xviii c.
son to a city grocer; Marvell (b. 1620) son to a Yorkshire clergyman; while Temple was the son of an Irish Master of the Rolls. In the latter half of the xvii century we still hear of “the farmer’s son newly come from the university”[376]—Bentley was one of them—and at the same time we hear that Tuckney, Whichcote’s tutor, “had many persons of rank and quality” under him at Emmanuel College. In the xviii century, Pepys’ (b. 1703) father was a tailor, the Wordsworths were sons of a north country attorney, Sir William Browne (b. 1692) was the son of a physician.
Recruiting schools.
Men of low origin were sent up, and have always been sent up, to the universities through the beneficence of patrons, and the poor tailor Stow was enabled to write his history owing to the patronage of Archbishop Parker who sent him to Oxford. Through the xv and early xvi centuries the monastic and other convent schools supplied university students. Bale (b. 1495) had been educated by the Norwich Carmelites, Coverdale (b. 1487) had been an Austinfriar at Cambridge. At the present day the big grammar schools, and in especial the Norwich grammar school which educated Nelson, send every year a contingent of students, as they have done since the reign of Edward VI. If we take the sporting representatives sent from the two universities the year before last, 23 from Oxford and 21 from Cambridge, we shall find that one third of the Cambridge men hailed from the greater public schools, Eton, Charterhouse, and Rugby.[377] Our colonies are also a recruiting ground, and with them Cambridge is favourite university.[378]
The number of undergraduates entered this academic year (1906-7) was the largest on record, totalling 1021. The reputation and the popularity of colleges of course wax and wane: for the past two years the largest number of entries (excluding Trinity) has been for Caius and Pembroke, Emmanuel coming next, and then S. John’s.[379] The number of non-collegiate students is steadily increasing.