we must bear in mind how many a pet child
died miserably under some hedge, or in the lazar-house of a foreign
city, whose youthful minds had looked forward with hope to reaching the
same goal.

The instruction in the Latin schools was very deficient, for a book was
a rare treasure: the boys had often to copy the text for themselves,
and the old grammar of Donat still served as the groundwork by which
they learned to read Latin. There was still much useless scholastic
pedantry, and what was then admired as elegant Latin, has somewhat of a
monkish flavour. But the great teacher Wimpfeling took every
opportunity of selecting examples which might excite the boys to
honesty, integrity, and the fear of God; he endeavoured to impart not
merely the knowledge of forms, or the subtle distinctions of words, but
the spirit that flows from the ancients. The mind was to be ennobled;
intellect and faith were to be advanced; learning was to act as a
preservative against war, to promote peace, the greatness of states,
and the reformation of the Catholic Church, for its object was
knowledge of the truth.

Some idea of the life of a travelling student has been preserved to us
in the description of Thomas Platter, the poor shepherd boy from
Visperthale, in the Valais, later a renowned printer and schoolmaster
at Basle; his autobiography has been published by Dr. Fechter, Basle,
1840. In those days no travellers in search of the picturesque had
begun to roam in the wild mountain valley from which the Visp rushes
towards the Rhone, nor to visit Zermatt, the Matterhorn, and the
glaciers of Monte Rosa. The shepherd boy grew up amidst the rocks, with
no companions but his goats; his herd straying into a corn-field, or an
eagle hovering threateningly above him, his climbing a steep rock, or
being punished by his severe master, were the only events of his
childhood; how he was cast out into the wide world from his solitude he
shall himself relate.

"When I was with the farmer, one of my aunts, named Frances, came to
see me; she wished me, she said, to go to my cousin, Herr Anthony
Platter, to learn the Scriptures; thus they speak when they want one to
go to school. The farmer was not well pleased at this; he told her I
should learn nothing: he placed the forefinger of his right hand in the
middle of the left, and went on to say, 'The lad will learn about as
much, as I can push my finger through there.' This I saw and heard.
Then said my aunt: