little more than read. (1) Herein lay one of the difficulties of the Reformation. The ignorance of many of the clergy was so great that they could not read the new offices. In the performance of their duties they reverted to memory, and preferred to say the old prayers which they knew by heart. (2) The poorer classes, except those destined for minor clerical offices, had never caught the infection of knowledge, or even got within the outer circle of its influence. In a disputation at Westminster during Elizabeth's reign," whether it was against the Word of God to use a tongue unknown to the people," the Dean of St. Paul's, who argued on behalf of a section of the Bishops, said, "The people of England do not understand their own tongue better than Eunuchus did the Hebrew." (3) The people knew nothing of religion beyond its outward forms and pageantry. (*) Even the richer classes were almost wholly without elementary instruction. Henry VII. was illiterate. At the time of Henry VIII.'s accession, if Princes could read and write, more was not expected of them. (5) Latimer's sermons are sufficient to satisfy us how little the teaching of the monasteries had touched the higher classes, who were unfitted for any offices of state; (6) while the poor had been lost sight of altogether. In the latter days of the monasteries they had almost given up the pretence of teaching. Burnet affirms that while they had in their hands the chief encouragements of learning, they did nothing for it, but decried and disparaged it, saying it would bring in heresy and a great deal of mischief. (7) Mr. Froude agrees that the people were taught only what they could teach themselves. (8) Nothing is more manifest, than that the desire for knowledge and the impetus given to learning for which the sixteenth 1 Burnet's Reformation, 2, part 1, 375. 2 Hook's Lives, N.S. 4, 125. 3 Burnet's Reformation, 2, part 2, 471. 4 Ibid. 2, part 1. 5 Ibid. 1, part 1, 17. • The Ploughers, 28. 7 Burnet's Reformation, 1, part 1, 39. s History of England, 1, 58. century was remarkable, proceeded not from the teaching of the monasteries, but from the group of English scholars who derived their inspiration from the Greek teachers who had found in Florence a refuge from the persecutions of Constantinople. Amongst them the most remarkable were Colet, Dean of St. Paul's and founder of St. Paul's School, Lilly, the author of the grammar, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Latimer, Sir Thomas More, Grocyn, the first English teacher of Greek, and Erasmus. (1) Before Henry's rule had become a settled law of tyranny and spoliation, the beginning of the Reformation was full of promise for the spread of knowledge. Sir Thomas More had dreamed of an ideal state in which all in their childhood were instructed in learning. (2) Erasmus yearned for the time when all should be able to read the Scriptures for themselves. "I long for the day," he said, "when the husbandman shall sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, when the weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, when the traveller shall while away with their stories the weariness of his journey." (3) Henry VIII. was himself a fair scholar, and took the new learning under his own especial patronage. Cranmer had projected liberal designs for ecclesiastical and civil education. (4) Latimer was never weary of preaching the duty of teaching the young. "They that do somewhat for the furtherance of learning, for maintaining of schools and scholars, they sanctify God's holy name." (5) 1 Green's Short History, 297, and Hook's Lives, 1, N.S. 267. 2 Utopia, Arber's reprint, 2, 86, and Green, 312. s Green's History, p. 308. 4 Dean Hook discredits the intentions assigned to Cranmer (Lives of Archbishops, N.S., 2, 30), but Strype, Burnet, and older writers are unanimous on the other side, and his speeches prove that he was in favour of educating the children of the poor. That he shared in the spoils of the monasteries is true. That was the gross temptation and spirit of his time. Latimer's Sermons, Parker Society, 1, 349. The means were at hand for the establishment of a vast and comprehensive system in its various grades. A comparatively small portion of the wealth of the dispossessed monasteries would have sufficed for the purpose, and the mind of the nation had been prepared for such an application of the funds. The clergy were docile and obedient and anxious to save what they could, while such a disposition would have preserved for their support, no inconsiderable share of the spoils. Even as it was, no obstinate opposition was offered to the changes introduced by Henry. In little more than twenty years, says Burnet, there were four great changes made in religion, and in all these the mainbody of the nation turned with the stream." (1) The people, except when driven by want, and goaded by oppression, were law abiding and peaceable. Nor was there such a jealousy between the clergy and laity as to prevent co-operation in the work of education. Colet committed his great foundation at St. Paul's to the management of a lay corporation, having found "many laymen as conscientious as clergymen in discharging their trust in this kind." (2) Cranmer, in discussing with Henry the re-establishment of Christ Church at Canterbury, had advocated the separation of the lectureships upon divinity and humanity. (3) Sir James Kay Shuttleworth goes the length of affirming that the schools at the Reformation "were not confided to the clergy, or subjected to the visitation of the bishop." (*) This, however, as will be seen is a mistake. There was no such transference of the control of education from the priesthood to the congregation as he contends for, either in theory or in practice; 1 Burnet's Reformation, 2, part 1, preface xx. 2 Fuller's Church History, 3, 19. 3 Burnet's Reformation, 3, part 3, 209. 4 Public Education, 13, 242. It is a mere refinement to say that the power of visitation was not given by Statute or by common law. The accuracy of this statement may be doubted, but, at any rate, the schools were by the de facto law, placed under the control of the clergy. NFO NMO ut considering the spirit of the time, a great opportunity was ɔst of laying a broad foundation for schools, in which clergy nd laity might have worked together to promote instruction, nd carry out the principles of the Reformation. There is little doubt that it was comprehended within he first design of the Reformation, to make substantial provision for education. It was one of the serious charges against the monasteries that their duties in this respect had been neglected, and the instructions for the first visitation, provided that enquiries should be made under this head. (1) The same reasons for their suppression was given afterwards when experience had proved it to be a mere pretence. The preamble to the bill for the dissolution of the greater monasteries alleged as its object, "that these houses might be converted to better uses; God's word set forth, children brought up in learning" (2) and so forth. The King assured the people that there should be no detriment to piety or learning. (3) Out of this second conversion of church property, it was proposed to found eighteen bishoprics, and with them Cranmer designed to connect ecclesiastical and civil colleges, and grammar schools. (*) He had hoped further to found Grammar schools in every shire in England "where children might have been brought up to learning freely, without great cost to their friends and kinsfolk.” (5) But the scheme had to run the gauntlet of many perils, and it ended in the creation of six bishoprics, at test in which the educational features held a very subordinate place. Burnet says the popish party turned the King's foundation another way. (6) The more reasonable explanation is that 1 Burnet's Reformation, 1, part 2, 212. 3 2 Burnet's Reformation, 1, part 1, 475. Dodd's Church History, 1, 287. * Shuttleworth's Public Education, 32. 5 Cranmer's Works, Parker Society, 2, 16. • Burnet's Reformation, 2, part 1, 546. the designs, if they were ever serious on the King's part, were frustrated by the greed, and rapacious spirit of the time. All was scramble, wreck, and confusion. The cry of those in possession was sauve qui peut—the aim of others, to get all they could. The Commissioners enriched themselves, and the ancestors of more than one of the rich families of later times, laid the foundation of their fortunes in this reign. They gave promises to the clergy, and bribes to Cromwell and the country gentry to conceal their depredations. (1) The liberality of the King's nature, especially in dealing with the goods of others, was not consistent with any well-ordered scheme of re-construction, civil or ecclesiastical. "Small merits of courtiers met with a prodigious recompense for the services; not only the cooks, but the meanest turn-broach in the King's kitchen did lick his fingers," (2) and such gifts as were made for education, often shrank in their passage through the hands of a covetous steward. (3) The Universities were robbed of exhibitions and pensions, (*) and every ecclesiastical foundation was impoverished. The seizure of first the lesser, then the greater monasteries, and lastly the collegiate churches, hospitals, and chauntries, has been described as the three great mouthfuls made by Henry. He did not however live to swallow them all. He reduced into possession only the lesser and greater monasteries. Out of the spoils of these, this munificent patron of letters and learning, as he loved to be considered, founded six cathedrals and ten grammar schools, (5) during a reign which extended over thirty-five years; which began with an immense treasure bequeathed by his father, and which was undisturbed by foreign wars or domestic broils. There were also during his 1 Burnet's Reformation, 1, part 1, 39. 2 Fuller's Church History, 3, 438. 3 Ibid 3, 444. Schools Enquiry Commission, 39 App. |