and poor in education had not yet come into being," says Dr. Kitchin. But at his "Seynte Marie College of Wynchestre," Wykeham unwittingly made the cardinal error from which has arisen, under the intensifying influence subsequently of the Restoration times and the crippling tendencies of the eighteenth century, the perversion of founders' intentions, the diversion of eleemosynary funds, and the modern public school system in all its futility and inequity.

After obtaining the sanction of a Papal bull for the endowment of this school in 1378, and buying the site in 1382, he issued his charter of foundation, providing for the education of seventy scholars "suffering from want of money and poverty," and along with them, undoubtedly with the intention of spanning the class gulf," a few others more of wealth and rank to the number of ten." Winchester was, as we have said, the archetype of all public schools in England, and, naturally, nearly every other free grammar and public school subsequently founded modelled itself upon her charter and statutes of foundation, so that in all we have the embryo of the modern system, whereby from being a small element, the patrician pensionarii have not merely leavened, they have absorbed the whole-a complete reversal of their fundamental purpose. And to-day, we find the English public schools producing embryonic members of the governing class, "well-bodied, well-mannered, well-meaning boys, keen at games, ignorant of life, contemptuous of all outside the pale of their own caste, uninterested in work, neither desiring nor revering knowledge," and so forth. They often form the "permanent official" caste.

Wykeham triumphantly weathered the storm raised by his enemies among the Court oligarchy, and in 1379 completed the purchases of land at Oxford, obtaining the king's (Richard II.) patent to found his college, and laying the foundation stone of "Seynte Marie College of Wynchestre in Oxenford" on March 5th, 1380. Almost his

first act as bishop had been to excuse his poorer manorial tenants customary payments to the amount of £500, and to the last year of his episcopate, which he occupied thirtyeight years, he fed every day at least twenty-four poor people and kept open house for rich and poor alike. Nor did his public benefactions end here. He repaired public highroads, causeways, and bridges; paid the debts of insolvent prisoners; fortified ports on the south coast; and rebuilt the nave of Winchester Cathedral and other numerous churches. He died at eighty years of age in 1404, and to him Froissart bears testimony when he says that "Sir Wyllyam Wycam was so greate wyth the kynge that alle thynge was done by hym, and withoute hym nothing was done."

The charter of 1382 states the reasons for which he (Wykeham) had lately founded a college "of 70 poor scholars, clerks, to study theology, canon and civil law and arts," in the University of Oxford. "Without a Knowledge of the Latin literature and language," say the statutes, "it was impossible to begin, or satisfactorily carry on" the study of the higher faculties for the promotion of which the Oxford College was designed. The college was not intended for all who wanted a knowledge of the classics, but chiefly for those whose means were not sufficient, without assistance, to enable them to stay at school long enough to master it.

The Winchester College of "70 poor and needy scholars living college-wise " had a "common-chest," and the site of the college "to hold and possess common-wise and in common." New College-Seynte Marie College of Wynchester in Oxenford-was, by Wykeham's intentions, to provide "secular clergy" (as distinct from monks in monasterium), to fill the gaps which had been caused by Black Death. Any scholar of the same who should "enter religion" (i.e., become a monk) was instantly to forfeit his scholarship.

Old Thomas Fuller, in his Church History of Britain

"

(book iv., p. 143), informs us that "Edward the third, discovering the like sufficiency in this great clerke (i.e., Wickham) employed him in all his stately structures witness this in Motto at Windsor Castle. THIS MADE WICKHAM,' meaning that the building of the College gave occasion to his wealth and honour, whereas on this Colledg he might write 'This Wickham made.' . . . This Colledg he built very stony out of a design that it should be able to hold out a Siege of itself... The marginal notes to this passage add: "A castle College designed for defence." "Whosoever considers," the narrative continues," the vast buildings and rich endowments made by this Prelate (besides his expence in repairing the cathedral at Winchester) will conclude such atchievements unpossible for a subject until he reflect on his vast Offices of preferments, being Bishop of Winchester and St. Martin's Le Grand, holding 12 prebends in commendam * with it, Lord Privy Seal, Chancellor and Treasurer of England, beside other places of nearer consequence."

Certainly, this princely bishop had no disdain for the source of all evil, though his philanthropic characteristics can hardly be said to bear that true, pontifical stamp to which six centuries of Anglican church history bear witness.

According to the Account Rolls of Winchester there were new editions of the statutes made in 1394 and 1397, but none of them seem to have been preserved, and the founder put the finishing touch to his work by the authoritative issue of a revised code of statutes, dated September 11th, 1400, to which all members of the college above fifteen years of age were obliged to swear obedience. Nominally, but only nominally, these rules remained in force till their repeal by the Oxford University Commission, in 1857.

The "rubrics "

or chapters of the statutes make the

An ecclesiastical practice, common in the Middle Ages, whereby a bishop held a benefice along with his see.

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whole society to consist of the warden, headmaster, ten perpetual fellows," three "conducts" (or stipendiary chaplains), an usher, three chapel clerks, seventy scholars, sixteen choristers, ten commoners not on the foundation -in all 105 persons. There were ten servants besides the choristers who waited at table and were fed on the broken meats the steward (dispensator), the (dispensator), the "maunciple (Chaucer's buyer of victuals), pantry-man, porter, butler (garcio buterie), and two warden's servants, including a baker, brewer, barber, and "clotheswasher." All the servants were to be males, but failing a masculine clotheswasher, a laundress might receive the dirty linen at the outer gate at the hands of a sworn servant appointed by the college for the purpose. Here we have more than a fleeting glimpse of the medieval, monachal attitude towards the women, whom, as is well known, it queerly associated with Mephistopheles, and with Greek—also his invention, as it deemed !

The great length of the statutes is mainly attributable to the elaborate oaths which were prescribed for the various members of the college, breach of which oaths rendered the perjured one liable to instant excommunication. Wykeham gives the very sufficient reason therefor, (namely, the fear of diversion and alienation of his endowments by corrupt administrants), in the End and Conclusion of all the Statutes; but in his intense desire to help poor scholars he hopes he may rely on them, "when learned men " to keep his statutes " according to their plain grammatical construction."

The really great munificence of the founder is apparent when we find that the mere number of the poor scholars of New College, Oxford, seventy, was almost equal to the whole number of the scholars of all the other colleges put together, and its endowment actually exceeded them all collectively.

Scholars to Wykeham's Oxford college were elected by the warden and two fellows of New College, Oxford, by