Note 54 — VIII. MULCASTER. (1531(?)-1611.)

John Brinsley (the elder) who married a sister of Bishop Hall’s and kept school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (was it the Grammar School?) was one of the best English writers on education. In his Consolation for our Grammar Schooles, published early in the sixteen hundreds, he says: “Amongst others myself having first had long experience of the manifold evils which grow from the ignorance of a right order of teaching, and afterwards some gracious taste of the sweetness that is to be found in the better courses truly known and practised, I have betaken me almost wholly, for many years unto this weighty work, and that not without much comfort, through the goodness of our blessed God.” (p. 1.) “And for the most part wherein any good is done, it is ordinarily effected by the endless vexation of the painful master, the extreme labour and terror of the poor children with enduring far overmuch and long severity. Now whence proceedeth all this but because so few of those who undertake this function are acquainted with any good method or right order of instruction fit for a grammar school?” (p. 2.) It is sad to think how many generations have since suffered from teachers “unacquainted with any good method or right order of instruction.” And it seems to justify Goethe’s dictum, “Der Engländer ist eigentlich ohne Intelligenz,” that for several generations to come this evil will be but partially abated.