ps a school i' the church."

All boys learned their Latin then from two well-known books--the
"Accidence" and the "Sententiae Pueriles." And that William was no
exception to the rule we may see by translations from the latter in
several of his plays, and by an account, in one of his plays, of Master
Page's examination in the "Accidence." An old desk which came from the
Grammar School and stood there in Shakspere's time is shown at the
birthplace. And when we look at it we wonder what sort of a boy little
William was--whether his future greatness made a mark in any way during
his school days; whether that conical forehead of his stood him in good
stead as he learned his Latin Grammar; whether he was quiet and
studious, or merry and mischievous; whether he hid dormice and apples
and birds' eggs in his desk, and peeped at them during school hours;
whether he got into scrapes and was whipped. Just think of Shakspere
getting a whipping! No doubt he often did. Masters in those days were
not greater, but rather less, respecters of persons than they are now,
and they believed very firmly in the adage which is going out of
fashion, that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. So we may think of
little Will Shakspere coming out of the Grammar School and passing the
old Guild Chapel and the Falcon Inn with two little red fists crammed
into two little red and streaming eyes, and going home to mother Mary in
Henley street to be comforted and coddled and popped down on the settle
in the wide chimney corner, with some dainty, dear to the heart of small
boys who got into trouble three hundred years ago just as they do now.
Let us hope his cake was not like one he describes as "dough on both
sides."

[Illustration: THE LARGE SCHOOLROOM IN THE OLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL AT
STRATFORD.]

But I fancy that lessons bore a very small part in Will Shakspere's
education. He certainly never knew much Latin; but he knew all about
country things as only a country-bred boy can know about them. He and
Gilbert must have run many a time to Ashbies, their mother's farm at
Wilmcote, and watched the oxen plowing in the heavy clay fields; and
cried, perhaps, as children do now "as the butcher takes away the calf";
and played with the shepherd's "bob-tailed cur"; and gossiped with
Christopher Sly, who could tell them all manner of wonderful tales, for
had he not been peddler, card-maker, bear-herd, "and now by present
profession a tinker"?

They must have list