SCHOOLS 



in the ninth week twelve. Except one certainly, and possibly two others, 

 every one of these became a scholar. 



Again in the Hall Book for 13 Henry IV. (1410-11), of the full 

 tale of sixteen choristers, no less than eleven became scholars ; one of 

 them, Waplode or Wappelode, becoming a commoner in the interim. 

 There can be no doubt about the transfer from one class to another, 

 because in several cases the name is crossed out in the list of choristers 

 or commoners and appears in the list of scholars the same week. 



In the Hall Book for 5 Henry V. a still more remarkable inter- 

 change takes place ; for Staunton a commoner actually became a 

 chorister ; while of two Masons, one was a commoner and the other a 

 chorister, and one of the two became a scholar. 



Passing on to a generation later, in 22 Henry VI. out of fifteen 

 choristers twelve became scholars, and another had a namesake a scholar. 

 In 33 Henry VI. a scholar by name Ewen, when superannuated, became 

 a commoner, and ten of the choristers of the year became scholars. As 

 late as 1490, out of fifteen choristers nine became scholars, including 

 Fleshmonger, who as Dean of Chichester gave the scholars the oaken 

 bedsteads which were only destroyed twenty years ago. Lastly, in one 

 of the last complete Hall Books, that for 3 Henry VIII. (1511-2), out 

 of the full tale of sixteen choristers, no less than seven were admitted 

 into college that year and three others followed in subsequent years. 

 Being a chorister was therefore a more certain way into college than 

 being a commoner. Of those choristers who attained fame may be 

 noticed John Stanbridge, whose Grammar took in its day the place of 

 Kennedy's Latin Primer, and Nicholas Harpsfield, of a very well- 

 connected family, the Marian persecutor of Protestants. 



From the instances given it is clear that up to the eve of the 

 Reformation, certainly more than half, probably a full three-quarters of 

 the choristers got into college ; and, that on the other hand a quarter 

 of the whole number in college at any given moment had been drawn 

 from the ranks of choristers. It must be remembered that it would not 

 be thought derogatory for boys even of good family and social position to 

 take what the eighteenth century called the ' servile ' office of choristers, 

 when the normal means of educating the sons of the nobility was to send 

 them as pages in great men's houses, including especially bishops, who 

 had themselves in some cases risen from the ranks of choristers. 



What happened between 1520, when the Hall Books end, and 1653, 

 the date of the first Long Roll, lack of materials conceals from us. But 

 of the sixteen choristers on the Long Roll of 1653, four may be noted 

 as having become scholars : Parsons in 1 654, Burges and Stevens in 

 1655, and Morgan in 1656. 



The institution of commoners is of itself sufficient to disprove the 

 pauper theory. A sort of postscript to rubric xvi., ' Of not introducing 

 strangers at the charge of the college,' contains the famous clause which, 

 by opening the college to commoners or paying scholars drawn from the 

 aristocratic class, proved to be the germ of the Public School system. 



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