§ 1. Masters and scholars who sigh over what seem to them the intricacies and obscurities of modern grammars may find some consolation in thinking that, after all, matters might have been worse, and that our fate is enviable indeed compared with that of the students of Latin 400 years ago. Did the reader ever open the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander de Villa Dei, which was the grammar in general use from the middle of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century? (_v._ Appendix, p. 532). If so, he is aware how great a step towards simplicity was made by our grammatical reformers, Lily, Colet, and Erasmus. Indeed, those whom we now regard as the forgers of our chains were, in their own opinion and that of their contemporaries, the champions of freedom (Appendix, p. 533).
§ 2. I have given elsewhere (Appendix, p. 533) a remarkable passage from Colet, in which he recommends the leaving of rules, and the study of examples in good Latin authors. Wolsey also, in his directions to the masters of Ipswich School (dated 1528), proposes that the boys should be exercised in the eight parts of speech in the first form, and should begin to speak Latin and translate from English into Latin in the second. If the masters think fit, they may also let the pupils read Lily’s _Carmen Monitorium_, or Cato’s _Distichs_. From the third upwards a regular course of classical authors was to be read, and Lily’s rules were to be introduced by degrees. “Although I confess such things are necessary,” writes Wolsey, “yet, as far as possible, we could wish them so appointed as not to occupy the more valuable part of the day.” Only in the sixth form, the highest but two, Lily’s syntax was to be begun. In these schools the boys’ time was wholly taken up with Latin, and the speaking of Latin was enforced even in play hours, so we see that anomalies in the accidence as taught in the _As in præsenti_ were not given till the boys had been some time using the language; and the syntax was kept till they had a good practical knowledge of the usages to which the rules referred.[43]
§ 3. But although there was a great stir in education throughout this century, and several English books were published about it, we come to 1570 before we find anything that has lived till now. We then have Roger Ascham’s _Scholemaster_, a posthumous work brought out by Ascham’s widow, and republished in 1571 and 1589. The book was then lost sight of, but reappeared, with James Upton as editor, in 1711,[44] and has been regarded as an educational classic ever since. Dr. Johnson says “it contains perhaps the best advice that was ever given for the study of languages,” and Professor J. E. B. Mayor, who on this point is a higher authority than Dr. Johnson, declares that “this book sets forth the only sound method of acquiring a dead language.”