Throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, New England schoolboys learned their elementary Latin from the textbook, Cheever's Accidence. Its author, Ezekiel Cheever, was born January 25^th, 1615, in England where he finished Christ's Hospital School in London. He also attended Emmanuel College in Cambridge prior to his arrival in America in 1637. He first settled in New Haven, Connecticut, and stayed there until 1650 when he departed to teach at the grammar school in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He left Ipswich in 1661 and spent the following nine years in Charlestown at its grammar school before finally assuming the position of Master of the Boston Latin Grammar School in 1670, a position he held until his death, August 21^st , 1708.¹

          Cheever was the most famous schoolmaster in colonial America. In addition to Cotton Mather's glowing eulogy (see Introduction) of his former teacher, Samuel Sewall also gives the following account of Cheever's character and reputation in his Diary (August 21, 1708):

          Williams arranged Cheever's notes into a remarkably compact, eighty-page grammar book of three general units: a unit describing the eight parts of speech, a unit on syntax, and a vocabulary unit. Cheever's notes, however, were not original since they relied almost completely on the definitions and models of the nouns, adjectives, and verbs of a sixteenth-century Latin grammar book by William Lily in England. Cheever's students were required to memorize these time honored definitions and paradigms, and thereafter to apply them to simple Latin sentences, orally dictated by Cheever in his classroom, as Mather in his eulogy relates: "Master of Sentences, he gave us more/The(n) we in Our Sententiae had before."⁴ Interestingly, the actual printed text of the Accidence itself is virtually free of any sample sentences.

          The conditions under which Cheever and Williams taught this Accidence would indeed discourage even the most ambitious and skilled Latin teachers of the present day. For example, in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries, the Latin grammar school master, sometimes aided by an assistant called an usher, taught in a one-room schoolhouse, generally quite cold in the winter and without any of the comforts of the modern school building. If the school were large, as many as thirty young boys attended, ranging in ages from seven or eight, to about fourteen or fifteen. These youngsters comprised all seven or eight levels of instruction, with the older boys frequently assisting in the instruction of the younger students. The school day was long and often at the mercy of the harvest season or the availability of daylight hours. The financing of schools was provided by local taxation, private philanthropy, or individual tuition. The master's salary was often paid in food stuffs or cord wood, since payments in cash were often meager or in serious arrears.⁵ Finally, since books and paper were both scarce and expensive, much of a youngster's early education was oral, and masters and ushers were kept continually busy in their classrooms.⁶ The colonial schoolroom was undoubtedly a noisy place whose walls echoed of several generations of students' oral repetition of grammatical definitions from Cheever's Accidence, as for example:

          The subtitle of Cheever's Accidence, which Nathaniel Williams edited in 1709, was "For the Use of the Lower Forms in the Latin School. Being the Accidence Abbridg'd and Compiled in that most easy and accurate Method, wherein the Famous Mr. Ezekiel Cheever Taught; and which he found the most advantageous by Seventy years Experience." The Accidence has survived, but how it was used in the classroom is an entirely different question. There can be only speculation about the classroom instructional "method" Cheever used in teaching it. His "method" of instruction was probably quite similar to the description which a John Brinsley gives in his 1612 book, The Posing of the Parts, of the type of instruction which would have taken place in an early seventeenth-century Latin grammar school in England. Brinsley's description is of an imaginary dialogue between a grammar school master and one of his students. The items under discussion in the extract of the dialogue quoted here are the definitions of a noun and an adjective, as they would have been learned from William Lily's Latin Grammar, the very book from which Cheever learned his own Latin grammar and drew his inspiration for his Accidence. Brinsley's question-and-answer exchange about the "Noune" and "Adjective" is as follows:

                Q. Which is the first part of speech
                A. A Noune.
                Q. What is a Noune?
                A. A noune is the name of a thing, that may be seene, felt, heard, or understood.
                Q. What meane you by that?
                A. It is a word that signifieth the name by which we call anything, whatsoever
                     may be seen felt, heard, or understood.
                Q. Give me examples of it?
                A. A hand manus, a house domus, goodnesse bonitas.
                Q. Is a hand a Noune?
                A. A hand itselfe is not a Noune: but the word signifying a hand, is a Noune.
                Q. How many sorts of Nounes have you?
                A. Two: a Noune Substantive, and a Noune Adjective.
                Q. What is a Noune Substantive?
                A. A Noune Substantive is that standeth by himself, & requireth not another
                     word ioined with it to shew his signification.
                Q. What meane you by that?
                A. It is the name of a thing which may be fully understood of itselfe, without
                     the helpe of any other word to shew it by: as, a hand, a booke.
                Q. How knowe you when a word may be fully understood of itselfe?
                A. If I may fitly put a, or the, before it: or if I cannot fitlie ioyne this word
                     thing unto it; as, a booke, the house.
                Q. What are the notes or marks in English, to know a Noune Substantive by?
                A. A or the, or if I cannot fitly put this word thing before it.
                Q. With how many Articles is a Noune Substantive declined?
                A. With one: as, hic Magister a Master; or with two at the most: as, hic &
                     haec Parens, a father or mother.
                Q. What is a Noune Adjective?
                A. Which cannot stand by itself in reason of signification, but requireth to be
                     Ioyned with another worde.
                Q. What meane you, when you say, a Noune Adjective is that cannot stand by
                     itselfe?
                A. I meane, it is the name of such a thing, as cannot bee fully understood of
                     itselfe, without the helpe of an other word to make it plaine.
                Q. Shew me an example how?
                A. Bonus good, is a Noune Adjective: for when any one speaks of good, I
                     know he means something that is good, but I know not what thing it is
                     that he calleth good, except he put some other word unto it: as, a good
                     boy; a good house; or the like.
                A. Have you any special mark to knowe a Noun Adjective by?
                A. Yes. If I may put this worde thing to it, it is a Noune Adjective; as, a
                     good thing, an evill thing.
                Q. What is a Noune Adjective declined with?
                A. Either with three terminations, or with three Articles.
                Q. How with three terminations?
                A. As, Bonus, bona, bonum.
                Q. How with three Articles?
                A. As, Hic et haec levis, et hoc leve light.
                Q. How many sorts of Noune Substantives are there?
                A. Two: Proper and Common.
                Q. Which is a Noune Substantive Proper?
                A. Such is a Noune or name as is proper to the thing that is betokeneth, or
                     signifieth: Or which belongeth but to one thing properly, as Edwardus
                     Edward; so each man's proper name.
                Q. What is a Noune Substantive Common?
                A. Every Noune which is common to more: or which is the common name
                     of all things of that sort: as, homo, a man, is the common name to all
                     men; so a house, or citie, or vertue.
                Q. How many things belong to a Noune?
                A. My booke sets downe five; Number, Case, Gender, Declension, and
                     Comparison.⁸

            Brinsley's Posing of the Parts continues for more than one hundred more pages in which he precisely analyzes every conceivable grammatical aspect of the Latin noun and verb, as well as the "Concords" of speech, that is, "the agreement of words together, in some speciall Accidents or qualities."⁹

            In all likelihood Cheever's students were subjected daily to memorization of definitions and to extensive repetition, similar to the process described above by Brinsley. The most convincing evidence that Cheever taught his students their Latin grammar thoroughly is, again, the eulogy, Corderius Americanus, in which Cotton Mather, who, when far removed in 1708 from his own schoolboy days, easily recollected those Latin grammar lessons which had been so deeply etched in his memory in Cheever's classroom:

              Today, as well as three hundred years ago, Latin teachers understand that Latin cannot be learned by simply memorizing grammatical rules or formulae. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, a basic vocabulary must be acquired and memorized rules must be applied to model sentences. Unfortunately the model sentences which Cheever used in his classroom have not survived. However, some idea of the nature of the model sentences used in the earliest stage of instruction in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American Latin grammar school can be found in some sample sentences which have survived from William Lily's Latin Grammar. It is most likely that the vast majority of Cheever's own examples were similar to those of Lily, since Cheever modeled his own book after Lily's. Likewise, ii is most probable that many of Cheever's examples were also quite similar to the multiple religious and moral maxims found in Erasmus' Adagia, a collection of "sayings" first published in 1500 and revised in 1507. Maxims of a religious and moral nature were particularly well suited to the ultimate purpose of education at the Boston Latin Grammar School, as well as at the Roxbury Latin Grammar School whose original charter stated:

    1. Primus est sapientiae gradus, te ipsum noscere.

    2. Initium sapientiae, timor Domini.

    3. Non est homo, qui non peccet.

    4. Si dixerimus, peccatum non habemus, nos ipsos fallimus, et veritas in nobis non est.

    5. Christus est agnus Dei, qui tollit peccata mundi.

    6. Qui habet mandata mea et servat ea, ille est qui diligit me.

    7. Vos amici mei estis, si feceritis quaecumque ego praecipio vobis.

    8. Non qui audiunt legem iusti sunt apud Deum, sed qui legem factis exprimunt,
        iusti habebuntur.

    9. Honora patrem et matrem, ut bene tibi sit, et sis longaevus in terra.

    10.Viduae et pupillo non nocebis.

    11. Nihil verius datur Christo, quam quod egenis confertur.

    12. Da caecus, accipe oculatus.

    13. Murus aeneus, sana conscientia.

    14. Memoria delitiis enervatur.

    15. Ex stultis disce, quo fias cautior.

    16. Ex sapientibus disce, quo fias melior.

    17. Veritas temporis filia.

    18. Vinum, nervorum venenum, et memoriae mors est.

    19.Quae ignoras, ne pudeat quaerere.

    20. Vera amicitia non est, nisi inter bonos.
 

B.     From Erasmus' Adagia (1539):

    1. Qui quae vult dicit, quae non vult audiet.

    2.Malo accepto, stultus sapit.

    3. Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.

    4. Suum cuique pulchrum.

    5. Patriae fumus, igni alieno luculencior.

    6. Mature fias senex, si diu velis esse senex.

    7. Quot homines tot sententiae.

    8. Omnes sibi melius esse malunt, quam alteri.

    9. Non omnes qui habent citharam, sunt cithoroedi.

    10. Simia est simia, etiam si aurea gestet insignia.

          Grammar school students in early America registered many complaints about the drudgery of learning Latin grammar by the exacting process of rote memorization as practiced in the eighteenth century. Even such an illustrious and diligent figure as John Adams, a classical scholar of extraordinary skill and reputation in later life, as a youth complained bitterly of the boredom and monotony inherent in memorizing rule after rule from Lily's Latin Grammar.¹³ Notwithstanding this painful process of memorization, John Adams thoroughly learned his Latin grammar, as well as many moral maxims, frequently written as two line proverbs, called distichs, which later in life he was fond of quoting in order to illustrate several of his classroom Latin rules of grammar.¹⁴

          The lessons of self-discipline and attention to detail which Adams learned by eventually mastering his Cheever/Lily grammar served him well in later life when, as a diplomat, he had to painstakingly examine the exact wording and the smallest details of the agreements and treaties which he was asked to negotiate for the newly formed United States which he represented. Surely the same traits were also required of several of his contemporaries who were called upon to form and develop the many other new institutions of the young nation. One such institutional leader was the Reverend Ashbel Green (1762-1848), a minister in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and later President of Princeton University (1812-1822), who stated that he memorized his early sermons as accurately as he once had learned his grammar rules:

          It is quite safe to say that the eighteenth-century founders of America, both those well-known and those who have become less famous through the passage of many years, learned their Latin grammar through a demanding process of memorization and oral recitation. This experience apparently served the vast majority of them quite well since from an early stage in their intellectual development they acquired a deep and lasting appreciation for the logical and ordered arrangement of language and thought, and a sensitivity to the power of the correct use of individual words.

² M. Halsey Thomas, ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729 (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1973), I, p. 600.

³ See Latimer, "Ezekiel Cheever and his Accidence," p. 80; see also Latimer and K. Murdock, "The
Author of Cheever's Accidence," Classical Journal 46 (1951), pp. 391-397.

⁴ Smith , Theories of Education in Early America 1655-1819, pp. 34-35.

⁵ Dr. Joseph Warren, famous later in life for his fiery Boston Massacre orations (1772 and
1775), when a young teacher at the Roxbury Latin School, had to write in December of 1761
to the feoffees, or trustees, of that school, and complain that only 25 pounds 12 shillings of
his contract, which called for a salary of 44 pounds 16 shillings, had been paid at that time.
See J. E. Greene, "The Roxbury Latin School: An Outline of its History," Proceedings of the
American Antiquarian Society, NS 4, Part 4 (April 1887), p. 361.

⁶ The following sources are particularly helpful in understanding the Latin grammar school
experience in early America: Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial
Experience, 1607-1783 (New York: Harper and Row, 1970); George Littlefield, Early
Schools and School Books of New England (New York: Russell and Russell, 1904;
reprint 1966); Robert Middlekauf, Ancients and Axioms: Secondary Education in Eighteenth-Century
New England (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press,
1963) ; Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England (Ithaca,
New York: Great Seal Books, 1936; reprint 1960); Walter H. Small, Early New
England Schools (New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1969).

⁷ Cheever's text is identical to a small (3" x 5"), but lengthy (400 pages), copy of Lily's
A Short Introduction of Grammar  found among the rare books in the library
of the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. It was printed in London in
1650 and belonged to an otherwise unknown Thomas Dominell. Interleaved among the
printed pages of the text were blank pages which served as the student's notebook and on
which the student recorded verbatim and in longhand the teacher's grammar lessons, as,
for example: "What is Grammar? Grammar is the art of speaking and writing well. How
many parts of Grammar are there? Four: Orthoepia or orthography, Etymologia,
Prosodia and Syntax. etc."

⁸ John Brinsley, The Posing of the Parts 1612 (Menston, England: The Scolar Press
Limited, 1967), pp. 1-2.

⁹ Brinsley, Posing of the Parts, pp. 25f.

¹⁰ Smith, Theories of Education in Early America, p. 33.

¹¹ Smith, Theories of Education in EarlyAmerica, p. 34.

¹² See J. E. Greene, The Roxbury Latin School: An Outline of its History, p. 349. For
a discussion of the moralistic instruction found in the collections of the Latin aphorisms
in early American grammar school textbooks, see Matthias W. Senger, "'The Fate of an
Early American School Book: Leonhard Culman's Sententiae Pueriles," Harvard Library
Bulletin 32(1984), pp.256-273.

¹³ For a delightful, although somewhat fanciful, description of Adams' thorough aversion
to learning Lily's Latin Grammar at Mr. Cleverly's Free Latin School in Braintree, see
Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (Boston,
Massachusetts: Little Brown and Co., 1950), pp. 13-62.

¹⁴ Adams himself tells us in his Diary (August 19, 1770) of the rather humorous
incident in August of 1770 when he served as a member of a committee sent to inspect
the light house at Beacon Island. During that inspection tour the conversation turned to
recollecting Latin distichs which had been learned in grammar school many years before.
The curious aspect of Adams' Diary entry is that since he failed to recall the second half
of the distich during the conversation, when he returned home he scoured his school books
to discover the correct and complete version of the distich before recording this entry:
"Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Adams and myself endeavoured to recollect the old Distich--Gutta
cavat lapidem non vi, sed sepe cadendo. So far we got, but neither of these Gentlemen had
ever heard the other Part. I, who had some Years ago been very familiar with it, could not
recollect it--but it is Sic, Homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sepe legendo." See L. H. Butterfield,
ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams 1, Diary 1755-1770 (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 363.

¹⁵ Joseph H. Jones, The Life of Ashbel Green, V.D.M. (New York: Robert Carter
and Brothers, 1849), p. 151. On Dr. Witherspoon delivering memoriter his sermons
and orations in Congress, see John Adams' letter (30 July 1815) to Thomas Jefferson
in Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters vol. 2, 1812-26 (Chapel Hill,
North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 451.

¹⁶ Jones, The Life of Ashbel Greene, p. 23.