The new schools of the sixteenth century

The prototype of the schools of the New Learning was St Paul’s School in London, where the ancient cathedral school was replaced by a new foundation by John Colet, Dean of St Paul’s, in 1509. Colet was himself a leading exponent of the humanist ideas of the Renaissance, and his school included many new features, not least in its organization and arrangement of the scholars. The statutes of 1518 ¹ laid down that there should be ‘taught in the school children of all nations and countries indifferently to the number of 153’ (this was the number of the miraculous draught of fishes recorded in John, xxi. 11). The government of the school was placed, not in the hands of the dean and chapter, but of the lay Company of Mercers, while the first headmaster was a married layman. In these and other ways the break with the past was emphasized.