A HISTORY OF SURREY 



book ' for 6d. On lo May ' Farnaby's ' epi- 

 grams, lod. ; the Sentences, jd. ; Homer's 

 Iliad, 3/. ^d. ; 2 Tully's Orations, 2s. ; and 

 13 June = a screveli ' for the colledge schole 

 boyes, -js. 6d., and 2 Virgills 2s. 6d.' On 

 2 October a Nomenclatura cost 8/., and Sen- 

 tentiae pueriles ' zs. id ; while on 17 January 

 1681 a Homer's Iliad, u. id.. Grammar and 

 construing is. \d., Corderius id., and an 

 Accidence \d. But this activity died with 

 the new master, John Blackburne, on 19 

 September 1682. The next outburst was 

 ten years later under Thomas Baker, when a 

 ■ diccionary ' cost js., and ' changing Rider's 

 dictionary for a Littleton,' the same. In 

 1699 a Wingate's Arithmetick for 3/. 6d. 

 seems to mark a new departure for modern 

 subjects. 



Meanwhile the Organist, abolished with the 

 organ under the Commonwealth, was re- 

 stored by Archbishop Sheldon's injunctions 

 in 1669, and next year ' a pair of harpsichords 

 and frame for the musicke schole ' were pro- 

 vided at a cost of £6, but the music does not 

 seem to have been revived. In 1682 the 

 organist, Charles Galloway, complained at a 

 visitation of ' the slovenly manner in which 

 the singing in the chapel is carried on ; * 



especially the master, Warden and Fellows 

 will not or cannot sing and the boys for want 

 of judgment and mutual assistance follow one 

 after another in such a confused manner as 

 renders it very absurd to the auditon. 



On 6 October 1706, James Hume, M.A. of 

 Edinburgh, having acted as master for a year 

 before, was elected schoolmaster-fellow on 

 the nomination of Archbishop Tenison. A 

 large part of Mr. Young's History of the 

 College is devoted to him and the good he 

 did the college, though it seems principally 

 to have consisted in procuring a division of 

 surplus income. As schoolmaster, he served 

 for three years without a regular usher, and 

 when, in 1709, Mr. John Bere ford was ap- 

 pointed, reflects unfavourably on him in a 

 letter of 8 March 1710 * 



Sir, you cannot be ignorant in what con- 

 dition I found the school at my first coming, 

 nor by what means all my endeavours to 

 retrieve its reputation and credit have been 

 rendered ineffectual, and that among the 

 manifold discouragements I have met with 



' Master of Sevenoaks Grammar SchooL 



» Screvelius' Dictionary. 



' By Charles Hoole. 



' B.M. Add. MS. 29, 477. James Hume's Com- 

 monplace Book. The letter is addressed to ' Mr. ' 



probably the master of the College. 



. . . none of my leau ttoubles has been to be 

 plagued with overgrown boys instead of dis- 

 creet and diligent assistants . . . After my stock 

 of patience was quite worn out and all other 

 remedies proved unsuccessful, I was forced 

 much against my will to complain of Mr. — 

 notorious and wilful failure in the discharge of 

 his offices. 



Instead of giving particulars the letter goes 

 on to answer Mr. Beresford's rejoinder, which 

 had taken the form of an argument ad homi- 

 7iem, that as Hume had irritated the society 

 by pressing for a dividend, he was not to be 

 believed when he complained of his usher. 

 An outburst of book buying followed. On 

 22 April 1710, two Ovid's Metamorphoses 

 at y. 6d. each, and two Corderius Colloquies 

 for IS. 6d. were followed on 22 July by two 

 Erasmuses 4J. ^d., and two Catos is., and 

 (ominous conjunction) a cane zd. Hume's 

 own work does not however seem to have been 

 very satisfactorily performed. The injunc- 

 tions issued after a visitation by Archbishop 

 Wake on 9 December 1724, say, ' The school 

 has not hitherto answered the intention of the 

 founder,' and accordingly directs that the 

 poor boys sent by the privileged parishes 

 ' over and above the qualifications mentioned 

 by the founder shall appear to have been well 

 instructed in the church catechism, and are 

 able to read well in the New Testament,' and 

 that * considering how few hours schooling arc 

 required by the statutes, the master be very 

 cautious in granting leave for play . . . that 

 the master and usher be not absent more than 

 one day a week.' The most important order 

 was however, as appears in Hume's Common- 

 place Book, due to a suggestion of Hume him- 

 self, who urged * that ' when a lad has little 

 or no genius for learning, and must be put to 

 a trade at last, it seems unreasonable that the 

 schoolmaster should drudge on teaching him 

 Latin and Greek until he is eighteen, which 

 he has hitherto done in accordance to the 

 statutes,' and suggested a judgment being 

 formed about his capacity earlier, and hig 

 career altered accordingly. ' If at fourteen a 

 boy be judged incapable of being qualified 

 for the University, he be taught the vulgar 

 arithmetick, and to write at a good hand and 

 at a competent age be put out to some trade 

 of the better sort.' The salaries of master 

 and usher were increased, the former to jC28, 

 the latter to ;C26 ; they were obliged in return 

 to teach reading, writing and vulgar arith- 

 metic to not more than twelve of the children 

 of the poorer inhabitants of Dulwich above 

 ten years old, who can read the ' New Testa- 



206 



° Add. MS. 29, 477, {. 37b. 



