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9. Looking within the book; we see that begun in December 1563, it was prosecuted off and on for two years and a half, until Sir Richard Sackville's death in July 1566. It was then, for sorrow's sake, flung aside. 'Almost two yeares togither, this booke lay scattered, and neglected,' and then finished, so far as we now possess it, by the encouragement of Cecil, in the last six or eight months of Ascham's life. Ascham died 30 Dec: 1568.

If a guess might be hazarded: it would seem that the Author had but gathered the materials together, up to Sir Richard Sackville's death: and that he wove them together in their present form, after he had resumed the book again. The allusion at p. 273, to the Queen's visit to Cambridge, in August 1564, as 'late being there,' would show that that part was written about 1565: while the phrase at p. 146, 'Syr Richard Sackuille, that worthie Ientleman, of worthie memorie, as I sayd in the begynnynge,' would proue that at least The Præface and the Invective against Italianated Englishmen were written after the resumption of the book in 1568: and consequently that it was after then, that the work was finally planned. The first book was then completed, and the second far proceeded with, when Death parted for ever the busy worker

from his Book. This is also confirmed by Ascham's last letter to Sturm: which proves him to have been intent on the work just before his decease.

10. Thanks to the editions of Upton and Bennet, The Scholemaster (which, like so many of the books of Elizabeth's time, had been quite forgotten in the previous sixteenth century) has obtained, for a hundred years or more, the reputation of an historic English work of general as well as of professional interest. With it, more than with any other of his works, is Ascham's name usually associated. As Toxophilus was the gift of his manhood towards the cultivation of the Body: so in this work—the legacy almost of his last hours - we inherit his ripest, his most anxious thought upon the Education of the Mind and Heart.

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11. Among that first race of modern learned Englishmen, who fed and carried aloft the Lamp of Knowledge through all those changing and tempestuous times into the peaceful days of Elizabeth: none has become more famous than Roger Ascham: who, taught by the greatest English Teacher of his youth-tide, Sir John Cheeke in due time became, to his undying delight, the Instructor of the most noble Scholar within the realm: — the Virgin Queen herself.

ROGER ASCHAM'S METHOD OF TEACHING LATIN.

1. That part of The Scholemaster which describes English life and manners of that age, is for us an heritage of authentic information: his Criticism of Ancient and Contemporary Latin writers, establishes a test of the Classical acumen of his time but his system of teaching Latin and mutatis mutandis other languages - deserves our study as a contribution in aid of Education, for all time.

2. We would wish to associate with this Reprint, an excellent book, Essays on Educational Reformers, by the Rev. R. H. QUICK, M.A., London, 1868: 7s. Gd, but worthy of being perpetually sold at a shilling as a companion volume to this reprint; inasmuch as it is in some measure a continuation and completion of The Scholemaster. For in these Essays, Mr. Quick ably analyses and compares the successive systems of Instruction adopted by THE JESUITS, ASCHAM, MONTAIGNE, RATICHI, MILTON, COMENIUS, LOCKE, ROUSSEAU, BASEDOW, PESTALOZZI, JACOTOT, and HERBERT SPENCER. We cannot therefore too strongly recommend the work to

the attention of all those who desire to acquaint themselves with Modern Thought and Experiment in the Science and Art of Teaching.

3. Ascham's Method is avowedly based upon B. I. c. 34 of Cicero's De Oratore, of which the following is a translation: and more especially upon the latter portion of it. "But in my daily exercises I used, when a youth, to adopt chiefly that method which I knew that Caius Carbo, my adversary, generally practised; which was, that having selected some nervous piece of poetry, or read over such a portion of a speech as I could retain in my memory, I used to declaim upon what I had been reading in other words, chosen with all the judgment that I possessed. But at length I perceived that in that method there was this inconvenience, that Ennius, if I exercised myself on his verses, or Gracchus, if I laid one of his orations before me, had forestalled such words as were peculiarly appropriate to the subject, and such as were the most elegant and altogether the best; so that, if I used the same words, it profited nothing; if others, it was even prejudicial to me, as I habituated myself to use such as were less eligible. Afterwards I thought proper, and continued the practice at a rather more advanced age, to translate the orations of the best Greek orators; by fixing upon which I

gained this advantage, that while I rendered into Latin what I had read in Greek, I not only used the best words, and yet such as were of common occurrence, but also formed some words by imitation, which would be new to our countrymen, taking care, however, that they were unobjectionable."

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4. Upon these hints, Ascham- after considering all possible means of teaching languages, which he there discusses in the second book insisted upon the exhaustive study of one or two books, each to be of the highest excellence in its way.

In fact his system might be labelled as

THE DOUBLE Translation of a Model Book.

Mr. Quick remarks, "There are three ways in which the model-book may be studied. 1st, It may be read through rapidly again and again, which was Ratich's plan and Hamilton's; or, 2nd, each lesson may be thoroughly mastered, read in various ways a dozen times at the least, which was Ascham's plan; or, 3rd, the pupil may begin always at the beginning, and advance a little further each time, which was Jacotot's plan."

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5. Ascham, at p. 94, quotes Pliny and Dionysius IIalicarnasseus in support of his Method, in

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