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Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School

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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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SCHEMES FOR THE CLASSES OF A GRAMMAR SCHOOL (1735)

When Johnson left Oxford in December 1729, his employment prospects were bleak. How was a young man to live by his wits without a university degree? Writing and teaching were the two obvious ways, and in the beginning Johnson chose teaching. He made unsuccessful applications for teaching posts at Stourbridge, Ashbourne, Solihull, and later Appleby, but he did spend several months as an usher at Market Bosworth and just under two months as a private tutor in the household of Thomas Whitby of Great Haywood, near Lichfield. Johnson wrote to Edmund Hector of his experience at Market Bosworth that “his business was to teach Lillies Grammar to a few Boys, and it was hard to say whose difficulty was greatest[.] He to explain Nonsence, or they to understand it’’ (Correspondence, 132). Despite his dislike of teaching, fortified with funds supplied by his new bride, Johnson set out to conduct a school of his own at Edial, just outside of Lichfield.

On 25 June 1735 Johnson wrote to his friend Richard Congreve about his plans:

I am now going to furnish a House in the Country, and keep a private boarding-school for Young Gentlemen whom I shall endeavour to instruct in a method somewhat more rational than those commonly practised, which you know there is no great vanity in presuming to attempt. Before I draw up my plan of Education, I shall attempt to procure an account of the different ways of teaching in use at the most Celebrated Schools, and shall therefore hope You will favour me with the method of the Charter-house, and procure me that of Westminster.1 It may be written in a few lines by only mentioning under each class their Exercise and Authours. (Letters, I.10)

Johnson’s school opened about the beginning of 1736 (Reade, VI.32–36). The most likely period for the composition of the “Scheme for the Classes

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of a Grammar School’’ is the latter half of 1735, sometime after the date of the letter to Congreve and before the opening of the school.2

The text exists in two different versions. The first appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for April 1785 (LVII.266) with an introductory letter:

Ross, Herefordsh. Apr. 6. Mr. Urban,

I have sent you the inclosed MSS. of the late Dr. Johnson, communicated to me by a friend, a worthy and respectable clergyman, with his permission for publication. The directions were given by the Doctor at Lichfield (some time about his marriage) to a relative, and the scheme was drawn about the same period. I am, &c. S. P.3

Hawkins evidently had another manuscript and printed a different version in his Life: “By means of a paper which I have now before me,” he wrote, “I am able to furnish, what I take to have been his method or plan of institution; and, as it may be deemed a curiosity, and may serve the purpose of future instructors of youth, I here insert it” (pp. 23–24). Hawkins’s version differs most importantly in adding a few sentences. Neither Hawkins’s manuscript nor S.P.’s has been located (see Handlist I, no. 22). S.P.’s version was followed in Works 1788 (XIV.548–49) and in Boswell’s Life (I.99), as Fleeman reports (Bibliography, I.12), but the additional material from Hawkins comes in too.

At about the same period Johnson wrote a letter to his cousin Samuel Ford, directing his studies (Letters, I.11–12). This document, without a salutation or date, was printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine, directly after the “Scheme,” but separated from it by a swelled rule. Boswell omitted the rule and ran both pieces together (Life, I.99–100). Croker (I.69) saw the confusion and separated the texts (Life, I.99, n. 2). Waingrow discusses the confusion and Boswell’s other alterations of the text in Manuscript Life, I.357–65. We present the text of the first printing in the Gentleman’s Magazine followed by Hawkins’s version. The two versions overlap a good deal, but they are different enough and short enough that printing them both seemed better than recording their differences in textual notes.

Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School.

When the introduction, or formation of nouns and verbs, is perfectly mastered, let them learn Corderius by Mr. Clarke,1

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beginning at the same time to translate out of the introduction, that by this means they may learn the syntax. Then let them proceed to, Erasmus, with an English translation, by the same author.2

Class II. Learns Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin,3 with the translation.

N. B. The first class gets for their part every morning the rules which they have learned before, and in the afternoon learns the Latin rules of the nouns and verbs.

They are examined in the rules which they have learned every Thursday and Saturday.

The second class doth the same whilst they are in Eutropius; afterwards their part is in the irregular nouns and verbs, and in the rules for making and scanning verses. They are examined as the first.

Class III. Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the morning, and Cæsar’s Commentaries in the afternoon.

Part is in the Latin rules till they are perfect in them, afterwards in Mr. Leeds’s Greek Grammar.4 Examined as before.

Afterwards they proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time to write themes and verses, and to learn Greek; from thence passing on to Horace, &c. as shall seem most proper.5

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* * * * *

When the introduction or formation of nouns and verbs is perfectly mastered, the pupils learn Corderius, by Mr. Clarke; beginning at the same time to translate out of his introduction. They then proceed to Erasmus, reading him with Clarke’s translation. These books form the first class.

Class II. Read Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin with the translation. The first class to repeat by memory, in the morning, the rules they had learned before; and, in the afternoon, the Latin rules of the nouns and verbs. They are also, on Thursdays and Saturdays to be examined in the rules they have learned.

The second class does the same while in Eutropius; afterwards, they are to get and repeat the irregular nouns and verbs; and also, the rules for making and scanning verses, in which they are to be examined as the first class.

Class III. Read Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the morning, and Cæsar’s Commentaries in the afternoon. Continue the Latin rules till they are perfect in them. Proceed then to Leeds’s Greek Grammar, and are examined as before.

They then proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time to compose themes and verses, and learn Greek, and from thence pass on to Horace, Terence, and Sallust. The Greek authors afterwards read are, first, those in the Attic dialect, which are Cebes, Ælian, Lucian by Leeds,1 and Xenophon: next Homer in the Ionic, Theocritus Doric, Euripides Attic and Doric.2

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Editorial Notes

1 Richard Congreve had been a student at Charterhouse. For Congreve, see Reade, III.127–28, V.117–18, X.194–95.

2 This assumes, following Hawkins (Hawkins, Life, p. 23), that the “Scheme” is the same as the “plan of Education” mentioned in the letter to Congreve.

3 S.P. is unidentified. Fleeman (Bibliography, I.12, n. 1) conjectures Samuel Pegg, the elder, a prebendary of Lichfield (1757–96), but he only once used the initials as a signature in GM. Samuel Parr (1747–1825), scholar, schoolmaster, and author of Johnson’s epitaph in St. Paul’s, used the initials more often, but the dateline makes him unlikely. See Kuist, pp. 134–35.

1 Corderii Colloquiorum Centuria Selecta, or a Select Century of Cordery’s Colloquies, with an English Translation (York, 1718). John Clarke (1687–1734), master of Hull Grammar School, was an educational reformer. SJ used his New Grammar of the Latin Tongue (1733) to explain many grammatical terms in Dictionary. Corderius (Mathurin Cordier, 1479–1564) was the author of Colloquiorum Scholasticorum libri quatuor, which went through numerous editions, and many other books for learners.

2 John Clarke, Erasmi Colloquia Selecta: or The Select Colloquies of Erasmus. With an English Translation, as literal as possible, designed for the Use of Beginners in the Latin Tongue (Nottingham, 1720).

3 Flavius Eutropius, Roman historian of the fourth century, author of Breviarium Historiae Romae, a compendium of Roman history from the foundation of Rome to the accession of the emperor Valens in 364; Cornelius Nepos (c. 110 BCE–c. 24 BCE), author of De viris illustribus (On Famous Men), noted for its simple style. Marcus Junianus Justinus (third century CE) epitomized and moralized a lost work by Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, Historiae Philippicae et totius mundi origines et terrae situs.

4 Edward Leedes (c. 1627–1707), master of King Edward VI School, Bury St. Edmund’s, author of two books for teaching Greek: Methodus Graecam Linguam Docendi (1690) and Ad Prima Rudimenta Graecae Linguae Discenda (1693).

5 The “Scheme” ends here, followed in GM by a short, swelled rule, and the letter to Samuel Ford.

1 Cebes, an ancient Greek philosopher of Thebes (fourth century BCE), putative author of a dialogue called the “Picture” or “Tablet,” which was actually a pseudonymous work of the first or second century CE. Robert Dodsley included Robert Lowth’s version of Cebes’s work in The Preceptor (1748), along with SJ’s Vision of Theodore, which was influenced by it (see Yale, XVI.180–90). Claudius Aelianus (c. 175–c. 235) is the author of De natura animalium and Varia historia, both entertaining collections of facts and fables, written in Greek. Leedes’s edition of the second-century Greek satirist Lucian’s Dialogues was first published in 1678.

2 Ionic, Doric, and Attic are the three main dialects of ancient Greek.

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleScheme for the Classes of a Grammar School

AuthorJohnson, Samuel

Creation Date1735

Publ. DateN/A

Alt. TitleN/A

Contrib. AuthorNichols

ClassificationSubject: Grammar school; Subject: Boarding school; Subject: Education; Subject: School; Subject: Grammar; Subject: Translation; Subject: Latin; Subject: Greek; Subject: Curriculum; Subject: Teaching; Genre: Educational work; Genre: Letter

PrinterN/A

PublisherNichols

Publ. PlaceLondon

VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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