Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/174

154 Eton master. One of his boy pupils has recorded his miseries in verse:

But no mercy was forthcoming from those who had charge of the young. In vain Ascham pleads for gentleness and kindness in teaching children: "Learning is robbed of her best wits by the great beating," he cries sadly. Education was certainly not made attractive to the little grammar-school boys of these days. The tolling of a bell summoned him to school at 6 a.m. As the maids of the household were supposed to rise at three, presumably he had some breakfast of sorts—perhaps bread and ale—before he started, for he stayed at school till eleven. The school itself, we are told, was like a prison or dungeon, cold and bleak, bare and ugly; and here the boy spent another four hours from one to five. Holidays were always the same. They began on the