to play; but if not, that they be held to their books. Yet if there hath not a playday been granted, nor a holyday intervened for some weeks together, the master may of himself propound to his scholars that in case they perform all their tasks very well and orderly, so as to dispatch them by such an hour on such a day, they shall play the remainder thereof, and then (as at other times also when a playday is intended) one of the upper form (at least) should make a petitioning oration to the master or them that come to crave play; and another, a congratulatory speech, after leave is obtained.

Where both Thursdays and Saturdays in the afternoon are half holydays, I think Tuesdays the fittest on which to grant play; in other places, Thursdays may seem the best. But this I leave to the discretion of the master, who knoweth what is most convenient for his own school.

Now in granting a playday these directions may be useful:

1. That there be never more than one playday granted in one week, and that only when there is no holyday in that week, and when the weather also is clear and open, and the ground somewhat dry.

2. That no play be granted till one o'clock (at the soonest) when all the scholars are met and orations have been said.

3. That all the scholars be dismissed orderly into some close (or other place appointed for such a purpose) near the school, where they may play together, and use such honest and harmless recreations as may moderately exercise their bodies and not at all endanger their health.

And because some boys are apt to sneak home, or straggle from the rest of their fellows out of the bounds prescribed them to play in, you may do well to give order to him that hath the bill of all the names, to call it over at any time amid their sport, and to take notice of all such as have absented themselves, and to give you an account of them when they return into the school, which should be upon play days before five o'clock, that they may bless God for his provident hand over them that day, and so go home. And that the master may sometimes see into various dispositions of children, which doth freely discover itself by their company and behavior at play, he may now and then take occasion to walk at a distance from them, or (if he come nearer) to stand out of their sight, so that he may behold them in the throng of their recreations and observe their gestures and words, which if in any thing they be not as becometh them, he may afterwards admonish them in private to behave or speak otherwise.

But an especial care must be taken and a charge accordingly often given, that your scholars do at no time play with any but their own school-fellows or other ingenuous children about home, which their parents or friends know, and whom they are willing should be admitted into their company; for besides the evil which may be contracted by learning corrupt discourse and imitating them in many shrewd turns, boys that are under little or no command will be very subject to brabble and fight with scholars, and the rather because they know the master will not allow his scholars at all to quarrel, and if they can do them any maim they will attempt it, that the master may have occasion to call them to account for it. So perverse is our corrupt nature (especially) where education hath no

sway.

IV.— Of Admission of Scholars; of Election of Forms; and of scholars' orderly sitting and demeanor in their seats when they are at school.

1. No children should (as I have formerly said) be admitted into a grammar

school but such as can readily read English and write a legible hand, or at least be willing to learn to write, and to proceed in learning Latin. And it is therefore best to try, in the presence of their parents or friends that bring them, what they can do, by causing them to read or write (if they can) before them, that themselves may be judges of their present strength or weakness, and expect proficiency from them according as they see their capacity, not hastening them on too fast and rating at them daily, because (perhaps) in their judgment they do not learn so well as their neighbors' children.

The best is to admit of young beginners only once every year, and then to take in all that can be gotten from the petty schools, for company will encourage children to adventure upon an untried course of learning, seeing the more the merrier; and any discreet parent will be easily persuaded to forbear his son a while when he considereth that it will be more for his profiting to have company along with him as he learneth, and he may be daily bettered in reading English, and forwarded by learning to write, before he come from the petty school.

The fittest season of the year for such a general admission of little ones into the grammar school, doth seem to be about Easter; partly because the higher boys are usually then disposed of to trades or the universities, and partly because most children are then removed from one school to another, as having the summer coming on for their encouragement.

When you have thus admitted a company of boys together, you may let those who can read best obtain the higher places, till they come to get the rudiments of Latin without book, and then you may rank them into a form. Because,

2. It is a main help to the master and a furtherance to all the scholars, that the whole school be reduced into forms, and those also as few as may be, respecting the different years and capacity of each scholar. And if there were six hundred scholars or more in a school, they might all fitly be ranked into six forms, by putting those of equal age and abilities together, and the toil in hearing parts or lessons, and perusing exercises, (as I will show anon) would not be much more with a hundred orderly placed and well behaved in a room to themselves apart, than with three or four single boys in several employments. Not only because the master or ushers do thus at once impart themselves to all alike, and may bestow more time amongst them in examining any task; but also because by this means emulation (as a main quickener of diligence) will be wrought amongst them, insomuch that the weakest scholar amongst them will be loth to lag always behind the rest; and there is none so stupidly blockish but by help of company will learn that which he would not obtain alone, and I have seen the very hindmost oftentimes help all his fellows at a dead lift. The teacher's constant care should be, in every form, so to direct and examine every particular boy, so to help forward the weakest, that in every thing he doth, he may understand himself, and it is not to be said with what alacrity they will all strive to outdo one another, so that sometimes he that cometh behind all the rest will be as fit to make a leader of the form as those that are the foremost in it.

To provoke them all therefore to emulation, and that none may complain or think himself injured by being left behind, use constantly once at the end of a month, and when all your scholars are together, to make a free new choice in every form, after this manner:

1. Let every scholar in the form give his own voice concerning which boy he

thinketh to be the best proficient, and ablest for the present to lead the company; and having set him aside, let them all pass their voices again concerning whom they judge fittest to stand the next to him.

2. Then set these two opposite one to another, so that the better scholar may take the leading of the upper side, on your right hand, and the other the leading of the lower side on your left hand.

3. And that there may not be much inequality in the sides, let the lower leader have the first call, and liberty to take what boy he thinketh the strongest out of all the rest, and then let the higher leader have the next call, and liberty to take whom he liketh; and so let them proceed to call by course till they have (like ball players) ranked all their fellows to their sides, and so strongly and evenly set themselves in a posture one side against another, that it may be hard for any one to judge which is the stronger.

By thus choosing amongst themselves, they will all be so well pleased, that the master shall never be blamed for endeavoring to prefer one boy before another, or keeping any back that would seem to go faster than his fellows at his book. And indeed I have sometimes admired to observe the impartiality and judgment of children in placing one another according to their abilities and parts, waiving all other by-respects by which men would be inclined to set one higher and another lower. Yet if sometimes they seem to mistake in their judgment concerning a boy that is but newly come amongst them, or to be too partial against any other upon some general spleen, which is but very rare; the discreet master may, after the election, correct the error by giving such a one a place to his own liking, which he may keep till the next choice, except some of his inferiors have a list to dispute with him for his place, and then he must put it to the hazard, having a lawful time given him to provide beforehand for the contest.

4. Let all the scholars take their places in the school according to their several forms, and let every one sit in his form in that order in which he was elected. It were good that the seats were so equally set on both sides of the school, that the higher side of each form might keep the higher side of the school, I mean that on the master's right hand; and the lower side of the form the lower side of the school, which is that on the master's left hand. However, let the upper side take always the upper, and the lower the lower seats.

This placing of scholars in an opposite manner, side against side, is good in many respects, as,

1. To know on a sudden who is unruly in or absent out of his place.

2. To have them ready paired at all times for examinations, disputations, orations, or the like.

3. To keep order in going in and out of their seats to say, or in going home from school, or the like.

4. To increase courage in the scholars, who are delighted to let their friends see what place they keep amongst the rest, when they come to visit them.

As they sit in their seats, be sure to keep them continually employed, by proportioning every task to the time and their strength, with respect to the capacity of the weakest; for by this means the strongest boys will have more leisure to help and see that the weakest can do their work, for which purpose they should be appointed sometimes to sit in the middle amongst the rest, that they may more readily be consulted with and heard of all. These should sometimes construe and sometimes examine over their lessons, having their grammars and

dictionaries and other subsidiary books to help them, out of which they should appoint others to find what they inquire after; and this will be so far from hindering their own progress, that it will encourage them to go faster onward when they see how readily they can lead the way and incite their fellows to follow after them.

When in getting lessons the whole form shall be at a nonplus, let one of the leaders have recourse to the master or ushers, or to whom they shall appoint him to go for resolution. But I have found it a continual provoking of scholars to strive who should learn the fastest, to let both the sides of one form, as they sit apart, so to look to provide their lessons apart, and when they come to say parts or lessons, or to perform exercises, to bicker one with another, and propound those things to be resolved in by their opposites, which they observe the master to have omitted, and they think they can not tell. And let it be constantly noted which side hath the better all the week, that when afterwards they come to a general dispute at the week's end for places or sides, it may be considered.

V.-Of saying Parts and Lessons, and of perusing translutions and all other kinds of exercises.

1. The best time for saying grammar parts or the like is the morning, partly because the memory is then the freshest, and partly because children may take the opportunity over night to get them perfectly at home. But forasmuch as vocabulas are more easy to be impressed on the mind, and require less pains in getting, I conceive it not amiss that children be continually exercised in saying them for afternoon parts at one o'clock, before which hour they may prepare themselves aforehand (even) amid their play.

After parts said, the master or his ushers should immediately give lessons to every form, or appoint a boy out of an upper form to give lessons to that which is next below him, in his hearing; which he should distinctly construe once or twice over, and note out all the words wherein the most difficulty of parsing seems to lie, and name the tropes and figures, the phrases and other elegances that are to be found (especially) in higher authors.

The lessons should be got ready to be said against ten o'clock in the forenoon and four in the afternoon, at which time the scholars should all come orderly and quietly out of their form, and taking their places where they ought to stand, (so as one side may be opposite to another,) they should all make their salutes, and then say one after another, except they be appointed otherwise.

For sometimes when you have occasion to make more hasty dispatch with a form, you may cause any one or more to say the whole lesson or by pieces; but be sure that they all come very well provided, and that every one be intent upon what another is saying, for which purpose you may note him that hath been most negligent in his seat, and ask him ever and anon what it was that his fellow said last.

To save your own lungs in asking many questions and telling rules or the like, you may let every two boys examine one another, and yourself only help them when they are both at a mistake.

You may easily amend that common and troublesome fault of indistinct and muttering speaking, by calling out a bold spirited little boy that can speak with grace, and encouraging him to give the other a higher note for the elevation of

his voice; for this will at last force the boy you are troubled with to speak louder and with a better grace, and to strive to pronounce his words more distinctly than the other did before him.

After lessons are ended, you may let every one propound what questions he pleaseth for his opposite to answer, and this will be a means to whet them on to more diligence in getting them before they come to say.

In the three lowest forms, or in others where all have the same translations or dictates, you may cause only him whose performance you most doubt of, to read what he hath written both in English and Latin, and help him, as you find his error, to correct it, and see that all the rest amend their own faults accordingly. Afterwards you may let one parse it both in English and Latin, and order them all to write it over again fairly in a paper book for themselves, and to give you also a copy of it neatly written in a loose paper every Saturday. And thus you shall have every one begin to lean on his own strength, a thing very necessary in all kinds of exercises, though they do the less. If you once take notice of any boy's strength, you may easily judge of what he bringeth, whether it be his own or another's doing.

But in the upper forms, and where they have all several exercises, it is necessary that you peruse what every scholar hath done. And for this work you may set apart Saturday forenoons, after grammatical examinations are ended, and before they say their catechisms. And that they may write them fair, you should sometimes compare them with their copy-books or such pieces as they wrote last at the writing school. Before they bring them to you to read, let them peruse one another's exercise amongst themselves, and try what faults they can find in it; and as you read them over, where you see a gross mistake, explode it; where you espy any oversight, note it with a dash, that they may amend it; but where you see any fault which is beyond their power to avoid or remedy, do you mildly correct it for them, and advise them to observe it for the future. However, forget not to commend him most that hath done the best, and for his encouragement to make him read over his exercise aloud, that others may hear it, and then to hang it up in an eminent place, that they may imitate it; and if any one can afterwards outdo it, let his exercise be hanged up in its stead. But if any one hath lazily performed his exercise, so that it be worse than all the rest, let it be cut in the fashion of a leg, and be hanged up by the heel till he make a better, and deserve that that may be taken down. It is not amiss also, to stir them up to more diligence, to have a common paper book wherein the names of all in every form that have optimè and pessimè performed their weekly exercises may be written, and that the one may have the privilege to beg a playday once a month or to obtain pardon for some of his fellows, and the other may be confined to some task when a playday is granted.

VI.-Of weekly Repetitions. Of Grammatical Examinations and Disputations. Of collecting phrases and gathering into commonplace-books. Of pronouncing orations and declamations.

I have not in either of the foregoing treatises made mention of any thing to be done on Fridays, because that day is commonly spent in most schools in repeating what hath been learned in the foregoing part of the week; which custom, because it is a means to confirm children's memories in what they learn, I willingly conform unto.