What a lively time the schoolboy had in those ‘good old days’! Hours of study, from early morning till bedtime; subjects taught, Latin grammar and Latin authors—these being plentifully varied with such pleasant interludes as that pictured in the seal of Louth Grammar School. Little wonder that Shakespeare, himself an ‘old boy’ of the Stratford-on-Avon Grammar School, had memories of
... the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
Little wonder, also, that in the churchwardens’ accounts for Howden there occur numerous payments for ‘glasse for repairing the schollehouse windows.’ Boys will, of course, be boys, as long as the world lasts, and even in the seventeenth century they had to work off their excess of high spirits somehow or other.
Grammar Schools were not the only class of schools in existence during former days. There were two other kinds. Song Schools were closely connected with the services in large churches. They ranked below the Grammar Schools, and their scholars were taught to read, write, and figure, as well as to sing the various portions of the church service. The Choir School attached to Holy Trinity Church, Hull, is a modern representative of the mediæval Song School.
Of less rank, again, were the Reading Schools. Populous towns might possess a school of each kind, as did Howden in 1401. But often the Song School and the Reading School were combined in one; and sometimes, as at Bridlington, the Grammar School was also a Song School.
But generally the vicar or the chantry priest was the master of the Grammar School, while the parish clerk was the master of the Song School. Any decrepit old man who had sufficient learning, but who had fallen on evil days, might be the master of the Reading School; where it would be his duty to teach the petits, or little ones, their ABC. Sometimes the petits had their name changed into English, and were then known as the Petties, or as the ABCies. The latter of these two names was usually written in a very quaint form—abseies.