A History of Giggleswick School from its Foundation, 1499 to 1912. Edward Allen Bell
Governors alone, with the consent of the Master, could expulse a Scholar for rebelliously and obstinately withstanding the Master or Usher; but if any scholar, upon proof first had, should be found altogether negligent or incapable of learning, at the discretion of the Master he could be returned to his friends to be brought up in some other honest trade and exercise of life.
They could not be absent without leave: and if they did not obey the two Prepositors, by the Master to be appointed for order and quietness in the School they were to be subject to the severe censure of the Master or Usher. Lastly if they behaved themselves irreverently at home or abroad towards their parents, friends, or any others whatsoever, or complained of correction moderately given them by the Master or Usher, they were to be severely corrected for the same.
The stipends of the Master and Usher were not wholly ungenerous. Mulcaster, who had founded Merchant Taylors' School and had two hundred and fifty boys under his charge received only £10: at Rotherham the Grammar Master received £10 15s. 4d.; this was in 1483 but it was extremely good pay for the period. Even Eton College which had a revenue of over £1,000 at the time of Edward VI's Chantry Commissioners' Report was only paying its Schoolmaster £10. It is true that these Schools had also a varying number of boys paying small fees, but such additional income was not part of the foundation. For Giggleswick with a revenue of £20 (exclusive of the King's rent of £3 3s.) and a further possible revenue of £30, to pay the whole of its £20 as a stipend to the Headmaster and Usher was a distinctly liberal proceeding.
The discretionary power of the Master with regard to the discipline of the School appears to be greatly limited. He is bidden appoint two prepositors, he is even advised as to some particular occasions on which he shall correct the scholars. But these regulations probably only codify existing custom, and in practice, no doubt, the Master would find himself almost entirely free from control. Nevertheless such regulations were not without their danger.
Chapter III.
Schools and their Teaching in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
FROM the fifteenth century at least the local Grammar School was the normal place of education for all classes but the highest. In 1410 an action for trespass was brought by two masters of Gloucester Grammar School against a third master, who had set up an unlicensed school in the town and "whereas they used to take forty pence or two shillings a quarter, they now only took twelve pence," and therefore they claimed damages. In the course of the argument the Chief Justice declared that "if a man retains a Master in his house to teach his children, he damages the common Master of the town, but yet he will have no action."
Instances such as this tend to shew that it was the exception for boys to be taught either at home by a private tutor or under a man other than the Public Schoolmaster.
In England, Schools, from the first, that is from their introduction together with Christianity, had been exclusively ecclesiastical institutions and were under ecclesiastical authority and regulation. In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council had said that there should be a Schoolmaster in every Cathedral, and that he should be licensed by the Bishop. In 1290 at Canterbury the Master had even the power of excommunicating his Scholars. At a later date many chantry priests by the founder's direction, a few voluntarily undertook the task of teaching. In 1547 they were compelled to do so by a law, which after a year was rendered nugatory by the confiscation of Chantries. In 1558 Elizabeth ordained that every Schoolmaster and Teacher should take the oath, not only of Supremacy but also of Allegiance. Even after the Reformation they had still to get the Bishop's license and this continued till the reign of Victoria, save for a brief period during the Commonwealth, when County Committees and Major-Generals took the responsibility.
The curriculum in Schools at the beginning of the sixteenth century consisted of what was called the Trivium, Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric. The Quadrivium or Music, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy, was relegated to the Universities and only pursued by very few. In 1535 Henry VIII wished "laten, greken, and hebrewe to be by my people applied and larned." Latin was not in those days a mere method of training the youthful mind, it was much more a practically useful piece of knowledge. It was a standard of communication and a storehouse of phrases. It was taught in the most approved fashion, as a language to be spoken to fit them, as Brinsley says, "if they shall go beyond the seas, as gentlemen who go to travel. Factors for merchants and the like."
Almost every boy learned his Latin out of the same book. Lily's Grammar was ordered to supplant all others in 1540. The smallest local Grammar Schools had much the same text-books and probably as good scholars as Eton or Winchester or Westminster. The Master and Scholars must not talk any language other than Latin, Greek or Hebrew according to the Giggleswick Statutes, and at Eton and Westminster the same rule applied; at those Schools any boy discovered talking English was punished with the name of Custos, a title which involved various unpleasant duties.
Greek and Hebrew are both in the Giggleswick curriculum. Hallam says that in 1500 not more than three or four persons could be mentioned, who had any tincture of Greek. Colet, in his re-foundation Statutes of S. Paul's School ordained that future Headmasters "must be learned in good and clean Latin Literature" and also "in Greek, if such may be gotten." But towards the close of the century Greek had become well-established. Durham introduced it in 1593, the Giggleswick Statutes imply its use in 1592, and Camden, Headmaster of Westminster, in 1597 brought out a Greek Grammar, which became as universal as Lily's Latin Grammar.
Of Hebrew there are few records, and none at Giggleswick, it was probably allotted very little time, and certainly at the Universities, it was for long at a very low ebb.
With regard to English very little was done. Erasmus was responsible for a slightly wider outlook and he encouraged History in Latin books and in a less degree Geography as a method of illustration. Mulcaster who published his book "Positions" in 1561 deplored the fact that education still began with Latin, although religion was no longer "restrained to Latin." The Giggleswick Statutes set it forth that the Master shall instruct his scholars—for more knowledge of the Liberal Sciences and catechize them every week in the knowledge of Christian Religion.
If the Liberal Sciences were the appointed task, and, if in addition, he must speak Latin or Greek or Hebrew, the boy of 1592, long as his school hours undoubtedly were, would be well occupied. We have no evidence on the point, but we can conjecture from other sources the nature of the knowledge of Christian Religion that they were expected to have.
The Primer was the layman's service-book, and consisted largely of matter taken from the Horæ or Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
This litel child his litel book lerninge,
As he sat in the scole at his prymer.
In 1545 Henry VIII had issued a new edition in consequence of the Reformation and he now set it forth as the only edition to be used, and emphasized the importance of learning in the vernacular, the Pater Noster—Ave Maria—Creed—and Ten Commandments.
The Primer was a book of devotion, the Catechism was rather a summary of doctrines. Alexander Nowell, Dean of S. Paul's and possibly a brother of the Giggleswick John Nowell had published a Catechism in 1570, which supplanted all others even those "sett fourth by the Kinges majesties' authoritie for all scolemaisters to teache," and it was Nowell's Catechism that the School Statutes expected to be used.
The Bible was not definitely a school subject till 1604, and although it was in earlier use in some places of education, there is no mention of it at Giggleswick. There is however one more religious aspect of school life that was very general and is mentioned in these particular Statutes. The