ommon experience know to be most
true. For we remember nothing so well when we be old as those things
which we learned when we were young. And this is not strange, but
common in all nature's works. "Every man seeth (as I said before) new
wax is best for printing, new clay fittest for working, new-shorn wool
aptest for soon and surest dyeing, new fresh flesh for good and
durable salting." And this similitude is not rude, nor borrowed of the
larder-house, but out of his school-house, of whom the wisest of
England need not be ashamed to learn. "Young grafts grow not only
soonest, but also fairest, and bring always forth the best and
sweetest fruit; young whelps learn easily to carry; young popinjays
learn quickly to speak." And so, to be short, if in all other things,
tho they lack reason, sense, and life, the similitude of youth is
fittest to all goodness, surely nature in mankind is most beneficial
and effectual in their behalf.

Therefore, if to the goodness of nature be joined the wisdom of the
teacher, in leading young wits into a right and plain way of
learning; surely children kept up in God's fear, and governed by His
grace, may most easily be brought well to serve God and their country,
both by virtue and wisdom.

But if will and wit, by farther age, be once allured from innocency,
delighted in vain sights, filled with foul talk, crooked with
wilfulness, hardened with stubbornness, and let loose to disobedience;
surely it is hard with gentleness, but impossible with severe cruelty,
to call them back to good frame again. For where the one perchance may
bend it, the other shall surely break it: and so, instead of some
hope, leave an assured desperation, and shameless contempt of all
goodness; the furthest point in all mischief, as Xenophon doth most
truly and most wittily mark.

Therefore, to love or to hate, to like or to contemn, to ply this way
or that way to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child in his
youth.

And one example whether love or fear doth work more in a child for
virtue and learning, I will gladly report; which may be heard with
some pleasure, and followed with more profit.

Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate in Leicestershire, to
take my leave of that noble lady, Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding
much beholding. Her parents, the duke and duchess, with all the
household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I
found her in her chamber, reading Phaedo Pla