Part 8 (2/2)

The universities and schools reared a succession of preceptors who deserted thewas a ht to acquire the accoht be serviceable in the Government and at court; another limited its ambition to those which would enable them to prosper in trade or in the wars

V A class of school-book destined for special use, besides those enurammatical works dedicated by their authors, not to particular institutions, but to particular localities or parts of the Empire Edward Buries, who kept school at East Acton in Cromwell's day, accommodated his plan to the requirements of adults, but at the sae of the schools in the counties of Middlesex and Hertford, which strikes us as at once a curious liuine proposal, unless Buries was a Hertfordshi+re man This was in 1652

A later writer was ht; for in 1712 John Brightland projected a Graue ”for the use of the schools of Great Britain _and Ireland_,”--a fact more particularly noticeable, because it is the first hint of any sche the Emerald Isle I allude elsewhere to the early Accidence drawn up for Scotland by Alexander Hueneration in Wales were specially considered by the unnamed introducer of a simplified Latin Primer _in usum juventutis Cambro-Britannicae_, which aimed at a monopoly of the Principality without prejudice to persons beyond the border

Besides the Graeneral educational purposes, but for a given school, and even for a specified class in it Such was the _English Introduction to the Latin Tongue_ for the use of the lower fordalen School, Oxford, they had, at least as far back as 1623, a sations I take another opportunity to speak of a Latin phrase-book designed for Manchester in 1660, and of the printed exa the lines laid down at Merchant Taylors' about the same time In a few cases a inally, with the same restricted scope, like the _Rodon

Perhaps, however, the most conspicuous example of this localisation was the _Outlines of Rhetoric_ for St Paul's, of which we meet with a third edition in 1659; and which must have been in connection with soe of studies during the Protectorate, partly under the stimulus of the pro taste for a more complex platform For such subjects do not see anywhere since the mediaeval period, when the Aristotelian systeh, at the sa more advanced students philosophical treatises never ceased to possess interest and attract perusers But the relevance of the handbook for St Paul's lies in its professed destination for the young

It is questionable whether, outside the Universities and the establishments affiliated upon them, the sciences were acquirable as part of the norht as then termed Judicial Astronomy, which was a mere burlesque on the true study of the planetary bodies; and Logic was on the list of accomplishments within the reach of boys, ere sent up either to college or to school; for in _A Hundred Merry Tales_, 1526, the son of the rich franklin comes back home for the holidays, and declares, as the fruit of the time and money expended on his education at Oxford school, whither his indulgent father had sent him for two or three years, his conversance with subtleties and ability to prove the two chickens on the supper-table to be sophistically three

IX

Merchant Taylors' School founded in 1561--Its li two centuries and a half--The writer's recollections of it froard and his troubles

I I cannot enter very well, in a general view of the subject, into the history of all the civic foundations which rose up one by one subsequently to St Paul's, such as the City of London School, the Mercers' and the Skinners', beyond the incidental notices which I have taken occasion to introduce of such institutions, as well as of the systerammar schools endowed by Edward VI But I may be allowed to speak of one hich I enjoyed personal associations between the years 1842 and 1850, and to h Hunt sheds soht on the condition of Christ's Hospital when Lae, and himself were there in the last years of the last century

Christ's Hospital has produced some very eminent men, but whether by virtue of its systerapher of the author of _Elia_ tells us what books his distinguished friend read at school; how little he learned, Laest in that paper on ”The Old and the New Schoolin of Merchant Taylors' School is thus described by Wilson:--

”Towards the close of the year 1560, or early in the following spring, the Merchant Taylors' Corammar school; and part of the manor of the Rose, in the parish of St

Lawrence-Pountney (a ha eligible for the purpose, Mr Richard Hills, a leading enerously contributed the sum of five hundred pounds towards the purchase of it; but the institution was not thoroughly organised till the 24th September 1561, on which day the statutes were framed and a schoolmaster chosen”

With the statutes I have no farther concern than with the clause which directs that the two hundred and fifty scholars, to which the school was liht in manner & forme as is afore devised & appointed But first see that they can the catechislish or Latyn, & that every of the said two hundred & fifty schollers can read perfectly & write competently, or els lett them not be admitted in no wise”

It is rather curious that the hours of attendance were originally from seven till eleven AM and from one till five PM, and that in winter the boys were to bring no candles of tallow, but candles of wax This was following the statutes of Dean Colet Thrice in the day there were prayers; but instead of one of the sixth for them for the rest, as was subsequently customary, each boy seems at first to have prayed for hih, and not, like the Manual prepared by Bishop Ken for Winchester, adapted for the use of ”all other devout Christians”

The staff consisted at the outset of a head-master and three ushers, whose united emoluments were forty pounds a year, and the first chief teacher of the school was Richard Mulcaster It appears that the earliest Probation-Day, as it was termed, was in November 1564, when Dean Nowell and others exa result

These appositions were renewed in 1565, and probably still continue froht o'clock in the , and so they did in my time The practice of visitation by the Court on this day seems to have ceased in 1606

Alderman Sir Thomas White, some time subsequently to the foundation of the school by the Comented the endowment, so as to enable the institution to develop itself, and enlarge its sphere of utility in connection with Oxford University and in other ways White was a member of the Court when the sche, as he has been usually termed and considered, the founder of Merchant Taylors'

We do not arrive, meanwhile, at any clear or complete notion of the books which were used at the school, but it is to be inferred that Lily's Grammar was the Latin text-book In the rules made for Probation-Day in 1606-7, I find aesop's _Fables_ in Greek, Tully's _Epistles_, and the _Dialogues_ of Corderius named as works in which the boys were to be tested The subjects taken on this day were Greek, Latin, and dictation, writing being necessarily included Neither Hebrew, nor arithmetic, nor the mathematics are enumerated; there are the six forms, but no monitors or prompters

The _School's Probation_ presents itself for the first ti compiled in book form, under the date of 1608 It is printed entire by Wilson; but he does not state, nor do I knohat original, whether printed or not, he employed