ains, perhaps, the best advice that ever was given for the study of
languages." This method was as follows, given in Ascham's words: "First,
let him teach the child, cheerfully and plainly, the cause and matter of
the letter (Cicero's Epistles); then, let him construe it into English
so oft as the child may easily carry away the understanding of it;
lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done, then let the child by and by
both construe and parse it over again; so that it may appear that the
child doubteth in nothing that his master has taught him before.

"After this, the child must take a paper book, and sitting in some place
where no man shall prompt him, by himself let him translate into English
his former lesson. Then showing it to his master, let the master take
from him his Latin book, and pausing an hour at the least, then let the
child translate his own English into Latin again in another paper book.
When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must compare it
with Tully's book, and lay them both together, and where the child doth
well, praise him, where amiss, point out why Tully's use is better.

"Thus the child will easily acquire a knowledge of grammar, and also the
ground of almost all the rules that are so busily taught by the master,
and so hardly learned by the scholar in all common schools. The
translation is the most common and most commendable of all other
exercises for youth; most common, for all your constructions in grammar
schools be nothing else but translations; but because they be not
_double_ translations (as I do require), they bring forth but simple and
single commodity; and because also they lack the daily use of writing,
which is the only thing that breedeth deep root, both in the wit for
good understanding, and in the memory for sure keeping of all that is
learned; most commendable also, and that by the judgment of all authors
which entreat of these exercises."[73]

Ascham often refers to his illustrious pupil in claiming merit for his
system. He says, "And a better and nearer example herein may be our most
noble Queen Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her
hand after the first declining of a noun and a verb; but only by this
double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, without missing,
every forenoon, and likewise some part of Tully every afternoon, for the
space of a year or two, hath attained to such a perfect understanding in
both tongues, a