Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial132dodg).pdf/16



elected High Bailiff, or Mayor, of Stratford, although he, in common with many of his fellow-burgesses, could not write his own name. He had land, too, at Snitterfield, where is father had lived; and his wife, Mary Arden, was the owner of Ashbies, the farm at Wilmcote, hard by.

But, though the parents were illiterate, they knew the value of a good education. The Free Grammar School had been refounded a few years before by Edward VI. And although there is no actual record of his school days, we may take it as certain that little Will Shakspere was sent to the Free School when about seven years old, as we know his brother Gilbert was, a little later. The old Grammar School still stands; and boys still learn their lessons in the self-same room with the high pitched roof and oaken beams, where little Will Shakspere studied his “A,B,C book,” and got his earliest notions of Latin. But during part of Shakspere’s school days the schoolroom was under repair; and boys and master—Walter Roche by name—migrated for a while to the Guild Chapel next door, And this was surely in the poet’s mind when, in later years, he talked of a “pedant who keeps a school i’ the church.”

All boys learned their Latin then from two well-known books—the “Accidence” and the “Sententi&aelig; Pueriles.” And that William was no exception to the rule we may see by translations from the latter in several of his plays, and by an account, in one of his plays, of Master Page’s examination in the “Accidence.” An old desk which came from the Grammar School and stood there in Shakspere’s time is shown at the birthplace, And when we look at it we wonder what sort of a boy little William was—whether his future greatness made a mark in any way during his school days; whether that conical forehead of his stood him in good stead as he learned his Latin Grammar; whether he was quiet and studious, or merry and mischievous; whether he hid dormice and apples and birds’ eggs in his desk, and peeped at them during school hours; whether he got into scrapes and was whipped. Just think of