Honest old Latimer thus demanded that "the young gentlemen" of England should be educated, and be "well brought up in the learning and knowledge of God," so that "they would not, when they came to age, so much give themselves to other vanities."

THE SCHOOL OF MORE.

Among the most eminent men of this remarkable period was Sir Thomas More, the records of whose early life and private history throw considerable light upon the state of education in his time. The interesting traits of More's boyhood-his schooldays at St. Anthony's in Threadneedle-street (one of the four grammar-schools founded by Henry VI.); his removal into the household of Cardinal Morton; and his college days at Oxford ; will be found sketched elsewhere in this volume. We here follow More into his domestic retirement at Chelsea.

More hath built near London (says Erasmus), upon the Thames, such a commodious house, and is neither mean, nor subject to envy, yet magnificent enough. There he converseth affably with his family, his wife, his son and daughter, his three daughters and their husbands; with eleven grand-children. You would say that there were in that place Plato's academy; but I do the house injury in comparing it to Plato's academy, wherein were only disputations of numbers and geometrical figures, and sometimes of moral virtues. I would rather call his house a school or university of Christian religion; for there is none therein but readeth or studieth the liberal sciences; their special care is piety and virtue; there is no quarreling or intemperate words heard; none seem idle; which household discipline that worthy gentleman doth not govern by proud and lofty words, but with all kind and courteous benevolence. Everybody performeth his duty, yet is there always alacrity, neither is sober mirth anything wanting.

In the intervals of business, the education of his children formed More's greatest pleasure. His opinions respecting female education differed very widely from what the comparative rudeness of the age might have led us to expect. By nothing, he justly thought, is female virtue so much endangered as by idleness, and the fancied necessity of amusement; and against these is there any safeguard so effectual as an attachment to literature? Some security is indeed afforded by a diligent application to various sorts of female employments; yet these, while they employ the hands, give only partial occupation to the mind. But wellchosen books at once engage the thoughts, refine the taste, strengthen the understanding, and confirm the morals. Female virtue, informed by the knowledge which they impart, is placed on the most secure foundations, while all the milder affections of the heart, partaking in the improvement of the taste and fancy, are refined and matured. More was no convert to the notion, that the possession of knowledge renders women less pliant; nothing, in his opinion, was so untractable as ignorance. Although to manage with skill the feeding and clothing of a family is an essential portion in the duties of a wife and a mother, yet

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to secure the affections of a husband, he judged it no less indispensable to possess the qualities of an intelligent and agreeable companion. Nor ought a husband, if he regards his own happiness, neglect to endeavor to remove the casual defects of female education. Never can he hope to be so truly beloved, esteemed, and respected, as when the wife confides in him as her friend, and looks up to him as her instructor. Such were the opinions, with regard to female education, which More maintained in discourse, and supported by practice. His daughters, rendered proficients in music, and other elegant accomplishments proper their sex, were also instructed in Latin, in which language they read, wrote and conversed with the facility and correctness of their father. The results of this assiduous attention soon became conspicuous, and the School of More, as it was termed, attracted general admiration. In the meantime the stepmother of the daughters, a notable economist, by distributing tasks, of which she required a punctual performance, took care that they should not remain unacquainted with female works, and with the management of a family. For all these employments, which together appear so far beyond the ordinary industry of women, their time was found sufficient, because no part of it was wasted in idleness or trifling amusements. If any of More's servants discovered a taste for reading, or an ear for music, he allowed them to cultivate their favorite pursuit. To preclude all improper conversation before children and servants at table, a domestic was accustomed to read aloud certain passages, so selected as to amuse for the time, and to afford matter for much entertaining conversation.

Margaret Roper, the first-born of More's children, was as celebrated for her learning as beloved for her tender affection to her father in his hour of suffering. Erasmus called her the ornament of Britain, and the flower of the learned matrons of England, at a time when education consisted only of the revived study of ancient learning. She composed a touching account of the last hours of her father.

With a few words upon Sir Thomas More's views on Public Education we conclude. That he conceived the education of all classes to be most conducive to happiness, is evident from the following passage in his Utopia, professedly written to describe "the best state of a public weal," or in more familiar words, a sort of model nation. More says: "though there be not many in every city which be exempt and discharged of all other labors, and appointed only to learning-that is to say, such in whom, even from their very childhood, they have perceived a singular towardness, a fine wit, and a mind apt to good learning—yet all

in their childhood be instructed in learning. And the better part of the people, both men and women, throughout all their whole life do bestow in learning those spare hours which we said they have vacant from their bodily labors." This was written nearly three centuries and a half since; the people of England have not yet reached this condition, although they are tending toward it by efforts at affording elementary instruction for all children, and inducing the habit of self-culture in all adults.

WOLSEY, LATIMER, AND CRANMER.

The boyhood of three great men of this period shows the means of education then obtainable by the middle classes. WOLSEY, who was the son of "an honest poor man," not a butcher's son, as commonly supposed,* was sent when a boy to the Free Grammar-school at Ipswich; thence he was removed to Magdalene College, Oxford, and was subsequently appointed master of a grammar-school dependent on that college. Part of his ill-acquired wealth, Wolsey, late in life, expended in the advancement of learning. At Oxford, he founded the college of Christchurch; but before his magnificent design was completed, Wolsey had lost the favor of his sovereign, and the King having, immediately on the Cardinal's fall, taken possession of the revenues intended for the support of the college, the design had well nigh fallen to the ground; when Wolsey, in the midst of all his troubles, among his last petitions to the King, urgently requested that " His Majesty would suffer his college at Oxford to go on." This the King did, but transferred the credit of the measure to himself. Meanwhile, Wolsey had founded at Ipswich, in 1527, a school, as a nursery for his intended college at Oxford; and this school is said for a time to have rivaled the colleges of Eton and Winchester.

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HUGH LATIMER, the son of a Leicestershire farmer, born in or about 1472, was first sent to a grammar-school, and afterward to Cambridge. Of his family circumstances, Latimer has left us this interesting record: “My father," he writes, was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness with himself and his horse. I remember that I buckled on his harness when he went to

*Wolsey was not born in Ipswich, as generally stated; but at Long Melford, near Ipswich. (See Curiosities of History, p. 225.) He is said to have written the preface to "Lilly's Grammar;" but this is doubtful. In this preface the truest principles of tuition are ably laid down; and he necessity of making a scholar learn thoroughly what he is taught step by step is fully stated and enforced.

Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the king's majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, each, having brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbors, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did of the said farm."

THOMAS CRANMER was born at Aslacton, Notts, in 1489, of a family who had been settled in that county for some generations. His first instruction was received from the parish-clerk. at the village school, from which he was removed by his mother, now become a widow, who placed him in 1503 at Jesus College, Cambridge, amongst "the better sort of students," where Greek, Hebrew, and theology were the principal objects of his industry.

BOYHOOD AND LEARNING OF KING EDWARD THE SIXTH.

The most munificent patron of education who ever sat upon the British throne was Edward VI., the only son of Henry VIII. who survived him. He was born at Hampton Court in 1537, on the 12th of October, which being the vigil of St. Edward, he received his Christian appellation in commemoration of the canonized king. His mother, Queen Jane Seymour, died on the twelfth day after giving him birth. The child had three stepmothers in succession after this; but he was probably not much an object of attention with either of them. Sir John Hayward, who has written the history of his life and reign with great fullness, says that "he was brought up among nurses until he arrived at the age of six years. He was then committed to the care of Dr. (afterward Sir Anthony) Cook, and Mr. (afterward Sir John) Cheke, the former of whom appears to have undertaken the prince's instruction in philosophy and divinity, the latter in Greek and Latin." He succeeded to the throne when little more than nine years of age. The conduct of the young prince toward his instructors was uniformly courteous; and his generous disposition won for him the highest esteem. In common with the children of the rich and great, he was from his cradle surrounded with means of amusement. It is related that at the age of five years, a splendid present was made to him by his godfather, Archbishop Cranmer; the gift was a costly service of silver, consisting of dishes, plates, spoons, etc. The child was overjoyed with the present, when the prince's valet, seeking to impress on his mind its value, observed: "Your highness will be pleased to remember that although this beautiful present is yours, it must be kept entirely to yourself; for if others are permitted to touch

it, it will be entirely spoiled." "My good Hinbrook," replied the prince mildly, "if no one can touch these valuables without spoiling them, how do you then suppose they would ever have been given to me?" Next day, Edward invited a party of young friends to a feast, which was served upon the present of plate; and upon the departure of the young guests, he gave to each of them an article of the service, as a mark of regard.

Cranmer, to encourage Edward in his studies, was in the habit of corresponding with him once a week, and requiring of him an account of what he had done during that time. The prince also complied with the request of his venerable godfather, by keeping a journal, for which purpose he divided a sheet of paper into five columns, and under that arrangement recorded his progress in mythology, history, geography, mathematics, and philosophy.

At the age of fifteen, Edward is said to have possessed a critical knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages; and to have conversed fluently in French, Spanish, and Italian. A manuscript is still preserved in the British Museum, containing a collection of his exercises in Greek and Latin; several of his letters, in French and Latin, written with singular accuracy of diction, are also extant; as well as a French tract, composed before he was twelve years old, against the abuses of Popery. In the Ashmolean and Cottonian collections are other papers in his handwriting; some of which relate to state affairs, and evince an intimate knowlege of the domestic and foreign policy of his government, and his anxious concern for the welfare of his people. But the most striking of his existing productions are "King Edward the Sixth's own Arguments against the Pope's Supremacy;" and "A Translation into French of several passages of Scripture, which forbid idolatry, or the worshipping of false gods." There are also some “Metrical Stanzas on the Eucharist," which Fox has printed in his Martyrology, and characterizes as highly creditable to the young prince; and when to his other accomplishments it is added that he was well versed in natural philosophy, astronomy, and logic, his acquirements will be allowed to have been extraordinary. "This child," says Carden, the celebrated physician, who had frequently conversed with Edward, was so bred, had such parts, was of such expectation, that he looked like a miracle of a man; and in him was such an attempt of Nature, that not only England, but the world, had reason to lament his being so early snatched away."

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In a register kept for the purpose, Edward noted down the characters of public men; and all the important events of his reign, together with the proceedings in council, were recorded in a private journal, which he never allowed to pass out of his