A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



While other schools, notably Harrow and Rugby, were improving 

 their organization and modernizing their methods of learning and mode 

 of living Winchester stood still. It seemed stricken with decay. With 

 Macbeth it might have said, * The thanes fly from me.' Families like 

 the Wallops, the Ashley-Coopers, the Bathursts, the Heathcotes, the 

 Harrises, who had been Wykehamical for generations, went elsewhere, 

 not with advantage to themselves it is true, but with disadvantage to 

 Winchester. 



College was depressed owing to the decadence of New College. 

 The privilege enjoyed by New College of not suing for graces for degrees, 

 originally intended to make, and apparently succeeding in making, New 

 College men more industrious than those of other colleges, proved fatal 

 when the system of university examinations and class lists for honours was 

 introduced exactly 100 years ago, the first class appearing at Easter, 1802, 

 and New College claimed exemption. The rest of the university com- 

 peted, and the fame of the successful was noised abroad. A New College 

 man might be as hardworking, as industrious and as able, but his light was 

 hid under a bushel. ' Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,' 

 and the spur was entirely wanting to the best boys in college who went 

 to New College. But this was not the sole defect. The privilege of 

 exemption was abandoned in 1834. Yet this was the cruel comparison 

 drawn by the Oxford University Commission ' between New College, 

 filled from Winchester, and St. John's, recruited from Merchant Taylors' 

 School. 



Since that time (1834) it has produced one First Class man, viz. in 1842, and, in 

 1843, the same gentleman obtained a University Mathematical Scholarship. St. John's 

 has but 50 8 on the Foundation, but its Fellows have obtained eight First Classes and a 

 University Mathematical Scholarship. The chance of securing candidates of superior 

 ability is infinitely diminished in consequence of the practice of converting the nomi- 

 nation of boys on the Foundation of Winchester College into private patronage, which 

 is often practised on behalf of mere infants. Wykehamists who have never been on 

 the Foundation, and even some of those who have lost their election by superannuation, 

 often obtain high distinctions in the University. 



In the view of the Commissioners the cause of the difference was 

 that while the scholarships at St. John's were freely competed for by the 

 whole of Merchant Taylors' School, the scholarships at New College 

 were competed for by less than 70 boys out of 200, and those 

 selected by mere patronage. With very narrow competition at Win- 

 chester, no competition at Oxford and the certainty of a provision for 

 life by the putting on of a white tie, college was almost intellectually 

 dead. 



Commoners, on the other hand, suffered from its old-fashioned 

 accommodation. The arrangements of ' Old Commoners ' were terribly 

 out of date, and another cause that no doubt tended in the downward 

 direction was the reputation of Dr. Moberly and the second master, 

 Charles Wordsworth, as extreme high churchmen, when high church 

 principles had not become fashionable. It was unfortunate for Win- 



1 Report, 1852, p. 50. a As against 70 at New College. 



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