In spite of all these impediments, there was a slow but positive diffusion of knowledge among English people. How the knowledge was communicated is not clear, for notices of common schools in England, and indeed on the Continent, are infrequent and unsatisfactory. We have, however, some curious relics of the substitutes for books used by the people. One of them is the _Horn-Book_,[82] by which the children were taught their letters and the Lord’s Prayer. The engraving annexed represents a book that is of no earlier date than the reign of Charles I, but it is a trustworthy illustration of the construction, if not of the matter, of the horn-books in use in the fifteenth century. Another of these substitutes is the _Clog_, a rude contrivance for marking the order of coming days, which may be considered as the forerunner of the printed almanac. [p175] [Illustration: The Clog.[83] [From Chambers.]] The standard of English education was low, even in the universities. An eminent Italian man of letters, in England in 1420, complains of the scarcity of good books, and is not at all respectful to English scholars.[84] The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge had been established rather more than three hundred years, but they taught bad Latin. There were few books of merit in the English language: Wickliffe’s translation of the Bible, and the poems of Chaucer, Lydgate and Gower, are all that deserve any notice. There was, as yet, no universally spoken English language: French was the language of the English nobility and of English courts and books of law, as late as the year 1362; merchants and mercantile companies kept their books in French; boys at school were required to translate [p176] Latin into French.[85] The habitual employment of French as the language of the nobility, and of Latin as the language of literature, shut the doors of knowledge on those who spoke English only. In all countries the elementary text books of the schools were in Latin. To learn arithmetic, grammar or geography, the scholar must begin with the study of Latin. The dead language was the path to all knowledge: it was a circuitous and a wearisome path, but it was traveled by every student destined for the church, or for the profession of law or medicine. At a very early period the bishops of the Catholic church tried to establish schools for children, but not so much for the teaching of secular as of religious knowledge. In the year 800 a synod at Mentz ordered that parochial priests should establish schools in all towns and villages to teach letters to children. These orders were repeated by other councils, but they could be enforced only in the larger cities. In many rural districts common schools were entirely unknown. As the clergy grew corrupt, they were neglected in cities.[86] The primary schools were not always taught by ecclesiastics, but the church claimed the right to supervise them, and made sure that its doctrines and dogmas should be fully taught. [p177]