Note 50 — VIII. MULCASTER. (1531(?)-1611.)

Mulcaster goes on to talk about the brain, &c. Of course he does not anticipate the discoveries of science, but his language is very different from what we should expect from a writer in the pre-scientific age, e.g., “To serve the turn of these two, both sense and motion, Nature hath planted in our body a brain, the prince of all our parts, which by spreading sinews of all sorts throughout all our parts doth work all those effects which either sense is seen in or motion perceived by.” (El., p. 32.) But much as he thinks of the body Mulcaster is no materialist. “Last of all our soul hath in it an imperial prerogative of understanding beyond sense, of judging by reason, of directing by both, for duty towards God, for society towards men, for conquest in affections, for purchase in knowledge, and such other things, whereby it furnisheth out all manner of uses in this our mortal life, and bewrayeth in itself a more excellent being than to continue still in this roaming pilgrimage.” (p. 33.) The grand thing, he says, is to bring all these abilities to perfection “which so heavenly a benefit is begun by education, confirmed by use, perfected with continuance which crowneth the whole work.” (p. 34.) “Nature makes the boy toward; nurture sees him forward.” (p. 35.) The neglect of the material world which has been for ages the source of mischief of all kinds in the schoolroom, and which has not yet entirely passed away, would have been impossible if Mulcaster’s elementary course had been adopted. “Is the body made by Nature nimble to run, to ride, to swim, to fence, to do anything else which beareth praise in that kind for either profit or pleasure? And doth not the Elementary help them all forward by precept and train? The hand, the ear, the eye be the greatest instruments whereby the receiving and delivery of our learning is chiefly executed, and doth not this Elementary instruct the hand to write, to draw, to play; the eye to read by letters, to discern by line, to judge by both; the ear to call for voice and sound with proportion for pleasure, with reason for wit? Generally whatsoever gift Nature hath bestowed upon the body, to be brought forth or bettered by the mean of train for any profitable use in our whole life, doth not this Elementary both find it and foresee it?” (El., p. 35). “The hand, the ear, the eye, be the greatest instruments,” said the Elizabethan schoolmaster. So says the Victorian reformer.