The English Puritans and their children

'My pretty Child, remember well,

you must your ways amend;

For wicked Children go to Hell,

that way their courses tend.'

(Henry Jessey, A looking glass for children, 1673)

The influence of the Reformation and of the slowly gathering strength of the Puritans took far longer to be felt than the effects of the Renaissance on education.  Although the Reformation had immediate consequences in the reign of Henry VIII ,as far as religious doctrine was concerned one of the most profound effects was the general increase in the intensity of religious feeling brought about by sectarian controversy.  This did not begin to show its full effect until the 17th century, when, through the Civil War and Interregnum the beliefs of the Puritan minority had a profound effect on the religious attitudes of the nation.  Nor did the influence of the Puritans on religious life cease after the restoration of the Monarchy in spite of the various Acts of Parliament passed against those who did not conform to the practices of the Church of England; the various Nonconformist sects gained rather than lost strength and from the late 17th century played an increasingly important part in improving social conditions as well as having an important effect on religious attitudes, and children's education.

Puritanism grew steadily in England from the end of the reign of Queen Mary I in 1558 when many Puritans who had gone into exile returned to England.  A prominent Puritan, Hugh Rhodes, wrote a book of courtesy printed in 1577 which is is interesting to compare with the earlier examples.  The advice on manners is much the same, but there is far more advice to parents on the spiritual upbringing of their children.  Rhodes placed great importance on this, like all Puritans, saying: 'The cause of the world being so euill of lyuing as it is, is for lack of vertue, and Godly bringing up of youth.'
He advised parents to keep a very strict watch over where they go and who they meet, to prevent them from becoming corrupted: 

'nor let your Chyldren go whether they will, but know whether they goe, in what company...Take hede they speake no wordes of villany...nor shew them much familiaritye...Mark well what vice they are specially inclined unto, and break it betymes.'.  Of course he advised parents to carechise their children frequently: 'Take them often with you to heare Gods work preached and then enquyyre of them what they heard, and use them to reade in the Bible and other Godly Bokes.'  Rhodes also voices the Puritan prejudice against fairy tales and romances which was to become so general in the 19th century among all right-minded parents and teachers: 'but especially keepe them from reading of fayned fables, vayne fantasyes, and wanton stories and songs of loue, which bring much mischiefe to youth...'
(Hugh Rhodes, The boke of Nurture, or schoole of good manners for men, servants and children...1577 EETS original series no. 32)

 Puritans addressed themselves with a particular sense of urgency to the salvation of children.  Lady Grace Mildmay expressed this sense of responsibility when she wrote: 'It is not possible for parents to be good or to have any virtue in them who seeke not to make theyre children good'
(Lady Grace Mildmay Diary, quoted in Quarterly Review 1911, vol. 15 p.128)

Mrs. Elizabeth Jocelin wrote The Mother's Legacie to her Unborn Child out of this sense of spiritual duty: 'Yet still I thought there was some good office I might do for my Childe more than onely to bring it forth
(tho' it should please God to take me.) When I considered our frailty, our apt inclinations to sin, the Devil's subtilty, and the world's deceitfulness; against these how much desired I to admonish it?'
(Elizabeth Joceline 1625)

In Puritan families adults and children were encouraged to keep spiritual diaries noting their progress towards salvation, or otherwise, and any evidence of divine grace.  (Similarly, Catholic children would be expected to go to Confession.) As a result of this regular diary-keeping many more details of day to day life are available from the 17th century onwards.  Evidence of divine grace seems to have given some diarists trouble, and God is credited with some curious interventions:
'I find we have another mercy to praise the Lord for. Thea has voided abundance of worms, some almost a quarter of a yard long...The Lord be praised'
(Dorothy Oglander to her husband, 1663, in Aspinall-Oglander, Cecil Nunwell Symphony, Hogarth Press, 1945)
 'This last night Matthew fell out of bed, not hurt, a wonderful preservation, blessed bee God, even our God' (Diaries and letters of Philip Henry MA 1631-1696 ed. Matthew Henry Leu, 1882)

At the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) legislation had been passed requiring heads of families to catechise their children and instruct them in the principles of religion according to the Church of England.  The reasons for this were political, since religious schism was one of the principal causes of political dis-unity in th 17th century.  Most heads of families regarded catechising their children as one of their most important duties towards them, and Puritans were particularly scrupulous about this.  Catechising children is noted regularly in their journals and diaries: 'Nov. 1 1661.  I catechised & instructed my children after supp, and wee had family duty, & went to bed,...'
(Diary of the Rev. Henry Newcome...ed. Thomas Heywood, Chetham Soc. Vol. 18 1849)

Children in Puritan households like that of Mrs.Walker learned to read at an early age, so that they could begin to study their catechism and Bible: 'To promote and forward their religious instruction she taught them to Read as soon as they could pronounce their Letters,.,,and sowed the Seed of early Pious Knowledge in their tender Minds, by a plain, familiar catechism.'
(Anthony Walker The Holy Life of Mrs. E. Walker...1690)

The best known Puritan work addressed to children, which remained in common use throughout the 19th century in both Britain and America is the Nonconformist minister James Janeway's Token for Children, Being an exact account of the conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives, and Joyful Deaths of several young Children, 1671-2.

(British Library)

This was an attempt to terrify both parents and children into salvation. It contains two prefaces, one addressed to parents asking: 'Are the souls of your children of no value? Are you willing that they should be brands of hell?'  The second preface is addressed to the children:

  'You may now hear (my dear lambs) what other good children have done, and remember how they wept ad prayed by themselves...Did you ever get by yourself and weep for sin and pray for grace and pardon?...How dost thou spend thy time?  Is it is play and idleness, and with wicked children?...Were not these sweet children, which feared God and were dutiful to their parents?...What do you think is become of them, now they are dead and gone? Why, they are gone to heaven, and are saying hallelujahs with the angels...they shall never be sick, or in pain any more...And are you willing to go to hell to be burnt with the devil and his angels?  Would you be in the same condition as naughty children?  Oh hell is a terrible place, that's worse a thousand times than a whipping...Would you not do anything in the world to get Christ, grace and glory?  Did you never hear of a little child that died?  And if other children die, why may you not be sick and die? (James Janeway A Token for Children, 1671-2)

At a time when early death was only too common the effect on sensitive children of constant threats of hellfire may be imagined. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress,  has left one of the best known accounts from this period of his childhood fears of hell:
'Even in my childhood he (God) did scare and affrighten me with fearful dreams...Also I should, at these years, be greatly afflicted and troubled with the thoughts of the fearful torments of hell-fire.  These things, I say, when I was but a child, but nine or ten years old, did so distress my soul that then, in  the midst of my many sports and childish vanities, amidst my vain companions, I was often much cast down and afflicted in my mind.'
Bunyan, however, in spite of the dreadful warning of his nightmares, admits he 'had but few equals (especially considering my years, which were tender, being but few) both for cursing, swearing, lying and blaspheming the holy name of God...'(Bunyan, Grace Abounding, 1666)

Bunyan's account calls to mind the most dramatic of Janeway's little biographies:
 'of a notorious wicked Child, that was taken up from begging, and admirably converted, with an account of his Holy Life and Joyful Death, when he was nine Years old.'
He was, says Janeway, 'a very monster of wickedness, and a thousand times more miserable and vile by his sin than by his poverty.  He was running to hell as soon as he could go, and was old in naughtieness when he was young in years...He would call filthy names, take God's name in vain, curse, and swear, and do almost all kind of mischief, and as to any thing of God's worse than a heathen.' (James Janeway, A Token for Children, 1671-2)

Another well known Nonconformist, Abraham Chear, wrote the well-known To a young Virgin, 1663:

'When by Spectators I am told

what Beauty doth adorn me,

Or in the glass when I behold,how sweetly God did form me.

Hath God such comliness display'd

and on me made to dwell

'Tis pitty such a pretty maid

As I should go to Hell'

(In Henry Jessey A looking-glass for children 1673)

It seems surprising that a strict Nonconformist should encourage a young girl to think about her looks; one of the characteristics of Nonconformist writing for children is that girls were constantly assured that a good nature shining out is all the beauty a face needs.  The first Puritans seem to have believed, until they were undeceived, that good Christian principles are all that is needed and god nature will follow.  But those little children did need lots of reminding:

'My little Cousin, if you'll be

your Uncle's dearest Boy;

You must take heed of every deal

that would your Soul destroy.

You must not curse, nor fight, nor steal

nor spend your time in games,

Nor make a lie, what e'ere you ailes,

nor call ungodly names.

With wicked Children do not play,

for such to Hell will go;

The Devil's children sin all day

but you must not do so.'

(Abraham Chear, 1673 op.cit)

The Nonconformist minister John Angier had a typical Puritan upbringing.  His mother, 'being a choice and gracious Christian, often spake to him of Soul concerns, wept and prayed much for him.'  He experienced religious conviction of being saved at about twelve, but after that he often had doubts which, he says, 'he kept to himself, and often retired into a corner, being ashamed that anyone should know of his heart-grief'  To him this would have been a sign that his spiritual re-birth had not been genuine.  He had a brother with the good Biblical name of Bezaleel.
(Oliver Heywood, Narrative of the life of John Angler, Minister of the Gospel at Denton, 1685,  Chetham Soc.  vol. 97, 1937)

The spiritual sufferings of children were welcomed as signs of their impending spiritual redemption:
 'The briny tears for the natural Death of one very desirable Child were swallowed up by the Tears of Gladness for the lively symptoms of the Spiritual Birth of another...The Pathetick Earnestness with which the Child cried for Pardon and supplies of grace, enflamed and melted all that heard her.'
(The Holy Life of Mrs. E. Walker, 1690)

This child's parents went on to record, with deep satisfaction, their little daughter's spiritual forwardness, much as a modern parent might describe signs of great intelligence:
'About four Years of Age, on days of Prayer and Fasting, she would sit by me the whole Day, and at Prayer hold up her little Hands...' ((op. cit. )

There seems to have been little attempt to distinguish between degrees of sinfulness, the thoughtlessness of childhood being as sure a path to hell as the misdeeds of the most hardened criminal.  Elizabeth Joceline makes a determined effort to equate disobedience with breaking all the Ten Commandments:
...thou canst not bee a disobedient child but thou art a murderer...of thy father...by thy disobedience his gray head brought with sorrow to the grave...'(E. Joceline The mother's legacie to her unborne childe.  1625)
As a result children often became morbidly over-anxious over relatively trivial faults:
'If I desired any thing that was grateful to my Appetite, when it was brought to me I durst not make use of it, because I thought it to be the satisfaction of a base sensual Appetite'  (Walker, op. cit)

'When his child was about five or six years old, she had a new plain Tammy Coat...having looked upon her Coat, how fine she was, she presently went to her Chair, sate down, her tears running down her eyes, and she wept seriously to herself.  Her Mother...said to her, How now? What is the matter that you weep?  The Child answered... I am afraid my fine Cloaths will cast me down to Hell.  Her Mother said, it's not our Cloaths but wicked hearts that hurt us.  She answered, "Aye, Mother, fine Cloaths make our hearts proud."'(Jessey, op. cit)

It is not surprising that  children often had no sense of proportion about their faults when adults accepted such confessions completely seriously. The spiritual sins of the Rev. Ralph Josseline when a child, though unspecified, sound more promising work for the Devil:  '...oh ye strange prodigious unclean lusts when I was yett a child; how often have I walkt with delight to meditate upon such courses, being too well acquainted with those scenes by books which I had; yett I bless God who kept mee from all outw'd uncleanness; praise bee to him, and for this I desire to loath and abhorre my selfe.' (Diary of the Rev. Ralph Josselin 1616-1683, Camden Soc. 3rd series, vol. 15 1908)

The famous reverend Richard Baxter has also listed the chief 'sins' of his youth:
'I was somewhat excessively addicted to play, and that with covetousness, for money.  I was guilty of much idle foolish chat, and imitation of boys in scurrilous foolish words and actions (though I durst not swear)
I was too proud of my masters' commentations for learning.
I was too bold and unreverent towards my parents.'
(Autobiography of Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae abridged from the folio, 1696, ed. J.M. Lloyd, 1925)

Like Lydgate, Baxter 'was much addicted to the excessive gluttonous eating of apples and pears...To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil, I have oft gone into other men's orchards and stolen their fruit, when I had enough at home.'  Like most children he loved fairy tales, but as an adult disapproved of them.
'I was extremely bewitched with a love of romances, fables, and old tales, which corrupted my affections and lost my time.' (Baxter op.cit)

The Rev. Henry Newcombe reveals in his diary that as a boy he spent his Sundays 'going nutting' and 'playing bandy ball' (op.cit) and when John Angier went up to Cambridge, away from his mother's influence, he 'fell off to vain companie and loose practises...see the slippperiness of youth.'Oliver Heywood's Life of John Angier, op.cit)

It is something of a relief to read these accounts of backsliding and irreligious behaviour; conformation of the essential normality of Puritan youth.  


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School life in the 16th and 17th centuries

In the Middle Ages when all schools of any importance were run by the church, the scholars rose according to monastic rule, and this pattern of early rising was carried over into secular boarding schools on the 16th and 17th centuries.   A 15th century book of Latin exercises describes the pain of early rising:

'When I was a childe, from III yere old to X (for now I go upon the XII yere)...I was wont to lye still abedde tyll it was forth dais...My brekefaste was brought to by beedys side as oft as me liste to call therefor...But nowe...sat fyve of the clocke by the monelyght I most go to my book...and yff our master hap to awake us, he bryngeth a rode stede of a candle.'
  ( Mathurin Cordier (1479?-1574), Geneva: Corderii colloquiorum centuria selecta)

Mathurin Cordier, in his colloquies, describes the pupil rising in the morning:
  'I took my Breeches and Stockings, I put on both, I put on my shoes, I tied my Breeches to my Doublet with Points (laces), I tied my Stockings with my Garters upon my legs, I girt myself with my Girdle, I combed my head diligently, I fitted my Cap to my Head, I put on my Gown, then going out of my Chamber I went below.  I made water in the Yard against the wall, I took cold water out of the Bucket, I washed myt hands and face, I rinsed out my Mouth and Teeth, I wiped my Hands and Face with the Towel, in the mean Time the Signal is given to Prayer .'
   (Mathurin Cordier, op. cit)

Title page of Mathurin Cordier, Colloquia 1579 ed.

The colloquies, or conversational exercises, are based on life at the Puritan school set up by Calvin in 1559 in Geneva, where many English exiles lived, They are full of boys running home to fetch their 'beaver' or snacks.  The boys also frequently go into town on errands, visiting the 'Botchers' to have their stockings mended, the 'Barber's' to have a septic bite dressed, to the merchants' stalls to buy books and paper, taking care they 'be not cozened(cheated)'  Pens have to be made out of goose quills, an in one colloquy Calvin himself appears making two for a small pupil.

There is a description of making such quill pens in Hollyband and Erondell's dialogues:
  Master:  "Have you brought your weapons?  Have you brought your pennes and incke-horne?  We write with goose quilles,  Cut off the feathers with a penknife..."
Maurice: "My maister taught me to make my penne softe with spitalle, and rubbing it against the inside of my cote."
   (M. St. Clare Byrne.  The Elizabethan home discovered in two dialogues by Claudius Hollyband and Peter Erondell.  1930.  op. cit)

In Erondell and Hollyband's school the older children learened Latin in the mornings and French in the afternoon, by Francis Vives' and Roger Ascham's new method of double translation:'Children, turne your lessons out of French into English, and then out of English into French' (Hollyband and Erondell, op.cit)

The children are lively and naughty, providing an entertaining French vocabulary exercise:
 'Nicholas: "Maister, John Nothing-worth hath sworne by God,
played by the way, solde his poyntes, chaunged his booke, stollen a knife, lied twice, lost his cappe."
Master: "Is it true? Come hether companion, untrusse upi: untie you, put your hosen down, dispatche."
John N. "Nicholas doth mocke me, plucketh me by the heare, by the eares; hath stroken me with his fist upon the head; hath stroken me, hath made me bleede."
Master: "You shall be beaten both..."
    Erondell and Hollyband, op.cit)

The children at the school in Geneva were naughty too, and indulged in midnight feasts:
'"Woe is me! I am almost out of my wits, I am smitten with such fear"
"What is the matter I say?"
"The Master hath caught us"
"In what? In theft?"
"...Private junketing"
"An hainous crime indeed."'

They also pawned each other's belongings:
'A:"Lend me a Virgil for two days...."
B"Truely I cannot"
A"Why not?"
B"Because Garard, who borrowed it lately of me, hath put it in Pawn.'
   (Mathurin Cordier, op.cit)

A child studying his letters on a hornbook, Jost Amman, Kunstbuch, Frankfurt, 1580,
 (Tuer, History of the Hornbook, 1896)

Francis Seager describes the 16th century schoolboy in a popular school text, The Schoole of Vertue and book of good nourture for children and youth to learne theyr dutie by, 1557.  Shakespeare was probably attending Stratford-upon-Avon grammar school about this time, and might have had to learn it by heart:
  '...thy satchel and thy books take,
and to the school hast see thou make.
But ere thou go with thyself forethink
That thou take with thee pen, paper and ink,
These things thus had, Take straight thy way
Unto the school without any stay...
Thy master there being Salute with all reverence
Declaring thereby thy duty and ovedience
Unto thy place appointed for to sit
Straight go thou to and thy satchell unknit,
Thy books take out, thy lesson then learn...
Apply thy mind to learning and science
For learning in need will be thy defence...'
   (Francis Seager, Schoole of Vertue...EETS Vol. 32 op cit)

John Brinsley (1581-1624) has left an example of a typical grammar school timetable in his Ludus Literarius or, The Grammar Schoole, 1612. The scholar's day began at six or seven am, an hour later in winter.  although Brinsley says, sympathetically that 'it is hard for the little children to rise so early' early rising was generally the rule for labourer and prince.

Lily's Latin Grammar, the standard Latin grammar book from 1540.

A 1687 edition of William Lily's Latin Grammar

Students would have studied their Latin from William Lily's Latin Grammar, in use right up to the 19th century, and first authorised as the standard Latin text book by Henry VIII.

In many schools day scholars and boarders were both taken and some boys would be lodged in the town.  At 9am, according to Brinsley's timetable, they went home to breakfast.  He allows them fifteen minutes.  Lessons, according to Brinsley, continued after breakfast to eleven, when there was a long break t one o'colck followed by two further periods of lessons with a fifteen minute break between them, finishing with a Bible reading and psalms around five thirty.  Bedtime was around nine.  This timetable was followed at Westminster School  Philip Henry, who was there from 1643, has described the pupils' habit of studying through the night, two or more sitting up till eleven or twelve, then waking a second group and so on through the night. (Diary and letters of Philip Henry, 1631-1696 ed Matthew Henry Lee, 1882)

It was common until the 19th century for several forms to be taught in the same room.  The original schoolroom at Rugby can still be seen, and in it each class would have taken a corner.  Charles Hoole in his book Scholastick discipline, 1659, talks of six or seven forms using one room, and suggested the use of folding doors to reduce the noise which must have been terrible when oral repetition was still a common teaching method.  If the pupils were well disciplined, however, noise does not seem to have been a problem. Cordier, comparing the school in Geneva with small country schools, says, 'There is more silence in our school of six hundred than of forty, yea thirty in those pesty schools' (Cordier, op.cit)
Contemporary woodcuts often show the teacher sitting raised up above the class in a kind of pulpit, with the scholars on what must have been extremely hard wooden benches facing him, no desks.  Right through the 18th century Eton scholars still used their hard top hats, resting on their knees, as writing tables.

Udalricus Ebrardi, Modus Latinus, Nuremberg 1500, showing the tutor and the class.
Note the birch twigs in the tutor's hand (from Percy Muir, Early Children's Books and their Illustration, 1975)

Many of the collections of colloquies mention gambling, with nuts among the small boys, but also with cards and dice, especially at Christmas.  According to the colloquies from Magdalen School, Oxford, 'They do wysely that send no Children to the Universite but they put them under Creansers (censors) to have the rule
 of them and of their money, for yf they wer not so ordeuynede, they sholde waste all their money att dyss and Cardys in Cristmas tyme.'
   (Magdalen School colloquies, op.cit)

In one of Vives' dialogues a scholar is tempted to play truant with the cobbler's son to play dice, while smaller boys propose:  '"Let us play at nuts, at throwing them into holes."
Scipio: "Nut-shells are good for making little houses to put ants into."'
    (Tudor schoolboy life.  The dialogues of Juan Luis Vives.  Translated...by Foster Watson, 1908)

The boys were often allowed to keep pets at school.  John Evelyn (1620-1706) mentions the pets' corner in the well known Jesuit school at Antwerp which he visited, and was much impressed by, in 1641.  A boy at Magdalen School, Oxford, complained in a colloquy   '...thei say that I kepe a dawe in my chamber, but iwys thei lye falsly upon me for it is but a pore Conye.  'Unfortunately he does not explain why rabbits were permitted but not jackdaws.

A typical Latin class (National Education Network)

Food, of perennial interest to school children, forms the subject of several colloquies.  The meals at Peter Erondell's school do not sound too bad:
'Pisan:"Our breakfast in the morning is, a little peice of bread made of meale not bulted, but with all the bran in it, and a little butter, or some fruits...To dinner, we have herbes, or every one a messe of porridge.  Sometimes turneppes, coleworts, wheate and barly in porridge, a kind of delicate meate made of fine wheate flower, and eggs.  Upon fishe-dayes, fleeted milke, in deepe poengers...with some bread put in it.  Some fresh fische, if in Fish Streate it can be had at a reasonable price.  If not, salt fishe, well wattered.  After, pease, or fitches, or beanes, or lupins (sic)...Some drinke small biere, and a few, but seldome, drink winne, well alaqyed with water.  Our drinking at after none is, a litle bread, and almonds, drie figges, or reasens.  Or if it be Sommer tiem, pears, or apples, cheries, or prunes.  After, whenb we go to the farme, for plesure, then we eate, either new milke, or curded, frech cheese, creame, lupins alayed...The first dish of thge supper is a salat cut small with salt upon it, and moistened with oile of olives...and with vinaiger...And mutton sodde in a large platter, with dry prunes, or small rootes, or chopped herbes.  Sometimes a very good gallimafrie, now and then a minced meat..a little roset-meate, specually veale, and sometime kidde.  Upon fasting dayes, we have egges rosted, fired, or poached...or made ufter the fashion of a pannecake...Thereto is added sometimes a little fische, and after the cheese come nuttes.'
 (Erondell, op.cit)

Another Latin text book., 1673(Yale University)

At the school in Geneva the pupils came and went in what now seems a very casual fashion, drifting back after the school holidays in dribs and drabs, going off to help with the grape harvest or to family occasions, making excuses to visit their doting mothers, who aided and abetted them and defended them from the consequences.  Cordier's colloquies include an account of a boy who tries to use his lice as an excuse to go home:
'Master "Have you any lice?"
 Caius" I, and a great many indeed."
Master "Why do you not tell my wife so much?"
Caius "We durst not."
Master "As though indeed shee was so hard to be spoken to.  She hath a maid chiefly for that purpose, to see you be all kept cleanly...ye are glad ye have an occasion offered you to go and see your mother."'
 (Mathurin Cordier, op.cit)

This was, of course, the school which many Puritans attended in exile. Cordier wrote his colloquies for their use to ensure that their exercises had the correct religious stance. In Geneva the boys prayed together several times during the day and, in addition, according to Puritan practise, 'the Master doth oft admonish us, that every one go aside sometimes some whither into a private place and pray for himself.'
  (Cordier, colloquies, op.cit)
They were also encouraged to 'admonish' the local peasants and remind them of their religious duties.  The peasants did not always take this well: 'There were some that threatened to beat me when I admonished them very kindly.'
  (Cordier, colloquies, op.cit)


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A Puritan Education

'The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first Parents by repairing to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.'
   John Milton (1608-1674) Of Education, 1644

In the early 17th century educationalists, particularly the Puritans among them, began to favour including practical subjects in the curriculum.  Many of their ideas were pioneered in the works of the Czech educator John Amos Comenius, whose Orbis Sensualium Pictus was first published in Germany in 1658 and was translated into English in 1678 by his friend Charles Hoole.   His ideas were set out in Janua Linguarum Reserata or, the gate of tongues unlocked, 1631.  He believed in universal education, in the vernacular, until., about the age of twelve, combined with practical education in some skill. These ideas and his work on kindergartens and the value of play in learning  continue to inspire educators to the present day, especially in Germany,

The first educational book to successfully use illustrations as a teaching aid.

Charles Hoole recommended the pictures 'to entice witty children to it, that they may not conceit it a torment to be in the School, but dainty-fare.'
   The Usher's Duty, 1659, In A New Discovery in the old Art of Teaching Schoole, 1660, ed. E.T. Campagnac, 1917

Hoole was one of an influential group of mid 17th century Puritan educationalists which included Samuel Hartlib, John Milton and Sir William Petty, who gives a charming picture of the everyday pastimes of children at this time:
  'For we see children to delight in drums, pipes, fifes, guns made of elder sticks...painting flags and ensigns with elderberries and cornpoppy, making ships with paper, setting even nut shells a-swimming...making pictures in their writing books, making tops, gigs and whirligigs, gilting balls, practising divers juggling tricks upon the cards etc...And for the females they will be making pies with clay, making their babies (dolls) clothes and dressing them therewith, they will put leaves on sticks as if they were roasting meat; they will imitate all the talk and actions which they observe in their mother and her gossips...'
  Epistle to his honoured friend Master Samuel Hartlib, 1647

Samuel Hartlib was an agriculturalist and was keen to see practical agriculture more widely taught.  These educationalists gave more importance to science, and to its study through actual observation, weighing, measuring etc.  The Nonconformists began to found their own schools in the later 17th century, because the universities were closed to them because of their non-conforming religious beliefs, and their curriculum has a strong practical bias.  This made their schools popular with families who did not necessarily agree with their religious views but wanted a good general education for their sons.  Defoe attended Newington Green Academy in the late 17th century and describes the curriculum as including classical languages, French, Italian, maths, natural science, history, geography, logic and politics.
I. Pinchbeck, & M. Hewitt, Children in English Society, vol. 1, 1969

Comenius, the master and his pupil

Physical education for boys, continued to be considered very important. In the mid 16th century, Roger Ascham (1515-1568) had recommended that boys should  be able to: 'ride comely, to run fair at the tilt or ring, to play at all weapons, to shoot fair in bow and straigt in gun, to vault lustily; to run, to leap, to wrestle, to swim...to hawk, to hunt, to play at tennis, and all pastimes generally which will be joined with labour used in open space, and in the daylight, containing some ft exercise for war or some pleasant pastime for peace.
 The whole works of Roger Ascham, ed. Rv. Mr. Giles, 1864

In the turmoil of the Civil War, in the 17th century, people were still more inclined to link physical education with provision for an efficient army.  Oliver Cromwell's secretary, John Milton, drew up a detailed plan for the military training of students at the academy proposed in his tract Of Education, 1644:
'This institution of breeding which I here delineate, shall be equally good both for peace and war,'  He recommends that the pupils spend their exercise time learning swordsmanship, wrestling, riding and the arts of war so that, if necessary, they will be ready to act as captains in the army.  At a time when all able-bodied men and boys were supposed to be trained to the use of weapons for the possible defence of the kingdom, schools, where numbers of boys were gathered together, must haver seemed the obvious place for organise military training, and the pracise has continued right up to the present day.

Comenius,  Parents and children, Masters and servants.

Charles Hoole,(1610-1667) the translator of Comenius, was a practising schoolmaster, teaching in Rotherham when the town was attacked during the Civil War.  The town was defended by Col. Fairfax for Parliament and about thirty of the boys at the school 'undertook the management of a draje, which was placed at the entrance of the bridge, and did considerable execution.'  In Kings Norton, now on the edge of Birmingham, the boys attending the local school, run by the Puritan Rev. Thomas Hall (1610-1665) defended the school against the Cavaliers which must have been quite difficult as almost next to the school was a house owned by Charles I's Queen Henrietta.. After the Restoration, Thomas Hall lost his job.

Kings Norton Grammar School

'My counsel is that (children) learn the Greek and Latin tongues especially from Christians and so without the lies, fables, follies, vanities, whoredoms, lust, pride, revenge etc. of the heathens...and most necessary it is that Christians should forget the names of their gods and muses, which were but devils and damned creatures, and all their mythology and fabulous inventions and let them all go to Satan from whence they came.
   William Dell, quoted in Foster Watson The English Grammar Schools to 1660, 1968

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