3 o UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS. 



the beginning of the seventeenth century, to repel the invasion of French, 

 which the scholars naturally brought with them when they arrived from 

 home. It is true that a regulation, passed in 1434, allowed the use of two 

 kinds of Latin : the congruous Latin, which every student who had reached 

 his doctrinal, or Latin syntax,' used exclusively; and- the incongruous Latin, 

 which students were permitted to speak amongst each other in the elementary 

 classes. French, even in private conversation and out of school hours, was 

 generally prohibited. 



But the Latin tongue, limited, so to speak, to the domain of the 

 University, recovered all its credit and renown when, at the epoch of the 

 Renaissance, the literary masterpieces of Rome were once more sought 

 after, studied, and commented on with ardent emulation by the learned, 

 circulated in a number of new and revised editions, and welcomed with 

 enthusiasm by all literary Europe. Then it was that men of mark and 

 genius, such as Erasmus, Melancthon, and Mathurin Cordier, composed 

 colloquies and dialogues, which made the language of the Augustan age 

 more familiar to the youth of the age of Francois I. and Charles V. But 

 these efforts, though successful for the time, were not long triumphant, and 

 it is a singular and significant fact that of the books of study published 

 at this period the only one which has survived was written in French, viz. 

 the Cinlite puerile et honnete, which first appeared at Poitiers in 1559, with 

 the title, far more appropriate to the character of the book, of "A mirror in 

 which the young may learn good morality and the decencies of life." 



But if the books of study used in the ancient schools are now out of date 

 and long since forgotten, such is not the case with the different kinds of 

 recreation in which boys and young men used to indulge as a relaxation 

 from a course of study often abstract and always severe. The Garyantna of 

 Rabelais, and the familiar dialogues of Mathurin Cordier, enable us to frame 

 a list of games which are still played, though in some cases under slightly 

 different names ; as, for instance, the ball, prisoner 's-base, leap-frog, quoits, 

 clicquette (pieces of wood, or shords, which were beaten one against another 

 to make them ring), ninepins, bat and trap, spinning- tops and whipping-tops, 

 fhefossette, or pitch-farthing (which was formerly played with nuts), odd or 

 even, cards, draughts, tennis, heads or tails, tip-cat, &c. 



These were the peaceable games of children and scholars, but they were 

 too tame for the turbulent tastes of the older students, whose bad reputation 



