ABSTRACT
Side by side with the private Academies, which were a special feature of the eighteenth century, hundreds of classical boarding-schools were kept by private individuals. Both types of schools grew out of opposition to the old system of Grammar Schools. The Academies opposed a narrow classical education in principle and advocated mathematics and sciences as a basis for a modern education. The private classical schools opposed the old system from another point of view. They accepted classical studies as a basis of liberal education, but they considered that the methods used in Grammar Schools overtaxed the mechanical memory of boys and often failed to impart to them the spirit of the Greco-Roman civilisation. They especially objected to the customs of bullying and the atmosphere of corruption which was prevalent in the majority of public Grammar Schools. Private classical schools as a rule were small boarding-houses where the Master himself boarded the boys and was more of a ‘paterfamilias’ than the distant demi-god of a large public institution. Many aristocratic families, country squires and members of the clergy preferred private schools to public schools on these grounds. Many farmers and craftsmen sent their sons to the local private school kept by their vicar, which was more accessible and cheaper than the distant Grammar School. These private schools abounded even in the seventeenth century and many of the eighteenth-century schools had their beginnings in the preceding century. 1 Their primary purpose was to prepare for Cambridge and Oxford and because of the religious tests they were almost exclusively kept by clergymen of the Church of England. Only at the end of the century with the repeal of the disabling laws did Dissenters start to attend classical schools and send their sons to the two Universities. The masters of these schools could be divided into two groups. The first were usually good scholars and professional teachers; they took holy orders because tradition demanded it, and as a rule they were absentees from their parishes and devoted their whole time to teaching. The second group were resident rectors and vicars, who started a boarding-school sometimes to educate their own sons and sometimes to add to their very limited incomes. The dividing line was not very definite; often a professional teacher would resign from his school and towards the end of his life become a resident clergyman. On the other hand some local vicar, who started his school more by chance than design, would be so successful as to become a professional teacher. To the first group belonged the Gilpins of Cheam, the Burneys of Greenwich, the Glasses of Greenford, Thomas Home of Chiswick and others. A typical representative of the second group was Isaac Milles, of Highclere, whose career was repeated throughout the century by hundreds of resident clergymen all over England. The schools of the first group were usually larger institutions with a longer life than the schools of the second group. They attained a certain measure of recognition and it is comparatively easy to find them in contemporary sources. The schools of the second group often were very small, limited by the space available in the vicarage, and ended their existence with the death of the vicar. To trace them is very difficult and the only way to find the majority of them is to look through the admission registers of all the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. We could do so for only six Colleges of Cambridge. The rest of the Cambridge Colleges and all the Oxford Colleges have not been investigated and undoubtedly contain much additional information. From the tables in the first chapter and from the investigation of the admission registers it appears that about 20 per cent of all University students were recruited from private classical schools. Should we add the students trained at home by private tutors, who often were the local vicars-schoolmasters, we arrive at the figure of 40 per cent, the public Grammar Schools supplying not more than 60 per cent. 1
