Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/358

 338 Hijlory of Domejiic Manners CHAPTER XV. EDUCATION. LITERARY MEN AND SCRIBES. PUNISHMENTS^ THE STOCKS; THE GALLOWS. I PUT together in a fliort chapter two parts of my fubje6t which may at the lirft glance feem fomewhat difcordant, but which, I think, on further confideration, will be found to be rather clofely related — they are, education and punilliment for offences againft the law. It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that, as education becomes more general and better regulated, if the necellity of puniiliment is not entirely taken away, its cruelty is greatly diminiflied. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there was certainly a general feeling of the necellity of extending and improving education. It was during this period that our great univerfities rofe into exiftence, and flourifhed, and thefe fchools, which provided for the higher develop- ment of the mind, had their thoufands of ftudents, inftead of the hundreds who frequent them at the prefent day. But the need of fome provilion for education was felt moll: in regard to that lefs elevated degree of inftru6tion which was required for the more youthful mind, — in fa£l, it was long before the people of the middle ages could be perfuaded that literary education was of any ufe at all, except for thofe who were to be made great fcholars ; the clergy itfelf, unfortunately, did not fee the neceflity of popular education, and although the fchools in parifli churches were long continued, they appear to have been conduced more and more with negligence. It was the mercantile clafs in the towns which made the firft ftep in advance, by the eftablifhment of thofe foundations which have continued to the prefent time under the name of grammar fchools. Thefe fchools are traced back to the thirteenth century, when the mer- chant