Roger Ascham - Publications and Influence

Publications and Influence

Ascham himself cultivated music, acquired fame and a beautiful handwriting, and lectured on mathematics. Before 1540, when the Regius professorship of Greek was established, Ascham "was paid a handsome salary to profess the Greek tongue in public," and held also lectures in St John's College. He obtained from Edward Lee, then Archbishop of York, a pension of £2 a year, in return for which Ascham translated Oecumenius' Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles. But the archbishop, scenting heresy in some passage relating to the marriage of the clergy, sent it back to him, with a present indeed, but with something like a reprimand, to which Ascham answered with an assurance that he was "no seeker after novelties", as his lectures showed.

Ascham's first published work, Toxophilus ("Lover of the Bow") in 1545, was dedicated to Henry VIII. In the summer of 1544, he told Sir William Paget a work was in the press, "on the art of Shooting". The topic was no doubt suggested partly by the act of parliament 33 Henry VIII. c. q, "an acte for mayntenaunce of Artyllarie and debarringe of unlawful games", requiring every one under sixty, of good health, the clergy, judges, &c., excepted", to use shooting in the long bow", and fixing the price at which bows were to be sold. The objects of the book are twofold, to commend the practice of shooting with the long bow as a manly sport and an aid to national defence, and to set the example of a higher style of composition than had yet been attempted in English. Ascham presented the book to Henry VIII at Greenwich soon after his triumphant return from the capture of Boulogne, and promptly received a grant of a pension of £10 a year.

A novelty in that the author had "written this Englishe matter in the Englishe tongue for Englishe men", though he thought it necessary to defend himself by the argument that what "the best of the realm think it honest to use" he "ought not to suppose it vile for him to write". Toxophilus was the first book on archery in English. The work is a Platonic dialogue between Toxophilus and Philologus, and nowadays its chief interest lies in its incidental remarks. It may probably claim to have been the model for Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler.

From 1541, or earlier, Ascham acted as letter-writer to the university and also to his college. Perhaps the best specimen of his skill was the letter written to the protector Somerset in 1548 on behalf of Sedbergh School, which was attached to St John's College by the founder, Dr Lupton, in 1525, and the endowment of which had been confiscated under the Chantries Acts. In 1546 Ascham was elected public orator by the university on Sir John Cheke's retirement. Shortly after the beginning of the reign of Edward VI, Ascham made public profession of Protestant opinions in a disputation on the doctrine of the Mass, begun in his own college and then removed for greater publicity to the public schools of the university, where it was stopped by the vice-chancellor. Thereon Ascham wrote a letter of complaint to Sir William Cecil. This stood him in good stead.

In 1563 Ascham began the work The Scholemaster, published posthumously in 1570, which has made him famous. The occasion of it was, he tells us (though he is perhaps merely imitating Boccaccio), that during the "great plague" at London in 1563 the court was at Windsor, and there on 10 December he was dining with Sir William Cecil, secretary of state, and other ministers. Cecil said he had "strange news; that divers scholars of Eaton be run away from the schole for fear of beating"; and expressed his wish that "more discretion was used by schoolmasters in correction than commonly is". A debate took place, the party being pretty evenly divided between floggers and anti-floggers, with Ascham as the champion of the latter. Afterwards Sir Richard Sackville, the treasurer, came up to Ascham and told him that "a fond schoolmaster" had, by his brutality, made him hate learning, much to his loss, and as he had now a young son, whom he wished to be learned, he offered, if Ascham would name a tutor, to pay for the education of their respective sons under Ascham's orders, and invited Ascham to write a treatise on "the right order of teaching". The Scholemaster was the result.

It is not, as might be supposed, a general treatise on educational method, but "a plaine and perfite way of teachyng children to understand, write and speake in Latin tong"; and it was not intended for schools, but "specially prepared for the private brynging up of youth in gentlemen and noblemens houses.” The perfect way simply consisted in "the double translation of a model book"; the book recommended by this professional letter-writer being "Sturmius' Select Letters of Cicero." As a method of learning a language by a single pupil, this method might be useful; as a method of education in school nothing more deadening could be conceived. The method itself seems to have been taken from Cicero; it was not new. Nor was the famous plea for gentleness and persuasion instead of coercion in schools, which has been one of the main attractions of the book. It was being practised and preached at that very time by Christopher Jonson (ca. 1536-1597) at Winchester; had been enforced at length by Wolsey in his statutes for his Ipswich College in 1528, following Robert Sherborne, bishop of Chichester, in founding Rolleston school; and had been repeatedly urged by Erasmus and others, to say nothing of William of Wykeham himself in the statutes of Winchester College. But Ascham's was the first definite demonstration of humanity in the vulgar tongue and in an easy style and a well-known "educationist," though not one who had any experience as a schoolmaster. What largely contributed to its fame was its picture of Lady Jane Grey, whose love of learning was due to her finding her tutor a refuge from pinching, ear-boxing and bullying parents; some exceedingly good as criticisms of various authors, and a spirited defence of English as a vehicle of thought and literature, of which it was itself an excellent example. The book was not published till after Ascham's death, which took place on 23 December 1568, owing to a chill caught by sitting up all night to finish a New Year's poem to the queen.

His letters were collected and published in 1576, and went through several editions, the latest at Nuremberg in 1611; they were re-titled by William Elstob in 1703. His English works were edited by James Bennett, with a life by Dr Johnson in 1771, reprinted in 1815. Dr Giles in 1864-1865 published in 4 vols. select letters from the Toxophilus and Scholemaster and the life by Edward Grant. The Scholemaster was reprinted in 1571 and 1589. It was edited by the Rev. J Upton in 1711 and in 1743, by Prof. JEB Mayor 1863, and by Prof. Edward Arber in 1870. The Toxophilus was published in 1571, 1589 and 1788, and by Prof. Edward Arber in 1868 and 1902.

Ascham School is located in Sydney, Australia and was named after Roger Ascham.