SOURCE: Ord, Melanie. “Classical and Contemporary Italy in Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster (1570).” Renaissance Studies 16, no. 2 (June 2002): 202-16.

In the following essay, Ord analyzes Ascham's use of Italy as both classical ideal and, in its contemporary state, an example of barbarity. Ord sees in Ascham's construction of Italian culture an effort to establish England as the new center of humanist learning.

I

Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster (1570) is an extended contribution to a debate held at Windsor Castle on 10 December 1563, on whether it is preferable to be ‘allured by love, [or] driven by beating, to atteyne good learning’.¹ Prompted by news that scholars of Eton had run away from the school for fear of corporal punishment, the discussion turns, in order, to the following subjects: the best model upon which to educate children in manners and morals; the dangers posed by courtly grace; and the ‘to moch libertie’ (Scholemaster, 178) afforded...