THE children's Petition: OR, A Modest Remonstrance of that intolerable grievance our Youth lie under, in the accustomed Severities of the School-discipline of this Nation. Humbly presented to the Consideration of the Parliament.  
Licenced,  
Novemb. 10, 1669. Roger L'Estrange.  
London, Printed for Richard Chiswel at the two Angels and Crown in Little-Brittain, 1669.   

The children's Petition and Remonstrance to the present Parliament.  
IT is the happy advantage of the excellent Government of this Nation, that when we lie under any oppression of general importance, we may have our recourse to this Great Council for Advice and Relief; Neither is there any end more intrinsical to such an Assembly, or any honour more .  
We the Children of this Land, who look upon ourselves as no small part of the Nation, while there is scarce any House or Family whereof we make not our share; nor our interest inconsiderable, while the good of us, as to you whose we are, is of the nearest concernment that can be; are emboldened to this humble Supplication, not so much of your pity and tenderness, as Fathers, as of the scrutiny and holiness of Censors, and a just indignation and redress of that evil, which shall appear to you, upon mature consultation.  
There is not any thing hardly of more moment in a Commonwealth, than the Education of Children, and yet is there generally nothing left more at random, and besides the public care. It is the custom ordinarily of our Schools, which being received from our Ancestors, and used upon our innocent years (that are not sensible either of our Master's vice, or our own injury) does pass uncontrolled, to commit to a person who hath got a little Greek and Latin, and nothing else perhaps to live upon, and so is chosen to the Office (without any qualification otherwise many times, either of real worth or virtuous life, it is well if it be but so much as of sobriety in age, and modest inclinations) the liberty to use such a kind of discipline over us, as that the spring-time of humane life, which in all other Creatures is left at the greatest freedom to be sweet and jocund, is deflowered and consumed with bitterness and terror, to the drying up the very sap which should nourish our Bodies, and those more lively spirits which should animate our minds in our future life, unto brave Actions.  
And if it were only the evil of our suffering we had to complain of, seeing our unadvertent Parents do give us up to this Carnage, we should bear it: But when our sufferings are of that nature as makes our Schools to be not merely houses of Correction, but of Prostitution, in this vile way of castigation in use, wherein our secret parts, which are by nature shameful, and not to be uncovered, must be the Anvil exposed to the immodest eyes, and filthy blows of the smiter; We are confounded with the horror, and could wish we had some such way, as by turning up the sole of our Shoe, (which they use, they say, among the Turks) to present to you our Grievance. For we are persuaded, if modesty will suffer the thing to be debated, it will be found certainly, to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, a matter to be adjudged amongst the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are not to be named. Ubi sunt pueri qui ingressi sunt? Fac ut prodeant, ut cognoscamus eos.  
Indeed one would think that this kind of punishment should have been first invented on purpose, that an aversation to it, as an ugly sordid and abhorrent thing, should deter ingenuous persons from inflicting it, so that nothing less than some very grievous crime should ever wring a stripe from them; but when our contrary experience does tell us how every light occasion is taken, with what appetite they come to it, as soon as the flesh is bare, these Jar-falcons are perching over us, their letting so few faults escape, and attending our construing, for the most part, no longer then till they obtain this end, we are convinced with the sad and insufferable resentment, that the invention hath been fetched originally, not from the Closet of Mercury or Astraea, but from the more powerful Goddess of Cyprus, being a certain trick of hers, to alleviate the pains and kill Crambees; the Master otherwise could never perhaps endure, if beyond the encouragement he hath in most places from the Founder, he had not this sly allowance underhand from her withal, as Benefactrix to that function.  
It is disputed against the Stoics, who condemn all anger, that some passion is necessary to the chastisement of Youth; and so is Ira defined by Lactantius, Motus animi ad coercenda peccata insurgentis. A definition indeed very fitting the profession of that Father, whose Latin doubtlessly is smother than his spirit througout his Works. Plutarch in his Tract about Cohibition of Anger, hath laid down a Rule of a contrary importance, with excellent deliberation, which is to this sense, That punishment should never be inflicted out of self-pleasing; and consequently from the examples, of that of Archytas, Vapulares nisi iratus essem, and others, when a man is at present enraged, he is first to correct his own passion, before he is fit to punish the fault of another under his intuition. To this same effect, Qui esurit is cibo utitur secundum naturam, qui punit is nulla ad hoc impelli debet cupiditate, says Seneca. Those that administer punishment, (says Cicero) are to be Legum similes, quae ad puniendum non iracundia, sed aequitate ducuntur. That is, He that is hungry, useth his meat according to Nature, but he that punishes, aught to be like the Laws themselves, that are moved to it with no sort of desire at all. Plutarch indeed speaks cleanly, imagining nothing but of the pleasure of revenge, and satiating one's anger; But what would he say of that punishment which is made to serve a viler affection? Et de virtute locuti, Clunem agitant, as Juvenal has it.  
If punishment come from self-pleasing, Then will it not be in measure; Then will it not be just; Then the punisher will be glad of a fault; Then will it be remediless to the sufferer, seeing the cause of the punishment lies in the punisher, and not in the punished to help it; Then every little occasion, or none at all, shall be enough for the inflicter to give himself pleasure. And then shall the innocent, who are little ones, and not able to conceive of this, be intolerably miserable, being brought many times almost to their wit's end, and ready to make away themselves, rather than endure the iteration of those torments, whereof they can see no reason, and wherein they can hope no end; having some cognation in this to those of Hell, that they arise from an unquenchable fire, in the appetite of the Master.  
Sir Philip Sidney, that excellent Person, in his Arcadia, hath thought good to set forth this evil to public view, and so to animadversion, we may suppose and emendation, under the person of Cecropia, dealing thus with her Neices. Cecropia (says he) employing her time in using the same cruelty on Pamela, (as on Philoclea) her heart grew not only to desire the fruit of punishing, but even to delight in punishing them. This very ingenuous Gentleman had observed, belike, this growing humour in those that use it; but having a Soul in which so foul a thought never entered, as might direct him right into the cause of it, he expresses the practice, complaining tragically of the cruelty, but searches not to that rottenness which lies farther at the core of it. Will you hear that shrewd Author of Hudibras make the discovery?  
The Pedant in the Schoolboys breeches,  
Does claw and curry his own itches.  
By this little, we need not wonder if the Tyrant of old, who being expulsed his Kingdom, got to be Master of a School, should choose that, for the more voluptuous dominion. Nor that any present Rabbis of the function in our Nation, should not, when time served, be won, to change this province, for any other, tendered to them, by the highest bounty.  
Fronti nulla fides. Quis enim non vicus abundat  
Tristibus obscaenis? Castigas turpia, cum sis  
Inter Socraticos notissima fossa Cynoedos.  
And indeed if there were not some such thing, and that this at the root, how should we meet still with such do as we do almost in all Schools? How could men, who have the face of gravity and discretion, be so highly, and so readily offended at all turns with innocent Children, as they make themselves to be? What think you? when a Boy shall be hoist perhaps at first for the missing of a word, and then be held on in the ask more questions (which fear alone shall disable him presently to answer) until he receive so many stripes, or so grievous ones, if fewer, as the Rogue who is whipped for petty-larceny, comes off very gently many times in comparison of this Lad; Who can think, if the punishment were not suffered to be on those parts, that it were like to be so much? The blood which followed any where else, could not but make the bowels yearn, and the hands relent, when the Child is so little, and the fault less. The blows could neither be so frequent or so sore, if compassion were not choked with something else. For this is the misery and plague above all, that when those appetites, which are natural, have their end, and receive a completion and redress in the attaining of that end, the appetite which is unnatural, is infinite, and it is a thing the thoughts whereof is intolerable to us, that our sufferings and smart must increase according to the ebb and flowing of those desires, which have no current this way in nature to satisfaction & a surcease. Indeed if there be need for us to be stricken, for the ease and impatience of the Master, without any profit to us, let them not be the blows of a premeditated villainy, but of his present wrath, such as a blow upon the shoulders, or a flirt on the ear sometimes may be; we shall acknowledge it but a part of due humility, and gratitude to bear with him, in recompense of his bearing so much with us: But if there be some other incentive to our beating, more insatiable than that of anger in the case, we cannot but think it high time that the matter be looked into a little better than hath been hitherto, whether indeed it be any longer to be endured in the Nation. We shall be sorry hearty, if no reward but this can be sufficient to hold the Able to this employment, yet must not any be so gratified, nor Learning itself be rated at the price of what is wicked. Dissoluti est hominis (says one of the Fathers) in rebus seriis, voluptatem quaerere.  
It is not unknown how the Jesuits govern: their Schools beyond the Seas, nor what they have delivered some of them on this matter in their cases of Conscience; Neither would it be any dishonour to us to change our customs for the better, though we borrowed them of other Countries. It cannot therefore but be a wonder to us that ever we should have Parliaments in England, wherein are so many Gentlemen of excellent parts, and ingenuous reflections, and who some of them are not so old as to forget what was unhandsome, and yet we never hear of something tendered for the regulation of Schools, and what is practised there. Is it because you can indeed remember no stories? Or, that the impressions do yet last, that you must not tell tales from thence? And why must we tell no tales of our Master or Dame? If there were no consciousness of what is ugly in the fact, what need of this privacy? Why is the Boy or Girl retired from their fellows, and why so long a preachment then made over the Bare in a Corner? The end of virtuous punishment is for example, and such symptoms as these do inform us, who indeed do most need to be amended, the Punisher or the Punished, the Punished or the punishment itself, which will be found the greatest delinquent. It may be said, There is a necessity of some castigation sometimes upon some occasion, and this is most safe, or least dangerous, that Children receive no hurt by it, and therefore is chosen and used. But this is but one thing well considered, and those that look but on one thing in their deliberation upon what is to be done, are easily misled into a wrong or shallow determination. There is more than this one thing in so momentous a matter, as the institution of Youth, to come under consideration. You may easily provide for our security, that no bones be broken, and yet without the neglect of honesty and virtue.  
In truth, it is a Question rather worthy the most mature deliberation, whether Children should ever be beaten at all about their Books. That chastisement is fit for this Age upon desert, we deny not, and the holy Scripture asserts: But as that is a chastisement which is meet, so is it we suppose to be for sin, or some moral fault. The understanding will never be enlightened, the memory healed, or the invention quickened by stripes upon the flesh. There are many dulled, we are sure; many discouraged, and some that have been undone by this means. Quintilian, that most famous Institutor of Youth, though he would have Lads brought up hard, to be able to endure any thing, as the lying on boards, eating the coursest far, and the like, yet is herein express; Coedi vero discentes quamquam receptum sit, & Chrysippus non improbet minimè vellem. But by no means (says he) would I have those that learn, to be beaten, notwithstanding it is so commonly used. There are these Reasons he renders; In the first place, It is a servile thing that becomes only slaves or bruits, and so unworthy of any that are freeborn, and much less such who are the Sons of Gentlemen and Nobles. Besides that, if you change the consideration of the Age, for the most part it is most manifest injury and wrong. In the next place, If there be any whose disposition is so illiberal, as that it will not be amended by reproof and ingenuous notices, it is to be expected it should become but the worse for blows, and grow the more obdurate. In the third place, There will be no need of castigation, if the Master be so diligent as he ought, to see the task which he sets to be done, by his own sedulity and inspection. Nunc ferè negligentia paedagogorum sic emendari videtur, ut pueri non facere quae recta sunt cogantur, sed cur non fecerint puniantur. That is, The matter now a-days is ordinarily so carried, the Boy is beaten to make amends for his Master's carelessness and sloth. Add unto this, that there is many times a hared brain, a stammering tongue, or the like very grievous ill habit or gesture introduced through terror; or there may be, at least, according to this same Author, some deformed passages, or uncouth words, which do fall from, or happen to those that are beating, which leave such impressions of shame and surprise on the more ingenuous and bashful, that no advantage which can be obtained by any Master, is able to recompense the mischief already suffered, if it be only in the debasing the Spirit, and rendering themselves vile in their own imaginations. Above all, in the last place, he has these words; Jam si minor in deligendis custodum & Praeceptorum moribus fuit cura, pudet dicere in quae probra nefandi homines isto coedendi jure abutantur. Non morabar in parte hac, nimium est quod intelligitur. We will not English this last of his Reasons, because it is the very fore upon which we touch, and the rise of this Address; only thus far, It is too much already (says he) which is understood.  
The habitation of the Muses are fancied by the Poets to be Amoena Loca, pleasant Groves, delightful Hills, crystal Fountains, where Joy, and Gladness, and the Graces dwell. And what is it these signify? Hath their Parnassus, and such fictions, no meaning? Is it the steep toil only Learning requires in those that will climb to it, or the refreshing prospect they intent by it to entice us up? What is it the Ancients here would represent? Are their high Hills nothing indeed but Difficulty, and their Groves Birch? Is Helicon the Boys Tears, and Pegasus the blind Horse? Alas, that when we should be invited to Learning, as to a Banquet, a pleasant Feast, and the desire of our Souls, it is presented to us never but in torment and dread! Alas, that the Muses should be put thus in the shape of Erinys, and Thalia's Lute-strings be made to yield no Sounds but Screeches and Cries? That when we go to School, we should be driving to the Shambles; when we go to our Books, we should be carrying unto pains. Et ubi tor quentur, jam non membra, sed vulnera, in Cyprians expression. Alas! how wide must the World needs be here, to think that Children, in their tender Nature, should be made to love that (and who would not have Children love their Books?) which is never offered them but with hate? You should embitter to us our pleasure, and our sin that will do us hurt; but you should sugar to us our learning, which is for our good. The Nurse should never put Wormwood on that Breast from which she would not have the Child to be weaned. We read of Marcus Portius, in the Roman Story, who established a Law, That no Roman Citizen should be beaten by the Magistrate with Rods. He should be a Tribune of the People by our Vote, that could prefer a Lex Porcia in our Schools, and some Work-houses, where poor Children are employed, in this Nation. If Solomon will have the Boys beaten, and the Maids beaten, let it be with a Wand, or such a way as becomes the Virtuous, as well as the Severe. If Solomon will name a Rod too, it is a Rod for the Back: Let it be a chaste stripping; but what need is there for making the Child good, to have the Master made naught? Solomon's Corrections are spoken to Parents, which he advises too toward Children for their faults, and not Masters for their Books; Furthermore we have bad Parents (says the Apostle) that have chastened us after their own pleasure; signifying, that we are yet to be in subjection as to them; but if we have Masters that do so, it is a thing to be abhorred, seeing God does not, and the Good consequently should not, correct any but only, for their profit. Especially seeing moreover, Quod aetatem infirmam & injuriae obnoxiam (as the aforesaid Quintilian farther has it) nemini debet nimium licere.  
It is a thing here orderly worth the enquiry, what that power the Master hath over his Scholars is, and whence he hath it? All power we must know is either natural, or derived. The power of the Master is not of Nature; For what hath one man of himself to do with the Child of another? The power which is derived, is either Supreme, or Subordinate. The Supreme Authority, is that which lies in the chief Magistrate, whether it be derived to him immediately from God, as in this state; or by consent of the people, as in some others. The Subordinate Power, is that which is derived from the Supreme to the inferior Officers, who act in his Name, and from his Authority. The power of the Master now is no such power neither, deriving from the Magistrate, or the Laws of the Nation; for he acts not over the Boys in the King's Name, as the Justice and the Constable, and the like Officers do. What then is this adventitious strange power? Why, this power the Master hath over the Scholar, is that right of ruling him, which is given him by the Father. It is no power therefore Supreme, but Subordinate; and not natural, but derived from that which is natural; and consequently is no other, nor no more, or to any other purpose, than what the Parents do allow him. If a Father therefore shall commit his Child to a School for Learning, but shall not give the Master leave to strike him, or if he does, yet not use this sort of coercion upon him for the reasons mentioned, The Master cannot serve any such Child in this said fashion, but he is unjust; not to say also what is worse, because he usurps an authority, he hath not committed to him, and so is accountable both before God and Man for such an action. Let not him that is unjust be unjust still; let not him that is filthy, be still filthy.  
Not that we intent by this, to diminish the least tittle of that reverence which is due to our Masters. For when we derive their Authority from this Fountain, we do think it a part of the piety we own to God and our Parents, to render honour to their Persons, and obedience to their Instructions.  
Dii Majorum umbris, tenuem & sine pondere terram,  
Spirantesque crocos, & in urna perpetuum ver,  
Qui praeceptorem sancti voluere parantis  
Esse loco.—  
It is our Parents, we know, from whom we derive our being in the World; and it is our Masters many times to whom we own our more happy being, in regard of that shape and fashion wherein they cast us for the serving our Generation, or living more to purpose in it. There is not therefore any veneration or gratitude we can pay them, nor any gifts or gratuities according to their abilities from our Friends, no nor any Revenues that have been bestowed on some Schools by the pious Erectors of them, which we think too much for the care and labour of any such men who are but a little faithful in this charge. We humbly think it were good that the stipends and emoluments of Masters were augmented. But there is a certain payment which they give, and not receive; a salacious pay of theirs, which they take of us, and not from us, whereof we crave an abatement; and about which, as neither worthy nor: innocent, or at least whether it be so or no, according to the common usage of it, we are willing to come to some account or argument with them.  
One Boy hath happily a good understanding and no memory; Another hath a ready memory and no judgement; A third hath neither memory nor judgement. The Boy whose memory is quick, looks over his Lesson once or twice, and goes to play; the other two ply their Book as hard as they can, and are not able to get it. The Master comes now and puts the Boy who follows his play, to say his Part, he says it, and so passes: The other two cannot say for their lives, and are beaten. Here is Nature in these Lads, and no fault punished. If the Boy who has the memory, had been put on some other task requiring pains and judgement, he should have suffered, and one of the other escaped. Thus Fortune, not desert, is encouraged or reproved. And what if the Master, who knows the difference of their abilities, shall purposely set each of them to such tasks, unto which he knows their parts most defective; how easy is it for him, as often as he is willing, to serve himself of any of them? Let us yet press this a little farther, It is the custom of some Schools, or rather of some Masters, to set their Boys a Law, That if we miss such a number of words, as suppose just three words, we must be certain of what follows: And herein must they appear very righteous men to us, that they impartially execute their own rule, and none be spared. Now what unreasonable deal are these with us? For one Boy to answer but three words in the whole, and miss all the rest, is more than for another to answer all the rest, and miss but three words. What is it whether a Boy miss three words, or thirteen? It is his care or negligence, his diligence or disobedience is to be regarded. It is the Will and Endeavour which alone renders him culpable or blameless. And what shall we judge then of such School Edicts as these, but that either the Master is one that follows others in his Methods without discretion, or that these Rules of such who do invent, or execute the same, are but fine Devices to give themselves opportunity under the pretence of justice, (which will go among the Boys) to satisfy those inclinations, which the tribe of these men, for aught we see generally, (if they be still suffered) are sure to catch (as fast as we Boys that come but together, do our itch) of one another.  Uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab Uva. 
There are no persons of innocent apprehensions, who see a Master taken with their Child, as more pretty, sprack, and ingenuous than others, can but be apt to think, that sure this Master who so likes that Child, will be joth to beat him. But when we that come to School together, shall see this Lad taken out by his Master, and have about half a dozen, or half a score lashes given him, by authority of that sentence, Non castigo to quod odio habeam, sed quod amem, rung in his ear, with repetition of the Quod amem, at every lash; What shall we think of such liking? When these lashes farther shall be with a Weapon of that length and sharpness, as when the Boy is set down, he is made so raw, that he is not able to sit, what shall we think of these Quod amem's, in the Lashers Mouth? And what then if the reason be enquired for this, there be nothing found, but only a Head perhaps uncombed, a Band not put on aright, a word or two missing in his Part, a pair of Stockings down at knees, or a Shoe that hath taken dirt. Certainly if this be the effect of the Master's greater affection, how well were it for any of the rest (so long as it would but make him thereby, not to endure to meddle with them) to be rather the Objects of his utter detestation and hate? Here is a love towards Children, like that indeed of a Cannibal toward humane flesh. Here are Butchers, unto whom our Parents should send their Calves to be flayed, rather than Masters, unto whom they should send their Children to be instructed, and corrected with moderation. It may be perhaps a lighter matter in some others of this Robe, who many times have taken up a company of us, as we do Points, by the dozen, only to make themselves merry, to divert their thoughts, or catch them a heat; and so long as they do it but gently and indifferently, and with innocence otherwise, we may be apt to think little of it, when there is a difference to be made as to the affection and execution of what kind it comes. It may be only of laughter, or of wrath, or of something else. For what is that concupiscence in humane nature, which is depraved and foul? What that vile thing (if we may call Evil, Evil, as we do Fire, Fire, in its own name, when we would get it quenched) which men call Lechery in any, but an unclean Curiosity, that is, A desire of knowing what is hidden, to wit, the pleasures, the secrets of another; and so intermeddling with those parts which nature and shame have retired, and should be fore ever kept accordingly, but that the desperately busy iniquity of man's heart, can leave nothing free from the contamination of itself with it? And what reason is there then to have this Discipline of our Schools supervised, that our Correctors, and their Rules, may be corrected; That our Teachers may be taught to be better. Away with such do from among us, which are so vile and brutish! Let the Horses be slashed with a Whip to be learned to draw; Let the Dogs be beaten with your Cudgel, to teach them to crouch, or lie down: But let Children be instructed in learning of their Books, by those means as are suitable to Creatures endued with understanding; and those Seeds of Reason as are sprouting out, and aught to be suckled with a tender cultivation. It is a preposterous course doubtless, that Children should be, as it were, supposed all born mad, and so sent to School only as to Bedlam, to be made sober by cruel handling; Minimum sanè libêre, istum decet, cui tantum licet.  
As for the training up of Children to virtue and good literature; it is beyond doubt a noble thing in its own nature, and might be an employment of grandeur, for the most nobly born and qualified, the most generous minds, and bravest spirits; and none else should be admitted to so excellent a service for the Commonwealth, were it not for these barbarous customs, as being received of some degenerate Nations (in so  methods of teaching, and this sordid way of punishing) have dishonoured that Profession, and rendered the Schoolmaster by so filthy a practice (unto which yet use doth ordinarily reconcile him) an office no more hallowed, then that of the Roman Lictor, or Beadle in other Nations. Not but there have been some Masters of that ingenuity and modesty, as they could never once find in their hearts to use this sort of punishment to any that ever they brought up; Nor but there are some others who have taken up the common usage without reflection, and their hearts cannot reproach them, that they have ever exercised it from any instigation whereof they should be ashamed, but only out of Righteousness for their Scholar's sake altogether, in the amendment of their manners, or quickening them in their Books. These are such, cujus praecordia ex meliore luto finxit Titan, and consequently such, as we have too much reason and experience to convince us, they are not the most. We dare not condemn a whole Generation of men that have used this practice, but we must condemn the practice, because if all be not, so many are, abused with it. And in regard that young men ordinarily, who are in the heat of their blood, as of their parts (which if it were not for this dark allowance, and the effects of it, were for the fleshing them in the Greek and Latin a few years, a thing most adviseable) are received to the office; We cannot but believe it a dangerous permission, which brings men's corruption, and temptation so unheedfully together; knowing too sensibly, how some persons corruption leads them into temptation, and some persons temptation into corruption.  
— Ita ingenium est omnium  
Hominum, a labour proclive ad libidinem.  
It is indeed but a folly and presumption for men to take on them an office, which they have not ability to manage. That employment will be unprofitable, those men uneasy. There are several abilities must go to make a man a perfect faculty to breed up Scholars; among the which, these two are the chiefest, a temperate Mind, and unwearied Diligence. That person, who by sweetness and gentleness, or by the gravity of his deportment and countenance; or else by prudence and contrivance, is not able to awe and keep a company of Youth in obedience, without violence and stripes, should judge himself no more fit for that Function, then if he had no skill in the Latin and Greek; and such should never be admitted to this charge, by those who have the nomination or election. For when we would have it looked upon as a dignity (which was now said) or a matter of honour, (as really it is) like the being sent into a Province, for a man to be esteemed so prudent, so virtuous, so worthy as to be chosen Praefect of the Children of a Town, in his admittance into a public School, and made Ruler over a hundred, over fifties, and over ten; We cannot but desire, that thing may be suffered no longer, which does bring it in dishonour; And that, as there may be an Inscription now set up to that Person (like to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Rome) who hath but discharged this Office virtuously; so may it be as rare a thing for the future, to find any that do otherwise, or whose Acts are ever any more unbecoming ingenuity and learning.  
Our Schools, we know in the Latin, are called Ludi, Ludi Literarii, and our Masters, Ludi Magistri. From hence we may take the indication, that the erudition of Children, among the wiser Ancients, was thought best to be carried on in the way of Sport and Exercise. As the young men went to their Games to get the Garland in the exercise of their strength, the Children were to go to their Books to exercise their wits. There would be no need of the Parents solicitude, or the Masters stir pes, to bring the Child to his learning; if the Methods of it were cast into that mould, as should make all their Lessons appear only as so many Plays and Recreations, from which they should be kept oftentimes as by the reins, to raise their minds into more earnestness, rather than be spurred, as we are commonly, and galled only to the same. Let the Boys be set a running, as it were, with one another, in getting without Book; Let them be set a wrestling, in Construing and Parsing; Let them in the whole business of the School, be cheerfully striving with themselves and fellows in understanding, who shall excel, and wear the Wreath of their Master's commendation. If any Boy shall be negligent, or do unworthily, le him be turned out of the School to Trap in the Fields, or to Ninepins in the Streets, amongst those rude and illiterate Boys who are no Scholars; being made to account so heavily of that, as to know his total exclusion, were indeed the extremest punishment. But if any are diligent, and deserve encouragement, let them not only be admitted to higher degrees of exercise, but to some more intimate converse of their Master in reading of History, or other delightful studies; which he should so illustrate and apply, as may both tend to their progress in knowledge, and fashioning their spirits to honour & virtue. It is not the Boys warm Bed, or Breakfast, not the necessaries of his Meat & Drink, no not his Balls and Bounding-stones, his Top and his Bandy, would be so delicious to him, as the time he was thus suffered to be with his Master, if our Schools were but so ordered, as every where they should be, that the matters there performed, were made to become in effect only the Boys Olympics, or so many Games of the Muses, unto which they had recourse for their delight and glory.  
Not that when we writ this, it may be ever expected any thing in this World should immediately be perfect. There will be some Masters, and some Boys bad enough; and there may be some faults, which not only deserve, but are fit to receive exemplary Correction. Let that chastisement therefore, which is tolerated in our Schools, have an ingenuous administration. Let no Child at any time be punished in the Master's heat or passion; If it be a fault now, it will be so an hour hence; if it appear not a crime to morrow, it was not so heinous as he thought it to be yesterday. Let the Boy then undergo a solemn kind of Judicature; If it were by a form of the same Boys as Assessors together with their Master, it were but like the Lacedaemonian Institution of their Youth, whereof the chief point lay in this, To enable them to judge aright of the Good and Evil, or of what was praiseworthy, and what to be condemned, in humane Conversation. Whatsoever the Criminal can allege for himself, by way of justification, or extenuation of his Fact, it ought to be heard both with patience and candour. If his Fault may be forgiven, without prejudice to the rest by the impunity, it were best: If not, Let the Doublet be plucked off, and that part which may chastely lie naked, be stripped; Let the number of stripes, according to the merits of his delinquency, be allotted, and the Boy brought before the face of his Master for seeing just execution. This is after the manner of the Hebrew Judgement, The Malefactor was to lie down before the Judge, and so receive the stripes he appointed. Let one of the vilest Boys then, he that hath behaved himself worst of any that day in the School, be picked out for Executioner; which may serve for a shame and admonition to him, as for his fellows suffering. If the Master will do it himself, it shall be reckoned only to the severity of his virtue; for so long as he may not lay his stripes any more on those parts which stir his original corruption, and he stays still the passing of Judgement, till he is calm in the point of Indignation, there will be no fear any farther of those extremities which have been used: But we should see how cool these men would become to the Work for hereafter, unto which they are to be led only by Righteousness, and not by affection. For if there be not now twenty and twenty faults of ours observed or made by them, to bring us under their unclean stripes, unto one, that they would judge then worthy of their just severity in a slow and chaste punishment, we dare forfeit the benefit of this Petition.  
We must confess, we are perhaps too much engaged in our own Cause. We find not these lines flow from us, neither carelessly, nor very easily, but with solicitude and much reflection. We know the attempt is singular and momentous. The issue we know not. The Tempers, Judgements, Affections and Resentments of People, are various; and many will make a matter of jest, the most but a talk, of that which others will lay to heart. The Lord Almighty, who knows the thoughts of all, and their Actions, and what is Good or Evil in the Earth; doth know what need there is of such a Suit. We have many times had our apprehensions filled with terror, our mouths with crying, and our eyes with tears for the present smart which hath vanished; but the abiding evil upon such Acts, (or many such) when they are done, and the allowance of the same, does affect us with apprehensions of another rank. It does afflict us really, that there should be so much obliquity in humane nature, that is, that there should be so much corruption as there is, in the World (according to Saint Peter) through lust. It afflicts us much more, that the seeds of the same corruption which is practised in the Earth, should not be unsown in our own hearts. We are grieved at our very souls, that a thing so holy as the Discipline of Children, and the Correction of them ought to be, should by any means be liable to abuse, and much more to be made a procurer to vice. We are grieved yet, that this evil more particularly, having a root more deep perhaps in the flesh than is seen, and through the toleration and use, appearing under the show of Good, or palliated at least so, as to remain undiscerned; it is so hard for any to come ever to a meet repentance about the same. And that which adds to this, is, That if some of our more sagacious Friends become sensible of somewhat by our complaints, and so send for, or go to our Masters to reprove what is amiss; they are not able to call the thing by its name, but in modesty speaking a little against their over-rigour, or the like, they leave the beam untouched; and so the person, for want of plainer rebuke, is but the rather hardened by it; Which, if the living in the least sin with full consent of will unto death, be a matter so dangerous as all hold, must be of a consequence no less than damnable to them, who make it so deplorable to us.  
These premises therefore considered, we cannot but make our appeal, in this sixteenth Century, and seventieth approaching Year of the Christian World, (seeing it hath not been done before) to the Heads of our Nation now Assembled, and to Caesar, against this Obscaenum triste (if we may use juvenal's expression) which hath been mentioned. That is, We humbly implore the Higher Powers, that this impure practice, which hath continued in our Schools hitherto, without control or detection, (unless what hath been private only) may come under public censure, and consequently prohibition, and extermination; as a thing, if examined in the source and effects of it, not only what all know it, Malum triste, but Malum turpe, and an iniquity to be punished by the Judges. Et fecit Asa quod rectum videbatur in oculis Jehovae, nam abstulit moritorios è terra, & amovit Deos stercoreos quos fecerant majores sui.  
FINIS.