OCRed data provided
for searching only. nouns substantives and adjectives on the afternoons. The third and fourth forms spent all of Fridays in repetition; the fourth also turned verses and proved them.
Grammar and godly matter are here yoked together. Latin gram-mar may be continued in the fifth form, the first of the upper school, as was regular in the first half of the sixteenth century, whereas in the seventeenth it appears frequently, perhaps usually, to have been confined entirely to the lower school. In not more than the first five forms out of eight, the boys master their Latin grammar. Their first authors are very "moral," being Sententiae Pueriles, Cato, and Aesop. These were reinforced by their exercises, which consisted principally in turning the Proverbs and Psalms into Latin, though "English dictamen" might be used as supplements. So "moral matter" was used both for the process from Latin to English and from English to Latin. The boys also studied colloquial as well as written Latin, with Erasmus, Colloquies as guide. Throughout, they acquired vocabulary by systematic study of the Nomenclatura. From "moral matter" they proceeded gently into unmoral or immoral matter as represented by the De Tristibus, Metamorphoses, and Epistles of Ovid. These were to "induce" the boys to poetry, and had long been standard works for that process. Consequently, the boys are already in the fourth form turning and proving verses, preparatory to beginning composition in verse in the fifth form, the first of upper school. The most remarkable thing here is the relative lack of emphasis upon spoken Latin, only the Colloquies of Erasmus being mentioned, and Terence having been dropped from his pride of place as the first guide to colloquial Latinity completely out of the curriculum.
As has been said, upper school consisted of four forms. Grammar, of course, persevered. In the fifth form, some Latin grammar might be continued, and Greek grammar was begun, to continue through the sixth, with some work possible in the seventh, to be supplanted in the eighth by the Hebrew grammar. There would besides be rhetorical "rules" of various kinds connected with the different verse and prose types of composition, though these are not indicated. In the fifth form, the boys continued with the study of poetry, the authors being Virgil Tuesday and Thursday, and Martial Monday and Wednesday. Their exercise was on Monday and Tuesday to turn the Psalms into Latin verse for themes-rather a fitting chore for one who is to become a Christian poet as was John Milton. On Wednesday the exercise was to turn a psalm into prose,,on Thursday a story
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