SCHOOLS 



English classics on education, Roger Ascham's 

 Scholemaiter. 



' When the great plage was at London, the 

 yeare 1563, the Quenes Maiestie, Queene 

 Elizabeth, lay at her Castle of Windsore, where, 

 vpon the 10 day of December, it fortuned, that 

 in Sir William Cicellf chamber, hir Highnesse 

 Principall Secretarie, there dined togithcr ' a select 

 company, of whom Roger Ascham was one. 



Not long after our sitting doune, I haue strange 

 newes brought me, sayth Mr. Secretarie, this morning, 

 that diuerse Scholers of Eaton, be runne awaie from 

 the Schole, for feare of beating. Whereupon, Mr. 

 Secretarie tooke occasion, to wishe, that some more 

 discretion were in many Scholemasters, in vsing 

 correction, than commonlie there is. Who many 

 times, punishe rather, the weakenes of nature, than the 

 fault of the Scholer. Wherby, many Scholers, that 

 might else proue well, be driuen to hate learning, 

 before they knowe what learning meaneth. 



Thereupon followed the discussion, which 

 eventually produced the work in question, which 

 for the first time in English preached openly and 

 at length the doctrine that persuasion was better 

 than force for opening a boy's mind to learning. 

 The book itself sheds no further light on the 

 method of Eton or any other school. Just as 

 much as the most hide-bound public-school 

 master, Ascham treats a knowledge of the 

 classics as the be-all and end-all of education, 

 while his new patent method of inoculating 

 pupils with them, though practicable enough for 

 the single willing pupil, with whom alone, as 

 private tutor, Ascham's experience had lain, was 

 wholly unpractical for a large public school. 

 Even his courageous attack on Solomon's stupid 

 dictum as to sparing the rod and spoiling the 

 child had little practical effect at Eton or else- 

 where. 



The running away of the boys, which pro- 

 duced the Scholemaiter, also produced the retire- 

 ment of Malim from office, as in 1563 William 

 Smyth became head master. 158 Malim was on 

 3 April 1569 partly consoled with the prebend 

 of Biggleswade in Lincoln Cathedral. At 

 Christmas 1573 he became high master of St. 

 Paul's. In 1580 he humbly asked Cecil, then 

 Lord Burghley, for preferment, but seemingly 

 the incident of 1563 had been too much im- 

 pressed on the Lord Treasurer's mind. At all 

 events, Malim did not get preferment. Next year 

 he retired from St. Paul's, and died 15 August 

 1594. His successor at Eton, Smyth, had gone 

 to King's in 1556 in the same batch with Wil- 

 liam Wickham, afterwards vice-provost of Eton 

 and Dean and Bishop of Lincoln, and the second 

 Bishop of Winchester of that name. Smyth 

 was, when elected master, a fellow of Eton, and 

 with his namesake, Clement Smythe, a master 



'" Lupton in Diet. Nat. Biog. makes him stay at 

 Eton till his election to St. Paul's in 1573. The Eton 

 Audit Book for 1563-4 refutes this. 



exactly a century before, the first, and perhaps 

 the only one, to reverse the usual process by 

 giving up a fellowship to become master, instead 

 of being given a fellowship on ceasing to be 

 master. No doubt he was pressed to fill the 

 gap caused by Malim's sudden retirement. After 

 eight years of office, however, he adopted the 

 usual course, and, on resigning, was re-elected 

 a fellow. He afterwards became ' viker ' of Stur- 

 minster Marshall, Dorset, an Eton living, and 

 preacher or minister at Wimborne Minster, near 

 Bournemouth, where there is a monumental in- 

 scription to him. It is to be hoped that he was 

 not responsible for the vandalism which disposed 

 of 'old parchment books wcying 200 pounde ' 

 for 241. in 1564-5. He kept up the play, re- 

 ceiving 2OJ. for ' Mr. Schoolmaster's charges 

 about the playe last Christmas,' while lolb. of 

 candles ' spent at the play ' cost 1 5^., and ' tcnter- 

 hookes,' presumably for the curtain, cost iSd. 



From Malim's time to the Civil War most of 

 the head masters, if not all, were Etonians and 

 Kingsmen. Reuben Sherwood (King's 1558), 

 proctor at Cambridge 1569, head master 1 57 1-9, 

 was a medical man, and afterwards practised as a 

 physician at Bath ; Thomas Ridley (King's 1565), 

 head master i 579-83, was a lawyer, and became 

 a master in Chancery and a knight. The name 

 of John Hammond, head master 1583-94, does 

 not appear in Alumni Etonensei as going to King's. 

 He was a married man, and a monument to his 

 son, who died at Eton in I 589, records that when 

 the boy was scarcely three years old he could 

 understand and talk Latin. Hammond nK<> 

 retired to practise physic, receiving as a retiring 

 gratuity in 1594 40 in lieu of a lease of Eton 

 property asked for by the queen on his behalf. 

 He became a court physician and died in 1617. 

 Richard Langley (King's 1580) succeeded in 

 1594. 



Provost Day was made Bishop of Winchester 

 in 1595, but died within a year. His successor 

 at Eton, Sir Henry Savile, who had held the 

 wardenship of Merton since 1584, and continued 

 to hold it, was elected on 26 May in pursuance 

 of royal letters of 18 May 1596, for which he 

 offered Sir Robert Cecil 300 angels. He was an 

 ex-tutor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and 

 mathematics, and ' an extraordinary handsome 

 and beautiful man no lady had a finer com- 

 plexion.' He was a scholar of European 

 reputation. At Eton he converted the Fellows' 

 Library from a hay-loft and set up a printing 

 press in what was during the iQth century the 

 head master's house, to print a great edition of 

 Chrysostom. He is said to have been a stern 

 disciplinarian and to have discouraged youthful 

 brilliance ; ' Give me the plodding students. If 

 I would look for wits, I would go to Newgate 

 there be wits.' 



The reputation he and Langley enjoyed 

 caused the school to grow. In 1613 there were 



193 



