In 1441 Henry VI. founded a college in Cambridge University by the name of King’s College of St. Nicholas. At first, there was no connection between Eton and King’s College, but in 1443, new statutes were made which enlarged the number of students who could be admitted there and also arranged for the admission of “commensales” who were to pay for their board. The addition of “commensales” accentuates still further the influence of the monastic model. From early times, it had been customary for the heads of monasteries to receive a kind of “parlour boarder” and it would be particularly fitting that, in an institution which was primarily educational and not merely devotional, arrangements should be made for the reception of those scholars who were able and willing to pay.
Henry showed his interest in the school by his issue of a warrant in 1446, in which, after reciting that he had founded a college at Eton for “seventy scholars whose duty it is to learn the science of grammar and sixteen choristers whose duty likewise it shall be, when they have been sufficiently instructed in singing, to learn grammar, also a master teacher in grammar and an usher to teach the aforesaid boys, scholars and choristers,”[612] he proceeded to declare that “it shall not be lawful for anyone, of whatever authority he may be, at any time to presume to keep, set up, or found any such public grammar school in the town of Windsor or elsewhere within the space of ten English miles from our said Royal College.”[613]
This warrant is specially significant in two respects. One is, that it shows that the institution, founded by Henry VI., was not intended to differ in any essential respect from the other local grammar schools which existed in various parts of the country. On the contrary, steps were taken to prevent opposition. There was a real danger that the gratuitous character of the instruction given at Eton might tempt masters to open fee paying schools, with the inevitable result that the social prestige of the school would be lowered. The other significant fact arises from the use of the phrase “public grammar school.” This is the first use of the term in this sense which we have been able to trace, and it is probable that we have here the first occasion on which the word is employed as an alternative for “free,” which denotes, as we have explained, that the school was open to all comers.
It is not necessary that we should consider any further the history of the public schools. This subject has already been fully treated by others, notably by Mr. Leach in his History of Winchester College, and by Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte in his History of Eton College.
We may, however, note three respects in which Winchester first, and subsequently Eton differed from the scholastic institutions, which had previously been established.
1. The scale on which Winchester College was carried out, clearly differentiates it from all earlier foundations. The number of scholars for whom Wykeham provided, and the value of the endowments attached to the school, mark a considerable advance on what had been attempted previously.
2. It was a new idea to associate a school in a district remote from a university centre with a college at Oxford. Rashdall points out that Robert Egglesfield, the founder of Queen’s College, had hoped to have had at Oxford a school of boys in connection with his college. This proposal was not carried out. That which Egglesfield simply proposed for Oxford, Wykeham actually accomplished at Winchester.[614]
3. Winchester College is the first example of a boarding school, pure and simple. Collegiate churches had previously provided for the gratuitous instruction of scholars, but the real object of the establishment of a collegiate church was that divine worship should be rendered in an effective and dignified manner. Endowments had previously been provided for the feeding and lodging of scholars, but this was to be effected in connection with an existing charitable institution. At Winchester, for the first time, an institution was established for the combined purpose of teaching and of maintaining scholars, and for those purposes alone. “The really important new departure was taken, a real step in advance made, when Wykeham made his school a separate and distinct foundation.... The corporate name of ‘Warden and scholars, clerks’ stamped the school and the schoolboys as the aim and object of the foundation.”[615]
One other question must be considered. The great public schools to-day are attended by the sons of wealthy parents: were these schools founded originally for children of the social grade who now attend them? The foundation deeds state explicitly that they were established for “pauperes et indigentes scolares.”
Mr. Leach writes vehemently on the subject. “A great deal of discussion has taken place, and much excellent eloquence run to waste on the qualification of ‘poor and needy.’ It was alleged ... that there had been a robbery of the poor in the matter of endowed schools; that the persons entitled, under the founder’s statutes, to the benefits of Winchester College, were the poor in the sense of the poor law, the destitute poor, the gutter poor, or, at least, the poor labouring classes. There is not, I believe, a title or a shred of justification for any such allegation in the case of any public or endowed grammar school founded before 1627.”[616]