important part of its life. But a democracy can not scorn the thinker. The scholar may limit his special usefulness to the single field of learning. But the thinker is required in every field. The need of him is great, both in time and space, as is the need of efficiency. Every process of the democracy-legislative, judicial, financial, civil, political, commercial, domestic-demands the thinker. In the legislature he is required. The presence on the statute books of laws which can be interpreted in opposite ways, the presence of superfluous laws, the presence of laws which, however well intended, are pestiferous, promoting the very evils which they are designed to cure, are proof that the absence of the thinker is a serious misfortune in any government, and especially in a democratic government. The need of the thinker in the judiciary and in the financial departments of a prosperous democracy is painfully evident. The power to think is strictly the power to weigh evidence. This is largely the function of the judge. In commerce also the thinker is the ruling power. Therefore the university is rendering large advantage to the world through the training of the thinker.

The university is also to train the lady and the gentleman for social duty. A democratic society is in peril of lacking the note of distinction. It is in more peril of a leveling down than a leveling up. It is in peril of being the level of the Mississippi prairie rather than the level of the Rocky Mountain plateau. The university is to train the man into the gentleman without loss of power. It is to teach him to adjust himself to any condition, to be at home in any society, to be a prince among princes, and also to be a prince among bores without awakening boorishness. The university is to teach him to say nothings, and yet with dignity; to talk with weight and yet with dignity, and to inspire respect. It is to make him a gentleman of manner and of manners and one whose manners are the natural doings of a free character.

In particular in America the university is to fit men to live in useful and noble relationships. In the first years of a political democracy the leisure of those who are its members is usually given to sports and pastimes of a nature not of a serious character. This is the natural effect resulting from the materialistic constitution of the democracy itself. But as a democracy develops, its pleasures, like its work, become more and more noble in time and method. Therefore the university' should train men into the noblest use of their leisure; for there are many elements in the best service of the people which can be more easily taken up by individuals than by the formal government. In England men of leisure enter political life and become useful members of Parliament or of local government or of municipal boards. In the United States it would be well if such men would enter political life, but the cost of securing a nomination and an election is so great that men hesitate to seek such offices. But such men in America should devote themselves to service of a semiofficial sort which is for the benefit of humanity. College graduates who are relieved of the necessity of earning their living should do all they can to make the life of the community finer and nobler. The older civilizations to a degree illustrate the value of the motto “noblesse oblige." The communities of the New World have largely illustrated the truth that riches confer obligations on their possessors. It remains to show in the same communities, both ancient and recent, that culture and social efficiency united with wealth represent potencies of the highest value which are to be devoted to the service of man.

CHAPTER VI.

NOTICES OF SOME EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS ON EDUCATION, 1553-1574.

WITH DESCRIPTIONS, EXTRACTS, AND NOTES.

By PROF. FOSTER WATSON,

Of University College, Aberystwith, Wales.

[This chapter is an interesting contribution to the history of education; it gives the needed evidence of the state of education in England in the century preceding the English colonial settlements in America, setting at rest many questions as to the schools of the home country in which our forefathers were instructed in their early youth.]

CONTENTS.

NOTE. The date given to the left of the title is the date of the earliest edition of the work. Sir Thomas Wilson (c1526-1581):

1553. The Art of Rhetoric.

1551. The Rule of Reason

Thomas Phaer (1510 1560):

1553. The Regiment of Life

Page.

620

821

1555. The Institution of a Gentleman.

1561 (English text). The Courtier (translated by Sir Thomas Hoby) Cheke's letter to the translator.

330

331

SIR THOMAS WILSON. c1526-1581.

The Arte of Rhetorique, for the use of all such as are studious of Eloquence, sei forth in Englishe by Thomas Wilson. R. Graftonus. 1553. 4to. (B. L.) 117 ff.

The same with

And now newlie sette foorthe againe, with a Prologue to the Reader. Anno Dñi Imprinted at London by Ihon Kingston. Also 1567, 1580, 1584, 1585.

1562. All (B. L.). This work gains a good word from Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe (4th ed., vol. ii, pp. 193, 209), and high praise from Warton (History of English Poetry, Hazlitt's edition, 1871, vol. iv, pp. 239 et seq.). Passages from Wilson are included in English Prose Selections, edited by Henry Craik (vol. i, pp. 285-293).

Warton

This is the first text-book of importance on composition in English. even regards it as a system of criticism. There had been a book, Warton notes, on rhetoric, viz, The Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke, by Leonard Cox, in 1532, but this was merely a technical and elementary manual." Wilson's treatise is more liberal and discursive, illustrating the arts of eloquence by example, and examining and ascertaining the beauties of composition with the speculative skill and sagacity of a critic.

It can not be said that Sir Thomas Wilson advanced the theory of education, nor that he consciously dwelt on method. But that a writer well esteemed as he greatly influenced education will be seen if it is remembered that he strongly took up the positions, first, that the orator or writer should always accommodate himself and his words to the people whom he is addressing, and secondly, that simplicity of language is to be aimed at as more beautiful and effective than strained and pompous words. The following passages will show Wilson's efforts in these directions:

How needful fables are to teach the ignorant.

The multitude (as Horace doth say) is a beast, or rather a monster, that hath many heads, and therefore, like unto the diversity of natures, variety of invention inust always be used. Talk altogether of most grave matters, or deeply search out the ground of things, or use the quiddities of Dunce to set forth God's mysteries, and you shall see the ignorant (I warrant you) either fall asleep or else bid you farewell. The multitude must needs be made merry, and the more foolish your talk is the more wise will they count it to be. And yet it is no foolishness, but rather wisdom to win men by telling of fables to hear of God's goodness. Undoubtedly fables well set forth have done much good at divers times, and in divers commonweals.

The most famous passage in Wilson's book is that on the Avoidance of inkhorn terms:

Among all other lessons this should first be learned, that we never affect any strange ink-horn terms, but to speak as is commonly received, neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet living overcareless, using our speech as most men do, and ordering our wits as the fewest have done. Some seek so far for outlandish English that they forget altogether their mother's language. And I dare swear this, if some of their mothers were alive they were not able to tell what they say; and yet these fine English clerks will say they speak in their mother tongue, if a man should charge them for counterfeiting the King's English. Some far-journeyed gentlemen at their return home, like as they love to go in foreign apparel, so they will powder their talk with over-sea language. He that cometh lately out of France will talk French English, and never blush at the matter. Another chops in with English italianated and applieth the Italian phrase to our English speak

*

ing* *. The lawyer will store his stomach with the prating of pedlars

* * *

The unlearned or foolish phantastical, that smells but of learning (such fellows as have seen learned men in their days), will so Latin their tongues that the simple can not but wonder at their talk, and think surely they speak by some

revelation. I know them that think rhetoric to stand wholly upon dark words; and he that can catch an inkhorn term by the tail him they count to be a fine Englishman and a good rhetorician.

There is a somewhat similar passage quoted by Professor Schelling: Life and Writings of Gascoigne, in Publications of the University of Pennsylvania:

I have alwayes bene of opinion, that it is not unpossible eyther in Poemes or in prose to write both compendiously and perfectly in our Englishe tongue. And therefore although I chalenge not unto myself the name of an English Poet, yet may the Reader finde oute in my wrytings, that I have more faulted in keeping the olde English wordes (quamvis jam obsoleta) than in borrowing of other languages such Epithetes and Adjectives as smell of the Inkhorne * * I have

*

rather regarde to make our native language commendable in it selfe, than gay with the feathers of straunge birds. (Epistle to the Reverend Divines, preface to ed. of 1575, Hazlitt ed., I, 2.)

Caxton had spoken similarly: Vol. ii of the Short History (illustrated edition), pp. 578 and 579.

Green says:

He (Caxton) stood between two schools of translation, that of French affectation and English pedantry. It was a moment when the character of our literary tongue was being settled, and it is curious to see in his own words the struggle over it which was going on in Caxton's time. "Some honest and great clerks have been with me and desired me to write the most curious terms that I could find;" on the other hand, "some gentlemen of late blamed me, saying that in my translations I had over many curious terms which could not be understood of common people, and desired me to use old and homely terms in my translations.". His own taste pointed to English, but "to the common terms that be daily used " rather than to the English of his antiquarian advisers. "I took an old book and read therein, and certainly the English was so rude and broad I could not well understand it," while the Old-English charters which the Abbot of Westminster lent as models from the archives of his house seemed more like to Dutch than to English." As Hallam says, "The rules in Wilson's treatise are chiefly from Aristotle, with the help of Cicero and Quintilian, but his examples and illustrations are modern."

One further point from Wilson. He has been discoursing on memory, and has expounded systems of "places" (as, e. g., to make the nose, the eyes, the forehead, the hair, the ears, and other parts to serve as pegs to hang consecutive ideas on). He has spoken of what we now call association of ideas. "Yea, sometimes a window maketh some remember that they have stolen in their days something out of it. Sometimes a chimney telleth them of many late drinkings and settings by the fire." He winds up his section, however, on the art of memory:

The best art of memory that can be, is to hear much, to speak much, to read much and to write much. And exercise it is that doeth all, when we have said all that ever we can.

Sir Thomas Wilson also wrote:

The Rule of Reason, conteinying the Art of Logique, set forth in Englishe by T. Vuilson, B. L. R. Grafton, London 1551. 8vo. Also 1552, 1553, 1563, 1567, 1580.

Sir Thomas Wilson was born about 1526 at Stroby, in Lincolnshire. Educated at Eaton and King's College, Cambridge. Taught in family of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. Studied law at University of Errara. Imprisoned in Rome on account of his treaties on logic and rhetoric. Soon after Elizabeth's accession was made master of requests and master of St. Katharine's Hospital. Sent on various embassies. Died in 1581. For further account see Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, vol. 32, pp. 172-174; Warton, History of English Poetry, 1871 ed. vol. iv, p. 240; Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 62, p. 132.

ED 1903-21