The Schoolmaster

work by Ascham

Also known as: “The Scholemaster”

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July 13, 2026

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The Scholemaster is a posthumously published work by Roger Ascham, an English humanist, scholar, and writer. Written in clear English prose, it outlines an effective method for teaching Latin composition. Beyond this, the book delves into the psychology of learning, advocating for a holistic approach to education that shapes both the moral and intellectual character of the individual. Ascham's theories on education, particularly his promotion of the vernacular and his success in tutoring notable women like Queen Elizabeth I, highlight his significant contributions to educational thought.1

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Roger Ascham
The Scholemaster, written in simple, lucid English prose and published posthumously in 1570, is Ascham’s best-known book. It presents an effective method of teaching Latin prose composition, but its larger concerns are with the psychology of learning, the education of the whole person, and the ideal…
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The Scholemaster, written in simple, lucid English prose and published posthumously in 1570, is Ascham’s best-known book. It presents an effective method of teaching Latin prose composition, but its larger concerns are with the psychology of learning, the education of the whole person, and the ideal…
Read More

English literature
Development of the English language
…embodied in Ascham’s educational tract The Schoolmaster (1570), and their tonic effect on that particularly Elizabethan art, translation, can be felt in the earliest important examples, Sir Thomas Hoby’s Castiglione (1561) and Sir Thomas North’s Plutarch (1579). A further stimulus was the religious upheaval that took place in the middle…
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…embodied in Ascham’s educational tract The Schoolmaster (1570), and their tonic effect on that particularly Elizabethan art, translation, can be felt in the earliest important examples, Sir Thomas Hoby’s Castiglione (1561) and Sir Thomas North’s Plutarch (1579). A further stimulus was the religious upheaval that took place in the middle…
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humanism
More, Elyot, and Ascham
Ascham’s famous pedagogical manual, The Scholemaster (1570), offers not only a complete program of humanistic education but also an evocation of the ideals toward which that education was directed.
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Ascham’s famous pedagogical manual, The Scholemaster (1570), offers not only a complete program of humanistic education but also an evocation of the ideals toward which that education was directed.
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prosody
The Renaissance
Roger Ascham, in The Scholemaster (1570), attacked “the Gothic…barbarous and rude Ryming” of the early Tudor poets. He admitted that Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, did passably well as a poet but complained that Surrey did not understand “perfite and trewe versifying”; that is, Surrey did not compose…
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Roger Ascham, in The Scholemaster (1570), attacked “the Gothic…barbarous and rude Ryming” of the early Tudor poets. He admitted that Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, did passably well as a poet but complained that Surrey did not understand “perfite and trewe versifying”; that is, Surrey did not compose…
Read More