The instruction in the Latin schools was very deficient, for a book was a rare treasure: the boys had often to copy the text for themselves, and the old grammar of Donat still served as the groundwork by which they learned to read Latin. There was still much useless scholastic pedantry, and what was then admired as elegant Latin, has somewhat of a monkish flavour. But the great teacher Wimpfeling took every opportunity of selecting examples which might excite the boys to honesty, integrity, and the fear of God; he endeavoured to impart not merely the knowledge of forms, or the subtle distinctions of words, but the spirit that flows from the ancients. The mind was to be ennobled; intellect and faith were to be advanced; learning was to act as a preservative against war, to promote peace, the greatness of states, and the reformation of the Catholic Church, for its object was knowledge of the truth. Some idea of the life of a travelling student has been preserved to us in the description of Thomas Platter, the poor shepherd boy from Visperthale, in the Valais, later a renowned printer and schoolmaster at Basle; his autobiography has been published by Dr. Fechter, Basle, 1840. In those days no travellers in search of the picturesque had begun to roam in the wild mountain valley from which the Visp rushes towards the Rhone, nor to visit Zermatt, the Matterhorn, and the glaciers of Monte Rosa. The shepherd boy grew up amidst the rocks, with no companions but his goats; his herd straying into a corn-field, or an eagle hovering threateningly above him, his climbing a steep rock, or being punished by his severe master, were the only events of his childhood; how he was cast out into the wide world from his solitude he shall himself relate. "When I was with the farmer, one of my aunts, named Frances, came to see me; she wished me, she said, to go to my cousin, Herr Anthony Platter, to learn the Scriptures; thus they speak when they want one to go to school. The farmer was not well pleased at this; he told her I should learn nothing: he placed the forefinger of his right hand in the middle of the left, and went on to say, 'The lad will learn about as much, as I can push my finger through there.' This I saw and heard. Then said my aunt: 'Who knows? God has not denied him gifts; he may yet become a pious priest.' So she took me to that gentleman. I was, if I remember right, about nine or ten years old. First it fared ill with me, for he was a choleric man, and I but an unapt peasant lad. He beat me cruelly, and ofttimes dragged me by the ears out of the house, which made me scream like a goat into which the knife had been stuck; so that the neighbours oft talked of him as if he wished to murder me.