author
Richard Mulcaster
d. 1611
Best known as a pioneering English schoolmaster, he led both Merchant Taylors' School and St Paul's School in London and wrote influential works on education. He is often remembered for arguing that English deserved serious study in its own right.
2 Audiobooks
Positions
by Richard Mulcaster
The Educational Writings of Richard Mulcaster
by Richard Mulcaster
About the author
Richard Mulcaster (c. 1531–15 April 1611) was an English educator, writer, and Anglican priest. He studied at Eton, Cambridge, and Oxford, and became the first headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School in 1561 before later serving as headmaster of St Paul's School.
He is best known for his educational writing, especially Positions (1581) and The Elementarie (1582). In these works, he argued for careful training of teachers, close attention to children's individual abilities, and the value of teaching in English rather than relying only on Latin.
Mulcaster is often described as an early champion of English language study and even a forerunner of English lexicography. Many of his ideas were ahead of their time, which helps explain why he still appears in histories of education and the English language centuries after his death.