The poem is a dialogue, in which Philopas asks questions and Chrysippus answers them. Here only the substance of the answers is given in the passages quoted.

A child should not have many teachers.

The country Caria was destroyed a
In such a case as this.

So many men, so many wits.

Young infants are dismayed
When that the thing they learn today
Tomorrow are unsaid.

The first condition of learning.

The first degree to learning is
The Schoolmaister to love:
Whereby it comes to pass in time,
As skilful teachers prove,

That little child which loved first
His book for maister's sake,
In time through love to learning doth,
Like love to maister take.

For as those gifts are loved most,

Which come from those we love.
So babes that know not why to love
For maister's cause do love,
Isocrates hath rightly said,

That he doth learn most,

That hath the most desire to learn,
And thinks no labour lost.
And as to learn, we learn best
Of those we best do love:

So love to maister is the cause,
That love to book doth move,
For parents even themselves cannot
Prevail if they shall use

To break them all by fear and force
And gentle means refuse.

Unqualified schoolmasters and cureless parents.

How ill therefore do they foresee,

The safety of their child,

The beautifying of his brains

With skill and manners mild

That turn him in his tender age,

To ghastly mazing school

Where throned sits a maister strange

Blunt, rude, and half a fool

Oft-times infected with disease,
Inveterate and old:

Which makes the wayward testy fool

With little lambs to scold.

And surely, we do see there can

Be none so abject fools

So base and void of sense, but now,
Men use them for their schools.

A man would say it were no school
But slaughter-house indeed.

a Multitudo imperatorum Cariam perdidit.

What the teacher should do.

Let's watchful be t'instruct them well,
No labour let us spare.

To teach and train them up to good,
Let that be all our care

Sometimes to read, and of things read
Again for to require

A just account: lo, these be thumps
That tender wits desire.

What the teacher should say.

This man (say thou) through learning skill
Is come to high degree:

This man to wealth by learning, this
To power and dignity.

But this again, through ill-desert
Through want of learning's lore,
Reproach, contempt and poverty
Hath gained himself therefore.

What is to be done with the obstinate?

But some perhaps will say to me,
What shall be done with those
Whom we to study cannot frame,
Except it be with blows?
To such I answer in this wise:
What would you seem to do

To asses or to oxen, if

They come the school into?

What? would you not soon drive them forth

Into the country soil,

The one to the mill, the other with

The Plough and Cart to toil?

And certainly, no less are men

Unto the Plough staff born

Than is the ox: no less to the mill

Than the ass with labour worn.

Philopas says, "Yes, then the schoolmaster loses his scholars and his fees." Chrysippus says the worthy schoolmaster will let them go. If the schoolmaster is good, then the civil and ecclesiastical magistrates should look after him. But how rare to find the "right wise man indeed" as a teacher.

The training of the schoolmaster.

The Magistrates should see:
That as the Soldier trained is,
And fitted for the field,

As singing men are taught to tune

The counterverse they yield:

So much more should they see that man

Be taught, much more be trained

That to the worthy teaching trade

Hath any way attained.

The writer then cites the instances of Vespasian, Plinius, and Nepos, as aiding learned men, and urges that teaching must be kept up by the "public care.”

The schoolmaster's method.

The schoolmaster you see

To win the child, should seem a child

And child again should be.

To teach to speak and eat and walk, imitation is brought into play.

T

Children must not be taught the "wantonnesses" of the poets, but be given "good stories" from the Bible and Quintus Curtius, and led on to write accounts of them by rewards.

Remember of children:

What they cannot learn at first,

That learn they at length:

Though strength they have not as an ox

Yet as an ant they have.

Hence people are wrong who say, Don't teach a child before 5 years old; there is no profit in it. But the writer says, Shall we delay

Whenas there's nothing half so rich
As Time is, nor half so good
As learning is.

Examples of great men: Ovid, Lucan, Ursinus, Alexander the Great, all were taught with the highest profit when young.

Teach early, but teach well. (The Epilogue.)

Consider well, what portion and
What dear possession eke
A son is: and how flittingly
Man's mind doth knowledge seek.
How weighty education is,
What ableness is found
In tender child's capacity

What quickness doth abound.

If children are only sent to learned men

And unto such as gentle are,

Which teach them all by play:
Things easy first, and harder things
When harder things they may.

The remarkable metrical composition is in substance translated (see Mr. A. H. Bullen's account of Hake in the Dictionary of National Biography) from a Latin tract, "De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis." Warton, in his History of English Poetry (ed. Hazlitt, vol. iv, p. 204), says:

In the dedication to Maister John Harlowe his approved friend, he [Hake] calls himself an "Attorney in the Common Pleas," observing at the same time, that the name of an Attorney in the Common Pleas is nowadays grown into contempt. He adds another circumstance of his life, that he was educated under John Hopkins, whom I suppose to be the translator of the Psalms, “You being trained up together with me your poor schoolfellow with the instructions of that learned and exquisite teacher, Maister John Hopkins, that worthy schoolmaister, nay rather that most worthy parent unto all children committed to his charge of education. Of whose memory, if I should in such an opportunity as this, be forgetful, etc.

I regret that I can not give the passage in full, but Warton stops short at this point, and the dedication and early pages of the tract are missing from the British Museum copy. The reading of the passages quoted carries with it the confirmation that the John Hopkins referred to is the translator of the Psalms.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF THE UNITED STATES.

By AARON GOVE.

Superintendent of Schools, Denver, Colo.

The public school systems of the United States present a scheme of education not national, but, by an interesting history and experience, so nearly unified as to be not improperly designated a "national school system." The sovereignty of each State of the United States and its relation to the National Government virtually prohibit the interference in or direction of such conduct of public schools as may be prescribed and executed by each individual State. One finds, whether he look to Massachusetts or Missouri or California, State public school plans modified one from the other by changes of environment, by geographical and industrial conditions, and more especially by circumstances attending the admission of the State into the National Federation. Throughout the entire Union, in the fortyfive States is found provision for the education of the children at the expense of the public purse. The property of the State is taxed for the education of the children of the State. Whether this school attendance is compulsory or voluntary, and to what extent free text-books and other instruments are provided, depend upon the legislation of the State. However, certain general methods of management obtain in all, modified only by the above-named conditions. The conduct of city schools of municipalities of 10,000 people or more is quite similar, whether East or West, North or South. The controlling power of the schools consists of a public corporation, its composition varied in size and sex, though not many women in the country have been placed upon school boards. The members of this corporation board are variously determined, sometimes by election by the people; sometimes by appointment of a court of justice; sometimes by appointment by the mayor or other officer. Usually the board is scarcely limited in power except by the statute under which it exists. In a few cities the municipal government controls the expenditure of money-that is, the appropriation of money to the school board must have the approval of the municipal government. Usually, especially in the newer parts of the country, the school board is absolute, not only in the expenditure, but also in the power to levy a tax on the property of the city, limited only by the constitution of the State. This board organizes the schools of the city, usually by the selection of one executive officer, commonly termed the superintendent of schools, and by the erection and conduct of as many schools as are necessary for the accommodation of the children of the city between the ages of 6 and 14; in some cities 6 and 21. In a few States provision is made for the kindergarten system, providing for the education at public expense of children under 6.

The school buildings in the large cities are of various sizes, sometimes accommodating 2.000 and even 3,000 pupils; in the smaller cities, one or two room houses are found. The medium-sized city of the country has for its typical schoolhouse a building of 12 or 15 rooms, which means schoolrooms from about 28 to 32 feet square, each seating 50 pupils, with 1 teacher, and a principal or master of the building, who has charge of the whole school.