Roger Ascham,[11] in the quaint preface of his _Scholemaster_, also bears testimony against the harsh discipline of the sixteenth century. During the great plague in London, in 1563, Ascham and some friends were dining at Windsor with Sir William Cecil. While there he learned that many of the students at Eton had run away because of the severe punishments administered at this famous public school. “Whereupon,” says Ascham, “Sir William took occasion to wish that some discretion were in many schoolmasters in using correction than commonly there is, who many times punish rather the weakness of nature than the fault of the scholar, whereby many scholars that might else prove well, be driven to hate learning before they know what learning meaneth; and so are made willing to forsake their book, and to be willing to put to any other kind of living.” This incident led to the composition of the _Scholemaster_, which was a guide for “the bringing up of youth,” in which gentleness rather than severity is recommended, and “a ready way to the Latin tongue,” in which an honest effort is made to simplify language teaching and adapt it to the tastes and interests of young learners. Richard Mulcaster,[12] another Englishman and humanist of the sixteenth century, questioned seriously the wisdom of his associates and contemporaries in their exclusion of the mother-tongue from the course of study. In his _Elementarie_ he asked: “Is it not a marvellous bondage to become servants to one tongue, for learning’s sake, the most part of our time, with loss of most time, whereas we may have the very same treasure in our own tongue with the gain of most time? our own bearing the joyful title of our liberty and freedom, the Latin tongue remembering us of our thraldom and bondage. I love Rome, but London better; I favor Italy, but England more: I honor the Latin, but I worship the English.” Mr. Quick is right in maintaining that “it would have been a vast gain to all Europe if Mulcaster had been followed instead of Sturm. He was one of the earliest advocates of the use of English instead of Latin, and good reading and writing in English were to be secured before Latin was begun.” These were some of the voices raised against the bookish classical learning of the sixteenth century; but it remained for Vives, Bacon, and Ratke to convince Europe of the insufficiency of the humanistic ideal, and for Comenius, the evangelist of modern pedagogy, to bring about the necessary reforms. The part played by each in the transition from humanism to realism, from classical learning and philology to modern thought and the natural sciences, will be briefly traced in the succeeding chapters of this work. CHAPTER II FORERUNNERS OF COMENIUS