While Mercurialis was writing his _De Arte Gymnastica_ and Montaigne his _Essays_, _Richard Mulcaster_ (1530?-1611) was doing hard work for scant pay as Master of the Merchant Taylors’ School in London (1561-1586). Among other striking points of difference, he stands in pleasant contrast with his more successful contemporary Sturm, at Strasburg, in his attitude toward the bodies of the young. His _Positions_, which appeared in 1581 and was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, deals with the principles to be observed in the training of children, “either for skill in their book or health in their body.” A third of the volume is given up to the physical side of education, and the nature of the contents cannot be better revealed in brief space than by a partial list of the chapter headings, slightly altered and condensed: Chapter 4, That exercise must be joined with the book, as the schooling of the body. 6, The importance of exercise and physical training (as an agent of health). 7, The order followed in the present treatment of the subject. 8, Definition and varieties of exercise (athletics, martial exercises, exercises for health, etc.). 9, Choice of exercises. 10-15, Of loud speaking, loud singing, loud and soft reading, much talking and silence, laughing and weeping, holding the breath. 16-27, Dancing, wrestling, fencing, top and scourge, walking, running, leaping, swimming, riding, hunting, shooting (archery), ball games. 28-34, Circumstances to be considered in exercise, nature and quality of exercise, the bodies which are to be exercised; place, time, quantity, and manner of exercise. 35, The training master (the same teacher is to serve for both mind and body). Of all books on gymnastics, he says in this last chapter, “I know not any comparable to Hieronymus Mercurialis, a very learned Italian physician now in our time, which hath taken great pains to sift out of all writers whatsoever concerneth the whole gymnastical and exercising argument, whose advice in this question I have myself much used, where he did fit my purpose.” Mulcaster seems never to have caught the ear of the age in which he lived, and it is only within the last few decades that he has been rescued from oblivion and rated at his real worth, as a man far in advance of his time. His book was reprinted in London in 1888.