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xvi Introduction
carrying them out. He was urgent for the
foundation of public, as opposed to private
schools, under which he included those of
monasteries and colleges; and he took much
interest in Colet’s school at St. Paul’s, which
was to educate 153 boys, the number of the
miraculous draught of fishes.
That the ‘Praise of Folly’, written in 1509,
was not published till June 1511, is easily to be
understood. What is surprising is that Erasmus
should ever have ventured to publish, in his
own name, so bold an attack on the abuses in
Church and State. His next work of this kind,
the ‘Julius Exclusus’, appeared anonymously.
Erasmus not only refused to acknowledge it,
but tried to father it on to other writers: so
skilfully indeed that without explicitly declaring
he was not the author, he managed to convey
this impression. But under Folly’s mask he
was brave enough. Fools had the right of free
speech, and made sport by telling men home
truths. In Germany the greatest licence was
allowed to players, dressed in motley, who on
Carnival night roamed the streets and made
their way into private houses. The (Bote,