by the provost, vice-provost, and precentor. Over the same gate were to be kept the jewels, extra plate, muniments and relics, and the Book of Statutes.

In regard to the SCHOLARS, the electors (the provosts, vice-provosts of Eton and King's College, and the headmaster of Eton) shall, in all cases, in electing scholars to Eton or King's, pay no heed whatever to the prayers, requests, or instances of kings, queens, princes, prelates, nobles, or others, looking rather to the proficiency of the boys in grammar and to their moral character. (In other respects the statutes relating to the scholars closely follow those of Winchester, many of the phrases being identical.)

After partaking of the loving cup in hall, at meal times, every one shall leave without loitering about, for people are more quarrelsome with full stomachs than with empty." "In winter time, a fire shall be allowed in Hall, out of reverence to God and his Mother, or any other Saint, the Scholars and Fellows shall be allowed to divert themselves, after dinner or supper, with songs and other proper amusements, and to discuss poems, chronicles, and the world's wonders."

Respecting the almshouse, the BEDESMEN, thirteen in number, unmarried, poor, infirm, sane, not afflicted with incurable disease, were to be sober and obedient, to wear the college gown, to know or learn the Ave Maria, the Credo, and the Paternoster, and to be under the governance of one of their own number, styled the warden.

"Should any one at the instance of the old serpent endeavour to bring to naught the Statutes, he shall be adjudged guilty of perjury."

Extracts from New Statutes.-Under the new statutes, amended in 1883, the PROVOST is appointed by the Crown, his stipend to be £2,200 yearly, excluding a rate and taxfree house or lodge. He shall hold no other office to which an emolument is attached; shall be in residence during the whole of schooltime, except for some sufficient reason

to the contrary; and shall not be in business or exercise a profession. A charge of malversation, negligence, or of official misconduct shall render him liable, at the instigation of the governing body, to dismissal at the hands of the visitor, the Bishop of Lincoln.

The FOUNDATION SCHOLARS * shall be educated and maintained during each school time out of the funds of the College."

In place of the old, very valuable “birthright" of the "Kingsmen," which led to a University fellowship for the term of an Etonian's life, there are now for Eton boys six scholarships at King's College, Cambridge, for six years, with tuition, commons, and rooms in college all free.

At Eton there were originally two classes of commensales (commoners): first, the higher, who were the sons of noblemen and of special friends of the college, and not over twenty in number, dined with the chaplain and usher; second, the lower, who dined with the scholars and choristers, and the charge for whose board was lower. Both classes were taught gratuitously.

All vacant benefices in the gift of the college are to be offered to the masters and conducts (i.e., chaplains) at Eton, according to seniority. If refused by them it shall remain in the gift of the provost and fellows. No benefice shall be tenable with a mastership or conductship.

There shall be no more than thirteen POOR MEN or ALMSWOMEN appointed by the provost. They shall receive such emoluments as may be assigned to them by the governing body.

Thirteen poor youths (vide Statute XIII., "pauperes juvenes ") were included by the Royal founder in the original statutes, but owing to the customary defalcations by the governing body, in regard to the revenues, were very soon struck off. They were to have been between

There is absolutely no stipulation in regard to a poverty, or even a comparatively indigent, qualification for a scholarship.

fifteen and twenty years of age, and selected from among those boys attending the grammar school, who had not been received on the foundation. They corresponded to the "sizars" at Cambridge. They were to have continued their studies in the grammar school, have been taught writing, reading, have worn collegiate habits, etc. To afford them every encouragement the age of superannuation, that is, of proceeding to King's College, Cambridge, was fixed at twenty-five. The thirteen poor youths acted as chamber servants to the provost, fellows and headmaster, rang the bells, but were, by the instruction of their masters and attendance in the grammar school, to have rendered themselves fit in learning to take holy orders," for which reason we have thought good that they should be admitted to our college royal," says the King.

Under exactly the same statutable qualifications as the poor and needy scholars," the thirteen had to wear the like dress and to dine at the same table and sleep in the same room as the said scholars. No class distinction was to be tolerated-they were all to wear a similar dress without distinction of place or status. But as we have said of the thirteen, their land hath long known them

no more.

The masters were statutably bound to instruct the choristers, as the scholars, gratuitously, and they were to succeed, other things being equal, to vacant scholarships in preference to other candidates. Statute XIV. (Inhibentes præterea eisdem magistro et hostiario, etc.) inhibits "the master and usher that it may not be permitted to exact, solicit, or claim, from any scholars or choristers whatsoever out of our kingdom of England, coming to the said schools, charges because of expense, or for the master's labour in respect of the said scholars. Or to solicit money on the same account from scholars' parents, friends, or guardians." (We give the translation of the original Latin.)

As once, long ago, at Winchester, it appears that the

Eton choristerships were then regarded as being, in part, a preparation for the scholarship proper. Right up to 1866, choristers were nominated solely by the provost.

When they enquired why the founder's statute regarding the choristers had not been carried out, and had, in fact, been totally ignored, the Clarendon Commissioners were informed that "the choristers belong to an inferior class, and were intended to have an inferior education "-a view directly contrary, as is evident by the foregoing excerpts, to the foundation ordinance.

By way of compensation the authorities offered, out of the depths of their infinite goodness and charity, a commercial education-a substitute which, wherever adopted, soon degenerated into the teaching of a most inferior parish school. This conception of statutory duties corresponds, as will be seen, exactly to that entertained by the governing body at Harrow Public Free School, the outcome of which was and is the so-called "English Form," or the Lower School of John Lyon.

The Commissioners were also "bound to say that they could find no justification at all of the total neglect on the part of Eton College . . . to maintain a proper choir or choral service in their own chapel." And one witness (Sir J. T. Coleridge) before the Commission was driven to aver that the non-observance of the Eton statutes coupled with the oaths that are taken, is, I may almost say, a shocking thing."*

Finally, the Commissioners recommended that " provision should be made out of the College funds for the maintenance of an adequate number of Choristers to belong solely to the chapel, according to the best examples of cathedrals."

This, then, was the nineteenth century conception of the “ plain grammatical construction " (to use Wykeham's own words referring particularly to his apprehension of just such endowment diversion and alienation at Win* Evidence, p. 198.