Читать книгу Essays on Educational Reformers онлайн

81 страница из 91

§ 9. (5) It would have been a vast gain to all Europe if Mulcaster had been followed instead of Sturm. He was one of the earliest advocates of the use of English instead of Latin (see Appendix, p. 534), and good reading and writing in English were to be secured before Latin was begun. His elementary course included these five things: English reading, English writing, drawing, singing, playing a musical instrument. If the first course were made to occupy the school-time up to the age of 12, Mulcaster held that more would be done between 12 and 16 than between 7 and 17 in the ordinary way. There would be the further gain that the children would not be set against learning. “Because of the too timely onset too little is done in too long a time, and the school is made a torture, which as it brings forth delight in the end when learning is held fast, so should it pass on very pleasantly by the way, while it is in learning.”ssss1 (PP., 33.)

§ 10. (6) Among the many changes brought about in the nineteenth century we find little that can compare in importance with the advance in the education of women. In the last century, whenever a woman exercised her mental powers she had to do it by stealth,[53] and her position was degraded indeed when compared not only with her descendants of the nineteenth century, but also with her ancestors of the sixteenth. This I know has been disputed by some authorities, e.g., by the late Professor Brewer: but to others, e.g., to a man who, as regards honesty and wisdom, has had few equals and no superiors in investigating the course of education, I mean the late Joseph Payne, this educational superiority of the women of Elizabeth’s time has seemed to be entirely beyond question. On this point Mulcaster’s evidence is very valuable, and, to me at least, conclusive. He not only “admits young maidens to learn,” but says that “custom stands for him,” and that “the custom of my country ... hath made the maidens’ train her own approved travail.” (PP., p. 167.)