ing to the Education of Youth[344] in our own country; as I
find, from them, that the complaint of _severity of discipline_ still
continued, notwithstanding the able work of Roger Ascham, which had
recommended a mild and conciliatory mode of treatment.

[Footnote 344: The HISTORY of the EDUCATION OF YOUTH in this
country might form an amusing little octavo volume. We have
_Treatises_ and _Essays_ enough upon the subject; but a
narrative of its first rude efforts, to its present, yet not
perfected, form, would be interesting to every parent, and
observer of human nature. My present researches only enable
me to go back as far as Trevisa's time, towards the close of
the 14th century; when I find, from the works of this Vicar
of Berkeley, that "every friar that had _state in school_,
such as they were then, had an HUGE LIBRARY." _Harl. MSS._,
no. 1900. But what the particular system was, among
youth, which thus so highly favoured the BIBLIOMANIA, I have
not been able to ascertain. I suspect, however, that
knowledge made but slow advances; or rather that its
progress was almost inverted; for, at the end of the
subsequent century, our worthy printer, Caxton, tells us
that he found "but few who could write in their registers
the occurrences of the day." _Polychronicon; prol. Typog.
Antiquit._, vol. i., 148. In the same printer's prologue to
_Catho Magnus_ (_Id._, vol. i., 197) there is a melancholy
complaint about the youth of London; who, although, when
children, they were "fair, wise, and prettily bespoken--at
the full ripening, they had neither kernel nor good corn
found in them." This is not saying much for the academic or
domestic treatment of young gentlemen, towards the close of
the 15th century. At the opening of the ensuing century, a
variety of elementary treatises, relating to the education
of youth, were published chiefly under the auspices of Dean
Colet, and composed by a host of learned grammarians, of
whom honourable mention has been made at page 218, ante.
These publications are generally adorned with a rude
wood-cut; which, if it be copied from truth, affords a
sufficiently striking proof of the severity of the ancient
discipline: for the master is usually seated in a large
arm-chair, with a tremendous rod across his knees; and the