"Thirdly, it is a schoole for liberty most free, being open especially for poore men's children, as well of all nations, as for the marchauntailors themselves.'

"

They had found that "of late daies some persons (having had their children five or six yeres in our schoole) have complained that their sonnes have not risen in learnyng to be worthely placed in the highest formes, as others have ben of like contynuance, it is to be thought that such a complaynt of the schoolemaister and ushers is noe novelty, or that it should (as they report) procede comonly of the maisters default; but rather rise by faults in such parents, as have not due regard in houlding their children to the schoole, or by want of capacity in such schollers, or by other defects, rather than by any negligence in their teachers. But, howsoever it be, the Company greatly disliketh any evill report of theire schoole or teachers, and doe rather wish and desire all good deservings and good reports, both of the maister and schoole."

Therefore, in order that the "fame of the school might be preserved," the committee, on the motion of one Dean Overall, recommended a probation or examination of the school three times a year. A year later the Company determined that the probation itself should be examined twice a year by "two learned men.”

The eminence which the Merchant Taylors' School had attained by the early part of the seventeenth century encouraged several benevolent and opulent citizens to augment the number of its exhibitions. Of these the most conspicuous were John Vernon and Walter "ffyshe," by whose liberality many a poor and deserving scholar of that age was enabled to live at the university.

*

One Wm. Dugard, master of the Merchant Taylors' School during the Commonwealth period, was laid by the heels, for that he was alleged to be part proprietor of a printing house which had published Salmasius's Defence * Our italics.

of King Charles I., dedicated to the heir-apparent (164449), or Charles II., as he subsequently was. It will be recollected that Milton took up the cudgels, on behalf of the Commonwealth, writing his counterblast, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensis (1651)—for which he was rewarded by Cromwell with £1,000 and the Latin secretaryship-of which Hobbes, the philosopher, said that he was unable to decide whose language was best, or whose arguments were worse. But our pedagogue did not languish in durance long, for the same Council of State which clapped him in limbo reinstated him in his office. He took his revenge in the way most congenial to him. Having a predilection for adorning the Merchant Taylors' registry with "malignant" inscriptions, he wrote, in Greek :

"

Martyr for church, country, laws, Charles, best of kings, died by the hands of infamous men.'

"

Another epigrammatic jewel, on Cromwell and his mother, ran (the old lady was buried in Westminster Abbey, which fact had apparently excited the ire of Master Dugard):

"In Westminster lies buried the mother of Oliver Cromwell. "Here lies a mother of execrable birth, who destroyed two kings and three countries."

Sad to relate, however, Dugard was, in 1661, dismissed by the Company for breaking certain orders, "though publicly warned and admonished of it." Even then, however, he did not neglect simultaneously a chance of free advertisement and an inscription for the benefit of posterity. Again using the medium of the school registry, he left a Latin verse to his successor : "Resigning from this office, I deliver up the torch, in writing, to my successor. Wm. Dugard, not so long ago master of the Merchant Taylors' School, but now governor of a private school in Coleman-street."

We may note that an old writer states: "The gentle

men brought up at this school, citizens and others, began an annual Feast, in 1698, at which large collections were made, and large sums devoted to Exhibitions to such of the school as are superannuated and miss of election." As late as 1730, 250 boys were educated here, 100 being taught gratis, 50 at 2s. 6d. a quarter, and 100 at 5s. a quarter.

The Court of Assistants, comprising forty members of the Merchant Taylors' Company, are the governors and patrons of the school, and they claim "an absolute and exclusive authority over it, even to the extent of abolishing it altogether if they thought proper to do so." Well! Well! This is the quintessence of autocracy!* Even the Clarendon Commissioners could not quite stomach this sort of assertion, "considering," say they, “that the constituent documents of the school indicate on the part of the Company at that time an intention that it should be a permanent Foundation; that considerable endowments have been bestowed and accepted for the benefit of the school; and that its present site was in great part, if not wholly, acquired by money given for the purpose of establishing a school by an individual member of the Company, it is very questionable whether they are as free from legal obligation respecting it as they believe themselves to be. . . . There is no visitor. . . . In the opinion of the Company there are not, nor were there ever, any statutes in the common acceptation of the term. At the establishment of the school, they remark, a code of rules and regulations, called 'statutes,' was drawn up and adopted by the Court, but of such rules and regulations the greater part have either become obsolete or have been from time to time annulled and altered by the Court." Naturally, the original staff appointed by the Company

From Sir H. Burdett's Hospitals and Charities we learn that "there are grants and pensions for the aged poor of the Company"; and this laconic information was all that, as an asterisk indicates, the editor, after repeated application, was accorded by this Livery Company's officials.

at the foundation has been enlarged to suit the exigencies of changing centuries. In 1865, the headmaster's emoluments “ as officially known to the Company" were £1,000 (derived from the Company's stipend and fees from the boys), while the first undermaster received £525. "The sum paid for tuition," the Commissioners report, “amounting to £3,383 a year, is nearly, if not entirely, covered by the amount received as fees from the boys. In addition to their receipts, the first and second under-masters keep boarding houses, but these houses are not connected with the school, nor are they formally recognised by the Company."

The statutable number of boys in this school was 250; "but as nominations are always issued in advance, on a calculation of probable vacancies, a floating ten, more or less, is allowed. The average number for the last twenty years (1845-65) is about 260. On nomination a boy must have attained nine years of age at the least; he must be able to read and write tolerably; have learned the 'Accidence' in the Latin Grammar, and be acquainted with the leading facts in early Scripture history, and with the Church Catechism."

By the original statutes 100 indigent boys, " poor men's children, as well as of all nations, as for the marchauntailors themselves," were admitted without any payment whatever; fifty were admitted on payment of 2s. 2d. to the headmaster every quarter; and the remaining hundred were admitted on paying 5s. per quarter.

But this school is now a FEE, not a free school. "The school payments of every boy are £3 on entrance, £10 annually in quarterly sums of £2 10s., and 5s. on being advanced to a higher form." And Colet, upon whose foundation was patterned Merchant Taylors' Free Grammar School, declared that "a child at the first admission, once for ever, shall paye 4d. for wrytinge of his name."

With regard to nomination, the usual nepotism appears

G.E.S.

to have been in full force here, as at the Charter-house and elsewhere, and the Clarendon Commission thought “it would be very advantageous if the members of the Corporation would agree to surrender their right of absolute nomination and would in lieu thereof establish a system of limited competition for admission into the school among their nominees." They suggested that two examinations might be held in the year, for each of which every member of the Corporation might nominate a competitor, and that after examination a list should be formed of the boys in order of merit, from which list boys should be admitted into the school in the same order as vacancies occurred until the next half-yearly examination, when a fresh list should be formed in like manner for the half-year following.

Of University scholarships attached to the school, there are twenty-one at St. John's College, Oxford, of £100 a year each, and tenable for seven years; these, by an Order of the Privy Council, are the modification of the fortythree fellowships for poor scholars established at that college by the founder of Merchant Taylors' School. Six exhibitions are held at the same college, and are of the value of £60 per annum; one other of £50 per annum ; one at any other Cambridge college, valued at £61 11s. 4d. per annum, tenable for four years; four similar exhibitions of £50 each; two of £50 per annum to any Oxford or Cambridge college, etc. Aggregatively they produce over £3,000 per annum, and the pupils of the fee school were, in 1870, probably not over 260 in number! To-day, the school is said to be attended by 450 pupils. Since 1872 it has occupied the original schoolhouse of the old Charterhouse, which has been rebuilt.

It should be said that Brougham's Charity Commissioners, for "reasons "—which are, in reality, no reasons at all—" declined entering into the affairs" of this exceedingly wealthy foundation. Say they: "The expense of supporting this establishment has been defrayed