SOURCE: Johnson, Samuel. “Life of Ascham.” In Two Great Teachers: Johnson's Memoir of Roger Ascham and Selections from Stanley's Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold of Rugby, edited by James H. Carlisle, pp. 11-34. Syracuse, N.Y.: C. W. Bardeen, 1890.

In the following excerpt, from an work originally published in 1763, Johnson considers Ascham primarily as a great teacher, one who advocated the value of experience as a means of education.

Ascham is said to have courted his scholars to study by every incitement, to have treated them with great kindness, and to have taken care at once to instil learning and piety, to enlighten their minds, and to form their manners. Many of his scholars rose to great eminence; and among them William Grindal was so much distinguished, that, by Cheke's recommendation, he was called to court as a proper master of languages for the Lady Elizabeth.

There...