seven then others at fourteen and yet those at the fourteen years end will many times overtake and out-go the same persons who so much out-went them before And by this way their time cannot be lost for I take Learning to be ordained to teach knowledge that knowledge by practice may inable men by noble Actions to give glory to God and to do as much good as they can during the course of their whole lives Pharisaeos 4 Christus Pastores 5 malos 6 se 7 verò 6 multis 3 argumentis 3 bonum 8 comprobat 2 Pastorem 8 Dissidium 2 propterea 1 oritur 3 Lapides 4 sollentium 3 5 eum 8 prehendere 7 cupientium 6 manus 1 evadit 2 The True and Ready Way to learn the Latine Tongue Practised upon the French Lord of Montaigne and Recorded in his Essayes Lib. 1. Cap. 25. Pag. 84. THe Athenians as Plato averreth have for their part great care to be fluent and eloquent in their speech The Lacedemonians endevour to be short and compendious And those of Creet labour more to be plentifull in conceits then in language And these are the best Zeno was wont to say That he had two sorts of disciples the one he called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} curious to learne things and those weare his darlings the other he termed {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} who respected nothing more then the language Yet can no man say but that to speak well is most gratious and commendable but not so excellent as some make it and I am grieved to see how we imploy most part of our time about that onely I would first know mine owne tongue perfectly then my neighbours with whom I have most commerce I must needs acknowledge that the Greeke and Latine tongues are great ornaments in a Gentleman but they are purchased at over-high a rate Vse it who list I will tell you how they may be gotten better cheap and much sooner then is ordinarily vsed which was tried in my selfe My late Father having by all the meanes and industrie that is possible for man sought amongst the wisest and men of best vnderstanding to find a most exquisite and readie way of teaching being advised of the inconvenien cies then in use was given to understand that the lingring while and best part of our youth that we imploy in learning the tongues which cost them nothing is the onely cause we can never attain to that absolute perfection of skill and knowledg of the Greeks Romanes I do not believe that to be the onely cause But so it is the expedient my Father found out was this that being yet at nurce before the first loosing of my tongue I was delivered to a Germaine who died since a most excellent Phisitian in France he being then altogether ignorant of the French tongue but exquisitely readie and skilfull in the Latine This man whom my Father had sent for of purpose and to whome he gave very great entertainment had me continually in his armes and was mine onely overseer There were also joined unto him two of his countrimen but not so learned whose charge was to attend and now and then to play with me and all these together did never entertain me with other then the Latine tongue As for others of his houshold it was aninviolable rule that neither himselfe nor my mother nor man not maid servant were suffered to speake one word in my companie except such Latine words as every one had learned to chat and pratle with me It were strange to tell how every one in the house profited therein My Father and my Mother learned so much Latine that for a neede they could understand it when they heard it spoken even so did all the houshold servants namely such as were neerest and most about me To be short we were all so Latinized that the townes round about us had their share of it insomuch as even at this day many Latine names both of workmen and of their tooles are yet in use among them And as for my selfe I was about six years old could understand no more French or Perigordine then Arabike and that with out art without books rules or grammer without whipping or whining I had gotten as pure a Latine tongue as my Master could speake the rather because I could neither mingle or confound the same with other tongues If for an Essay they would give me a Theame whereas the fashion in Colledges is to give it in French I had it in bad Latine to reduce the same into good And Nicholas Grucchi who hath written De comitiis Romanorum William Guerenti who hath commented Aristotle George Buchanan that famous Scottish Poet and Marke-Antonie Muret whom while he lived both France and Italie to this day acknowledge to have been the best Oratour all which have been my familiar tutors have often told me that in mine infancy I had the Latine tongue so ready and so perfect that themselves feared to take me in hand And Buchanan whom afterward I saw attending on the Marshall of Brissacke told me he was about to write a Treatise of the Institution of Children and that he took the modell and pattern from mine for at that time he had the charge and bringing up of the young Earl of Brissack whom since we have seen prove so worthy and so valiant a Captain As for the Greek wherein I have but small understanding my Father purposed to make me learn it by art But by new and unaccustomed meanes that is by way of recreation and exercise We did tosse our declinations and conjugations to and fro as they do who by way of a certain game at Tables learn both Arithmetick and Geometry For amongst other things he had especially been perswaded to make me tast and apprehend the fruits of Duty and Science by an unforced kinde of will and of mine own choice and without any compulsion or rigour to bring me up in all mildenesse and liberty yea with such kinde of superstition that whereas some are of opinion that suddenly to awaken young children and as it were by violence to startle and fright them out of their dead sleep in a morning wherein they are more heavy and deeper plunged then we doth greatly trouble and distemper their braines he would every morning cause me to be awakened by the sound of some Instrument and I was never without a servant who to that purpose attended upon me This example may serve to judge of the rest as also to commend the judgement and tender affection of so careful and loving a father who is not to be blamed though he reaped not the fruits answerable to his exquisite toil and painful manuring Two things hindered the same first the barrenesse and unfit soil for howbeit I were of a sound and strong constitution and of a tractable and yielding condition yet was I so heavy so sluggish and so dull that I could not be rouzed yea were it to go to play from out mine idle drowzinesse What I saw I saw it perfectly and under this heavy and as it were Lethe-complexion did I breed hardie imaginations and opinions far above my years My spirit was very slow and would go no further then it was led by others my apprehension blockish my invention poor and besides I had a marvellous defect in my weak memory it is therefore no wonder if my father could never bring me to any perfection Secondly as those that in some dangerous sicknesse moved with a kinde of hopefull and greedy desire of perfect health again give ear to every Leache or Empirick and follow all counsels the good man being exceedingly fearfull to commit any oversight in a matter he took so to heart suffered himself at last to be led away by the common opinion which like unto the Cranes followeth ever those that go before and yielded to custome Having those no longer about him that had given him his first directions and which they had brought out of Italie Being but six years old I was sent to the Colledge of Guienne then most flourishing and reputed the best in France where it is impossible to adde any thing to the great care he had both to chuse the best and most sufficient Masters that could be found to read unto me as also for all other circumstances pertaining to my education wherein contrary to usuall customes of Colledges he observed many particular rules But so it is it was ever a Colledge My Latine Tongue was forthwith corrupted whereof by reason of discontinuance I afterward lost all manner of use which new kinde of institution stood me in no other stead but that at my first admittance it made me to over-skip some of the lower formes and to be placed in the highest For at thirteen years of age that I left the Colledge I had read over the whole course of Philosophy as they call it but with so small profit that I can now make no account of it The first taste or feeling I had of Books was of the pleasure I took in reading the fables of Ovids Metamorphosies for being but seven or eight years old I would steal and sequester my self from all other delights onely to read them Forsomuch as the tongue wherein they were written was to me naturall and it was the easiest book I knew and by reason of the matter therein contained most agreeing with my yong age For of King Arthur of Lancelot du Luke of Amadis of Huon of Burdeaux and such idle time-consuming and wit-besotting trash of Books wherein youth doth commonly ammuse it self I was not so much as acquainted with their names and to this day know not their bodies nor what they contain So exact was my Discipline c. FINIS
difficulty The other is that another plainer readier and shorter Way for the leading to the Latine Tongue may not onely be made but that we should also enquire explain and shew what that is or peradventure may be Now whether this way be found out by me Learned men will judge and Experience it self which I do wish will descry Surely if I should affirm that I have not been the hindermost amongst them who have sought or enquried for it I should not lie My endevours upon Plautus the Prince of the Latine Tongue will witnesse which I assayed now twenty years ago to translate into our own native Germane or Dutch language that it might answer word for word the Germane or High Dutch put under the Latine a in this Edition of the Testament And a Grammatical Book into which are heaped together all the words of all the Latine tongue being brought into their ranks and fitted to their precepts and rules And a Book which I have entituled A Key to the Greek Tongue and my Paraphrases of the three Satyrists wherein I have inserted the Poets words which very thing likewise I have endeavoured in the Paraphrase of the New Testament with certain other things which as yet lie hid at my house among my papers or note-Note-books In which surely if I have not found I have surely sought certain short Cuts or advantageous Courses for the overcoming of many and great difficulties For now a long time and for many years this thought hath come into my minde and busied and troubled me what should be the Reason that when all other Tongues even those which not onely have nothing common with our German Speech as the Spanish and Italian but those also in whose pronunciation we Germanes finde by experience the greatest hardship as be the Polonian and the French may in some reasonable sort be learned by many Germans in two or to be sure in three years space yea out of Spain Italy France Poloniae in Germany it self in the Schools even of private Masters Onely these Three Tongues Latine Greek and Hebrew in which the holy Scripture and Humane Learning Faculties Arts and Sciences are either extant in writing or are taught and learned by Interpreters are learned in so long a space of lifes time and with such miserable paines both to the Teacher and Learner that some there are who being spent and wearied out with the tediousnesse and impatience of so wretched a teaching do begin to hate and forsake the study of Learning others who persevere can hardly be brought thither before they be eighteen or even twenty years of age so as they can scantly at last with much ado sobbingly and stammeringly utter a few Latine words who the mean time scarce so much as slightly touch the Greek or Hebrew Tongues And which thing is to be the more admired and hath seemed to me no other then monstrous inasmuch as I am verily perswaded of this and whereof neither any that is well in his wits I think will ever make doubt that these three Tongues have nothing peculiar and proper over other Tongues whereby they cannot be learned as well as others by Use Custome and Exercise Yea which formerly Infants and Children learned the Romanes or Latines the Romane or Latine the Greeks the Greek the Hebrews the Hebrew to whom these Tongues were proper and naturall together with the milk of their Mother or Nurse from their Mothers Nurses Keepers that bare them about School-masters and such as liv'd in their houses by Use and Custome just as our Infants and Children do learn their Mother own-Countrey Germane Tongue Which three Tongues also others to whom they were not Countreyly-peculiar could long since learn by Custome and Use in two years certainly that we may allow them so much time as may be enough and too much in three years space For the Romanes or Latines learned the Greek Tongue at Athens and the Greeks the Latine at Rome and both these Greeks and Romanes the Hebrew Tongue among the Jews in Palestine as the Jews on the other part learned in Greece and Italy the Greek or Latine Tongue by Use and Custome which very thing whosoever shall consider with me more accurately he cannot doubtlesse chuse but grant that some Means and Way may be found out whereby these Three Tongues as formerly they could be learned by Use and Custome in a shorter space of time even as other Tongues are learned so they may yet be learned Now touching the vulgar Way of instructing Children in Schools though even I my self have sometime being a young Scholar at School undergone it and growen further into years have discharged it being appointed a School-master and Tutor for the teaching of the younger sort indeed not without both very great irksomnesse somnesse of life and losse of time to speak what I think yea as the matter is being indifferent what ever others are ready to think or speak to the contrary it seems to me to be such and so introduced into Schools just as if one out of hired pains and study had been commanded to devise some Mean or way whereby Masters and Scholars too might bring and be brought on to the knowledge of the Latine Tongue not without huge labours great weariness infinite toils and finally not without a very long interval and space of time Quae quoties repeto vel iniquâ mente revolve Concutior toties penitÃsque horresco medullis Which while I sean or griev'd to minde recall I shake with fear and do a trembling fall In the first place the precepts of Grammar are so many times in a manner increased so oft changed as often as a new Moderatour is put in authority for the School and who except he brings something that is new or at least alter the old he may seem perhaps the less learned to himself in his own judgement Certainly as oft as a youth goes away from one School to another so often is his old Grammar to be unlearned and a new one to be learned By which things the tender mindes of the younger sort are not onely hindered and troubled but also that Golden age is both worn out and tormented And I pray you what end and measure is there of these kinde of Rules or Precepts when as there are now every where found more Grammatical Books in Schools then there are Schools themselves well neer or upon the matter forasmuch as they are oftentimes changed in one School And when all is done what else is this Grammatical teaching but a stoppage and let to studies but a wastful spoiler of childish yea of youthful age but a hanging like torture of an ingenuous minde or disposition but lastly a driver away of the best wits out of Schools and whereon hitherto to the unvaluable and irrecoverable hurt and damage of mans whole life which is so short and so fleeting is bestowed all that space of child-hood stripling-age yea truly in many even of their youthful
estate to the 20th year upwards That most pleasant Spring of a mans whole life and whose untouched flowers and tenderest roses these most crabbed and to ingenuous and noble mindes most unpleasing and formidable petty precepts of Grammar do crop and pluck off and whereof anon there is no more use which a little after are no more to be practised or mentioned but to be left off and committed to oblivion And yet in learning which yea in learning them by heart and presently in unlearning them so many years hath been bestowed and set over upon their accompt as with which they might have learned these three Tongues and have been brought on to the Principles and Foundations of Arts and Faculties Which things whilst I have often weighed and considered I have been moved I confess more then once to think and perswade my self verily they were brought into Schools at first from some evill and envious Genius being an enemy to Mankinde by the means of certain unlucky Monkes There is moreover another calamity not much inferiour to the former Scholars ought to love their Masters as their own Parents forasmuch as even they themselves are Parents not of bodies but of mindes Now these for the most part they hate and fear yea oftentimes they dread and tremble at as Tyrants and their tormenting Executioners being formidable for their rods and lashes or jerks All this mischief is due well nigh to the inculcating of Grammatical precepts Which according to this vulgar way of teaching Children in Schools are wholly to be inculcated into boyes nor can they be inculcated or put into their heads but by blowes and stripes because of what things Childrens age is not yet capable those things is naturally refuseth and disdaines Now what and how great a calamity of Masters and likewise of Scholars is this the most boyes hate Schools as houses of Correction scourging places or meer whipping posts and scarce ever come at them of their own accord where this teaching of Children is used as a medicine of mindes to unwilling and forced Scholars by their Masters whom they fly and hatefully abhor A sick person is scarce ever restored to his health by a Physician whom he hates confidence indeed of the ones good will towards the other can only do this Now this is sometimes wholly banished out of Schools both by the Teachers and the Learners through that common teaching whereby the Grammar is inculcated which cannot chuse but make Masters themselves austere harsh and erabbed while they are enjoyned to do that by which violence is offered to boyish age and that which is contrary bad and hurtfull to nature For boyes are bid to apprehend those things whereof that age is not yet capable and are commanded to learn those things without book Tanquam ungues digitosque suos And to their coming so their mindes do bend As they may have them at their fingers end Whose use is shewn to them very slowly and sparingly scarce in a most long space of time in those few Examples And to which Precepts Masters so oblige and binde their Scholars and themselves as if it were a thing impossible that they should know and be able to speak ought in Latine except it be also added according to what Precepts of Grammar or Rules of Syntax that may be so spoken aright according to Art Whereupon it often happens that even Masters themselves cannot speak readily He shall never speak promptly and with expedition or quickly who hath tied and fettered himself with these Rules of Grammar I have sometime laught at a dancing boy at Collen who from a continuall Exercise of dancing had got him a kinde of habit and from thence would now and then unawares as he was walking seriously in the streets begin to dance for as he treading daily according to the measures and orders of dancings had contracted this to himself so these while they are bound onely to the Rules and Lawes of Grammar nor handle almost any thing else then Rules or Precepts and are more exercised in the Precepts of Art then in the Use and Examples of Precepts they themselves will scarce ever learn to speak readily or teach others I could shew this by memorable Examples were they not over-odious and too unworthy to be well brought to this place To speak onely of Scholars I saw a gentile youth of a brave towardlinesse already seventeen years old or more for the trying of whose proficiency and benefiting in studies I my self with some others was made use of He under his Master had learned exactly at the fingers end the Precepts or Rules of Grammar together with the Examples which were added to the Precepts but he could not rehearse them otherwise then Parats illud suum {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that all hail God save you or forme of salutation of theirs or then Pies or Crowes recite mens words For he knew neither the Use of Rules nor Examples but committed all things to memory at the command of his Master as if it were enough to learn the Latine Tongue to repeat the Rules of Grammar which thou doest not understand or of whose use thou art ignorant for scarce could he combine or put together three or four Latine words stumblingly or stutteringly as if he were troubled with the hichet or yexing Who will ever make question that he might in that golden time wherein lie wore out the flower of his youthfull age in those unhappy and unprofitable Precepts have been able to have learned three or four Tongues if he had used due Meanes to that End and had had right teaching Masters in teaching these Rules and Scholars in learning do in the Schools most miserably tire and vex themselves lean with labours wearisomnesses and toilsome cares more heavie then death and with which as Histories tell us Dionysius the Sicilian Tyrant was very well punished at Corinth where when he was deprived of his Kingdome he set up a Grammar-School and from whence the Satyrist not without great reason exclaimes Occidit miseros Crambe repetita Magistros Nam quaecunque sedens modò dixerat haec eadem stans Proferet atque eadem cantabit versibus iisdem Twice boiled Colewort doth poor Masters slay For what but newly he did sitting say The same he standing doth relate and sings In the same verses just those very things Whereupon it 's no marvell indeed that School-Masters grow hard to please austere crabbed and way-ward and thrust all the most excellent wits out of Schools which the nobler and the better they be the more impatient they are of this servile teaching in Schools yea moreover so great are the troubles which Masters have in Schools so great are their labours if they desire to be faithful and diligent that Hercules could scarcely if the fable were true be put to more in cleansing King Augeas stable And which labours are yet as little set by by the most forasmuch as so small and mean a
stipend is setled thereupon for such immense toile and pains taking and whose labours if they were to be recompensed and requited with their due reward and wages a double threefold yea a four-fold greater stipend or allowance ought to be setled upon them Which very thing proceeds from this occasion chiefly because by so laborious and to say the truth so preposterous a teaching through the inculcating of Grammar-rules Masters profit so little in so long a time by teaching and Scholars by learning And though by these Grammar Rules so often changed many blocks and impediments are laid in the way of youthful age yet could they be made never so exact to which nothing could be further added and from which nothing could be any more diminished were there also order taken by the Emperours Edict that there should not a jot of them be changed and that these Rules or Precepts should be commonly propounded in all Schools neverthelesse could I hereby think that the teaching of Children were provided for sufficiently Because that these Rules even whatever they may come to at length do not suit with Childrens age For this is in all teaching to be regarded above all things that the teaching of them who are to be taught be fitted to their capacity and from the unobserving whereof all this mischief in Schools hitherto seems to have been bred and sprung up Now what and how monstrous an absurdity is it to propound those things to childish age for the perceiving whereof it is not yet capable and to require of Children that they accomodate or apply words of Art to the termes and names of Things and to propound to Children Entia Rationis barely devised Beings and Words of a second Notion or intention as they are called who know not as yet Things and the names of Things Entia primae Intentionis or Beings whose meaning is to be first understood and to bid them give an account why they speak Latine right before they can in any wise speak properly and of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} before they have knowledge of the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Right as if one should ask a Countreyman the reason why the Loadstone drawes iron before he know it drawes it or one that 's unskill'd in Mathematicks why in a Triangle three Angles are equall to two straight ones before he know that it is so For neither is it possible for these boyes hitherto to know any word of the Latine Tongue Noun or Verb unlesse they know before or together what Figure Case Mood Tense Person c. every one of them is to learn any Phrase any Sentence unlesse before or together they be able to give an account by what Rule of the Syntax they may speak so after this and not after another manner All which things are contrived and appointed to this intent that a boy first learn the terms of Art before he learn the names of Things In the abridgments of the Grammar which are commonly used amongst us there are reckoned an hundred and fourscore words of Art and above in the Syntax seventy and more Rules with as many Exceptions and most of which are so obscure that they can scant be understood by those of greater age who are already well grown and more forward in judgement and learning Now what else are all these things at last but so many Impediments and Hinderances to Childrens age yea so many Mischiefs and Gallowses set up for the same so many trifling lets and incumbrances with which boyes are deteined and troubled in the same fashion that little young chickens are fettered with the intanglements of womens hairs thrown out a doors and wrapped about their legs Verily as if the Latine Tongue neither could nor ought to be learned save with main and lamentable labour and so great a losse of youthfull age Now if anyone ask touching such words of Art any of our Countrey-men in our own Germane Tongue which we have learned without any Precepts by Use onely and demand a Reason why we speak in our Tongue after this and not another manner he might well be judged to be mad as one who doth not rest contented with the common Use and Custome of speaking Quem penes arbitrium est jus norma lequendi Whose meer arbitrament and powerfull sway Both Lawes and Rules of Language do obay And which is the most certain Umpire Mistress and Judge above or beyond all exception but craves a reason why we speak on this wise to know which there is no need at all But if upon this condition onely men were to be esteemed to have good knowledge and skill in the Latine speech so far forth as they know these words of Art and are able to accomodate them to their speech not so much forsooth as Varro the most learned of the Latines nor Plautus the Prince of the Latine Tongue should be thought to have spoke Latine who were perhaps ignorant and no doubt very learnedly ignorant of these words of Art with wich boyes are tortured If one were desirous to teach an Insant to walk and should set him not onely upon slippery ice but likewise put upon his feet shoes laid with plates of most polisht iron and moreover apply stilts to his feet also and were desirous first to teach him to go artificially before he can go even naturally and on any fashion he would be accounted indeed no other then stark srantick They truly in myopinion have long since been taken with the like madnes who first of all brought into Schools this already for so many ages used way of teaching boyes by Rules and Precepts And far madder then which hitherto were those who propounded to boyes the Precepts of Grammar obscure in themselves and besides that inclosed in Verses in Verses I say so obscure as may seem even to us who are further grown in years to stand in need of some Oedipus to understand them Whereunto belong also those so many other Compendium 's devised by many and those which are accumulated every day more then other And those which are devised indeed out of a good intendment and endeavour but prove very unhappy in the event so as those Compendium's or near Cuts are found by meer Use to be no other then Dispendium's or a long way about and Impediments of youthful age I saw one who went about to reduce all the Rules of the Syntax into seven or fewer which in our vulgar or ordinary Books are found to be seventy and more who while he laboured to avoid prolixity fell into obscurity When at length after full sore labours and infinite tediousnesse they are brought not as boyes or striplings but as young men to that passe that they can make Latine on any sort according to those so oft augmented and altered Rules and Precepts of Grammar and can as the saying is swim without a bark and are brought on to read Authours they themselves
this is the nature of all good men to communicate to all for which things by how much the more and unto the more they are communicated by so much the more and the rather do they serve and suffice all And now to begin from the first principlus of Reading and from the entrances and grounds of Letters I think a boy before the fifth or sixth year of his age according to those powers of towardnesse and wit which put forth themselves ought not to be put to this teaching and that not onely for this Reason because that tender age being as it were a little tender branch but even newly shot out ought not to be swayed with this kinde of teaching although it be likely to have little tediousnesse and trouble as it were with a certain burthen But also because in the mean time it ought to learn its own Countrey-language by which as an Interpreter it may learn the Latine the better and more fully And with which Mother-tongue the fuller Children shall be indued the sooner will they profit in those things which I shall speak of The mean while also that age being a little more confirmed will be the apter and sitter to receive Learning For we must beware of these two things before all other in all teaching and in this especially that we offer not to poure a sirkin into him who can scarce take a spoonfull and that we lay not many pounds upon him who can scarcely bear a few drams That we do not I say rashly impose ought as 't is done hitherto upon the age of Children which it may not be able to bear The other is that all those things which are on this wise according to their capacity propounded to them be so imposed and so required of them that they may do nothing with an ill will by force and constraint but perform all things as far as may be freely and of their own accord with a certain ready willingnesse or delightfull desire of the minde Whence I am verily of opinion that rods and strokes those servile instruments and such as do not well sort and agree with ingenuous natures ought not to be used in Schools but to be far removed and to be applied to slaves and naughty servants that are of a servile inclination and such as in Schools timely bewray themselves by their own discovery and are timely to be removed thence not onely for the slownesse of disposition which is for the most part proper to servile natures but also for that shrewdnesse which is for the most part joyned with it And to which if there be the addition of the helps of Learning and Arts they will be but turned into weapons of wickednesse and be swords in the hands of boyes yea of mad folks for to cut their own and others throats withall But there are other kindes of punishments which would be made use of with ingenuous Children and liberall mindes and wherewith they are sorer punished and more cruelly vext then with any the sharpest and smartest lashes of rods As for instance that those who do not as they should do who minde not what their Masters say unto them who obey not their Masters commands or are otherwise found too negligent and tardy or taken in ill and unhappy turnes be set either in the lowest place beneath all or be enjoyned while others sit to stand in some certain place set apart or severed from the other company for idle and lazy boyes or be made to wear some mark or ensigne of an asse upon their shoulders or to put on for a while the habit of a fool in a play or be punished with some such like kinde of penalties which the favourable discretion of School-masters may easily devise and finde out such a sort of punishment will not onely more grieve and fret to the heart generous and free natures then if they were tormented with the most exquisite dolours or pains of the body but will also discern and distinguish them from servile dispositions For whosoever shall set at naught or contemn this manner of punishment and is led neither with any sweetnesse of commendation nor offended at or moved with the bitternesse of dispraise it 's an argument of a dis-ingenuous inclination of an ignoble minde and whereof there can neither be any great hope or expectation to speak of conceived And as the serâ—ile and slothfull are to be discerned and restrained by such a kinde of punishment so contrariwise fiery forward and quick dispositions are still to be put on and further excited by more honourable places and higher formes That those who approve their towardnesse or diligence above others to the Master may obtain likewise a more honourable or eminent place then the rest Now what places are assigned to any one whether the highest of reward or the lowest in matter of punishment ought not to be assigned longer then any one shall deserve it either by naughtinesse and negligence or shall maintain and keep it by goodnesse and diligence For so it will be that neither the first shall trust in this their degree of honour and as it comes to pass slack in their diligence nor the lowest despair as if they could not get out of the place of sluggards again by their diligence Seeing both the foremost if they grow too negligent may by the hindemost being more diligent be cast dovvn from their upper degree and thrust out of their place that so the highest may be lovvest and again the lovvest and last by using of diligence and industry of the last may become the middlemost yea the highest And better it vvere that there should be instituted such Exercises of a laudable {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or desire of honour and nevv places allotted to one or other in reference to every ones diligence or negligence not every half year after the appointed Examinations as useth to be in our Schools but every week yea truly every day that so one after another might be stirred up and encouraged to diligence by this commendable Emulation and Ambition Now to touch some few things by way of an Essay or fore-taste concerning the first Principles of Learning even the very Characters of Letters how these may be learned by a boy of five or six years of age compendiously without either long labour or time Passing painful and tedious is that way which is brought into Schools and used hitherto when they learn out of A B C Books to know the Letters to put them together in syllables and to pronounce them and so in conclusion to read For as to the knowing of the formes or shapes of Letters and the discerning of one from another that hardship may be overcome far more compendiously and easily if certain Instruments be made to represent every letter in its outward forme and such as may derive their names from severall letters By which help Children may learn to know the Letters even a playing with