SCHOOLS 



Et Quinta Sermo vel Epistola docta legetur, 

 Carmlna nee Megarus recitabit docta Theognis. 



The first line certainly points to Horace's Epistles or Satires. The 

 second would appear to mean that Theognis, a gnomic Greek poet, or 

 moralist in verse, had lately been ousted from the curriculum in favour 

 of Horace. 



Saturday's list raises doubts as to the Lower Fourth's work. 



Tristibus exonerat Naso prtecordia Quarte, 

 Quarto secunda vetat nimium lugere, propinquans, 

 Ni male decipiant Fasti, lux aurea salts. 



Ovid lightens the hearts of Fourth Book from sadness, while the approach 

 of the golden Sunday, unless the Fasti deceive, forbids the hearts of Lower Fourth 

 to grieve overmuch. 



This seems to mean that the Fourth Book reading Ovid's Fasti 

 or Calendar would remind Lower Fourth, who were doing the Tristia, 

 that next day was Sunday, the day of rest, the red-letter day of the 

 calendar. 



Having finished with the authors read, the poet goes on to a 

 new subject, namely, what is still called Cloister Time, when those who 

 were candidates for election to New College retired to cloisters to pursue 

 their studies in peace by themselves. 



After the annual holidays, twelve Prefects are chosen from the seniors. Woe 

 to other boys who now enter the ungrateful Cloisters, and beat again with their feet 

 the oft-trod pavements. As School, so Cloisters demand a Prefect, to be ready to go to 

 the door if any stand without and knock, but the duty is taken in turns. As soon as 

 election begins, farewell Cloisters. 1 



We have already seen that in Johnson's day there was an ostiarius 

 or usher, a prefect, not the same as the bostiarius or second master, but a 

 real doorkeeper in those days, as in later days. His seat was inscribed 

 TU> del Qvpovpy, and his duties were the same in 1869 as in 1650. With 

 the substitution of class-rooms for school in 1869 the name and office 

 disappeared. Bible clerk continued until the end of 1884, school 

 being occasionally used as such till that year. With its final disuse as a 

 schoolroom he also disappeared. 



The general practice of doing lessons in cloisters may remind us 

 of Milton's wish in // Penseroso 



And may my due feet never fail 

 To walk the studious cloisters pale. 



In monasteries the cloister was the usual and only place of study, 

 and the novices' school was held near its south-west door. So persistent 

 are names that the summer term is still called cloister time, though no 

 one has done lessons in cloisters for more than a hundred years, probably 

 not since school was built in 1687. 



1 This passage was wrongly punctuated and misprinted in Wordsworth's edition. The original is 

 as given here. 



335 



