Richard Mulcaster
Richard Mulcaster (c.1531-1611) is best known for his headmastership of Merchant Taylors’ School and St Paul’s School, and for his pedagogic writings. He is oftern regarded as the founder of English language lexicography, and was also an Anglican priest. Mulcaster was born into the gentry in Carlisle and began his formal education at Eton College from where he progressed to King’s College, Cambridge. Throughout his time at Cambridge, and later at Oxford, he met important scholars who were to influence his thinking, amongst them Sir John Cheke and John Caius. By the time he left Oxford, Mulcaster was known for his intellectual prowess in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which he took to Merchant Taylors’ School in London. He became the first headmaster of the school in 1561 where he wrote his two treatises on education, Positions (1581), and Elementarie (1582). Merchant Taylors’ was at the time the largest school in England, and Mulcaster worked to establish a rigorous curriculum which was to set the standard for Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1596 he became High Master of St Paul’s School. Mulcaster also believed that sports could have a great educational importance and he not only invented the name 'footeball' but also provided the earliest known evidence of organised team football, confirming that his was a game closer to modern football by differentiating it from games involving other parts of the body, namely 'the hand ball' and 'the armeball'. He observed that football had positive educational value and that it promoted health and strength. Published in 1903, this edition of Mulcaster’s Educational Writings was abridged and arranged by James Ogilvie, author of works including ’Victorian Novelists’, who also provides a Biographical Sketch and Critical Estimate. The book presents material from both Positions and Elementarie adapted to make it accessible to the ordinary reader. 3
