Tim, that looks like an early draft of "Politics and the English Language."
Joel
________________________________________
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Timothy Duffy [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 2:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: undergrad learning in early modern times

Of course we might all be forgetting that most destructive of undergraduate habits, far more destructive than drinking. That is, of course, young students insisting on speaking Latin without having the proper skills, something about which Ascham can barely contain his horror:

to learne the latin tonge, vse of speaking latin at the table, and
elsewhere, vnaduisedlie, did bring him to soch an euill choice of
wordes, to soch a crooked framing of sentences, that no one
thing did hurt or hinder him more, all the daies of his life
afterward, both for redinesse in speaking, and also good iudge-
ment in writinge

In very deede, if children were brought vp, in soch a house,
or soch a Schole, where the latin tonge were properlie and
perfitlie spoken, as Tib. and Ca. Gracci were brought vp, in
their mother Cornelias house, surelie, than the dailie vse of
speaking, were the best and readiest waie, to learne the latin
tong. But, now, commonlie, in the best Scholes in England,
for wordes, right choice is smallie regarded, true proprietie
whollie neglected, confusion is brought in, barbariousnesse is
bred vp so in yong wittes, as afterward they be, not onelie
marde for speaking, but also corrupted in iudgement: as with
moch adoe, or neuer at all, they be brought to right frame
againe.

May we all be spared from such "barbariousnesse"!
Tim




On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Debra Rienstra <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Peter,

This one isn't about drinking, but it does address some other age-old distractions from learning and from practices of Christian piety--a matter of less concern now than in earlier ages.  This is a quotation a colleague of mine uses to amuse the audience during a plenary lecture attended by all our first-year students.  I hope it might be helpful.

Debra

“They attend classes but make no effort to learn anything.… On feast days they don’t go to church to hear divine service and sermons and above all the full mass which all Christians are supposed to attend…, but gad about town with their fellows or attend lectures or write up their notes at home. Or, if they go to church, it is not for worship, but to see the girls or swap stories. . . .”

Source: Thorndike, University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (Columbia UP, 1944).



Debra Rienstra
Professor of English
Calvin College
1795 Knollcrest Circle SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
616-526-8526


>>> ANNE PRESCOTT <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> 2/9/2011 12:46 PM >>>

Hi, Peter, whom I don't remember much bending his elbow too much when he was at Columbia--
My favorite bit on students and drink is from The Haven of Health by Thomas Cogan (1612), STC 5483, p. 210 (sorry, my partial printout in the days before EEBO doesn't give me the sig. letter). I saved these pages because Cogan cites Poggio on a "slothfull Scholer" (p. 14), which grabbed my eye because relevant to my work on Renaissance jokes--it's the one about the guy who can't get up because he's watching a psychomachia at the foot of his bed among the three women Carefulnesse, Slouthfulnesse, the first urging him to arise and the second telling him to "keepe me from cold in my warme couch." Many pages later he is still thinking about students and in his discussion of how wine relates to health (avoid the excess of wine, not wine, he advises). Then he says, "And the excesse of Wine is the cause as Leonardus Fuchsius writeth, why few young men that be students, come to profound knowledge & ripenesse in these dayes . . ." and the rest of the paragraph explains how first it makes students "disordered and unruly" and then weak in "wit & mind" and then says students should post the lines by Eobanus Hessius on the value of sobriety. There is then more on how some say young men should avoid wine (Peter, be very careful) but that it's good for "old age" (Anne Prescott take note). The margin, meantime, has noted "Why Students in these dayes come not to such perfect knowledge as they have done in time past."
What gets me about all this is the assumption that thing used to be better than they are. Yes, professors seem to have been saying this forever. These youngsters just don't make flint arrow points like us older guys used to, I bet some elderly caveman said. You call that a hieroglyph? Why my grandfather . . . hey, kid, you been drinking that new invention called beer? Anne.

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 7:53 PM, Katherine Eggert <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
I did a quick EEBO-TCP proximity search for "student" and "drunken" and came up with one A. Marsh's "Confession of the new married couple, being the second part of the ten pleasures of marriage relating the further delights and contentments that ly mask'd under the bands of wedlock" (London, 1683). The "Eighth Pleasure" of marriage? A chapter on how "The Parents would bring up their son in their way of Trade, but he hath no mind to't. He is put to School out of the City. Grows a Scholler, commits much mischief. Is apprehended and informed what a Schollerlike life is."

It's a long chapter about all the stuff university students get up to -- drinking, gambling, writing home for money. (My favorite part is when the student sells his books and puts cleverly carved wood blocks in their places on the shelves to fool his parents and masters.) Even the studious and obedient ones turn out badly: they go to graduate school.

Peter, I'll send you an .html page with this chapter, but for my money here's the best quote: "For it hath many times hapned, that those who have been the maddest and wildest Students at the University, have afterwards come to be noble Personages, Ministers of State, and learned Doctors." Present company included, I am sure.

Katherine


Katherine Eggert
Associate Professor of English
University of Colorado
226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0226

[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>


----- Original Message -----
From: John Leonard
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: undergrad learning in early modern times


"Complaining"? The best early modern professors (just like the best late early ones) were having a drink WITH their students. The only question is: how often?

He who of those delights can judge and spare
To interpose them oft is not unwise.

John Leonard
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Herman
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: undergrad learning in early modern times


Hello,

In preparation for a meeting tomorrow on Arum and Roska’s Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, could someone supply me with a choice quote from early modern professors complaining about how their students are interested only in drinking, etc., rather than learning?

Thanks in advance,

Peter C. Herman




--
Timothy Duffy
Ph.D. Candidate
Assistant Director, UVA Writing Center
Department of English
University of Virginia