languages. For unless he makes use of the right and proper expressions in the mother-tongue, he will certainly mislead the boys, and the error thus imbibed will accompany them persistently as they grow up and become men. How can boys understand anything sufficiently well in their own language unless the words are said with the utmost clearness.
Let the teacher preserve in his memory all the old forms of vernacular words, and let him develop the knowledge not only of modern forms, but also of the old words and those which have gone out of use, and let him be as it were the guardian of the treasury of his language.”[26] THE EDUCATIONAL IDEAL OF VIVES It has been usual to enter to the credit of the Protestantism of John Sturm and Maturinus Corderius the educational ideal of _pietas literata_. No doubt the seventeenth-century Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England were distinguished by this double educational aim of piety and culture. But it was characteristic also of the earlier Catholic world of Erasmus and of Vives. Rising above the ordinary level of the scholars of the Italian Renascence, Erasmus and Vives had higher sympathy and delight in children. Erasmus dedicated his _Colloquia_ or Dialogues (in 1524) to the little child John Erasmius Froben, the son of the renowned publisher Froben of Basle. “You have arrived,” he says, “at an age than which none happier occurs in the course of life for imbibing the seeds of literature and of piety...The Lord Jesus keep the present season of your life pure from all pollutions, and ever lead you on to better things.”
So, too, in 1538, Juan Luis Vives dedicated his _School Dialogues_ to a child, the eleven-years-old boy—Prince Philip.
Both Erasmus and Vives believed in early training in religious instruction. Vives writes as follows on religious education: “Who is there who has considered the power and loftiness of the mind, its understanding of the most remarkable things, and through understanding love of them, and from love the desire to unite himself with them, who does not perceive clearly that man was formed, not for food, clothing, and habitation, not for difficult, secret, and vexatious knowledge, but to develop the desire to know God more truly, to participate in His Divine Nature and His Eternity?...Since piety is the only way of perfecting man, and accomplishing the end for which he was formed, therefore piety is of all things the one thing necessary. Without the others man can be perfected and complete; without this, he cannot but be most miserable.”[27] In one passage Vives remarks that the strength of religion is developed by its exercise rather than by any theoretical knowledge.
For this reason, when meals are described in the _School Dialogues_, we find some form of grace, before and after the meal, duly said.
The tone of the _Dialogues_ is reverential. A. J. Namèche says[28] that in the _Dialogues_ “Vives brings a sense of decency, respect for morals, the fear so laudable of doing any violence to the innocence of young people. We know well enough that Erasmus is far from being irreproachable in this respect, and that his language is free sometimes even to the extent of cynicism.” Without wishing to follow Namèche in the comparison of the moral aspects of Erasmus and Vives in their dialogues, a claim may be made for both that they were eager advocates in the joining of piety with culture, and that both Erasmus and Vives, each in his own way, did valiant work in endeavouring to raise the standard of manners and morals as well as to promote piety in young and old.
There can, however, be no doubt that Vives deserved the high reputation which he received of reverence for the morals of youth. Peter Motta is full of enthusiasm for Vives in this respect. In the Preface to his _Commentary on Vives’ School Dialogues_, Motta says: “By reading other books such as those of Terence and Plautus, you can undoubtedly get extracts which show the fruit of eloquence. But who can avoid seeing that in them you will find incitements to vices, and stumbling blocks to morals? Now, in our author Vives, you will find little flowers of Latin elegance which he has brought together from various most renowned authors, whilst there is nothing in his work which does not seem to suggest even the Christ, or at least the highest morality and sound education.” This may be regarded as the exaggerated language of an admirer, but the reverential tone of Vives is clear enough, reminding one of Vittorino da Feltre, of whom it was said that he went to his teacher’s desk each day as if to an altar.
VIVES’ LAST DIALOGUE: THE PRECEPTS OF EDUCATION Vives lays down twenty-four Precepts of Education. Some critics have thought such precepts out of place in a book written for boys. But Vives has done all he could to interest boys on their own level. He has always retained the boy in himself, and has spoken from the fulness of his heart, as a boy, in the dialogues. And as he parts company with boys in these dialogues, he wishes, as all true, older human beings must wish, for once at least to give of his best to the young. He will give back to the boys who have followed him through the _Dialogues_ (as a teacher who is a “good sort”) a full reward for their trouble. He will pay them the compliment of treating them seriously.
This seems a right instinct. It is not priggish (as some seem to think) to give of a man’s best to a boy or to boys at the right moment. When once a boy is sure there is “the boy” in any man he knows, there is no _camaraderie_ he delights in such as that which allows him to see a little of the man,—to jump, so to say, on the man’s mental shoulders to catch a better glimpse of the far distance.
When John Thomas Freigius—grown up into the classical scholar—looks back, in his Preface to his edition of Vives’ _School Dialogues_, he says: “As a boy, I so loved Luis Vives that not even now do I feel my old love for him has faded away from my mind.” Perhaps the last dialogue, with its twenty-four precepts, did not cause the love of Freigius for Vives, but the love being there, it continued in spite of having to read the precepts. Anyway, Vives, who had turned aside from the weighty problems of learning and literature, where he belonged to the great triumvirate of writers of his day—enthroned by contemporary judges by the side of the great Erasmus and the great Budaeus—stated the precepts which, in his view, should guide, not only his book of dialogues and the schools, but all stages of culture. Boys brought up on these precepts, and retaining them as principles of education in their later life, might perhaps have cheered the heart of Vives by showing that he had abstained from his higher studies to some purpose when he wrote his _School Dialogues_.
At any rate, for the modern reader, there is the satisfaction of knowing, when he reads the _School Dialogues_ of Vives, that he is reading a work which won the approval of children. With all our modern advance, of which of the writers of our text-books to-day would present-day children say as much as was said of this sixteenth-century scholar, who merely wrote a text-book to help boys of the Tudor Age to _speak Latin_!—“As a boy I so loved Luis Vives that not even now do I feel my old love for him has faded away from my mind.”
NOTE The short summaries or headings to each dialogue in the text are translations from the edition of Vives’ _Dialogues_ by John Thomas Freigius, published at Nürnberg, 1582. After each dialogue Freigius provides a commentary, by far the most complete of any commentator on Vives’ book, giving illustrative quotations and notes on obscure points, and giving references to the ancient sources from which technical expressions were taken by Vives. The headings of the sub-sections of each dialogue as given in the present translation are taken from Freigius. They are not a part of the original text of Vives.
The above is the most scholarly and thorough edition of the _Dialogues_, but it may be noted that Dr. Bömer[29] has distinguished over _one hundred_ editions of the book, showing its popularity not only in the sixteenth century but its continued interest in still later generations of the study of Latin speech.
TUDOR SCHOOL-BOY LIFE I SURRECTIO MATUTINA—_Getting up in the Morning_ BEATRIX PUELLA, EMANUEL, EUSEBIUS Dialogue (Latin—_colloquium_, _collocutio_, _sermo_) is so called from διαλέγεως, in which sort of composition Plato was the first to delight.
In this first dialogue or discourse (_sermone_) there are laid down five duties, which should be performed carefully in the morning by youths and boys, viz. to rise betimes (because early morning is the friend to studies), to dress, to comb the hair, to wash, to pray.
_Beat._ May Jesus Christ awake you from the sleep of all vice. O you boys, are you ever going to wake up to-day?
_Euseb._ I don’t know what has fallen on my eyes. I seem to have them full of sand.
I. _Getting Up_ _Beat._ That is always your morning song—quite an old one. I shall open both the wooden and the glass windows, so that the morning shall strike brightly on your eyes from both. Get up! Get up!
_Euseb._ Is it already morning?
II. _Dressing_ _Beat._ It is nearer mid-day than the dawn. Emanuel, do you want another shirt?
_Eman._ I don’t now need anything. This is clean enough.
I will take another to-morrow. Please give me my stomacher.
_Beat._ Which? The single thickness or the double thickness?
_Eman._ Which you like. I don’t mind. Give me the single thickness so that I may be less heavy for playing ball (_pila_) to-day.
_Beat._ This is always your custom. You think of your play before your school-work.
_Eman._ What do you say, you stupid! When school itself is called play (_ludus_).
_Beat._ I don’t understand your playing with grammar and logic (_grammaticationes et sophismata_).
_Eman._ Give me the leathern shoe-straps.
_Beat._ They are torn to pieces. Take the silken ones as your schoolmaster has ordered. What now? Will you have the breeches and long stockings as it is summer?
_Eman._ No, indeed. Give me only the long stockings.
Please, fasten them for me.
_Beat._ What! Have you arms of hay or of butter?
_Eman._ No, indeed. They are sewn together with threads.
Alas! what straps (_i.e._ points) have you given me, without supports and all torn!
_Beat._ Don’t you remember that yesterday at dice-playing you lost the others altogether?
_Eman._ How do you know?
_Beat._ I observed you through a chink in the door as you were playing with Guzmanulus.
_Eman._ Oh! I beg that you won’t tell the teacher.
_Beat._ No, but I will tell him if ever you call me “ugly” again, as you are accustomed to do.
_Eman._ What if I call you greedy?
_Beat._ Call me what you will, but not ugly.
_Eman._ Give me my shoes.
_Beat._ Which? Those with the long straps (_i.e._ sandals)?
_Eman._ Those covered against the mud.
_Beat._ Against the dry mud, which they call dust. But thou doest well, for on the open road the strap gets broken and the buckle lost.
_Eman._ Put them on, I beg.
_Beat._ Do it yourself.
_Eman._ I cannot bend myself.
_Beat._ You could easily bend, but your laziness makes it difficult, or have you swallowed a sword as the mountebank did four days ago? Are you now so delicate?
What will happen to you as you grow up?
_Eman._ Tie a double knot—for it is more elegant.
_Beat._ Certainly not, for then the knot would be loosened at that point and the shoe would fall from your foot. It is better either to have a double drawing tight or one knot and one loop. Take your tunic with long sleeves and your woven girdle.
_Eman._ No, certainly not that, but the leathern hunting girdle.
_Beat._ Your mother forbids that; do you wish to have everything according to your own caprice? And yesterday you broke the pin of the clasp!
_Eman._ I could not otherwise unbuckle it. Then give me that red one made of linen cloth.
III. _Using the Comb_ _Beat._ Take it, put your French girdle on. Comb your head first with the thinner, then with the thicker teeth, place your cap on your head, so as not to throw it to the back of your head, as is your custom, or on to your forehead down to your eyes.
_Eman._ Let us at last go out.
_Beat._ What, without having washed your hands and face!
_Eman._ With your worrying curiosity you would have already plagued a bull to death, let alone a man. You think you are clothing not a boy, but a bride.
IV. _Washing_ _Beat._ Eusebius, bring a wash-basin and a pitcher.
Raise it to a fair height; let the water drop out rather than pour it from the stopple. Wash thoroughly that dirt from the joints of the fingers. Cleanse the mouth and use water for gargling. Rub the eyelids and eyebrows, then the glands of the neck under the ears vigorously.
Then take a cloth and dry yourself. Immortal God! that it should be necessary to admonish you as to all these things, one by one, and that you should do nothing of your own thought.
_Eman._ Ah! you are too much of a boss and too rude!
V. _Prayer_ _Beat._ And you are too shrewd and pretty a boy. Come, give me a kiss. Kneel down before this image of our Saviour and say the Lord’s Prayer and the other prayers, as you are accustomed, before you step out of your bedroom. Take care, my Emanuel, that you think of nothing else while you are praying. Stay a moment, hang this little handkerchief on your girdle, so that you can blow and clean your nose.
_Eman._ Am I now sufficiently prepared, in your opinion?
_Beat._ You are.
_Eman._ Then not in my opinion since at last I am in yours. I will dare make a wager that I have taken up a whole hour in dressing.
_Beat._ Well, what even if you had taken two? Where would you have gone if you hadn’t? What were you going to do? I suppose to dig or to plough?
_Eman._ As if there were a lack of something to do.
_Beat._ Oh, the great man! so keenly occupied in doing nothing.
_Eman._ Won’t you go away, you girl sophist? Go, or I’ll shy this shoe at you or tear the veil off your head.
II PUER, MATER, PATER—Boy, Mother, Father In this dialogue there are three parts: the first contains the mutual salutations expressed in the morning when the little charms of early childhood are skilfully displayed. The second part contains the sport of a boy with a dog. The third gives a conversation with this boy concerning the school, the opportunity for which arises from the incident with the little dog.
_Boy._ Hail, my father! hail, my mother dear (_salve mea matercula_)! I wish that this may be a happy day for you, my little brothers (_germanuli_). May Christ be propitious to you, my little sisters!
_Father._ My son, may God guard you and lead you to great _Mother._ May Christ preserve you, my light. What are you doing, my darling? How are you? How did you rest last night?
_Boy._ I am very well and slept peacefully.
_Mother._ Thanks be to Christ! May He grant that this may be constantly so!
_Boy._ In the middle of the night I was roused up with a pain in the head.
_Mother._ It grieves me sorely to hear that (_me perditam et miserrimam_)! What do you say? In what part of the head?
_Boy._ In the forehead.
_Mother._ For how long?
_Boy._ Scarcely the eighth of an hour. Afterwards I fell asleep again, nor did I feel anything further of it.
_Mother._ Now I breathe again; for you took away my breath.
II. _Playing with the Dog_ _Boy._ All good to you! Little Isabel, prepare my breakfast. Ruscio, Ruscio, come here, jolly little dog!
See how he fawns with his tail and how he raises himself on his hind legs. What are you doing? How are you? Hullo, you, bring a bit or two of bread which we may give him, then you will see some clever sport. Won’t you eat?
Haven’t you had anything to-day? Clearly there is more intelligence in that dog than in that crass mule-driver.
III. _The Father’s Little Talk with his Boy_ _Father._ My Tulliolus, I should like to have a talk with you soon.
_Boy._ Why, my father? For nothing more delightful could happen to me than to listen to you.
_Father._ Is thy Ruscio here an animal or a man?
_Boy._ An animal, as I think.
_Father._ What have you in you, why you should be a man and not he? You eat, drink, sleep, walk, run, play. So he does all these things also.
_Boy._ But I am a man.
_Father._ How do you know this? What have you now, more than a dog? But there is this difference that he cannot become a man. You can, if you will.
_Boy._ I beg of you, my father, bring this about as soon as possible.
_Father._ It will be done if you go where animals go, to come back men.
_Boy._ I will go, father, with all the pleasure in the world! But where is it?
_Father._ In the school.
_Boy._ There is no delay in me for such a great matter.
_Father._ Nor in me. Isabel, dear, do you hear, give him his breakfast in this little satchel.
_Isabel._ What shall it be?
_Father._ A piece of bread and butter, and dry figs, or pressed, not dried, grapes, as an additional dish—for fresh grapes besmear the fingers of boys and they spoil their clothes—unless he should prefer a few cherries, or golden and long plums. Hang the satchel on his little arm, so that it shall not fall off.
III DEDUCTIO AD LUDUM—_Escorting to School_ PATER, PUER, PROPINQUUS, PHILOPONUS LUDIMAGISTER—Father, Boy, Relative, Philoponus the Schoolmaster _Philoponus._—This name, so worthy of a teacher, has been rightly and wisely bestowed by the author. For the true teacher ought to be φιλόπονος, that is, φίλος τοῦ πονοῦ, a lover of labour, and by his diligence and assiduity to give satisfaction to his pupils. But Philoponus is, moreover, the proper name of the Greek interpreter of Aristotle.
_Father._ Make the holy sign of the cross.
_Son._ Lead us ignorant ones, O most wise Jesus Christ, Thou most powerful, lead us most weak!
_Father._ Inform me, I beg, thou who art most versed in the study of letters, who in this school is the best teacher of boys?
_Prop._ The most learned is a certain Varro; but the most industrious and the most upright is Philoponus, whose erudition, moreover, is not to be despised. Varro has the best frequented school, and in his house he has a numerous flock of boarders. Philoponus does not seem to delight in numbers, but is content with fewer boys.
_Father._ I should prefer him. That must be he walking into the hall of the school. Son, this is, as it were, the laboratory for the formation of men, and he is the artist-educator. Christ be with you, master! Uncover your head, my boy, and bow your right knee, as you have been taught. Now, stand up!
_Philoponus._ May your coming be a blessing to us all!
What may be your business?
_Father._ I bring you this boy of mine for you to make of him a man from the beast.
_Philoponus._ This shall be my earnest endeavour. He shall become a man from a beast, a fruitful and good creature out of a useless one. Of that have no doubt.
_Father._ What is the charge for your instruction?
_Philoponus._ If the boy makes good progress, it will be little; if not, a good deal.
_Father._ That is acutely and wisely said, as is all you say. We share the responsibility then; you, to instruct zealously, I to recompense your labour richly.
IV EUNTES AD LUDUM LITERARIUM—_Going to School_ CIRRATUS, PRAETEXTATUS, TITIVILLITIUM, TERESULA (AN OLD WOMAN, A WOMAN SELLER OF VEGETABLES) The names of the interlocutors in this dialogue for the most part signify something serious and ancient. _Cirrati pueri_ were those boys who wore their hair curled and crisped. Krausz Haar. For the _cirrus_ is an instrument devised for the curling of hair.
_Martial_: Nec matutini cirrata caterva magistri.
_Juvenal_: Flavam Caesariem et madido torquentem cornua cirro.
Ten’ cirratorum centum dictata fuisse Pro nihilo pendas?
_Praetextatus puer_ is another way of referring to a noble or patrician, for his outer garment was bordered with purple, and thus worn by boys up to fourteen years of age, or as others say, up to sixteen, when such an one assumed the _toga virilis_ in the Capitol.
_See_ Macrob. lib. i. _Satur._ cap. 6. Budae, in prior. annot. ad l.
fin. De senator. Alexand. lib. 2, cap. 25. Baysius, de re vestiment.
Sigonius, lib. 3, de judic. cap. 19. Papirius, a certain Roman, was called _praetextatus_ because in the _praetextata_ age he showed the height of prudence. _See_ Macrob.
_Titivillitium_ formerly was a word declaring nothing certain, but just an exclamation, indicating extreme uncertainty. The word was used by Plautus. _See_ Proverb, Titivillitium.
_Oluscularia_, a woman selling vegetables. Λαχανοπῶλις.
_Cirr._ Does it seem to you to be time to go to school?
_Praet._ Certainly, it is time to go.
_Cirr._ I don’t properly remember the way; I believe we have to go through this next street.
_Praet._ How often have you already been to the school?
_Cirr._ Three or four times.
_Praet._ When did you first go?
_Cirr._ As I think, three or four days ago.
_Praet._ Well, now; isn’t that enough to enable you to know the way?
_Cirr._ No, not if it were a hundred times of going.
_Praet._ Why, if I were to go once, never afterwards should I miss the way. But you go, against your will, and as you go, you stop and play. You don’t look at the way, nor at the houses, nor any signs which would show you afterwards which way you should turn, or which way you should follow. But I observe all these points diligently, because I go gladly.
_Cirr._ This boy lives quite close to the school. Here, you, Titivillitium, which is the way to your house?
_Tit._ What do you want? Do you come from your mother? My mother is not at home, nor even my sister. Both have gone out to St. Anne’s.
_Cirr._ What then is to be done?
_Tit._ Yesterday was dedication festival (_encaenia_).
Today some woman who sells cheese has invited them to a meal at the house called “Thick Milk” (_lac coagulatum_).
_Cirr._ And why haven’t you gone with them?
_Tit._ They have left me at home to keep house. They have taken my little brother with them, but they have promised me that they would bring back something of what was left for me in a basket.
_Cirr._ But why art thou then not remaining at home?
_Tit._ I shall return immediately, only I will now play dice a little with the son of this cobbler. Will you also come with us?
_Cirr._ We will go, please.
_Praet._ Certainly I shall not do so.
_Cirr._ Why not?
_Praet._ We don’t want to get a thrashing.
_Cirr._ Ah! I had not thought of that.
_Tit._ You won’t get thrashed.
_Cirr._ How do you know that?
_Tit._ Because your master lost his rod (_ferula_) to-day.
_Cirr._ Eh! by what means did you get to know that?
_Tit._ To-day we heard him from our house shouting out—and it was for his ferula he was seeking.
_Cirr._ I beg of you, let us play for a short time.
_Praet._ Play you, if you will; but I shall go on to school at once.
_Cirr._ I beg of you, don’t report me to the master. Say that I am kept by my father at home.
_Praet._ Do you wish me to tell a lie?
_Cirr._ Why not, for a friend’s sake?
_Praet._ Because I have heard a preacher in a church declare that liars are the sons of the devil, but truth-tellers, sons of God.
_Cirr._ Of the devil, indeed! Get away! By the sign of the holy cross, may our God free us from our enemies!
_Praet._ Thou canst not be freed to play when thou oughtest to go and learn.
_Cirr._ Let us go. Farewell.
_Tit._ Oh, I say! these boys dare not stay and play a moment because otherwise they would get thrashed!
_Praet._ This boy is a waster and will become a bad man!
See how has he slipped away from us without our having asked him which is the way to the school? Let us call him back.
_Cirr._ Let him go his evil ways. I don’t wish him again to invite me to play. We will inquire from this old woman. Mother, do you know which is the way to the school of Philoponus?
_Old Woman._ I have lived near this school for six years, just opposite to it where my eldest son and two daughters were born. You cross this street (the _Villa Rasa_ Street), then comes a narrow lane, then the _Dominus Veteranus_ Street. Hence you turn to the right, then to the left, there you must inquire, for the school is not far from there.
_Cirr._ Ah! we cannot remember all that!
_Old Woman._ My little Teresa, lead these boys to the school of Philoponus, for the mother of this one here was she who gave us the thread for combing and spinning.
_Ter._ What in the name of evil have you to do with Philoponus? What sort of man is this Philoponus? As if I knew him! Do you speak of the man who mends shoes near the Green Inn (_cauponam viridem_) or of the herald in the Giant Street, who keeps horses on hire?
_Old Woman._ This I know well, that you never know those things which are wanted, but those which have nothing to do with the matter in hand. Slowest of girls, Philoponus is that old schoolmaster, tall, short-sighted man, opposite the house where we used to live.
_Ter._ Ah! now it comes back to my mind.
_Old Woman._ In returning, go across the market and buy salad, radish, and cherries. Take with you the little basket.
_Cirr._ Lead us also over the vegetable market.
_Ter._ This way is shorter.
_Cirr._ We don’t wish to go that way.
_Ter._ Why so?
_Cirr._ Because the dog in that street, belonging to the baker, bit me once. We would rather go with you to the market.
_Ter._ Returning I will make the journey through the market (for we are not far from it) and I will buy what I was told to buy, after I have left you at the school.
_Cirr._ We desire to see how much you give for the cherries.
_Ter._ We buy them at six farthings a pound; but what is that to you?
_Cirr._ Because my sister ordered me this morning to inquire. She particularly mentioned there is an old woman in the market who sells vegetables. If you buy of her, I know that she will sell you at a less price than they will elsewhere, and she will give us a few cherries or thyrsus of lettuce, for her daughter formerly served my mother and sister.
_Ter._ I hope that this roundabout way may not let you in for some lashes.
_Cirr._ Not at all. For we shall have plenty of time.
_Ter._ Let us go. I get so little chance of walks, wretched that I am, for my time is all taken up sitting at home.
_Praet._ What do you do? Do you merely sit idly at home?
_Ter._ Idly, indeed! Not at any rate that! I spin, I gather (wool) into a ball, wind, weave. Do you think our old woman would let me sit idle? She curses feast-days, on which there must be a stoppage of work.
_Praet._ Are not feast-days holy? How can she curse what is holy? Does she wish to curse what has been ordained as holy?
_Ter._ Do you think that I have learned geometry that I should be able to explain these things to you?
_Cirr._ What do you mean by geometry?
_Ter._ I don’t know. We had a neighbour who was called Geometria. She was always either in church with priests, or the priests were with her at her house. And so she was, as they said, very wise.—But we have come into the vegetable market. Where is now your old woman?
_Cirr._ I was looking round about for her. But buy of her only on the condition that she gives us something as a present. Ah! great-aunt (_amita_). This girl will buy cherries of you, if you will give us some.
_Vegetable Woman._ We are given nothing; we have to buy everything.
_Cirr._ That dirt which you have on your hands and neck was not given to you, was it?
_Vegetable Woman._ Unless you take yourself off, you impudent boy, your cheeks will feel some of this dirt on them.
_Cirr._ How will my cheeks feel, when you have it on your hands?
_Vegetable Woman._ Give those cherries back, you young rogue.
_Cirr._ I am merely sampling, for I wish to buy.
_Vegetable Woman._ Then buy.
_Cirr._ Provided they have pleased me. How do you sell them?
_Cirr._ Ah! they are bitter, you old poisoner! You are selling here cherries to people to choke them.
_Ter._ Let us go away to the school. For you will get me involved in difficulties with your subtleties, and you will detain me too long. Now, as I think, my old woman is raging at home, on account of my delay in returning.
There is the door. Knock at it.
V LECTIO—_Reading_ PRAECEPTOR, LUSIUS, AESCHINES, PUERI—Teacher, Lusius, Aeschines, Boys _Lusius_, so called from playing (_ludendo_).
_Aeschines_, proper name of the Greek orator, who shamelessly declaimed against Demosthenes.
_Cotta_, proper name of a Roman citizen, so called from his anger.
This dialogue contains a division of the letters into vowels and consonants.
_Praec._ Take the A B C tablet in your left hand, and this pointer in the right hand, so that you can point out the letters one by one. Stand upright; put your cap under your arm-pit. Listen most attentively how I shall name these letters. Look diligently how I move my mouth.
See that you return what I say immediately in the same manner, when I ask for it again. Attention (_sis mecum_)!
Now you have heard it. Follow me now as I say it before you, letter by letter. Do you clearly understand?
_Lus._ It seems to me I do, fairly well.
_Praec._ Every one of these signs is called a letter.
Of these, five are vowels, A, E, I, O, U. They are in the Spanish _oveia_, which signifies _sheep_. Remember that word! These with any letter you like, or more than one, make up syllables. Without a vowel there is no syllable and sometimes the vowel itself is a syllable.
Therefore all the other letters are called consonants, because they don’t constitute sounds by themselves unless a vowel is joined to them. They have some imperfect, without _e_ cannot be sounded. Out of syllables we get words, and from words connected speech, which all beasts lack. And you would not be different from the beasts, if you could not converse properly. Be watchful and perform your work diligently. Go out with your fellow-pupils and learn what I have set.
_Lus._ We are not playing to-day.
_Aesch._ No, for it is a work-day. What, do you think you have come here to play? This is not the place for playing, but for study.
_Lus._ Why, then, is a school called _ludus_?
_True Leisure_ _Aesch._ It is indeed called _ludus_, but it is _ludus literarius_, because here we must play with letters as elsewhere with the ball, hoop, and dice. And I have heard that in Greek it is called _schola_, as it were a place of leisure, because it is true ease and quiet of mind, when we spend our life in studies. But we will learn thoroughly what the teacher has bidden us, quite in soft murmur, so that we don’t become a hindrance to one another.
_Lus._ My uncle, who studied letters some time in Bologna, has taught me that you better fix anything you wish in the memory if you pronounce it aloud. This is also confirmed by the authority of one called Pliny—I don’t know who he was.
_Aesch._ If, then, any one should wish to learn his _formulae_, he should go off into the garden or into the churchyard. There he can shout aloud as if he would rouse the dead.
_Cotta._ You boys, do you call this learning thoroughly?
I call it prattling and disputing! Up, now go all of you to the teacher, as he commanded.
VI REDITUS DOMUM ET LUSUS PUERILIS—_The Return Home and Children’s Play_ TULLIOLUS, CORNELIOLA, LENTULUS, SCIPIO This dialogue contains an account of different kinds of boys’ games; the names of the interlocutors are taken from appellations of the Romans. Concerning which, _see_ Valer. Maximus and Sigonius.
_Corn._ Welcome home, Tulliolus, shall we have some games?
_Tull._ Not just now.
_Corn._ What is there to prevent us playing?
_Tull._ We must go over again what the master set, and commit it to memory, as he bade us.
_Corn._ What then?
_Tull._ You just look at this.
_Corn._ I say, what are those pictures? I believe they are pictures of ants. Mother mine, Tulliolus is bringing a lot of ants and gnats painted on a writing-tablet.
_Tull._ Be quiet, you silly thing, they are letters.
_Corn._ What do you call this first one?
_Tull._ A.
_Corn._ Why is this first one rather than the next called A?
_Mother._ Why art thou Corneliola and not Tulliolus?
_Corn._ Because I am so called.
_Mother._ And it is just the same way with those letters.
But go and play now, my boy.
_Tull._ I am putting my tablet and pencil (style) down here. If anybody disturbs them, he will be beaten by mother. Won’t he, mammy? (_mea matercula._) _Mother._ Yes, my boy.
_Tull._ Scipio, Lentulus! Come and play.
_Sci._ What shall we play at?
_Tull._ Let us play at nuts, at throwing them in holes.
_Lent._ I have only a few nuts and those squashed and smelly.
_Sci._ Well then, we will play with the shells of nuts.
_Tull._ But what good would they be to me even if I were to win twenty? There would be no kernels in the nuts for me to eat.
_Sci._ Why, I don’t eat when I am playing. If I want to eat, I go to the mater. Nut-shells are good for making little houses to put ants into.
II. _The Game of Odd and Even_ _Lent._ Let us play odd and even with little pins (lit.
small pins for a head-dress—_acicula_).
_Tull._ Let’s have dice instead.
_Sci._ Fetch them, Lentulus.
_Lent._ Here are the dice.
III. _The Game of Dice_ _Tull._ How grubby and dirty they are. They are not free from fluff. Nor are they polished. Cast!
_Sci._ For the first throw!
_Tull._ I am first. What are we playing?
_Sci._ We are playing for trousers buttons (_astrigmenta_—lit. points).
_Lent._ I don’t want to lose mine, for if I did I should be beaten at home by my tutor.
_Tull._ What are you willing to lose then, if you are beaten?
_Lent._ Some good raps with the fingers on me.
_Mother._ What is that lying on the ground? You are spoiling all your clothes and boots on the dirtiest of the ground. Why don’t you first sweep the floor and then sit down? Bring the broom here!
_Tull._ What have we decided on?
_Sci._ One needle for each point in the game.
_Tull._ Certainly it should be two.
_Lent._ I have no needles. If you like I will deposit