Elizabethan Popular Culture

Education

Education In the sixteenth-century hierarchy shown here from the Liber de Sapiente of Bovillus, minerals exist, plants exist and grow, animals exist and grow and feel, and man adds to all this the ability to think. Of men, the scholar is ranked highest. He has the "discourse of reason" in the highest degree. Sir Thomas Elyot (1499?-1546Ys Book of The Governor remained influential throughout Elizabeth's reign. What he said about children includes (in the English of his first edition, 1531): By a cruell and irous maister the wittes of children be dulled; and that thinge for the whiche children, be often tymes beaten is to them ever after fastidious; whereof we nede no better autor for witnes than daily experience. The seconde occasion wherefor gentylmens children seldome have sufficient lernynge is avarice; for where theyr parentes wyll nat adventure to send them farre out of theyr propre countrayes, partely for feare of dethe, whiche perchance dare nat approche them at home with theyre father; partely for expence of money, whiche they suppose wolde be lesse in theyre owne houses, or in a village with some of theyr tenantes or frendes; havyng seldome any regarde to the teacher, whether he be wellierned or ignorant. For if they hiare a schole maister to teche in theyr house, they chiefely enquire with howe small a salary he will be contented, and never do inserche howe moche good lernynge he hath, and howe amonge well lerned men he is therin estemed, usinge therin lasse diligence than in takynge servantes, whose service is of moche lasse importance, and to a good schole maister is nat in profite to be compared. A gentil man er he take a cooke in to his service, he wyll firste diligently examine hymn, howe many sortes of meates, potages, and sauces, he can perfectly make, and howe well he can season them, that they may be bothe pleasant and nourishynge; yea and if it be but a fauconer, he wyll scrupulously enquire what skyll he hath in feedyng, called diete, and kepyng of his hauke from all sickenes, also how he can reclaime her and prepare her to flyght. And to suche a cooke or fauconer, whom he findeth expert, he spareth nat to gyve moche wages with other bounteous rewardes. But of a schole maister, to whom he will committe his childe, to be fedde with lernynge and instructed in vertue, whose lyfe shall be the principall monument of his name and honour, he never maketh further enquirie but where he may have a schole maister, and with howe litel charge; and if one be perchance founden, well lerned, but he will nat take paynes to teache without he may have a great salary, he than speketh nothing more, or els saith, What? shall so moche wages he gyven to a schole maister whiche wolde kepe me two servantes? To whom maye be saide these wordes, that by his sonne being wei lerned he shall receive more commoditie and also worship than by the service of a hundred cokes and fauconers [who are traditionally paid more than a tutor]. 241 242 Elizabethan Popular Culture Lord God! howe many good and dene wittes of children be nowe a dayes perisshed by ignorant scholemaisters! Howe litle substantial doctrine is apprehended, by the fewenesse of good gramariensl... I call nat them gramariens, whiche onely can teache or make rules, whereby a childe shall onely Ierne to speake congrue latine, or to make sixe versis standyng in one fote, wherein perchance shal be neither sentence nor eloquence.... Undoubtedly ther be in this realme many well lerned, whiche (if the name of a schole maister were nat so moche had in contempte, and also if theyr labours with abundant salaries mought be requited), were righte suffycient and able to induce their herers to excellent lernynge, so they be nat plucked away grene, and er they begin doctrine sufficiently rooted. But nowe a dayes, if to a bachelar or maister of arte studie of philosophie waxeth tedious, if he have a spone full of latine, he wyll shewe forth a hoggesheed without any lernyng, and offre to teache grammer and expoune noble writers, and to be in the roome of a maister: he wyll, for a small salrie, sette a false colour of lernyng on propre wittes, whiche wyll be wasshed away with one shoure of raine. For if the...