CHAPTER VI.

I. COLET FOUNDS ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL (1510).

Fully as Colet joined his friends in rejoicing at the accession to the throne of a king known to be favourable to himself and his party, he had drunk by far too deeply of the spirit of self-sacrifice to admit of his rejoicing with a mere courtier’s joy.

[Sidenote: Colet inherits his father’s fortune.]

Fortune had indeed been lavish to him. His elevation unasked to the dignity of Doctor and Dean; the popular success of his preaching; the accession of a friendly king, from whom probably further promotion was to be had for the asking; and, lastly, the sudden acquisition on his father’s death of a large independent fortune in addition to the revenues of the deanery;--here was a concurrence of circumstances far more likely to foster habits of selfish ease and indulgence than to draw Colet into paths of self-denial and self-sacrificing labour. Had he enlisted in the ranks of a great cause in the hasty zeal of enthusiasm, it had had time now to cool, and here was the triumphal arch through which the abjured hero might gracefully retire from work amidst the world’s applause.

But Colet, in his lectures at Oxford, had laid great stress upon the necessity of that living sacrifice of men’s hearts and lives without which all other sacrifices were empty things, and it seems that after he was called to the deanery he gave forth ‘A right fruitfull Admonition concerning the Order of a good Christian Man’s Life,’[366] which passed through many editions during the sixteenth century, and in which he made use of the following language:--

[Sidenote: Colet on the duty of self-sacrifice.]

‘Thou must know that thou hast nothing that good is of thyself, but of God. For the gift of nature and all other temporal gifts of this world ... well considered have come to thee by the infinite goodness and grace of God, and not of thyself.... But in especial is it necessary for thee to know that God of his great grace has made thee his image, having regard to thy memory, understanding, and free will, and that God is thy maker, and thou his wretched creature, and that thou art redeemed of God by the passion of Jesus Christ, and that God is thy helper, thy refuge, and thy deliverance from all evil.... And, therefore, think, and thank God, and utterly despise thyself, ... in that God hath done so much for thee, and thou hast so often offended his highness, and also done Him so little service. And therefore, by his infinite mercy and grace, call unto thy remembrance the degree of dignity which Almighty God hath called thee unto, and according thereunto yield thy debt, and do thy duty.’

Colet was not the man to preach one thing and practise another. No sooner had he been appointed to the deanery of St. Paul’s, than he had at once resigned the rich living of Stepney,[367] the residence of his father, and now of his widowed mother. And no sooner had his father’s fortune come into his hands, than he earnestly considered how most effectually to devote it to the cause in which he had laboured so unceasingly at Oxford and St. Paul’s.

[Sidenote: Colet founds St. Paul’s School.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s object in founding it.]

After mature deliberation he resolved, whilst living and in health, to devote his patrimony[368] to the foundation of a school in St. Paul’s Churchyard, wherein 153 children,[369] without any restriction as to nation or country, who could already read and write, and were of ‘good parts and capacities,’ should receive a sound Christian education. The ‘Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world,’ poisoning thereby ‘the old Latin speech, and the very Roman tongue used in the time of Tully and Sallust, and Virgil and Terence, and learned by St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine,’--all that ‘abusion which the later blind world brought in, and which may rather be called Blotterature than Literature,’--should be ‘utterly abanished and excluded’ out of this school. The children should be taught good literature, both Latin and Greek, ‘such authors that have with wisdom joined pure chaste eloquence’--‘specially Christian authors who wrote their wisdom in clean and chaste Latin, whether in prose or verse; for,’ said Colet, ‘_my intent is by this school specially to increase knowledge, and worshipping of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners in the children_.’[370]

And, as if to keep this end always prominently in view, he placed an image of the ‘Child Jesus,’ to whom the school was dedicated, standing over the master’s chair in the attitude of teaching, with the motto, ‘Hear ye him;’[371] and upon the front of the building, next to the cathedral, the following inscription:--‘Schola catechizationis puerorum in Christi Opt. Max. fide et bonis Literis. Anno Christi MDX.’[372]

The building consisted of one large room, divided into an upper and lower school by a curtain, which could be drawn at pleasure; and the charge of the two schools devolved upon a high-master and a sub-master respectively.

[Sidenote: Salaries of the masters.]

[Sidenote: Cost of Colet’s school.]

The forms were arranged so as each to seat sixteen boys, and were provided each with a raised desk, at which the head boy sat as president. The building also embraced an entrance-porch and a little chapel for divine service. Dwelling-houses were erected, adjoining the school, for the residence of the two masters; and for their support Colet obtained, in the spring of 1510, a royal license to transfer to the Wardens and Guild of Mercers in London, real property to the value of 53_l._ per annum[373] (equivalent to at least 530_l._ of present money). Of this the headmaster was to receive as his salary 35_l._ (say 350_l._) and the under-master 18_l._ (say 180_l._) per annum. Three or four years after, Colet made provision for a chaplain to conduct divine service in the chapel, and to instruct the children in the Catechism, the Articles of the faith, and the Ten Commandments--in _English_; and ultimately, before his death, he appears to have increased the amount of the whole endowment to 122_l._ (say 1,200_l._) per annum. So that it may be considered, roughly, that the whole endowment, including the buildings, cannot have represented a less sum than 30,000_l._ or 40,000_l._ of present money.[374]

And if Colet thus sacrificed so much of his private fortune to secure a liberal (and it must be conceded his was a liberal) provision for the remuneration of the masters who should educate his 153 boys, he must surely have had deeply at heart the welfare of the boys themselves. And, in truth, it was so. Colet was like a father to his schoolboys. It has indeed been assumed that a story related by Erasmus, to exhibit the low state of education and the cruel severity exercised in the common run of schools, was intended by him to describe the severe discipline maintained by Colet and his masters; but I submit that this is a pure assumption, without the least shadow of proof, and contrary to every kind of probability. The story itself is dark enough truly, and, in order that Colet’s name may be cleared once for all from its odium, may as well be given to the reader as it is found in Erasmus’s work ‘On the Liberal Education of Boys.’

[Sidenote: Abuses in private schools.]

It occurs, let it be remembered, in a work written by Erasmus to expose and hold up to public scorn the private schools, including those of monasteries and colleges, in which honest parents were blindly induced to place their children--at the mercy, it might be, of drunken dames, or of men too often without knowledge, chastity, or judgment. It was a work in which he described these schools as he had described them in his ‘Praise of Folly,’ and in which he detailed scandals and cruelty too foul to be translated, with the express object of enforcing his opinion, that if there were to be any schools at all, they ought to be _public_ schools--in fact, precisely such schools as that which Colet was establishing. The story is introduced as an example of the scandals which were sometimes perpetrated by incompetent masters, in schools of the class which he had thus harshly, but not _too_ harshly, condemned.

After saying that no masters were more cruel to their boys than those who, from ignorance, can teach them least (a remark which certainly could not be intended to refer to Colet’s headmaster), he thus proceeded:--

[Sidenote: Cruelty of some schoolmasters.]

[Sidenote: Story of cruelty, wrongly attributed to Colet.]

‘What can such masters do in their schools but get through the day by flogging and scolding? I once knew a divine, and intimately too--a man of reputation--who seemed to think that no cruelty to scholars could be enough, since he would not have any but flogging masters. He thought this was the only way to crush the boys’ unruly spirits, and to subdue the wantonness of their age. Never did he take a meal with his flock without making the comedy end in a tragedy. So at the end of the meal one or another boy was dragged out to be flogged.... I myself was once by when, after dinner, as usual, he called out a boy, I should think, about ten years old. He had only just come fresh from his mother to school. His mother, it should be said, was a pious woman, and had especially commended the boy to him. But he at once began to charge the boy with unruliness, since he could think of nothing else, and must find something to flog him for, and made signs to the proper official to flog him. Whereupon the poor boy was forthwith floored then and there, and flogged as though he had committed sacrilege. The divine again and again interposed, “That will do--that will do;” but the inexorable executioner continued his cruelty till the boy almost fainted. By-and-by the divine turned round to me and said, “He did nothing to deserve it, but the boys’ spirits must be subdued.”’[375]

This is the story which we are told it would be difficult to apply to anyone but Colet,[376] as though Colet were the only ‘divine of reputation’ ever intimately known to Erasmus! or as though Erasmus would thus hold up his friend Colet to the scorn of the world!

[Sidenote: Colet’s gentleness and love of children.]

The fact is that no one could peruse the ‘precepts of living’ laid down by Colet for his school without seeing not only how practical and sound were his views on the education of the heart, mind, and body of his boys, but also how at the root of them lay a strong undercurrent of warm and gentle feelings, a real love of youth.[377]

In truth, Colet was fond of children, even to tenderness. Erasmus relates that he would often remind his guests and his friends how that Christ had made children the examples for men, and that he was wont to compare them to the angels above.[378] And if any further proof were wanted that Colet showed even a touching tenderness for children, it must surely be found in the following ‘lytell proheme’ to the Latin Grammar which he wrote for his school, and of which we shall hear more by-and-by:--

[Sidenote: Colet’s preface to his grammar.]

[Sidenote: Colet’s tenderness towards little children.]

‘Albeit many have written, and have made certain introductions into Latin speech, called _Donates_ and _Accidens_, in Latin tongue and in English; in such plenty that it should seem to suffice, yet nevertheless, for the love and zeal that I have to the new school of Paul’s, and to the children of the same, I have also ... of the eight parts of grammar made this little book.... In which, if any new things be of me, it is alonely that I have put these “parts” in a more clear order, and I have made them a little more easy to young wits, than (methinketh) they were before: judging that nothing may be too soft, nor too familiar for little children, specially learning a tongue unto them all strange. In which little book I have left many things out of purpose, considering the tenderness and small capacity of little minds....[378] I pray God all may be to his honour, and to the erudition and profit of children, my countrymen _Londoners_ specially, whom, digesting this little work, I had always before mine eyes, considering more what was for _them_ than to show any great cunning; willing to speak the things often before spoken, in such manner as gladly young beginners and tender wits might take and conceive. Wherefore I pray you, all little babes, all little children, learn gladly this little treatise, and commend it diligently unto your memories, trusting of this beginning that ye shall proceed and grow to perfect literature, and come at the last to be _great clerks_. _And lift up your little white hands for me_, which prayeth for you to God, to whom be all honour and imperial majesty and glory. Amen.’

The man who, having spent his patrimony in the foundation of a school, could write such a preface as this to one of his schoolbooks, was not likely to insist ‘upon having none but flogging masters.’

[Sidenote: Colet will not trouble them with many rules.]

Moreover, this preface was followed by a short note, addressed to his ‘well-beloved masters and teachers of grammar,’ in which, by way of apology for its brevity, and the absence of the endless rules and exceptions found in most grammars, he tells them: ‘In the beginning men spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, contrariwise, because men spake such Latin the rules were made. That is to say, Latin speech was before the rules, and not the rules before the Latin speech.’ And therefore the best way to learn ‘to speak and write clean Latin is busily to learn and read good Latin authors, and note how they wrote and spoke.’ ‘Wherefore,’ he concludes, ‘after “the parts of speech” sufficiently known in your schools, read and expound plainly unto your scholars good authors, and show to them every word, and in every sentence what they shall note and observe; warning them busily to follow and to do like, both in writing and in speaking, and be to them your own self also, speaking with them the pure Latin, very present, and _leave the rules_. For reading of good books, diligent information of taught masters, studious advertence and taking heed of learners, hearing eloquent men speak, and finally busy imitation with tongue and pen, more availeth shortly to get the true eloquent speech, than all the traditions, rules, and precepts of masters.’

[Sidenote: Lilly’s Epigram.]

Nor would it seem that Colet’s first headmaster, at all events, failed to appreciate the practical common-sense and gentle regard for the ‘tenderness of little minds,’ which breathes through these prefaces; for at the end of them he himself added this epigram:--

Pocula si linguæ cupias gustare Latinæ, Quale tibi monstret, ecce _Coletus_ iter! Non per Caucaseos montes, aut summa Pyrene; Te ista per Hybleos sed via ducit agros.[379]

II. HIS CHOICE OF SCHOOLBOOKS AND SCHOOLMASTERS (1511).

[Sidenote: Linacre’s rejected Grammar.]

[Sidenote: ‘Lilly’s Grammar.’]

The mention of Colet’s ‘Latin Grammar’ suggests one of the difficulties in the way of carrying out of his projected school, his mode of surmounting which was characteristic of the spirit in which he worked. It was not to be expected that he should find the schoolbooks of the old grammarians in any way adapted to his purpose. So at once he set his learned friends to work to provide him with new ones. The first thing wanted was a Latin Grammar for beginners. Linacre undertook to provide this want, and wrote with great pains and labour a work in six books, which afterwards came into general use. But when Colet saw it, at the risk of displeasing his friend, he put it altogether aside. It was too long and too learned for his ‘little beginners.’ So he condensed within the compass of a few pages two little treatises, an ‘Accidence’ and a ‘Syntax,’ in the preface to the first of which occur the gentle words quoted above.[380] These little books, after receiving additions from the hands of Erasmus, Lilly, and others, finally became generally adopted and known as _Lilly’s Grammar_.[381]

This rejection of his Grammar seems to have been a sore point with Linacre, but Erasmus told Colet not to be too much concerned about it: he would, he said, get over it in time,[382] which probably he did much sooner than Colet’s school would have got over the loss which would have been inflicted by the adoption of a schoolbook beyond the capacity of the boys.

[Sidenote: ‘De Copiâ Verborum.’]

Erasmus, in the same letter in which he spoke of Linacre’s rejected grammar, told Colet that he was working at his ‘De Copiâ Verborum,’ which he was writing expressly for Colet’s school. He told him, too, that he had sometimes to take up the cudgels for him against the ‘Thomists and Scotists of Cambridge;’ that he was looking out for an under-schoolmaster, but had not yet succeeded in finding one. Meanwhile he enclosed a letter, in which he had put on paper his notions of what a schoolmaster ought to be, and the best method of teaching boys, which he fancied Colet might not altogether approve, as he was wont somewhat more to despise rhetoric than Erasmus did. He stated his opinion that--

[Sidenote: Erasmus on the true method of education.]

‘In order that the teacher might be thoroughly up to his work, he should not merely be a master of one particular branch of study. He should himself have travelled through the whole circle of knowledge. In philosophy he should have studied Plato and Aristotle, Theophrastus and Plotinus; in Theology the Sacred Scriptures, and after them Origen, Chrysostom, and Basil among the Greek fathers, and Ambrose and Jerome among the Latin fathers; among the poets, Homer and Ovid; in geography, which is very important in the study of history, Pomponius Mela, Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo. He should know what ancient names of rivers, mountains, countries, cities, answer to the modern ones; and the same of trees, animals, instruments, clothes, and gems, with regard to which it is incredible how ignorant even educated men are. He should take note of little facts about agriculture, architecture, military and culinary arts, mentioned by different authors. He should be able to trace the origin of words, their gradual corruption in the languages of Constantinople, Italy, Spain, and France. Nothing should be beneath his observation which can illustrate history or the meaning of the poets. But you will say what a load you are putting on the back of the poor teacher! It is so; but I burden the one to relieve the many. I want the teacher to have traversed the whole range of knowledge, that it may spare each of his scholars doing it. A diligent and thoroughly competent master might give boys a fair proficiency in both Latin and Greek, in a shorter time and with less labour than the common run of pedagogues take to teach their babble.’[383]

On receipt of this letter and its enclosure, Colet wrote to Erasmus:--

_Colet to Erasmus._

‘London, 1511.[384]

[Sidenote: Colet agrees with Erasmus.]

‘“What! I shall not approve!” So you say! What is there of Erasmus’s that I do not approve? I have read your letter “De Studiis” hastily, for as yet I have been too busy to read it carefully. Glancing through it, not only do I approve everything, but also greatly admire your genius, skill, learning, fulness, and eloquence. I have often longed that the boys of my school should be taught in the way in which you say they should be. And often also have I longed that I could get such teachers as you have so well described. When I came to that point at the end of the letter where you say that you could educate boys up to a fair proficiency in both tongues in fewer years than it takes those pedagogues to teach their babble, O Erasmus, how I longed that I could make you the master of my school! I have indeed some hope that you will give us a helping hand in teaching our teachers when you leave those “Cantabrigians.”

‘With respect to our friend Linacre, I will follow your advice, so kindly and prudently given.

‘Do not give up looking for an undermaster, if there should be anyone at Cambridge who would not think it beneath his dignity to be under the headmaster.

[Sidenote: The Scotists of Cambridge.]

‘As to what you say about your occasional skirmishes with the ranks of the Scotists on my behalf, I am glad to have such a champion to defend me. But it is an unequal and inglorious contest for you; for what glory is it to you to put to rout a cloud of flies? What thanks do you deserve from me for cutting down reeds? It is a contest more necessary than glorious or difficult!’

While Colet acquiesced in the view expressed by Erasmus as to the high qualities required in a schoolmaster, he gave practical proof of his sense of the dignity of the calling by the liberal remuneration he offered to secure one.

[Sidenote: Salaries of Colet’s masters.]

[Sidenote: Lilly headmaster of Colet’s school.]

[Sidenote: An undermaster wanted.]

[Sidenote: Story of a Cambridge doctor.]

At a time when the Lord Chancellor of England received as his salary 100 marks, with a similar sum for the commons of himself and his clerk, making in all 133_l._ per annum,[385] Colet offered to the high-master of his school 35_l._ per annum, and a house to live in besides. This was practical proof that Colet meant to secure the services of more than a mere common grammarian. He had in view for his headmaster, Lilly, the friend and fellow-student of More, who had mastered the Latin language in Italy, and even travelled farther East to perfect his knowledge of Greek. He was well versed not only in the Greek authors, but in the manners and customs of the people, having lived some years in the island of Rhodes.[386] He had returned home, it is said, by way of Jerusalem, and had recently opened a private school in London.[387] He was, moreover, the godson of Grocyn, and himself an Oxford student. He had at one time, as already mentioned, shared with More some ascetic tendencies, but, like his friend, had wisely stopped short of Carthusian vows. He was, in truth, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Colet and his friends, and, in the opinion of Erasmus, ‘a thorough master in the art of educating youth.’[388] Thus Colet had found a high-master ready to be fully installed in his office, as soon as the building was completed. But an under-master was not so easy to find. Colet had written to Erasmus, in September, 1511, wishing him to look one out for him,[389] and in the letter last quoted had again repeated his request. Erasmus wrote again in October, and informed him that he had mentioned his want to some of the college dons. One of them had replied by sneeringly asking, ‘Who would put up with the life of a schoolmaster who could get a living in any other way?’ Whereupon Erasmus modestly urged that he thought the education of youth was the most honourable of all callings, and that there could be no labour more pleasing to God than the Christian training of boys. At which the Cambridge doctor turned up his nose in contempt, and scornfully replied, ‘If anyone wants to give himself up entirely to the service of Christ, let him enter a monastery!’ Erasmus ventured to question whether St. Paul did not place true religion rather in works of charity--in doing as much good as possible to our neighbours? The other rejected altogether so crude a notion. ‘Behold,’ said he, ‘we must leave all; in that is perfection.’ ‘_He_ scarcely can be said to leave all,’ promptly returned Erasmus, ‘who, when he has a chance of doing good to others, refuses the task because it is too humble in the eyes of the world.’ ‘And then,’ wrote Erasmus, ‘lest I should get into a quarrel, I bade the man good-bye.’[390]

This, he said, was an example of ‘Scotistical wisdom,’ and he told Colet that he did not care often to meddle with these self-satisfied Scotists, well knowing that no good would come of it.

* * * * *

It would seem that, after all, a worthy under-master did turn up at Cambridge, willing to work under Lilly, and thereafter to become his son-in-law;[391] so that with schoolmasters already secured, and schoolbooks in course of preparation, Colet’s enterprise seemed likely fairly to get under way so soon as the building should be completed in St. Paul’s Churchyard.