20 THE MODEL MERCHANT 



Whittington lived, men had not half the advantages which the 

 Britons enjoyed under the early rule of the Romans in this countrj'. 

 Gibbon * tells us that they had post-horses and posting-houses, at suit- 

 able distances along the lines of road, throughout their extensive 

 dominions. The Eomaus carried civilization -with them wherever they 

 went. When they quitted Britain desolation followed ; the knowledge 

 of the arts and sciences, which had been previously cultivated to a 

 considerable extent by the Druids, died out with them. Learning was 

 confined to the priests and monks ; schools, except at the monasteries, 

 there were none ; ' educated men were few and far between, so that 

 even kings and nobles could do little more than sign their name, if 

 they could do even that ; while one king (Henry I.) who had advanced 

 a little beyond his predecessors in learning, was, on that account, called 

 Beauclerc, or the good scholar. When learning was in so low a state 

 among those of high rank and the learned professions, we may conclude 

 that the common people were totally illiterate. It was not till the 

 reign of Henry IV. that villeins, i. e. farmers and mechanics, were 

 permitted by law to put their children to school, and long after that 

 they dared not educate a son for the church without a licence from 

 their Lord.'" 



That Richard '\Miittington should have picked up any education at 

 all, at such a time, proves that he must have been a persevering youth, 

 seeking information under difficulties, which we are thankful to say do 

 not beset young people of the present age, when the school master is 

 indeed abroad, and when ignorance is not only the fruitful parent of 

 crime, but is a crime itself — that is to say, wherever it is wilful 

 ignorance. It is a sin to neglect and wilfully refuse the knowledge 

 which is to save the soul alive, and that education through which it is 

 to be obtained. Many stories have been tokl of painstaking and per- 

 severing youths of olden times, who have educated themselves by 

 picking up a book here and there at a book- stall, when the expense of 

 a school would have been quite beyond their reach ; but if we are 

 inclined to give them credit, what must we give to our friend "Wliit- 



k Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1. p. 82, and Note. 



/ Henry's Jlistory of Great Britain, vol. 10, p. 109, &c. 



m Statutes, 7th Ilcnr}- IV. ch. 17. 



