Schools, School-Books and Schoolmasters: A Contribution to the History of Educational Development in Great BritainHazlitt, William Carew
History
Schools, School-Books and Schoolmasters: A Contribution to the History of Educational Development in Great Britain
Hazlitt, William Carew
Education -- Great Britain; Textbooks
Of this collection there was no exact reprint, but portions of the
contents appear in the Antwerp impressions of 1535 and 1536, designed for
the English learners in Flanders; and Lily's _Rudiments_, with and without
the other accessories, were periodically republished even later than the
so-called Oxford Grammar of 1709.
Now, as St. Paul's was the more ancient foundation, it is allowable, at
all events, to suspect that the book issued nominally for the Ipswich
school was borrowed by the Cardinal or the person employed by him from one
drawn up by Lily in his lifetime for Colet. St. Paul's had been
established in 1510; the Dean survived till 1519; and surely so many years
would hardly have elapsed without witnessing the preparation of some
Pauline text-book on lines parallel to those of the Ipswich one of 1529,
more particularly when we see that in the Preface to his 1534 _Rudiments_
he speaks of the "new school of Paul's," and that in 1518 Erasmus had
executed a Latin metrical version of the _Lord's Prayer_ and _Precepts of
Good Living_ for the school under the title of _Christiani hominis
Institutum_.
The short paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in English by Colet, which I
have found at present only in an edition of the Salisbury Primer, 1532,
was made for his own scholars, and had, of course, been in existence prior
to 1519; so that we find ourselves groping in the dark a little in the
inquiry which deals with such a fugitive and perishable description of
literature, and have to do the best that we can with the fragmentary
relics which survive or have been so far recovered.
The _Coleti æditio_, &c., of 1534 had much in common with Wolsey's book;
but the Dean of St. Paul's claims the honour of having adapted some
portions of the Delectus to what he considered to be the special
requirements of his own institution. For he says in the Proem:--
"Al be it many have wryten, and have made certayne introducyons into Latyn
speche, called _Donates_ and _Accidens_, in Latyn tongue and in Englysshe,
in suche plenty that it shoulde seme to suffyse; yet never the lesse, for
the love and zele that I have to the newe schole of Powles, and to the
children of the same, somwhat have I also compyled of the mater; and of
the viii. partes of grammer have made this lytell boke; ... in whiche
lytell warke if any new thynges be of me, it is alonely that I have put
these partes in a more clere ordre, and have made them a lytell more easy
to yonge wyttes, than (me thynketh) they were before."
The passage here quoted may be taken to supply a sort of testimony to the
original publication of the Dean's alleged recension of the accepted text
of Lily's _Introduction_ (including the _Rudiments_) not very long, if at
all, posterior to 1510, as in 1534 St. Paul's had been founded a quarter
of a century. The modification of the Grammar for Pauline use was almost
unquestionably due to Lily, and merely the Proem the Dean's own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account