them the love of riding. They find fear and bondage in schools. They feel liberty and freedom in stables: which causeth them utterly to abhor the one, and most gladly to haunt the other. And I do not write this that, in exhorting to the one, I would dissuade young gentlemen from the other: yea, I am sorry, with all my heart, that they be given no more to riding than they be For of all outward qualities, to ride fair is most comely for himself, most necessary for his country; and the greater he is in blood, the greater is his praise, the more he doth exceed all other therein. It was one of the three excellent praises, amongst the noble gentlemen the old Persians, Always to say truth, to ride fair, and shoot well and so it was engraven upon Darius' tomb, as Strabo beareth witness: Darius the king lieth buried here, Who in riding and shooting had never peer. But, to our purpose, young men, by any means, losing the love of learning, when by time they come to their own rule, they carry commonly, from the school with them, a perpetual hatred of their master, and a continual contempt of learning. If ten gentlemen be asked why they forget so soon in court that which they were learning so long in school, eight of them, or let me be blamed, will lay the fault on their ill handling by their schoolmasters. Yet some will say that children, of nature, love pastime and mislike learning: because, in their kind, the one is easy and pleasant, the other hard and wearisome: which is an opinion not so true as some men ween: For the matter lieth not so much in the disposition of them that be young, as in the order and manner of bringing up by them that be old, nor yet in the difference of learning and pastime. For, 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 favor him again though he fault at his book, ye shall have him very loath to be in the field, and very willing to be in the school. Yea, I say more, and not of myself, but by the judgment of those from whom few wise men will gladly dissent, that if ever the nature of man be given at any time, more than other, 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. And thus, will in children, wisely wrought withal, may easily be won to be very well willing to learn. And wit in children, by nature, namely memory, the only key and keeper of all learning, is readiest to receive and surest to keep any manner of thing that is learned in youth: This, lewd [vulgar] and learned, by common experience, know to be most true. For we remember nothing so well when we be old as those things which we learned when we were young; and this is not strange, but common in all nature's works. Every man sees (as I said before) new wax is best for printing; new clay fittest for working; new-shorn wool aptest for soon and surest dyeing; new fresh flesh, for good and durable salting. And this similitude is not rude, nor borrowed of the larder house, but out of his schoolhouse, of whom the wisest of England need not be ashamed to learn. Young grafts grow not only soonest, but also fairest, and bring always forth the best and sweetest fruit young whelps learn easily to carry; young popinjays learn quickly to speak: and so, to be short, if in all other things, though they lack reason, sense, and life, the similitude of youth is fittest to all goodness, surely nature in mankind is most beneficial and effectual in this behalf. Therefore, if to the goodness of nature be joined the wisdom of the teacher, in leading young wits into a right and plain way of learning, surely, children, kept up in God's fear, and governed by his grace, may most easily be brought well to serve God and country both by virtue and wisdom. But if will and wit, by farther age, be once allured from innocency, delighted in vain sights, filled with foul talk, crooked with willfulness, hardened with stubbornness, and let loose to disobedience, surely it is hard with gentleness, but unpossible with severe cruelty, to call them back to good frame again. For where the one perchance may bend it, the other shall surely break it; and so instead of some hope, leave an assured desperation, and shameless contempt of all goodness, the farthest point in all mischief, as Xenophon doth most truly and most wittily mark. 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. And one example, whether love or fear doth work more in a child, for virtue and learning, I will gladly report; which may be heard with some pleasure, and followed with more profit. Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park: I found her in her chamber, reading "Phædon 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 wis, 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, madame," 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 anything 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 honor 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 whiles 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 bringing 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." I remember this talk gladly, both because it is so worthy of memory, and because also it was the last talk that ever I had, and the last time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady. I could be overlong, both in showing just causes, and in reciting true examples, why learning should be taught rather by love than fear. He that would see a perfect discourse of it, let him read that learned treatise, which my friend Joan. Sturmius wrote "de Institutione Principis," to the Duke of Cleves. The godly counsels of Solomon and Jesus the son of Sirach, for sharp keeping in and bridling of youth, are meant rather for fatherly correction than masterly beating, rather for manners than for learning; for other places, than for schools. For God forbid but all evil touches, wantonness, lying, picking, sloth, will, stubbornness, and disobedience should be with sharp chastisement daily cut away. Leave me; but place thyself behind the arras, Where I shall find nor path nor friendly clew To be my guide. [CARIOLA goes behind the arras. 1 Ingenuous. |