SCHOOLS 



Charles Montague, knight, and divers other gentlemen gave them 

 greeting and dined with them and the townsmen brought them one 

 gallon of wine and one pound of sugar.' After dinner they took an 

 inventory which shows that the master's house consisted of a hall, a 

 parlour, a chamber over the entry and another over the hall, while 

 the usher's house consisted of the furthest upper chamber, a buttery 

 and a kitchen ; so that it was no wonder the master, with a family, 

 had overflowed into the usher's chambers. In the school were eight 

 glazed windows and ' two falling windows of wainscott,' six double 

 forms for the scholars and ' one framed settle at the hither end ' and 

 ' one great elexicon (sic), the author Johannes Scapula.' 



On Saturday the visitors went to the school at 8 a.m. ' with a 

 learned preacher, Mr. Wells, parson of Stoke, near Oundle, and one 

 Dr. Clement, a doctor in physike, and others the townsmen.' ' At whose 

 entrance Mr. Spencer made a brief oration in Latin interlaced with some 

 Greek, setting forth the difficulty in his public avocation to content every 

 man, especially the ignorant and certain malevolent persons.' Then two 

 of the scholars ' made like orations in Latin, setting forth the foundation 

 of the school, with an acknowledgement of the Company's great liberality 

 with thanks.' Mr. Wells then made a speech to the scholars in Latin, 

 after which he ' proceeded to the particular examination of many of the 

 said schoUars as well in their grammar rules and authors as also in the 

 making of certain English into Latin. Whereby it manifestly appeared 

 that the schollars are for the most part very weak and imperfect, 

 especially in their congruity of Latin, there being not a sufficient 

 schollar in the school well exercised in the Latin tongue, nor any 

 one which is entered or ready to be entered into the Greek. Further 

 there appeared two special defects to the great hindrance of the schollars, 

 arising either through the ignorance of the schoolmaster, or otherways 

 through his great negligence ; namely the one is, because the schollars 

 are permitted to be long absent from the school, and then when they 

 come they pass on with their fellows, not having learned that which was 

 taught in their absence ; the other is, because they want sufficient exer- 

 cise and practice both in the forenoon and afternoon as well in their 

 authors as also in other exercises, viz : in making of epistles, theames, 

 verses or such like according to their capacities, whereby they remain 

 very idle and reap not the profit which they might,' 



The visitors then, after names-calling, went to dinner, and in the 

 afternoon received the certificate asked for from the local people, who 

 handed ' a note ' ' of such disorders which Mr. Spencer hath made default 

 of They found ' that the Master and Usher have admitted of young 

 children into the grammar school before such time as they can read 

 Latin or write English, or have any capacity to be instructed in the 

 rules of the grammar, contrary to the 14th Statute ' ; and ' have given 

 leave to the schollars to play, above two afternoons in a week, contrary to 

 the 24th Statute ' and that the scholars did not diligently frequent church 

 on Sabbath days, and those that did behaved themselves very irreverently. 

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