SCHOOLS 



occasions I have known morning school prolonged far 

 into the afternoon . . . the rest disperse and re- 

 assemble again having dined between, while the VI 

 were still occupied in galloping at full speed through 

 that interminable wilderness of commentation ; and 

 all for no reason whatever except that that arbitrary 

 rule might not be violated. Yet in securing the 

 primal and essential condition of all education 

 Dr. Malkin shone. He taught his boys to think for 

 themselves. 



It was proved by Dr. Butler of Shrewsbury, 

 that in the years 1806 to 1 8 14 the largest 

 number of classical prizes at Cambridge was won 

 by Bury boys, Shrewsbury coming next, and 

 Eton and Charterhouse with their large numbers, 

 bracketed third. Among other famous products 

 of Bury at this time may be reckoned John 

 Mitchell Kemble, the Anglo-Saxon scholar, who 

 ought to be mentioned with special reverence 

 in this work as one of the fathers of the scien- 

 tific treatment of English history. He was at 

 Bury from about 1822 to 1826, when he got 

 from thence an exhibition at Trinity College, 

 Cambridge. 



In April, 1828, John Edwards of Jesus Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, an assistant master at Harrow 

 School, and before that, second master at Rich- 

 mond School, Yorkshire, was appointed head 

 master. For increase of stipend he was allowed 

 6 guineas a year for each ' Royalist,' out of the 

 endowment, not exceeding £52 10s. in all, 

 whatever their number, in addition to the statu- 

 table (1809) stipend of £60 a year. At that time 

 there were 68 boys in all, 37 foreigners, and 31 

 royalists. In 1830 the number in the school 

 had risen to no. 1 But there do not seem to 

 have been anv very distinguished alumni of the 

 school in his day. 



In 1 841 came John Williamson Donaldson, 

 a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Edu- 

 cated at a private school in Scotland, he early 

 achieved distinction by introducing the results of 

 scientific philology, a German product, to 

 English readers in The New Craty/us, published 

 in 1839, and of archaeological research in his 

 Theatre of the Greeks. 



In spite of his fame as a scholar the school 

 did not grow under Dr. Donaldson, but rather 

 decayed. The domestic arrangements were very 

 rough. 



The fires in the Big Hall were scanty and sel- 

 dom. There w.s never any at all in the Outer 

 Hall. The so-called stud'es, approached by a pas- 

 sage open at one end to everv wind that blew, 

 were mere cabins . . badly heated by a smo'<y flue. 

 The sanitary arrangements . . were absolutely in- 

 describably vile. 



Yet Dr. Donaldson brooked no criticism from 

 parents either of the arrangements or the bills. 

 Take it or leave it was his answer. 



Dr. Donaldson was rather distant and severe 



1 Char. Com. Rep. xxv, 551. 



in his judgements on the boys. There was little 

 or no flogging, but impositions raged. He was 

 perhaps too much taken up with his books and 

 too little with his boys. One of his books pro- 

 duced a great sensation. Among his other 

 accomplishments he was a great Hebrew scholar. 

 In an evil moment he set to work to extract and 

 put together as ' the Book of Jasher,' which is 

 referred to a propos of the song of Deborah and 

 Barak, the poetical fragments which he detected 

 embedded in the Old Testament. Among 

 them was the first chapter of Genesis, to which 

 he gave a somewhat startling interpretation, con- 

 necting it with phallic worship. Though the 

 book was published in Latin and in Germany, 

 the author was, most unfairly, fiercely attacked, 

 and held up to reprobation as a heretic, and a 

 depraver of the youth, in an English pamphlet 

 by J. Perowne, afterwards dean of Worcester. 

 Donaldson resigned the head mastership in 1855 

 and returned to be a successful tutor at Cambridge. 



In 1855 the Rev. A. H. Wratislaw, fellow 

 of Christ's College, Cambridge, who had been 

 for a short time head master of Felsted School, 

 was appointed head master. He was a man of 

 remarkably wide and varied accomplishments. 

 For his classical scholarship his position in the first 

 five of the Classical Tripos is sufficient evidence. 

 He was one of the highest authorities on Czech 

 language and literature ; and was — which was 

 rarer — eminent in many branches of natural his- 

 tory, especially entomology and botany. The 

 edible ' fungi ' which those of his boarders who 

 remained after him, and who had grasped his 

 lore, used to bring home to be cooked after 

 their rambles, were a perpetual, though quite 

 groundless, terror to his successor in the head 

 mastership. His power of initiative was shown by 

 his being perhaps the first head master of any 

 public school to adopt the 'new ' pronunciation 

 of Latin and he extended it — mutatis mutandis — 

 to Greek also. But after the stir in the educa- 

 tional world which resulted in the creation of 

 the Endowed Schools Commission and the re- 

 creation of many schools, the inadequate site and 

 building of Bury School began to tell heavily 

 against it in competition with other schools, and 

 the numbers fell. After a new scheme under 

 the Endowed Schools Acts became law on 

 4 February, 1879, Mr. Wratislaw retired on a 

 pension to be vicar of Manorbier in Pembroke- 

 shire. 



The new scheme established a governing body 

 of eleven: one nominated by the Bishop of Ely, 

 another by the university of Cambridge, two by 

 the town council of Bur}', and two by the 

 justices of West Suffolk, with 5 co-optatives. 

 The tuition fees were fixed at £15 to ^24 a 

 year, with a reduction of one-third for • Royalists,' 

 while the boarding fees were not to exceed £6$ 

 a year. The ' Hewer Exhibitions ' were re- 

 duced to 3 of £60 a year. A scheme made 

 on the same day for Dean Sudbury's Charity 



323 



