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on the work to the honor of this nation, the comfort of the poor Church of England, and the encouragement of good literature, in the midst of distracting times) he may make use of Introductio ad lectionem Linguarum Orientalium, and of the Lexicon (which I conceive ere this time is well-nigh finished) made on purpose to explicate the words of the Bible according to their several languages, viz., Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Coptic, which is a kind of Egyptian tongue.

4. Their forenoon lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays may be in Hesiod's Epya kɩ hρiški, which they may now construe and parse of themselves by help of the Latin translation, and Pasor upon it, or Screvelii Lexicon; only yourself may now and then illustrate some harder places out of Cerapine and Melanc thon's Commentary, published by Johannes Frisius Tigurinus; and cause them to paraphrase in Greek upon such lessons as are full of excellent matter, and which are worth getting by heart.

When they have gone over this, they may proceed in like manner to Homer, in which they may help themselves out of Clavis Homerica or Lexicon Homericum, or those Quorundum verborum Themata at the end of Scapule Lexicon. You may illustrate the difficult places in him out of Eustathius' Commentary, and let your scholars write some of his narrations in good Latin and Greek phrase. Chapman's English translation of Homer will delight your scholars to read in at leisure, and cause them better to apprehend the series of his poetical discourses. When they are well acquainted with this father of poetry, (which will be after they have read two books either of his Пiad or Odyssey) you may let them proceed to Pindar, and after they have tasted some of his odes by the help of Benedictus' Commentary, you may at last let them make use of Lycophron, which they will better do, having Canterus or Zetzius to unfold his dark meaning, and Longolii Lexicon to interpret and analyze most of his uncouth words.

5. Their forenoon lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays may be in Xenophon's Tepi Kupy naideias for the first quarter or somewhat longer, and afterwards in some of Euripides' and Sophocles' Tragedies, which you please to pick out, to enable them for the rest; and if to these you add a few of Aristophanes' Com edies, which they may better understand by the help of Bisotus upon him, I suppose, you may turn them to any other Greek author, and they will give you a reasonable account thereof, having but a little time allowed them to deliberate upon it, and necessary subsidiaries at hand to help themselves withal in case they be put to a stand.

6. Their afternoon parts on Mondays and Wednesdays may be in Ant. de Laubegeois Breviarium Græcæ Linguæ, partly because the perusal of that book will help them to retain all the Greek vocabularies in mind, and partly because those excellent sentences being picked out of many authors, will acquaint them with most of the hard words that they are likely to find in them.

7. Their afternoon lessons may be in Horace, wherein they should be employed, 1. In committing their lessons to memory, as affording a rich mine of invention. 2. In construing and parsing, and giving the tropes and figures. 3. In scanning and proving verses. 4. Sometimes in turning an ode or epistle into other kinds of verses, English, Latin, or Greek; sometimes in paraphrasing or enlarging the words in an oratorical style, as Mr. Horne doth give some ex: amples in his little golden book, De usu Authoris.

Mr. Farnaby's or Mr. Bond's Notes upon this poet will encourage your scholars to proceed in him; and after they have read what you best approve (for he that feeds cleanly will pare his apple) in this author, you may let them proceed to Juvenal, and read some select satires, by help of Farnaby's Notes or Lubin's Commentary, and then let them read Persius quite through, which (besides the notes upon him) Mr. Holyday's English translation will help them well to understand. As for Lucan, Seneca's Tragedies, Martial, and the rest of the finest Latin poets, you may do well to give them a taste of each, and show them how and wherein they may imitate them or borrow something out of them. Mr. Farnaby's Notes upon them will be helpful to understand them, and Pareus, or Tuubman upon Plautus, will make some merry comedies of his that may be easily read over.

8. They may read some of Luciani selecti mortuorum dialogi on Tuesdays in the afternoon, and if those printed at Paris by Sebastian and Gabriel Cramoisy, Cum interpretatione Latinâ et Grammaticâ singularum vocum explanatione, were to be had, they might easily run them over, but (I suppose) they will now be able to go on of themselves in the perusal of those lately printed by Mr. Dugard. After lessons ended, they may benefit themselves by reading Jacobi Pontani Progymnasmata Latinitatis, which will furnish them with good expressions for speaking Latin, and acquaint them with some patterns for exercises which are not elsewhere usually found.

9. On Thursdays they may be employed in reading some of Tully's orations, especially Pro Archia contra Catalinam and Philippice; and afterwards they may peruse Pliny's Panegyrica and Quintilian's Declamations. After lessons ended, they may busy themselves in perusing Goodwin's Antiquities or the like. And here I do heartily wish, as Mr. Horne hath done formerly, that some one of better leisure and abilities would make an Index Oratorius, like the Index Poeticus of Mr. Farnaby's, which may point at the marrow of matter and words in all the purest orators that are extant, either ancient or modern, and that those authors might be reserved in the school library, whereunto scholars may have recourse touching any subject whereof they may have occasion to treat in their school exercises.

10 In the meantime this form should continue to make themes and verses, one week in Greek and another in Latin, and ever and anon they may contend in making orations and declamations, for which exercise they may find helps and patterns in Mr. Clerk's Formula Oratoriæ, and Mr. Horne's De usu Authoris. Likewise to bring themselves to a habituated perfection of good style, they should be frequent in perusing and excerpting passages that may serve for their occasions out of Tully, Quintilian, Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, Quintus Curtius, or the like ancient orations, and acquaint themselves with those modern orators whose eloquence we admire, viz., Turnerus, Baudius, Muretus, Heinsius, Puteanus, Rainoldus, Lipsius, Barclaius, Salmatius, and others, to be laid up in the school library. Tesmarus and Orator Extemporaneus will show them how to dispose their matter so as to make an oration on any subject in Latin, extempore; and Aphthonius and Libanius Sophista will furnish them with patterns in Greek. For learning to write Greek epistles they may consult Isocrates' Epistles and Symmachus.

They should often also vie wits amongst themselves, and strive who can make the best anagrams, epigrams, epitaphs, epithalamias, eclogues, acrostics, and

golden verses, in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; which they will easily do after a while, having good patterns before them to imitate, which they may collect out of authors as they fancy them, for their own use and delight.

11. When they have done with Nowell, they may proceed to Birket's Cat echism in Greek, or our common Church Catechism in Hebrew, which was printed for the company of stationers in four languages, A. D. 1638.

Thus have I at last done with my school discovery, in which I have proceeded so far as to make any author seem easy to young scholars in their future progress at the universities, where I would advise them (that have purses especially) to provide themselves with all the Latin and Greek orators and poets, and what they can not understand without a commentary or scholiast, to procure those whereby they may best help themselves, and to have Stephani Thesaurus, (Greek and Latin,) Suidas, Hesychius, Budæus' Commentaries, and the like, ever at hand, that they may be sure to improve themselves in the Latin and Greek tongues, as well as to mind the daily study of the arts and sciences which are delivered in them.

1. And would some able tutor take the pains to describe a right method of study and in what authors students may best bestow their time for the first four years, it would doubtless be a means to encourage them to go on to that height of perfection which we see few attain to, and those not until they be ready to drop into their graves; and then they wish they could once run over again their former studies, and tell how easily they could cope-gain that little measure of knowledge which they have so industriously sought for all their life. The constant employment of this sixth form is,

1. To read twelve verses out of the Greek Testament every morning before parts.

2. To repeat Latin and Greek grammar parts and Elementa Rhetorices every Thursday morning.

3. To learn the Hebrew tongue on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for morning parts.

4. To read Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, and Lycophron, for forenoon lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays.

5. Xenophon, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

6. Laubegeois Breviarium Græcæ linguæ for afternoon parts on Mondays and Wednesdays.

7. Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Lucan, Seneca's Tragedies, Martial and Plautus, for afternoon lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays.

8. Lucian's Select Dialogues and Pontani Progymnasmata Latinitatis on Tuesday afternoons, and

9. Tully's Orations, Pliny's Panegyrics, and Quintilian's Declamations on Thursday afternoons, and Goodwin's Antiquities at leisure times.

10. Their exercises for oratory should be to make themes, orations and declamations, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and for poetry to make verses upon such themes as are appointed them every week.

11. And to exercise themselves in anagrams, epitaphs, epithalamias, eclogues, and acrostics, in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

12. Their catechisms are Nowell and Birket in Greek, and the Church Catechism in Hebrew. So that in six (or at the most seven) years' time, (which

children commonly squander away, if they be not continued at the school, after they can read English and write well) they may easily attain to such knowledge in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, as is requisite to furnish them for future studies in the universities, or to enable them for any ingenious profession or employment which their friends shall think fit to put them upon in other places.

But having somewhat to say further touching the well ordering of a grammar school, (for I have here insisted chiefly concerning teaching) I shall endeavor to proceed in my next treatise with school discipline.

In the meantime you may observe that the method which I have here discovered is for the most part contrived according to what is commonly practiced in England and foreign countries, and is in sundry particulars proportioned to the ordinary capacities of children under fifteen years of age. The subject matter which is taught is the same as that which is generally used in grammars, authors, and exercises. Touching grammars, I prefer Lilly's for Latin, Camden's for Greek, and Buxtorf's Epitome for Hebrew, not excluding any other that may conduce to the completing of grammar art. The authors which I prescribe to be used are partly classical, which every scholar should provide for himself; and because these are constantly learnt in most grammar schools, I appoint them to be read at such times as are usually spent in lessons.

The subsidiary books are those which are helpful to children in performing their tasks with more ease and benefit; and because all the scholars will not have like need of them, and they are more than any one will desire to buy, these should be laid up in the school library, for every form to make use of, as they shall have occasion. Some of these serve chiefly for the explication of grammar, and are applied to it; some are needful for the better understanding of classical authors, and are appropriated to them, and others are very requisite for the gaining of words and phrases and an ability for speaking or writing elegantly, and such times are set apart for perusing them as are commonly truanted in idleness or needless sport. Now by the joint using of these together, I endeavor that a scholar may have a pretty thorough knowledge of the language which he learneth, as well as of his bare grammar rules, without which it signifieth nothing. And therefore to help children more easily to gain the Latin, I have translated such books as they learn whilst they get the grammar, into their own mother tongue, so that by comparing and using both together, they may be able after good acquaintance with the Latin to wean themselves quite from English. He that desires further satisfaction concerning the translations which I have already made, may peruse the advertisement that I caused to be printed before Cato's Distichs, in English and Latin.

And if any man shall think to tell me that I seem to trouble my scholars with too many books at once, because a few if well learned will suffice to make a grammarian, I will give him here to consider:

1. That I have to deal with children who are delighted and refreshed with a variety of books, as well as of sports and meats.

2. That a schoolmaster's aim being to teach them languages and oratory and poetry, as well as grammar, he must necessarily employ them in many books which tend thereunto.

3. That the classical authors are the same as in other schools, and subsidiaries may be provided at a common charge, as I shall afterwards show.

The scholars in a grammar school may be fitly divided into six forms, whereof the three lowest, which are commonly under an usher, may be termed,

1. Rudimentaries, that learn the grounds.

2. Practitioners, that exercise the rules.

3. Proficients, that can speak and write true Latin.

The three highest forms are employed by the master to learn the Greek and Hebrew tongues, together with the Latin, and to gain some skill in oratory and poetry, and matters of humanity; and of these I may name the lowest Tertiani, the middlemost Secundani, and the highest Primani, because they seem to differ one from another in ability of learning, as the Roman legionary soldiers did in strength and the use of arms.

This division I have purposely made, so that whether one master alone be put to teach the whole, or have one, two or more ushers to assist him, he may constantly train up his scholars by one and the same way of teaching, (altering now and then only some circumstances, as his own discretion shall better direct him,) and every scholar may from his first entrance to the school proceed with cheerfulness in learning, when he seeth plainly what he is to do from year to year, and how others before him in a playing manner overskip those seeming difficulties which he imagineth in his mind. And I conceive it will be no small satisfaction to parents, and a mean to cease the indiscreet clamors of some against schoolmasters, to see what method they observe in teaching, and how their children profit by degrees, according to their present apprehensions and growth in years.

And now the God of heaven and earth, in whose power alone it is to give increase, vouchsafe to bestow such a blessing upon our planting and watering, that our young plants may grow up in all godliness and good learning, and abound in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom only to know is eternal life. Amen.

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