Typical Education During Shakespeare's Time Research (Research Paper Sample)

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Education during Shakespeare’s time
William Shakespeare, the great English poet, lived during a remarkable era in the history of England. It was a time of comparative political stability just before and after eras of widespread upheaval. In 1558, Elizabeth 1 took over the mantle as the Queen of England, just six years before Shakespeare was born. In the course of her reign that lasted 45 years, London became a commercial and cultural center where literature and learning thrived. This essay looks at what typical education was like in Shakespeare’s day.
During Shakespeare’s time, education was generally for boys from the middle or upper class families. However, some upper class girls also received some education, mostly those of the nobility. Often, such girls were only educated at home either by a private tutor or by their parents, depending on how wealthy the family was. According to Pritchard (192), they were allowed to go to ‘petty school’, which was at the time the most elementary school. The girls would attend this school from the ages of between five and seven years, but were not allowed to go to ‘grammar school’ or higher institutions like the university.
For boys to start their education, they first had to attend petty schools. These schools were also known as ‘Dame Schools’ because they were usually run by well-educated housewives. In these schools, the children aged between 5 and 7 were taught what was then considered the most vital lessons during childhood; reading and writing English, lessons of behavior, and learning the catechism. Among the first lessons that the boys learnt were the rudiments of Latin using a Tudor textbook called ‘Lily’s Latin Grammar’. This brief introduction to grammar and education had been compiled by William Lily, and had been allowed by Henry VIII as the only Latin grammar textbook to be used in schools for education (Karp & Gert, 281).
While at school, the pupils utilized a hornbook and the alphabet as a tool as well as the basis for Elizabethan education. The hornbook was a wooden paddle on which a parchment of the alphabet was stuck, or anything else that was used for learning. An animal horn would then be used to cover the paddle as a form of protection against wear. During the Elizabethan time, the alphabet only had 24 letters unlike the modern alphabet which has 26. In the alphabet, ‘U’ and ‘V’ were similar to ‘I’ and ‘J’.
According to Griffiths (98), a typical day at school began at 6.00am and ended at 5.00pm; a rather long day for children. Discipline was enforced strictly, with punishments often involving beatings. Boys usually studied vocabulary and Latin grammar in the lower levels of education; while they concentrated on the prose and poetry of writers like Martial, Catullus and Ovid. The...