In the professors of learning, to whose solicitation this point is recommended, two things are chiefly required. First, that with minds given to peace they should study soundly themselves, and that the matter be worthy and taken in due order. For sound learning will not so soon be shaken at every eager point of controversy as that which is shallow. Orderly progress gives security, and a pacific temper furthers the end that is desired both privately and publicly. The consent of the learned and their quiet inclination are a great blessing to any Commonwealth, but especially to ours in this contentious time, when overwhetted minds do very little good to some worthy professions. The distracting division of minds into sects and sorts of philosophy did much injury in the countries where it befel, and those nations among which religious dissensions arose have never been quiet since. The second point required in a student is not to seek his own advancement so much as that of the things he professes, and indeed the possession of these things is the best means to advance himself, for, where ignorance is blamed, knowledge is approved, even though the approver may not be learned. He who studies soundly recommends letters by his own example; he who solicits the help of those in authority advances learning still further; he who uses his pen to strengthen the best current of opinion proves the genuineness of his desire by his own practice. In this last form my own labour seeks to recommend uniformity, to strip off what is needless, to supply some defects, to help everyone to as quiet a course as I can temper my style to. The second question which I said might be demanded of me, why I do not follow the precedent of those learned writers who have handled the subject with great admiration may be very soon answered. I admit that the number of those who have written upon the upbringing of children might be considered sufficient, and I grant the excellence of many of them, such as Bembus, Sturmius, and Erasmus. But the situation is different. A free city and a country under a monarchy are not in the same position, though they agree in some general respects, in which indeed these writers do not dissent from me. Nor do I fail to follow good writers, taking example from those authors who taught all the later ones to write so well. I am the servant of my country; for her sake I labour, her circumstances I must consider, and whatsoever I shall pen I shall myself see it carried out, by the grace of God, in order the better to persuade others by offering the proof of trial.