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THE CORRUPTION OF FOUNDATIONS.

English Dictionary was first used in the year 1616. This is clearly wrong.

Corrupt condition of the Universities.

At the time of their incorporation by Parliament in 1571 the Universities appear to have been in a none too healthy condition, if one may judge from the Act that Elizabeth. found it necessary to pass in 1588-9 against the abuses in election of scholars, and from the contemporary evidence of William Harrison'. Harrison, writing in 1586, says that the University colleges were erected by their founders at the first only for poor men's sons, whose parents were not able to bring them up unto learning, "but now they haue the least benefit of them, by reason the rich doo so incroch vpon them. And so farre hath this inconuenience spread it selfe, that it is in my time an hard matter for a poore mans child to come by a felowship (though he be neuer so good a scholer & woorthie of that roome). Such packing also is vsed at elections, that not he which best deserueth, but he that hath most friends, though he be the woorst scholer, is alwaies surest to speed; which will turne in the end to the ouerthrow of learning....... In some grammar schooles likewise, which send scholers to these vniuersities, it is lamentable to see what briberie is vsed; for yer the scholer can be preferred, such bribage is made, that poore mens children are commonlie shut out, and the richer sort receiued (who in time past thought it

1 The Act, 31 Eliz. c. 6, is still in force. Previous to the Reformation "the Universities were furnished with undergraduates by most if not all of the conventual schools in the kingdom. Thus we find that the Priory of Finchale in Durham sent students to Oxford, and paid them a 'pension.' It may therefore be inferred that such schools contributed many hundreds of scholars to the Universities." (Account of the Obedientars of Abingdon Abbey. Introduction by Mr R. E. G. Kirk, p. xlviii. Printed for the Camden Society, 1892.) The destruction of the chantries and the grammar schools throughout the country, which cut short the supply of fit candidates for university life, and the decay of the Universities were probably connected. It would be interesting to trace the extent to which overseers and vestries sent deserving scholars to Oxford and Cambridge in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

BACON AND EDUCATION.

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dishonor to liue as it were vpon almes) and yet being placed, most of them studie little other than histories, tables, dice, and trifles, as men that make not the liuing by their studie the end of their purposes, which is a lamentable hearing1."

The statute 31 Eliz. c. 6 attacked this corruption of educational foundation. The Act recited that "the intent of the Founders of Colledges, Churches Collegiat, Churches Cathedrall, Scoles Hospitalls Halles and other like Societies within this Realme" to have "the fittest and most meete persons" elected to fellowship and scholarship without gift or reward had been neglected and that the fittest persons were "sildome or not at all preferred...to the great prejudice of Learning and the Common Wealthe and Estate of the Realme." The statute imposed forfeiture upon him who taketh reward for his voice in such elections. The Universities were clearly in other ways ineffective. Francis Bacon in his Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human, Book II, brings a heavy indictment against the Universities of his time. He found it strange "that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large....... Neither is it to be forgotten that this dedicating of foundations and dotations to professory learning hath not only had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states and governments. For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of estate, because there is no education collegiate which is free; where such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of estate." He complains further of “the

1 The expense of education at this date was also very great. John Howson (afterwards Bishop of Durham) in a sermon preached on 4 November [? December], 1597, complains of the few prizes open to the clergy after an education at school and the University that had cost the parent alone at least £500. (Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Ed. 1891, p. 205, footnote.)

86

ELIZABETH AND EDUCATION.

smallness and meanness of the salary or reward" attached to University lectures and of the absence of "allowance for expenses about experiments." He also attacks the absence of consultation among the University authorities as to the character of the teaching, and he complains (he says the fault was "ancient and general") "that scholars in universities come too soon and too unripe to logic and rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children and novices; for these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences; being the arts of arts, the one for judgment, the other for ornament. He attacks also the exercises used in the Universities, which "do make too great a divorce between invention and memory."

The State, however, in the time of Elizabeth-and we need not delay here to discuss the question whether Elizabeth or her Ministers or the Church deserve the credit-did all that was then possible in the way of reconstructing a national scheme of education; it gave freedom for elementary education, it attempted to purify secondary and higher educational foundations throughout the country, and it incorporated the Universities. The removal of all artificial drawbacks to education, the opening up to the fittest of all endowments, the granting of special protection to the Universities constitute the relationship of the Elizabethan State to national education.

Subsequent legislation referring to Universities.

19. It will be convenient here to collect together the subsequent legislation with reference to the Universities in order to exhibit the continuous policy of the State and the unchanging attitude of these centres of learning. We may perhaps accept Bacon's evidence as to the ineffectiveness of the Universities in the early part of the seventeenth century'.

1 In many ways University teaching at the beginning of the seventeenth century seems to have been far more efficient than Bacon admitted. Joseph Mede (1586-1638), the Tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge, full as his time was with independent literary labours and the ceaseless acquisition of learning, found time to give a large part of each day to his

THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE UNIVERSITIES.

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But however immature the undergraduates may have been and however imperfect the organization of education was (and it was certainly destined to see no improvement for two centuries), yet the warm conservative relationship of the State and the Universities was fully maintained.

When Cromwell appeared upon the political stage the Universities clung with an ardent affection, justified by centuries of protection, to fallen royalty. "Nowhere," says Lord Macaulay, was the spirit of loyalty stronger than in the two universities. Oxford declared that she would never swerve from those religious principles which bound her to obey the king without any restrictions or limitations. Cambridge condemned in severe terms the violence and treachery of those turbulent men who had maliciously endeavoured to turn the stream of succession out of the ancient channel'." But Macaulay might also have mentioned, in a history planned upon so vast a scale, the significant fact that these "turbulent men" were at heart as well inclined to the University system as any of their Governmental predecessors. It is indeed remarkable in the educational plan for England which Cromwell devised that he should not only have consented to the continuance in an unaltered form of these centres of disaffection, but that he should actually have made a Government grant to the Universities. By Act 31 of the Commonwealth Acts of 16492 a specific grant of £2000 a year was made for the increase of the maintenance of the masterships of the colleges of both Universities.

Parliamentary grant to Universities in 1649.

pupils, and every evening they attended at his rooms to satisfy him that they had performed the task set for the day. Mede himself went to Cambridge at the age of 16. See The Works of Joseph Mede. (London, 1672.) King James I., no mean judge, had a high opinion of the work done at the Universities. When in 1605 he visited the Bodleian Library it is recorded of him that he exclaimed: "If I were not a king, I would be a university man.' Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Ed. 1891, p. 351. 1 History of England, vol. 1. p. 477; and see the London Gazette for February, March and April, 1685.

2 See p. 103 infra.

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DECADENCE OF UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP.

It is not necessary here to deal with the reasons for this grant or to set it off against losses, severe enough, suffered in other directions. It is sufficient to indicate the fact that the republican Government was prepared to recognise and subsidise the great centres of education.

With the Restoration the Universities resumed their position of proud exclusiveness. As centres of learning they were probably not far in advance of their position in the reign of Elizabeth. Greek learning in the reign of Charles II. was in a poor way in the Universities. The number of great Greek scholars in residence was few. "At Cambridge it was not thought by any means necessary that a divine should be able to read the Gospels in the original. Nor was the standard at Oxford higher." The Act of Uniformity of 1662 bestowed special privileges upon the Universities, in the provision' that "this Act shall not extend to the University Churches in the Universities of this Realme or either of them when or att such times as any Sermon or Lecture is preached or read in the [said] Churches or any of them for or as the publick University Sermon or Lecture but that the same Sermons and Lectures may be preached or read in such sort and manner as the same have been heretofore preached or read This Act or any thing herein contained to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding "."

1 Macaulay's History of England, vol. 1. p. 396.

2 14 Car. II. c. 4, s. 19.

3 An Act that confirms the certain privileges of the Universities that existed before the Commonwealth had already been passed in 1660 (12 Car. II. c. 25). This statute was an act for regulating the sale of wine and against the adulteration of wines. Section 7 provides that nothing in the Act shall "in anywise be prejudiciall to the priviledge of the two Universityes of [the] Land or either of them, nor to the Chancellours or Schollers of the same or their Successors but that they may use and enjoy such priviledges as heretofore they have lawfully used and enjoyed Any thing herein to the contrary notwithstanding.' An Act of 1698 (11 Will. III. c. 15) "for the ascertaining the Measures for retailing Ale and Beer," specially exempts the colleges and halls of the Universities from its provisions. These Acts are small matters, but they show the general drift of State policy in favour of University exclusiveness.