ABSTRACT
The last ranks in the hierarchy of the parochial structure were the schoolmasters and the readers, many of whom were also acting as schoolmasters in addition to their duties as parochial readers. For many centuries English education has been closely allied to the Church. Virtually all early schools sprang from an ecclesiastical foundation and a large proportion of them were staffed by the clerks attached to the original foundation. For long periods in their history both the schools and the schoolmasters were supervised by the Church far more closely than they are now inspected by the State. During the greater part of its history, English education has been not only Christian in its teaching but for two centuries after the Reformation, with the exception of the Dissenting academies founded after the Bartholomew evictions of 1662, almost exclusively Anglican.
