them thus for higher things. In some places there were tiny
school-houses, much like those now seen in rural America. Such an one,
renovated, may be still visited at Mansfeld, and its quaint inscription
read over the door, to the effect that a good school is like the wooden
horse of Troy. When the boys left home they lived more as they do now
at college, being given a good deal of freedom out of hours. The
poorer scholars used their free times to beg, for as many were
supported in this way then as now are given scholarships and other
charitable aids in our universities.

[Sidenote: Flogging]

Though there were a good many exceptions, most of {663} the teachers
were brutes. The profession was despised as a menial one and indeed,
even so, many a gentleman took more care in the selection of grooms and
gamekeepers than he did in choosing the men with whom to entrust his
children. Of many of the tutors the manners and morals were alike
outrageous. They used filthy language to the boys, whipped them
cruelly and habitually drank too much. They made the examinations,
says one unfortunate pupil of such a master, like a trial for murder.
The monitor employed to spy on the boys was known by the significant
name of "the wolf." Public opinion then approved of harsh methods.
Nicholas Udall, the talented head-master of Eton, was warmly commended
for being "the best flogging teacher in England"--until he was removed
for his immorality.

[Sidenote: Latin]

The principal study--after the rudiments of reading and writing the
mother tongue were learned--was Latin. As, at the opening of the
century, there were usually not enough books to go around, the
pedagogue would dictate declensions and conjugations, with appropriate
exercises, to his pupils. The books used were such as _Donatus on the
Parts of Speech_, a poem called the _Facetus_ by John of Garland,
intended to give moral, theological and grammatical information all in
one, and selecting as the proper vehicle rhymed couplets. Other
manuals were the _Floretus_, a sort of abstruse catechism, the
_Cornutus_, a treatise on synonyms, and a dictionary in which the words
were arranged not alphabetically but according to their supposed
etymology--thus _hirundo_ (swallow) from _aer_ (air). One had to know
the meaning of the word before one searched for it! The grammars were
written in a barbarous Latin of inconceivably difficult style. Can any
man now readily understand th