SCHOOLS 



His successor was John Stephens of Trinity College, Oxford, matricu- 

 lated there 16 October, 1640, aged 16, and B.C.L. 3 December, 1646, and 

 afterwards M. A. He was appointed 18 March, 1657-8. At his incoming 

 an inventory was taken of the school library. It consisted of about 160 

 volumes, comprising geographical and astronomical works, such as Manilius" 

 Astronomy and Ptolemy's Geography, and Cornelius Agrippa's De occulta 

 Philosophic, gifts no doubt from the Thornes' library. 



On 20 September, 1658, on the resignation of Mr. Jonathan Price, 

 usher, we learn that it was one of the ordinances of the school that both 

 masters should be university graduates, for a special dispensation was voted 

 to enable Mr. Ball, who was not a graduate, to be elected in his place. 

 Mr. Stephens was probably a Puritan or Independent, as in 1662 he dis- 

 appeared, a victim apparently to the Restoration reaction, Ball the unqualified 

 usher being put in his place. 



In 1666 new ordinances which bear the Restoration stamp were made 

 for the school. The master was to be ' an M.A. of two years' standing, well 

 learned in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.' This last qualification may or may 

 not have been a new importation. It is found in some Elizabethan school 

 statutes, but is more common in Jacobean and later days, especially those of 

 the Commonwealth, and is a mark of the spirit of theological controversy, 

 which in Erasmus' time had introduced into the schools the study of Greek, 

 with a view to the new learning in the New Testament, and now had carried 

 the learned into similar dissection of the Old Testament. The Presbyterians 

 especially affected this new study, which made it unpopular with the royalist 

 rulers of Restoration schools, and it soon dropped out. Another new require- 

 ment was that the master was ' to be well affected to kingly government.' 

 The usher was to be a B.A. of two years' standing, ' learned in Latin and 

 Greek ' only, but equally ' well affected.' Further restrictions were now 

 imposed on the freedom of the school. ' Every scholar being the son of a 

 burgess dwelling within the city and lawfully baptized ' was to be admitted 

 free, paying an entrance fee of 5^. instead of the ancient 4^. a fair equiva- 

 lent to the altered value of money. Others who were ' not to enjoy the 

 privileges of the school ' were to be admitted on such terms as the master and 

 parents should agree upon. Besides admission fees, every scholar was to pay 

 is. in winter for fire and 2</. a quarter for sweeping the school. Every 

 scholar was to resort to church on the Lord's Day morning and evening. 

 Another sign of reaction was that the visitation, or examination, of the 

 school was again reduced to once a year on the Thursday before Easter, when 

 premiums not exceeding IQJ. might be given to the 'best deserving.' 



In 1670 Stephens died, and Rowland Tucker the usher performed his 

 duties, receiving i 2 IQJ. for doing so until on 6 December, 1670, John 

 Rainsthorp was appointed master. He had matriculated at St. John's 

 College, Oxford, 25 June, 1659, and was probably the son of Walter 

 Rainsthorp, the master in 1642-57. At his incoming the garden of the 

 usher, which had been annexed by the two previous masters, was restored to 

 him. Eleven years later, 31 May, 1681, 



Mr. Tucker, the usher . . . having been taken notice by this house of his inabilities and 

 insufficiency, by reason of age and other infirmities, for some time past to officiate as usher 

 there, which has driven most of the youth cut of the city to seek learning elsewhere, to the 



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