8-3Education

What Was Education and School like in Elizabeth England? //Answer prepared by Jake W.//

Elizabethan England was incredibly different from England today. Almost everything you can think of was different including schools and education. Schools generally only had boys. Girls and noble children were most likely homeschooled. The goal of schooling was to get through university, the highest level of schooling. Schooling began in petty school which came before grammar school. In petty school, students learn to read and write in English and do sums, but the main idea was to get into grammar school. The petty school was often run by a young wife who taught the local children in her home for little money. After they advanced through Petty school, they would advance to grammar school. The main study of grammar school was Latin grammar. Any other subject was used to illustrate the grammar. Grammar school was used to prepare students for university. In the university, all courses are conducted in Latin. Also, music, modern languages and science were irrelevant. Private schools had some similarities and differences compared to public schools.

Private schools were for noble children and girls. Noble children were just about always taught by a private tutor while girls just learned at home through their family. Noble children were taught French, Latin, writing, and cosmography. Girls were usually just taught a little arithmetic and reading. Even though noble children and girls were both educated at home, the level of education that the noble children received was astonishingly more thorough than that of normal girls. Both noble children and public school children learned latin. Latin was the language of international affairs, and men of affairs were expected to be able to communicate in it or employ someone who does. To have a successful work life or business, you needed to know latin. It was the official language of Elizabethan England. This changed over Shakespeare’s lifetime, though. Latin would fall to English as the official language of Elizabethan England before Shakespeare passed away. Another similarity between these two types of schools was the schedule and they both had time for prayer. A normal day lasted from six or seven in the morning to five or five-thirty in the evening. Clearly, school in Elizabethan England differs greatly from today. Works Cited: = "What Every Schoolboy knows." //life in elizabeth england: a compendium of common knowledge//. 27 Mar. 2008. 15 Apr 2009 []. = = "Elizabethan Education." __William Shakespeare__. 2005. 27 Mar 2009 <[and-education.htm] =