Double Translation in English Humanistic Education

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the most important study in the English grammar schools was Latin. The fact is well known, and so are the reasons for it. The pedagogical methods are, however, generally not easy to learn in detail. The writings of some educational theorists and the statutes of certain schools present a fragmentary picture of these methods, but an adequate account has yet to be written. This paper deals with the method called ‘double translation', an educational tool which some of the best teachers in England employed with great effect, but one which was quickly blunted in the hands of less able instructors. Double translation has received some attention from students of English Renaissance education, notably Foster Watson and T. W. Baldwin. Some misunderstanding of the method has arisen because of a confusion between double translation and ‘imitation'.