The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 Read Online Free PDF Page A

New England the reasoned intensity all Puritans held before themselves as a model for living.
Richard Mather was born in a substantial, timbered house in 1596 in the village of Lowton, not far from Liverpool in Winwick Parish in Lancashire. Richard's father, Thomas, seems to have

 

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been a yeoman whose family had lived in Lowton for several generations. His mother, Margarite, must have come from yeoman stock, and she too traced her family back over several generations of Lowton stock. Thomas and Margarite were probably not Puritans for they once considered apprenticing Richard to Catholic merchants. Neither were they wealthy but they resolved to give their son an education and sent him off to grammar school in nearby Winwick. 7
Lowton boys usually did not get much schooling. Their parents were poor and the longer a boy stayed at his books, the longer his father had to feed and clothe him without any return. Richard studied with a Mr. Horrocke who, if he observed the conventions of most schoolmasters, expected his charges to read and write English almost immediately after beginning school, if indeed they had not come with such skills, and who spent most of his time exercising them in Latin and Greek. Latin came first and remained the center of the curriculum. Lily's Grammar , a book first authorized under Henry VIII and continued by Elizabeth, furnished the text. Boys memorized the rules of grammar, translated Latin into English and then turned their versions back into Latin, wrote themes in Latin and acted out Latin plays and spoke dialogues. As their facility in Latin increased, the scholars turned a part of their attention to Greek grammar. There the favorite text was the New Testament. 8
This regimen did not permit much variety, and masters did not encourage their students to develop their capacities for originality, especially since the prevailing view held that in boys as in all men these capacities were depraved. Masters who grew tired of their lives and their charges sometimes became more exacting, and they sometimes accompanied their increasing demands with increasing punishments. 9
Mr. Horrocke may have been such a master. In any case his scholars discovered that as he laid on the grammar he also laid on the rod. Resenting harsh treatment and hoping to escape it, Richard appealed to his father to take him out of the school. But Thomas Mather, indulgent as he was in other ways, refused and contented himself with a talk with the master in which he evidently appealed for less severity. 10
Thomas Mather handled the interview tactfully and Richard continued in school with his standing unimpaired. Perhaps the

 

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episode forced Horrocke to look more carefully at him, for a little later, when Thomas Mather was about to apprentice his son to Catholic merchants from Wales, it was Horrocke who interceded on the boy's behalf. The merchants were looking for "pregnant wits," and they had heard that young Richard Mather was a very bright youth. 11 Keeping his son in school was costly, and Thomas Mather thought that he could reduce his expenses by signing his son over to these merchants. At this point William Horrocke stepped in and reminded the parents that their son had considerable talent and should be kept in school. Besides, he pointed out, apprenticing Richard to these merchants assured that he would be "undone by Popish Education." 12 Horrocke's appeal turned the elder Mathers from their resolve, and their son continued in Mr. Horrocke's school until 1611, the year of his fifteenth birthday, when he left the school as the result of another friendly act of Master Horrocke. The schoolmaster, asked by citizens of nearby Toxteth Park to recommend someone who might conduct a grammar school for their children, named Richard Mather. Horrock's opinion carried weight; Richard Mather was given the job. 13
Serving as a schoolmaster marked another decisive point in Richard Mather's life. From the scholar's dependency