Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	write_v	young_a	youth_n	110	3	7.6417	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42982	The true and readie way to learne the Latine tongue attested by three excelently learned and approved authours of three nations, viz. Eilhardus Lubinus, a German, Mr. Richard Carew, of Anthony in Cornwall, the French Lord of Montaigne : presented to the unpartiall, both publick and private considerations fo those that seek the advancement of learning in those nations / by Samuel Hartlib ...	Hartlib, Samuel, d. 1662.	1654 (1654)	Wing H1002; ESTC R19399	47,191	60

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

their talk I began to discern the distance of one word from another I found they used to talk rather more deliberately then we do and so by reading and talking I learn'd more French in three quarters of a year then I had done Latine in above thirteen wherein though I will not deny but the Use of my Latine Grammar did something help me to make me the better apprehend the Coherence of speech yet I have ever since conceived upon my learning by practice that usuall Talking and much Writing and Reading open a surer and readier Way to attain any Tongue then the tedious course which is used in the Latine by construing and pearsing according to the Rules of Grammar in observing of the Number Gender Case and Declension of all variable words partly because so much time is spent in the declination of every word according to the Formes set down in the Grammar and partly in the over-loading of the weak wits of youths with such a multitude of ordinary Rules and such a world of Exceptions in particular words as are acknowledged to differ from the generall Rules as is able to confound both the Memory and Understanding of men of years besides the hard gnawing of the dry bones which are able to tire their jawes and take away the edge of their teeth before they can break them into such pieces as will be fit for their weak stomacks because after the Grammar-fashion they are employed to transform them into so many several shapes as Art can devise to turn them into and yet all this while they gain the knowledge of the sense but of one word whereas the Understanding of a Language requires the knowledge of the sense of all and by the way which I shew not onely the knowledge of many words but of many sentences are learn'd with delight in giving light to the understanding by the excellency of the Authours which have left their Works for the bettering of the knowledge of the after-ages by the experience of their times And at last there is more learn'd by the practice of Reading then there was in the long School-teaching These and many other things have made me a little to look after the Naturall Course of Learning divers Languages and so I finde that Languages were not first devised by the Rules of Grammar but the Rules of Grammar were framed according to the common practice of Speech which when in many Words and Phrases the particulars differ from the generall they make up a huge number of Exceptions And that we finde after the tongue hath inabled boys and girles to pronounce the words they hear a few years practice makes their tongues run nimbly away with any thing they desire to say and as quickly apprehend what they hear and that with lesse offence to Priscian and lesse study though sometimes by mischance they break his head yet lesse and seldomer then great Clerks do in other Languages Because Common Use teacheth them a speedier measure by their practice then line and levell could do Besides I finde a great difference in the very naturall framing of the Languages for in our English tongue a word misplaced alters the sence exceedingly as every one conceives the difference between a horse-mill and a mill-horse which is not so in Latine and the Verb in Latine is seldome joyned with the same word we do in English and the Adjective commonly followes the Substantive whereas we commonly put him before the same and say a good man they say a man good and in common talk one word serves instead of a Dictionary to help the understanding of another By which reason mine own Father learn'd of himself by continuall Reading the Greek Dutch French Italian and Spanish Tongues onely by Reading without any other teaching And it is a thing plainly observed by a multitude of persons who never learnt the Rules of Grammar what Errors Forreigners commit as well in mistaking their words as in their undue pronouncing of them and will assoon shew their Errors as if they had been directed by Grammar I have also conferred with many Gentlemen who having learn'd Grammar by Rule and forreign Languages by roat have likewise acknowledged how much more they profited by practice then by precept and likewise how much worse it sped with those who followed the Grammar Rules of those forreign Tongues then with others who neglected them and plied the practice of speech I could wish therefore that when Children are first taught the Grammar instead of that they were employed in much Reading and Writing and turning their Latine Books into English and returning the same back again into Latine whereby they should in that wasted time of their youth gain the knowledge of many good Authours which they could not have time to read and which by their dulness in learning the Rules of Grammar they are so tired with the difficulty thereof that they conceive an impossibility ever to attain it and so quit it though they prove men of excellent Understanding when they come to ripenesse of age And the Romans as ordinarily both men women and children assoon learn'd and speak Latine as English French Dutch Welsh and Irish and all other Nations do their Native Tongues I have likewise found by practice the same effect but have been beaten out of it by the arrogant ignorant and obstinate contradiction of too many others as I was likewise hindred by that I was not able to follow it my self as I should have done neither am I so foolish as to reject Grammar but would onely have it taught according to the noblenesse thereof as one of the seven Liberall Sciences to persons who by ripeness of Understanding are able to comprehend the Reasons thereof and have known some apter to learn in their youth the Rules of Logick and Rhetorick then those of Grammar though they greedily desired it which course if it were taken I think would make many of our English Gentry prove Scholars which by the ordinaryway could never learn it And the help prescribed by the Gramar Rules how to put the Nominative Case before the Verb the Accusative after and to joyn the Substantive with the Adjective and the ordering of every word according to our English fashion may be far more easily directed by placing figures of Number to expresse their order and by this means scarce any who go to School shall ever misse the writing of a good and swift hand and attain ten times more knowledge by reading so many wise Authours as have left their writings for the instruction of posterity by their diligent observation of the meanes and fruits which shew men to follow good and avoid ill Actions And I hold it likewise very necessary for every Teacher to be as diligent in observing the exceeding different nature of all their Scholars according to the dispositions of their persons and age rather then according to their common Rules for some can learn the same thing better at