The Education of Children by Desiderius Erasmus

 Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger (1523)

In keeping with my desire to have texts (especially older texts) freely available, I have recently undertaken a modernization of an Early Modern English text found on Project Gutenberg.  This work is The Education of Children by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), a Catholic priest, theologian, social critic (and ecclesiastical critic, yet he remained in union with Rome), and humanist: his most famous work is The Praise of Folly (Moriae Encomium).  The Education of Children is not a theological or overtly Catholic work, instead being more of a long essay on Erasmus' personal opinion of the topic.  Erasmus advocates early education of children, even from infancy, decrying those who think children cannot handle much knowledge.  Among his views, he seems to advocate homeschooling or private tutoring over public schooling, and he encourages using play (such as archery) to teach.  He also sharply criticizes overly-harsh discipline and corporal punishment, instead suggesting a teaching style more akin to St. John Bosco: "Get the children to love you, and they'll follow you anywhere."

This version of the text is a modernized form of an English translation of Erasmus' original Latin by Richard Sherry (1506-1555), an English schoolteacher (at Magdalen College, Oxford), author, and translator, whose other translated works include St. Basil the Great's Letter to St. Gregory Nazianzus.  This translation was in Early Modern English, thus it is difficult to read today.  For that reason, I decided to modernize the text to make it more easily accessible (details of my modernization can be found in the "Modernizer's Note" in the file).  As an example of the vast differences in language, here is a sentence from §1, both in Sherry's English and in mine.

"Beside this some thinges be necessary to be knowẽ whẽ we be sũwhat elder, which by a certẽ peculier readines of nature, yͤ  tender age perceiueth both much more quickly, & also more esily thẽ doth yͤ elder, as yͤ first beginnings of letters, yͤ knowledge of tõges, tales & fabels of poetes."  [The e's above the y's are supposed to be superscript e's, but I cannot seem to get the processing to work.]

"Beside this some things be necessary to be known when we be somewhat elder, which by a certain peculiar readiness of nature, the tender age perceiveth both much more quickly, & also more easily than doth the elder, as the first beginnings of letters, the knowledge of tongues, tales & fables of poets."

I realize that my work is probably far from perfect, so if you find any errors, please do not hesitate to contact me (and please include the section number where the error is located).  I thank you in advance for reading this, and God Bless.

The Education of Children