulchre’s church, London. He was born in Yorkshire about 1515, and is
celebrated for his learning, for having been tutor and Latin secretary
to queen Elizabeth, and for having written “the Scholemaster.” This work
originated from mention having been made at dinner that some Eton
scholars “had run away from school for fear of beating.” Ascham
expressed his opinion that “young children were sooner allured by love,
than driven by beating, to attain good learning.” He then retired up
stairs “to read with the queen’s majesty: we read then together that
noble oration of Demosthenes against Æschines, for his false dealing in
his embassy to king Philip of Macedon; sir Richard Sackville came up
soon after.” Sackville took Ascham aside, “A fond (silly) schoolmaster,”
said sir Richard, “before I was fully fourteen years old, drove me so,
with fear of beating, from all love of learning, as now, when I know
what difference it is to have learning, and to have little, or none at
all, I feel it my greatest grief, and find it my greatest hurt, that
ever came to me, that it was so my ill chance, to light upon so lewd
(ignorant) a schoolmaster.” The whole conversation was very interesting,
and so impressed Ascham with its importance, that he says, he “thought
to prepare some little treatise for a new-year’s gift that Christmas,”
but it grew beneath his hands and became his “Scholemaster, showing a
plain and perfect way of teaching the learned languages.” The best
edition of this work, which Ascham did not live to publish, is that
edited by the Rev. James Upton, 1743, octavo. The book was first printed
by Ascham’s widow, whom with her children he left in distress. It was
eminently serviceable to the advancement of teachers and pupils, at a
period when it was the fashion to flog. Its most remarkable feature is
the frowning down of this brutal practice, which, to the disgrace of our
own times, is still heard of in certain seminaries, both public and
private. The good old man says, “Beat a child if he dance not well, and
cherish him though he learn not well, ye shall have him unwilling to go
to dance, and glad to go to his book: knock him always when he draweth
his shaft ill, and favour him again though he fault at his book, ye
shall have him very loth to be in the field, and very willing to go to
school.” He observes, “If ever the nature of man be given at any time,
more than another, to receive goodness, it is in innocency of young
years before that experience of evil have taken root in him. For the
pure, clean wit of a sweet young babe, is like the newest wax, most able
to receive the best and fairest printing; and like a new bright silver
dish never occupied, to receive and keep clean any good thing that is
put into it. Therefore, to love or to hate, to like or contemn, to ply
this way or that way, to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child
in his youth.” He exemplifies this by a delightful anecdote of the
young, beautiful, and accomplished lady Jane Grey, who shortly
afterwards perished by the axe of the executioner. Ascham, before he
went into Germany, visited Broadgate in Leicestershire, to take leave of
her. “Her parents, the duke and duchess, with all the household,
gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I found _her_,”
says Ascham, “in her chamber, reading Phædo Platonis in Greek, and that
with as much delight, as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in
Boccace. After salutation, and duty done, with some other talk, I asked
her, why she would lose such pastime in the park? Smiling, she answered
me:
“‘I wist, all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure
that I find in Plato. Alas! good-folk, they never felt what true
pleasure meant.’
“‘And how came you, madam,’ quoth I, ‘to this deep knowledge of
pleasure? And what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing not many
women, but very few men, have attained thereunto?’
“‘I will tell you,’ quoth she, ‘and tell you a truth, which perchance
you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me,
is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a
schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother,
whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry,
or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, I must do
it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly,
as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly
threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and
other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) so
without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come
that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly,
with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time
nothing, while I am with him: and when I am called from him, I fall on
weeping, because whatsoever I do else, but learning, is full of grief,
trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me: and thus my book hath been
so much my pleasure and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more,
that in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed, be but trifles
and troubles unto me.’”
Surely this innocent creature’s confession, that she was won to the love
of learning and her teacher by his gentleness, and the disclosure of her
affliction under the severe discipline of her parents, are positive
testimony to the fact, that our children are to be governed and taught
by the law of kindness: nor let it detract from the force of the remark,
that in connection with her artless feelings and blameless deportment,
if her hard fate call forth a versified effusion.