In the following pages I propose to offer a little picture of school-life four hundred years ago, culled from an old Latin dialogue book which was published anonymously in the fifteenth century under the title 'Es tu scholaris?' and went through many editions in different countries. All through the Middle Ages boys were supposed to speak Latin in school, and this with some reason, since if they meant to be scholars when they grew up, to be able to speak and write Latin fluently would be far more useful to them than the acquisition of any single modern language. But no doubt it did not come easily to them, and our anonymous author seems to have thought that it might not come quite easily to their masters to show them how to do it, since, as we shall see, he wrote his book for use in the humbler kind of schools, where the master himself might be a man of no great learning. In fact he begins by pointing out the inconvenience of a master not being able to answer his boys' questions, and to obviate this offers some ready-made dialogues on what he considered suitable topics.
[9] Reprinted from the King's College School Magazine by leave of the editor.
All the earlier dialogues begin with the words from which the book takes its title--Are you a scholar? 'Es tu scholaris?' says the master. 'Sum,' says the boy, ('knowing the language'), and then begin the variations.
[Illustration: FROM THE FLORES POETARUM, S.A.]
The cruellest of these is a kind of 'fool's mate' (to borrow a term from chess), in which the master asks, 'What gender is sum?' and it is to be hoped used his victory mercifully if his victim fell into the trap. When the first variations are exhausted we come to a 'Where are you a scholar?' to which the correct answer is 'Here and everywhere, and in all honest places,' honest places being subsequently defined as of four kinds, that is to say, at church, at school, at home with one's parents and in the company of able men (ecclesia, scola, domus propria circa parentes et convivium peritorum virorum). Of a sudden the master waxes humorous and demands 'Es tu scutellavarius,' a portentous word which apparently means a 'washer-up,' since the boy emphasises his denial by explaining that he does _not_ wash plates in the kitchen (quod non lavo scutellas in coquina). On this there follows some talk about religion, and we then approach scholastic topics with the question, 'Do you know Latin?' 'I do,' answers the boy, with happy confidence, and then in reply to the further question, 'What is Latin?' is made to return the remarkable answer, that Latin is a very noble idiom taking its origin from the fountains of the Greeks (nobilissimum ideoma ex fontibus Graecorum ortum habens). Comparative philology was in its infancy in those days, and as even now there are worthy people who believe that English is derived from German, we need not throw stones.