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for searching only. GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND ABOUT 1330 137
aroused in summer at five, were in the classroom by six to be drilled upon the various operations connected with the grammar till break-fast at nine. In winter, the day began an hour later. The work of the "learners of the Accidence" below the first form was just that. These "learners" and the boys through the third form; that is, the whole lower school, first were drilled upon the accidence, apparently for about an hour, each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then
the Learners of the Accidence shall labour their Lessons, which Lessons the Master shall hear more often or more seldom after his discretion, and to the more profit of the Scholars.
Since this is individual work, school routine can not well be applied. Similarly, for the conventional repetition at the end of the week, it is ordered,
that upon Saturday in the morning, every one of them rehearse and render by heart to the Master all the lessons that they have learned all the week before; and, if Saturday be Holy-day, that then the said render be made the working-day next before.
The work of the week must be rendered at the end of it, in spite of holydays.
When these beginners had memorized the accidence, they were ready for organized work as the first form; They now begin their working day by drill upon these "parts," along with all the other boys of the lower school. This done, they must next repeat their own daily stint of English rules from the Parvula of Stanbridge, thus getting the principles of construction. This lesson had, of course, been "read" to them the day before. When the boys have repeated these rules, the teacher directs them in constructing easy Latins to illustrate each one. The Latin was, of course, first a "vulgar" or "English," before it was turned into a Latin. One of the early Eton masters, William Horman, in his Vulgaria has left a collection of such vulgars as he used at Eton, together with their Latins, accompanied by a description of how they came into existence. The curious may be referred to the collection itself for a very concrete idea of what vulgars and Latins were. This particular collection also furnishes a great deal of interesting gossip about schoolboys and school processes. But the boys at Eton at this period began with a smaller and easier group of vulgars by Stanbridge, as is shown by another provision.
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