628 



NA TURE 



[October 17, 1907 



300, flourished before ihe Reformation. Tfie majority of 

 these were abolisfied or crippled by the Government of 

 Edward VI., who, by the strange irony of fate, is 

 commonly credited with founding many of our endowed 

 schools. Generally, it is correct to say that a King 

 Edward VI. school means a foundation which was 

 maimed by Edward VI., i.e. by the actual regent at the 

 time. These schools were of various types, some existing 

 as independent institutions, while many were connected 

 with one of the following : — cathedral churches, monas- 

 teries, colleges, hospitals, guilds, or chantries. The 

 endowments varied widely, Eton and Winchester having 

 well-paid masters and seventy scholarships apiece, while 

 Launceston paid an old man 135. 4d. a year to teach young 

 children. In addition to public schools and grammar 

 schools there were choristers' schools and elementary 

 schools. What we now call secondary education existed 

 in fact, though not in name ; with scholarships tenable at 

 the schools, and exhibitions thence to the universities. 

 According to the above authority, the boys were mainly 

 of the middle classes, with younger sons and poor relations 

 of the upper classes, and occasionally bright boys from 

 the real poor. The character of the learning certainly 

 supports this contention, Latin, dialectic and rhetoric, 

 being taught up to a standard fitting the youth of sixteen 

 to eighteen years of age for entrance to the university. 

 Without entering into details (which it were easy to do), 

 it can be asserted that the English schoolboy of the six- 

 teenth century was immeasurably superior to his successor 

 at the present day in respect to knowledge of Latin. 

 Further, it appears to be true, alike of the past and the 

 present, that, given good quality of education, the 

 numbers seeking to avail themselves of its provision will 

 take care of themselves. In round numbers, we find in 

 the England of 1546 a population of two and a half 

 millions, with 300 grammar schools, or one school for 

 8300 people. This compares well with the one school for 

 23,000 of the year 1865. One is tempted to wonder, 

 though of course it is mere idle and somewhat melan- 

 choly speculation, what would have resulted had some wise 

 statesman developed these disconnected but useful, and, 

 for their day, efBcient, institutions into an organised 

 system of national education. Should we have become as 

 a nation more scientific and artistic, but less robust and 

 individual? A" facts are, and as they have to be faced, 

 the opportunity was lost, destruction and spoliation took 

 the place of development, and to-day we are left with 

 endowments, not indeed to be despised, but utterly in- 

 adequate to provide a tithe of the cost of higher education 

 of the country. 



1864 TO Present D.ay. 



Under the chairmanship of Lord Clarendon, a com- 

 mission of inquiry reported in 1864 on " The Revenues, 

 Management, Instruction, and Studies of Eton, Charter- 

 house, Merchant Taylors', St. Paul's, Westminster, Win- 

 chester, Harrow, Shrewsbury, and Rugby." In 1868, the 

 date of the Public Schools Act, there were 2956 scholars 

 in these nine schools, and their net aggregate income, 

 including exhibitions, was about 65,000?. a year. In 

 1905 the number of scholars was 4100, and their income, 

 as to which only partial information is accessible, has in- 

 creased in far larger proportion than the number of 

 scholars. The position of Eton and Winchester Colleges 

 is one of such independence that the Board of Education 

 has no information as to their present financial position. 

 They are undoubtedly wealthy, and their national import- 

 ance makes periodical audit and publication of financial 

 statements the more desirable. In 1890 the gross income 

 of St. Paul's School endowm(nt was stated to be 15,426/. 

 A recent question raised by a member of the House of 

 Commons has fortunately led to an investigation of the 

 case of Harrow School. Here it appears that the endow- 

 ment is worth about 1000/. annually, roughly half of 

 which goes to the lower school of John Lyon, and the 

 rest might easily be spent on clerical, legal, and office 

 expenses connected with the foundation. In short, Harrow 

 School is supported by the fees of the pupils. If any reader 

 of this article should have been under the delusion that 

 our ancient endowments are vast stores of unused or mis- 



NO, I 98 I, VOL. 76] 



used wealth, this fact may prove one step in his dis- 

 illusionment. It is to be hoped that the Board of Educa- 

 tion will give us information about the income of the 

 remaining Hve schools. Not being subject to the Endowed 

 Schools Acts, they are not included in the Roby Return 

 of Charitable Foundations presented to the House of 

 Commons in 1892 (and reprinted in the Report of the 

 Secondary Schools Commission of 1895). It does not 

 appear from the reports of either the Clarendon or the 

 Schools Inquiry Commission that the segregation of these 

 schools was justified on any clear legal, proprielary, educa- 

 tional, or national ground. The following extract from 

 the Clarendon Report is of interest : — 



" Are the classes by whom these benefits are now 

 enjoyed the same as those for whom they were originally 

 intended? There is no doubt that the collegiate schools 

 were primarily though not solely designed for the assist- 

 ance of meritorious poverty ; the independent grammar- 

 schools primarily though not solely for the benefit of some 

 particular town, village, or neighbourhood. . . . Speak- 

 ing generally, it must be said that the difificulty of assign- 

 ing a precise meaning to the word poverty, the doubt what 

 class of persons, if any, at the present day really answers 

 to the pauperes et indigentcs scolarcs of the Lancastrian 

 and Tudor periods, and the further doubt whether poverty 

 is not after all best served by giving the widest encourage- 

 ment to industry, coupled with the interest which every 

 school has in collecting the best boys from the largest 

 surface, have tended, and will continually tend, to render 

 the qualification of indigence practically inoperative. We 

 do not think it necessary to recommend any change in 

 this respect." 



One more extract refers to local privileges, often the 

 right to gratuitous education : — 



" The question we have to consider is, whether the 

 maintenance of the local privileges in favour of these 

 persons, and of the few permanent residents who desire a 

 public-school education for their sons, is recommended 

 either by respect for the founder's intentions or by any 

 other sufficient reason. We think that it is not." (We 

 may note that " these persons " refers to immigrants 

 attracted to the town or village by cheap education 

 through the foundation.) 



Following the " Clarendon " Commission there w.'S 

 " The Schools Inquiry Commission " under Lord Taunton's 

 chairmanship, which reported in 1867 on all the remain- 

 ing schools, numbering ion first-grade and 247 second- 

 grade endowed grammar schools, including twenty-two in 

 Wales. Of these, a few have ceased to exist or have 

 become elementary, while occasionally the endowment hps 

 become a burs.-iry or schol.irship. Perhaps one-seventh 

 have thus been lost to secondary education ; the remaining 

 six-sevenths still form to-dav the core of the piiblic 

 secnndarv education of England. 



Despite the remarkably able character of the commission 

 and its arduous labours, we cannot altogether rely on the 

 accuracy of an important part of the information contained 

 in its voluminous report and minutes of evidence (twenty- 

 one volumes), that part, viz., which purports to give the 

 ancient historv of the foundations. The commissioners 

 mainlv relied for this history on the earlier reports of the 

 commissioners for inquiry concerning charities, 1818 to 

 1837. In a chronological list of schools given in his 

 " English Schools at the Reformation," Mr. .A. F. Leach 

 assigns a different date from that given by the commission 

 in a large majority of cases, differences amounting in 

 some cases to centuries ! As Mr. Leach is probably our 

 best authority on this subject, we can feel but little con- 

 fidence in the findings of the commission with regard to 

 the original documents, deeds, and charters, particularly 

 of the older foundations. This consideration does not, of 

 course, affect the accuracy of their statements as to the 

 position of the endowments in 1867, but it gives some 

 support for further amendment of the Public Schools Act ^ 

 of 1860. which was avowedly based on the Taunton Report. 

 Apart from amendments in detail, this Act governs most of 

 our grammar schools to-day. ^ 



The powers of the Charity Commission to establish and- 

 .nmend schemes, which were transferred to the Board oFJ 

 Education by an Order in Council in 1901, were power's;' 



