The Educational Writings of Richard MulcasterMulcaster, Richard
History
The Educational Writings of Richard Mulcaster
Mulcaster, Richard
Education -- History
The last reform which I am ready to contend for is that there
should be University readers appointed, of mature years, accredited
learning and secure position, who should direct and control the
studies of the students. Private study alone can never be compared
with the opportunity of working under one who has read and digested
all the best books in the subject, whose judgment has been formed
by his wide reading, and whose experience and intercourse with many
intellects has given him skill and address. The student who has not
this advantage will gain less with greater pains, since he could
in one lecture have the benefit of his reader’s universal study,
put in such a form that he can use it at once. Such readers would
save their cost in books alone, which would not then be so needful
to the student. They could be appointed with little or no cost to
the universities, and if they carried on their work in convenient
houses of their own, they would undoubtedly draw as many students
to their private establishments as there are now in the public
colleges.
Evils of Overpressure.
Hasty pressing onward is the greatest enemy that anything can
have, whose best is to ripen at leisure. I have appointed in my
elementary teaching--Reading, Writing, Drawing, Singing, Playing.
Now if these are imperfectly acquired when the child is sent to the
Grammar School, what an error is committed! How many small infants
have we sent to Grammar who can scarcely read, and how many to
learn Latin who never wrote a letter! Even though some youngster
could do much better than all his companions, it were no harm for
him to be captain a good while in his elementary school, rather
than to be a common soldier in a school where all are captains.
Many and serious are the evils that are caused by such hasting,
and if deploring them could amend them, I would lament that they
are so numerous and so hard to remedy. How common is the lack of
proper grounding in children, and how great is the foolishness of
their friends in regard to it! This is the chief cause that at
once makes children loth to learn, and schoolmasters seem harsh in
their teaching. For as the master hastens on to the natural aim of
his profession, and the scholar draws back, being unable to bear
the burden, there rises in the master an irritation which can only
be controlled by the wisdom and patience that are the fruits of
experience. And as in the teacher irritation breeds heat, so in the
scholar weakness breeds fear, and so much the more if he finds his
master somewhat too impatient, wherefore neither the one nor the
other can do much good at all. Whereas if the boy had nothing to
fear, how eager he would be, and what a pleasure the teacher would
take in his aptness to learn! But even if the child’s weakness is
felt both by himself and by his teacher, it is difficult to get the
parent to believe in it, owing to the blindness of his affection,
and he will prefer to seek out some other teacher who will adopt
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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