ings, that the necessity of church and state, in all
conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric
thereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie in
this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth
most excellent. And thus God moldeth some for a schoolmaster's life,
undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with
dexterity and happy success.

He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books;
and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And tho it may seem
difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet
experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures,
and reduce them all--saving some few exceptions--to these general
rules:

1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two
such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a
frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their
master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such
natures he useth with all gentleness.

2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in
the fable, that running with snails--so they count the rest of their
schoolfellows--they shall come soon enough to the post, tho sleeping a
good while before their starting. O! a good rod would finely take them
napping!

3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be, the
more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till
they be clarified with age, and such afterward prove the best. Bristol
diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature, and yet
are soft and worthless; whereas Orient ones in India are rough and
rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth acquit
themselves afterward the jewels of the country, and therefore their
dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That
schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy
for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can
make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before
the hour nature hath appointed.

4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may
reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world
can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such
boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and
boat-makers will choose t