III Epilogue
Grym. No ornament is more becoming or pleasing in the youth than modesty. Nothing is more offensive and hateful than impudence. There is great danger to our age from anger. By it we are snatched to disgraceful actions, of which afterwards we are most keenly ashamed. And so we must struggle eagerly against it, until it is entirely overcome, lest it overcome us. The leisurely man, badly occupied, is a stone, a beast; a well-occupied man is in truth a man. Men, by doing nothing, learn to do evil. Food and drink must be measured by the natural desire of hunger and thirst, not by gluttony, and not by brute-lust of stuffing the body. What can be more loathsome to be said than that a man wages war on his own body by eating and drinking, which strip him of his humanity, and hand him over to the beasts, or make him even as it were a log of wood. The expression of the face and the whole body show in what manner the mind within is trained. But from the whole exterior appearance, no mirror of the mind is more certain than the eyes, and so it is fitting that they should be sedate and quiet, not elated nor dejected, neither mobile nor stiff, and that the face itself should not be drawn into severity or ferocity, but into a cheerful and affable cast. Sordidness and obscenity should be far absent from clothing, nurture, intercourse, and speech. Our speech should be neither arrogant nor marked by fear, nor (would he have it by turns) abject and effeminate, but simple and by no means captious; not twisted to misleading interpretations, for if that happens, nothing can be safely spoken, and a noble nature in a man is broken, if his speech is met by foolish and inane cavils. When we are speaking, the hands should not be tossed about, nor the head shaken, nor the side bent, nor the forehead wrinkled, nor the face distorted, nor the feet shuffling. Nothing is viler than lying, nor is anything so abhorrent. Intemperance makes us beasts; lying makes us devils; the truth makes us demigods. Truth is born of God; lying of the Devil, and nothing is so harmful for the communion of life. Much more ought the liar to be shut out from the concourse of men than he who has committed theft, or he who has beaten another, or he who has debased the coinage. For what intercourse in the affairs or business of life or what trustful conversation can there be with the man, who speaks otherwise than as he thinks? With other kinds of vices, this may be possible; but not with lying. Concerning companions and friendship of youths he said much and to the purpose, that this was not a matter of slight moment to the honesty or else the shame of our age, that the manners of our friends and companions are communicated to us as if by contagion, and we become almost such as those are, with whom we have intimate dealings; and therefore in that matter, there should be exercised great diligence and care. Nor did he permit us to seek friendships and intimacies ourselves, but that they should be chosen by parents or teachers or educators, and he taught that we should accept them, and honour them as they were recommended. For parents, in choosing for us, are guided by reason, whilst we may be seized by some bad desire or lust of the mind. But if, by any chance, we should find ourselves in useless or harmful circumstances, then it behoves us as soon as possible to seek advice from our superiors, and to lay our cares before them. He said, from time to time, indeed, very many other weighty and admirable things, and these things also he explained with considerable fullness and exactness. But these points which I have already stated were, on the whole, the most important on the subject of the right education of youth.
Breda, in Brabant; the Day of the
Visitation of the Holy Virgin, 1538.
Footnotes
1 From the same Institution of a Christian Woman (Richard Hyrde’s translation).
2 J. L. Vives: Ausgeswählte pädagogische Schriften. Leipzig.
3 De Causis Corruptarum Artium, book ii.
4 The De Disciplinis consists of two parts—1. De Causis Corruptarum Artium, in seven books; 2. De Tradendis Disciplinis in five books.
5 Dissertation on Romance and Minstrelsy, by Joseph Ritson, 1891.
6 Bömer, Die Lateinischen Schülergespräche der Humanisten (1899), p. 182.
7 Vives deals with this question in his De Tradendis Disciplinis, and it is highly probable that Mulcaster had read that book before he treated on the subject of conferences of parents and teachers. (Positions, p. 284).
8 It should be remembered, in connection with these dates, that Queen Mary was eleven years older than Philip. Mary was Philip’s second wife; his first wife was Mary of Portugal, whom he married in 1543. She died in 1546.
9 See p. 174.
10 This edition is not mentioned by Bömer.
11 See p. xxvi.
12 See p. 196–196.
13 p. 21.
14 p. 18.
15 p. 65.
16 In the eighteenth century, the Nonconformist academies, which are of the first significance as educational institutions, probably, in many cases, already associated the stages of elementary, secondary, and university education in one institution.
17 The grammar school was called in Latin Ludus literarius.
18 E.g., John Northbrooke: Treatise wherein Dicing, etc.,... are reproved... Dialogue-wise, 1579 (Reprinted by the Shakespeare Society); Gilbert Walker: A Manifest Detection of the most Vyle and Detestable Use of Dice-play, 1552 (Reprinted by the Percy Society); and by educational writers, e.g., Roger Ascham: Toxophilus (1545), and Laurence Humphrey: The Nobles (1560). William Horman, headmaster of Eton College School, in his Vulgaria (in 1519) holds the opinion: “It is a shame that young gentlemen should lose time at the dice and tables, cards and hazard.”
19 As to charts, e.g., Sir Thomas Elyot, in the Gouvernour (1531), says: “I cannot tell what more pleasure should happen to a gentle wit than to behold in his own house (i.e., in pictures and maps) everything that within all the world is contained.”
20 See p. 95.
21 Dialogue IX.
22 Dialogue VIII.
23 Which J. T. Freigius duly notes is taken from Ovid: Metamorphoses, liber vi., and Vergil: Eclogues, vi.
24 Vives gives an example in Pandulphus (Dialogue IX.).
25 De Tradendis Disciplinis, book iii. chap. 3.
26 De Tradendis Disciplinis, book iii. chap. 3.
27 De Tradendis Disciplinis, book i. chap. 2.
28 Mémoire sur la vie et les écrits de J. L. Vives, p. 87.
29 Die lateinischen Schülergespräche der Humanisten, pp. 163–163.
30 Pasce animos nostros Christe caritate tua, qui benignitate tua alis vitas animantium: sancta sint, Domine, haec tua munera nobis sumentibus, ut tu, qui ea largiris, sanctus es. Amen.
31 In John Conybeare’s Collection of Proverbs (1580–1580) the following rendering is given: “One knave will kepe another companye, one pratteler wille with another, like will to like.” Letters and Exercises of John Conybeare, p. 42. London: Henry Frowde, 1905.
32 Audire male. To have an evil reputation. Lewis and Short aptly quote from Milton’s Areopagitica: “For which England hears ill abroad.”
33 On a tombstone. Dr. Bröring quotes from Guicciardini, Belgicae Descriptio, 1635, where an account is given of the tombstone to a daughter of the Countess Mathilde of Holland in a Cloister near the Hague.
34 Amphora is a measure for liquids. It was equal to six gallons seven pints. The congius, in the Tri-congius, was a measure of one-eighth of an amphora.
35 I.e. of the nature of bugs.
36 Decoxisse from decoquere—which means both to cook and to become bankrupt.
37 Dr. Bröring quotes from Erasmus’s Adages, Chil. I. Cent. viii. Prov. 86, to show that formerly men of obscure birth were termed terrae filii.
38 Capitulum lepidissimum—a term of endearment used by Terence.
39 Freigius notes that Jubellius Taurea was by far the strongest horse of the Campanians, whilst Claudius Asellus was a horseman of equally renowned horsemanship. The steed challenged the rider to a contest. See Livy, Bk. 3, Decad. 3.
40 Of the town of Tours, in France.
41 It is explained by Vives, as a note in the margin, that Curio is the priest of the parish, commonly called curate.
42 As Dr. Bröring remarks, “German” is used in the sense of “brethren.”
43 With dust in winter and mud in spring, you will reap great grain, Camillus. Macrobius, Satur. v. 20; cf. Vergil, Georgics, i. 101.
44 Happy is the man in his heart, and approaching to the happiness of the gods themselves, whom glory does not agitate, dazzling with its lying gloss, nor the evil allurements of haughty luxury, but who lets the days pass peacefully by and silently, and with the labour of the poor man wins the peace of the blameless life.
45 I.e., shop packing-paper.
46 But dispatch now, don’t put off to future hours. Who does not do a thing to-day may be less able to do it to-morrow.
47 Let words run, the hand is quicker than they; not as yet has the tongue done its work until the right hand has accomplished its task.
48 Is this always the order of the day, then? Here is full morning coming through the window-shutters, and making the narrow crevices look larger with the light; yet we go on snoring, enough to carry off the fumes of that unmanageable Falernian.—(Conington’s Translation.)
49 Arise, already the baker sells breakfast to boys. On every side, already, the birds announce the dawn by their chirping.
“Such days, I trow, at the infancy of earth,
Shone forth, and kept the tenor of their birth;
True spring was that, the world was bent on spring,
And eastern breezes check’d their wintry wing:
While cattle drank new light, and man was shown,
A race of iron from a land of stone;
Then savage beasts were launch’d upon the grove,
And constellations on the heaven above;
Nor could young Nature have achieved the birth,
Unless a period of repose so sweet
Had come to pass, betwixt the cold and heat,
And heaven’s indulgence greeted the new earth.”
R. D. Blackmore’s Translation.
51 As did Columella, i.e., pruna cereola. Pliny calls them cerina.
52 Freigius’s note: Insularius is equivalent to French concierge.
53 Livy, book i.
54 Book v. cap. 4, de Cimone; Ovid, Fasti, book ii.
55 I.e., the beggar in the house of Ulysses at Ithaca. See Martial, 5, 41, 9.
56 Georgics, i. 392. The oil (of lamps is seen) to sparkle and crumbling fungus to form.
57 Sleep, the rest of things, sleep, most gracious of the gods, peace of the mind, whom anxiety shuns, thou who soothest the weary bodies from their hard duties and restorest them for their labour.
58 This is a mark of refinement and seemly in one who is cultured—not to be ignorant of the names of the utensils that are in daily use in the house.
59 Athen. 12. That he was the first to set the Romans the example of luxury in all things.
60 That Apicius exceeded all men in prodigality.
61 Cooking vessel with feet for coals.
62 I am not willing to be Caesar, to march through the Britons and to suffer Scythian frosts.
63 So says Aelius Spartianus in Life of Hadrian Florus as quoted by Freigius. See Crinitus, book 15, cap. 5.
64 How often the cook seeks pepper and wine for the breakfasts of the Fabii to smack of the simple beet.
65 And heavily used to hang on his arm a bowl with a worn-out handle.
66 Tell me why does the lettuce, which used to finish off the meals of our ancestors, now begin our meals?
67 When I, the Lucanian sausage, come, daughter of the swine of Picenum, then will the crown be given gladly to the snowy pottage.
68 As he passed by one day, Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, scoffed at him and said: “If you had learnt to live on these, you would not frequent the courts of kings;” and he said: “If you knew how to associate with your fellow men, you would not be washing vegetables.”
69 See Cicero, De Oratore, iii. (near the end); Quintilian, i. 10; Gellius, Noctes Atticae, i. 11.
70 Graculus is a jackdaw. Aesop has a story of the jackdaw with borrowed plumes. Juvenal iii. 78 refers to the Graeculus, the Roman attempting to play the Greek.
71 A red colouring matter.
72 On what has been set and is set before us, may Christ deign to give his blessing.
73 Even with three guests, each seems to me to have a different taste, each requiring quite different foods with his quite different palate. Horace, Epistles, ii. 2, 61, 62.
74 Georgics, i. 57.
75 We should give little to pleasure, as its due; but all the more to health. Cato, Disticha de Moribus, ii. 28.
76 See Varro, De re rustica, III. vi. 6.
77 We render thanks to Thee, Father, who has provided so many things for the enjoyment of men: Grant that, by Thy good-will, we may come to the feast of Thy Blessedness.
78 For getting well from the bite of dog at night, take from the dog’s hair your remedy.
79 Boys play, and play, also, youth and age. Play is the wit, seriousness, and wisdom of old age. Also human life, what is it but trifling and empty fable, when virtue is not its sole guiding principle?
80 Viz., The Antiochian; or, The Beard-hater.
81 I.e., the small town of the Parisians.
82 Vives uses the Roman formula for the passing of laws: “Velitis, Quirites, jubeatis.” The response of acceptance being: “Uti rogas.”
83 Dr. Bröring renders glabella, “the space between the eyebrows.” Glabellus is derived from glaber, the root of which is γλαφ—cf. scalpo, to hollow out—i.e., smooth, without hair (Lewis and Short).
84 See Valerius Maximus, book vi. chap. vi.