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the second form of that system. The next stage in our sequence, would be a school with the division between the second and third forms. Such a school was that at Aldenham, which we have already examined. As we have seen, its curriculum was that of Eton condensed into five forms, and the usher was to teach the petties and the first two forms, the master the last three.
Then we come to the usual system, where the petties were not connected with the grammar school at all, and where the usher taught lower school, the master the upper. In the largest schools, there might be several teachers variously assigned; but since Stratford was not one of these, we need not further trouble.
From this survey, certain things are now apparent. Foremost of these is the fact that the sixteenth century grammar school curriculum was highly organized and had by the middle of the century been standardized into essential uniformity. As Edmund Coote makes his English Schoolmaster to say in 1596,
If I be generally received, I shall cause one uniform manner of teaching; a thing which as it hath brought much profit unto the Latin tongue, so would it do to all other Languages, if the like were practised.l2
The sixteenth century had aimed to attain uniformity in the teaching of Latin, and recognized the fact that it had done so. Grammar, vulgars and Latins, and parsing and construction are its uniform tools for attaining Latinity, and these are used according to a definite and systematic scheme. Whether there was to be one master or many, a few pupils or a large school, three forms or six or eight, the curriculum and its methods remained fundamentally the same. The boy was to cover a standard curriculum in standard sequence, according to standard methods, regardless of the time and the conditions of his doing so. Since these schools were that damnable thing, "preparation for university," this essential uniformity of aim and method was necessarily thrust upon them. If, therefore, the man shows knowledge of any part of the grammar school curriculum, it is possible safely to estimate rather accurately at what stage the boy should have acquired that knowledge.
u Coote, Edward (sic), The English School-Master (1673), Ass.
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