Erasmus

=Erasmus 1469-1536 = Founded St. Paul’s School (where Milton went). When Henry VIII closed monasteries, he shut down the entire English educational system. In addition, the monasteries were the only medical facilities for poor and only social help for the poor. They needed a new educational system and St. Paul’s School, already in existence, became the pattern for all of English public education. The monastic schools were old-fashioned. 1540 Edward V School (where Shakespeare went)
 * Early part of humanism –education as social democracy (1500). Mastering Erasmus’ curriculum was guaranteed upward mobility – a way to break social class barriers. Goal of school to product preachers (who give good sermons) and courtiers (who give good advice and write good letters)
 * Erasmus – writing gives you eloquence. Erasmus never gets past the writing. He is still writing speeches, speaking on paper, because this is how ingrained oral is in the rhetorical tradition, but he written speeches never make it to oral performance.
 * Models will make you virtuous especially when combined with the hard work and discipline of learning languages.
 * How to be a prudential advisor to person in power?
 * Imitation is the secret to Erasmian pedagogy – originality is not good; sounding like someone else is good. Follow the pattern.
 * Erasmus’ works were funny (//De Pronuncione //). He wrote the colloquies – the texts for school students, the anthology of Latin books for everyone 1525-1800, and they are hilariously funny – for teenage boys. He made a fortune. These are his books on manners.
 * Commonplace books – students wrote down stuff they thought would be useable – Erasmus created a colossal digest of quotes from everywhere organized by topic – //The Addagia // – thousands of quotes by topic (alphabetical order not developed yet)