A Note on Good Instruction in Thinking for Kids, 1673

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1815

I foudn a curious book called Childrens talk, English & Latin... written by Charles Hoole, and the printed in 1673, in London, ostensibly to teach small ones the properties of Latin.  It is filled with interesting stories which are small tests to logic and testaments to what was to be expected behavior, as told in this story of a stolen knife.

[Source:  the Beinecke Library, Yale University].

One boy asks the other to borrow as knife, but the second boy is reticent, fearful that "it will suffer to travel" and not be returned, and wonders why the borrower needs to borrow,  The first boy explains that his knife was missing, and a nice little knife it was: little, dull, with a blunt point, brass studs, with a hole at the top. This is the description of the knife that the second boy is carrying, the first boy then putting the case to the second that this knife belongs to him, and that it was taken away, stolen.  The second boy makes the cases that the knife may well have belonged to boy one, but now it was his, having purchased it fair and square. 

"Surely it is a knife" says boy one.

"That means nothing to me" says boy two;

"But dare you buy stolen goods" boy one, to which the other responds with a sharp ""any without any difference".  This must've angered the knife pursuer, who states that anyone willfully and knowingly purchasing stolen goods is also committing a crime, "But you are as Ill as a thief".  The second boy is unmoved, stating "Put cases I am not". 

It all finally boils out that the case is taken to the school Master, who adjudicates in an interesting fashion--you'll just have to read for yourself, below.  It is all very interesting to me, shaping an argument for kids, having them think something through, and then have it all make sense in the end.  And in Latin. 

[More readable and expandable text below].

Notes:

1. The full title is drawn out a bit:  Childrens talk, English & Latin : divided into several clauses : wherein the propriety of both languages is kept : that children by the help of their mother-tongue, may more easily learn to discourse in good Latine amongst themselves : there are also numbers set down betwixt both, which do shew the place and natural use of any word or phrase / By Charles Hoole, Master of Arts, L.C. Oxon, teacher of a private grammar-school betwixt Goldsmiths-Alley in Redcross-street, and Maidenhead Court in Aldersgate-street, London

Comments

[CRBarker]

Interesting resolution. The Master noted the price of the knife was below market price, thus calling into question Boy 1's bona fides in establishing him as a bona fide purchaser for value. A settlement seems the only way to resolve, since neither boy had an unassailable right to the knife.

[John F. Ptak]

You're right--it was a nice piece of thinking.