268 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



indeed, their position was strengthened — and the desire for a national 

 system of education grew with the development of the Reformation. 

 Queen Elizabeth showed herself keenly interested in the task of creating 

 the means that should bring the opportunities of learning within 

 the grasp of her poorest subject. It is true that she insisted on the re- 

 ligious conformity of schoolmasters to the established church. To so 

 insist was part of her conception of national unity; but this, at that 

 date, was in no way inconsistent with an enlightened educational policy. 

 Shortly after her accession she published special injunctions on the 

 subject of education, while the bishops closely enquired into the char- 

 acter and quality of the teaching in their dioceses. Parliament more- 

 over specially excepted all educational foundations from annexation on 

 religious grounds, and also by the statute of apprentices of 1562 

 exempted 'a student or scolar in any of the Universitees, or in any 

 Scoole' from the strict provisions of that act. Moreover, commis- 

 sioners for charitable uses were appointed — a commission that still 

 occasionally sat in the nineteenth century — who enquired into the abuses 

 of educational foundations. A statute of 1588, which is still in force, 

 attacked with increased vigor the dire corruption of these foundations. 

 The act aimed alike at the universities and the schools. All educa- 

 tional foundations were, moreover, relieved from the burden of sub- 

 sidies and other taxation. Nor was this all. The queen in 1571 

 incorporated by statute the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in 

 order to secure 'the mayntenannce of good and Godly literature, and 

 the vertuouse Education of Youth within either of the same Univer- 

 sities. ' It is interesting to note that this quotation from the pre- 

 amble to the act uses, so far as can be ascertained, the word 'educa- 

 tion' for the first time in its modern sense. We may say then that 

 the great queen removed, in so far as in her lay, all artificial draw- 

 backs to education; she opened up all educational endowments to the 

 fittest scholars, and she gave a new and as yet unexhausted impetus to 

 the university system, while she inspired both church and state with 

 a new interest in educational matters. 



After the death of Elizabeth, we find that the subject of educa- 

 tion was doomed, in view of new political j^roblems and in spite 

 of the personal interest that James I. and probably Charles I. took 

 in letters, to some neglect. Yet Parliament even in the stern days 

 of 'the Great Eebellion' had time to think of education, for we 

 find that Cromwell passed in 1649 a measure for education 

 in Wales as well as a general act that diverted to national edu- 

 cation tithe-rent charges of the value of £20,000 a year, and di- 

 rected that if the annual sum fell below that amount it should 

 be supplemented out of the national exchequer. We thus find in 

 England as early as 1G49 provision for parliamentary grants in aid 



