I
confess, my lord, they will seem but petty and minute things I shall
offer to you, being writ for children, and of them. But studies
have their infancy as well as creatures. We see in men even the
strongest compositions had their beginnings from milk and the
cradle; and the wisest tarried sometimes about apting their mouths
to letters and syllables. In their education, therefore, the care
must be the greater had of their beginnings, to know, examine, and
weigh their natures; which, though they be proner in some children
to some disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all by
degrees, and with change. For change is a kind of refreshing in
studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence the
school itself is called a play or game, and all letters are so best
taught to scholars. They should not be affrighted or deterred in
their entry, but drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth
should not be made to hate study before he know the causes to love
it, or taste the bitterness before the sweet; but called on and
allured, entreated and praised--yea, when he deserves it not. For
which cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, which
I think the best.
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