In the old Ages,when Universities and Schools were first instituted,this function of the schoolmaster,to teach mere speaking,was the natural one.In those healthy times,guided by silent instincts and the monition of Nature,men had from of old been used to teach themselves what it was essential to learn,by the one sure method of learning anything,practical apprenticeship to it.This was the rule for all classes;as it is the rule,unluckily,for only one class.The Working Man as yet sought only to k his craft;and educated himself sufficiently by ploughing and hammering,under the conditions given,and in fit relation to the persons given:a course of education,then as and ever,really opulent in manful culture and instruction to him;teaching him many solid virtues,and most indubitably useful kledges;developing in him valuable faculties a few both to do and to endure,--among which the faculty of elaborate grammatical utterance,seeing he had so little of extraordinary to utter,or to learn from spoken or written utterances,was bargained for;the grammar of Nature,which he learned from his mother,being still amply sufficient for him.This was,as it still is,the grand education of the Working Man.
As for the Priest,though his trade was clearly of a reading and speaking nature,he knew also in those veracious times that grammar,if needful,was by means the one thing needful,or the chief thing.By far the chief thing needful,and indeed the one thing then as ,was,That there should be in him the feeling and the practice of reverence to God and to men;that in his life's core there should dwell,spoken or silent,a ray of pious wisdom fit for illuminating dark human destinies;--so much that he should possess the art of speech,as that he should have something to speak!And for that latter requisite the Priest also trained himself by apprenticeship,by actual attempt to practise,by manifold long-continued trial,of a devout and painful nature,such as his superiors prescribed to him.This,when once judged satisfactory,procured him ordination;and his grammar-learning,in the good times of priesthood,was very much of a parergon with him,as indeed in all times it is intrinsically quite insignificant in comparison.
The young le again,for whom grammar schoolmasters were first hired and high seminaries founded,he too without these,or above and over these,had from immemorial time been used to learn his business by apprenticeship.The young le,before the schoolmaster as after him,went apprentice to some elder le;entered himself as page with some distinguished earl or duke;and here,serving upwards from step to step,under wise monition,learned his chivalries,his practice of arms and of courtesies,his baronial duties and manners,and what it would beseem him to do and to be in the world,--by practical attempt of his own,and example of one whose life was a daily concrete pattern for him.
To such a one,already filled with intellectual substance,and possessing what we may call the practical gold-bullion of human culture,it was an obvious improvement that he should be taught to speak it out of him on occasion;that he should carry a spiritual banke producible on demand for what of "gold-bullion"he had,so negotiable otherwise,stored in the cellars of his mind.A man,with wisdom,insight and heroic worth already acquired for him,naturally demanded of the schoolmaster this one new faculty,the faculty of uttering in fit words what he had.A valuable superaddition of faculty:--and yet we are to remember it was scarcely a new faculty;it was but the tangible sign of what other faculties the man had in the silent state:and many a rugged inarticulate chief of men,I can believe,was most enviably "educated,"who had a Book on his premises;whose signature,a true sign-manual ,was the stamp of his iron hand duly inked and clapt upon the parchment;and whose speech in Parliament,like the growl of lions,did indeed convey his meaning,but would have torn Lindley Murray's nerves to pieces!To such a one the schoolmaster adjusted himself very naturally in that manner;as a man wanted for teaching grammatical utterance;the thing to utter being already there.
The thing to utter,here was the grand point!And perhaps this is the reason why among earnest nations,as among the Romans for example,the craft of the schoolmaster was held in little regard;for indeed as mere teacher of grammar,of ciphering on the abacus and such like,how did he differ much from the dancing-master or fencing-master,or deserve much regard?--Such was the rule in the ancient healthy times.