StNicholas [serial] . Certainly lack of discipline was not a failingof the sixteenth century, and we know that chil- ELIZABETHAN BOYS. 20I dren were brought up austerely and made tostudy hard, whether they had tutors at homeor were sent to the excellent grammar-schoolsof the time, where such a quantity of Latinwas crammed into them, for they profitedmuch, and were packed off to the universitiesearly indeed, as we shall see. They were carefully trained in all courtesyof speech and hearing, but repressed and keptin the background in a way that would be been much esteemed for all men, and Harri-s
StNicholas [serial] . Certainly lack of discipline was not a failingof the sixteenth century, and we know that chil- ELIZABETHAN BOYS. 20I dren were brought up austerely and made tostudy hard, whether they had tutors at homeor were sent to the excellent grammar-schoolsof the time, where such a quantity of Latinwas crammed into them, for they profitedmuch, and were packed off to the universitiesearly indeed, as we shall see. They were carefully trained in all courtesyof speech and hearing, but repressed and keptin the background in a way that would be been much esteemed for all men, and Harri-son tells us with pride of the great silencethat is used at the tables of the honourable andwiser sort, generallie all over the realm. The fathers of that time sent their sons totravel on the Continent when they could, forthey believed that home-keeping youth haveever homely wits, and that he cannot be aperfect man, not being tried and tutord in theworld. So let him go, said these wise fathers,. BEARING THE LATEST NEWS FROM SCOTLAND OR FRANCE OR THE LOW COUNTRIES. (SEE PAGE 203.) little relished by boys of to-day. They wereadvised to be checked for silence, but nevertaxed for speech, or, as Sir Henry Sidney putsit in a very noble letter to his son Philip, thentwelve years old, rather be rebuked of lightfellows for maiden-like shamefacedness, thanof your sad friends for pert boldness. Tell nountruth; no, not in trifles, he goes on; therecannot be a greater reproach to a gentlemanthan to be accounted a liar. An Elizabethan boy was not likely to be ababbler, and, in truth, silence seems to have Vol. XXVII.—26-27. practise tilts and tournaments, hear sweetdiscourse, converse with noblemen ; he will bethe more ready to go out in the world andtake his place with other men. The carefully guarded boyhood was soonover, and they were marvelously young whenthey sprang from the quiet and seclusion ofchildhood into the glow and dazzle of thatwondrous age—those noble Elizabethans whowe
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