[13] State Papers, Domestic, 1546, no. 647 (25).

[14] Three fellow-commoners had matriculated from King’s Hall in 1544.

[15] The charter of foundation, dated 19 December, and that of endowment, dated 24 December, are printed at length in the Cambridge Documents, vol. III, pp. 365–410.

[16] C. H. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1842, vol. I, p. 452.

[26]
]CHAPTER II.
THE TUTORIAL SYSTEM.

The word Tutor is used at Cambridge to describe an officer of a College who stands to his pupils in loco parentis; now-a-days he may, but does not necessarily, give direct instruction to them. The object of this chapter is to describe the development of the office in Trinity College.

Trinity College was founded in 1546 by Henry VIII. It is, however, essential in dealing with its early history to bear in mind that it was founded in a pre-existing[17] University having well-established rules and customs. Nearly all the original members of Trinity had been educated at Cambridge, they were familiar with its traditions, and even the buildings they occupied were associated with the college life of earlier times. It was intended that the Society should promote the reformed religion and the new learning, but there is no reason to suppose that in establishing it, it was wished or proposed to alter the existing practice about the tuition, guidance, and care of the younger students.

In the system in force in the University shortly [27] ]before the foundation of Trinity, the students corresponding to our scholars and sizars lived in endowed colleges (of which eight were founded before 1353 and seven between 1440 and 1520), most of those corresponding to our pensioners in unendowed private hostels (of which in the sixteenth century there were twenty-seven and in earlier times possibly a few more), and most of those belonging to religious orders in monasteries or monastic hostels. A student on admission to the University was apprenticed to some master of arts or doctor who directed the lad’s studies until he took a master’s degree. This graduate was known as the student’s “master”: in the case of a member of a college we may assume that the master was chosen from among the senior members of the House, though it is doubtful if this was necessarily so in the case of the hostels. The head of a college or hostel was responsible for the conduct and control of the lad in non-scholastic matters, but in colleges in later times this work was assigned to a dean. Thus for practical purposes a tutorial system already existed in the medieval system of apprenticeship and control.

The royal scheme for Trinity College comprised a master, fifteen senior fellows, twenty-five middle fellows, twenty junior fellows (of whom, in 1546, thirteen were undergraduates), and forty grammarian school-boys. In addition to these, there were [28] ]servant-students (known as sizars or subsizars), each being attached as gyp to a particular fellow, and receiving education, board, and lodging in lieu of money wages. There is nothing to show whether or not the presence of pensioners was contemplated.

We have a list, apparently complete, of all the intended officers; tutors do not appear among them, though a schoolmaster and usher were provided for the grammarians. Hence it would seem that the relation between an apprenticed undergraduate and his master was regarded as personal, and that the latter was selected and paid by his pupil or pupil’s guardian, and not by or through the College—I conjecture that this was the usual medieval practice. The deans are mentioned as officers of the College, and the discipline of the younger members was part of their business, though no doubt a lad’s master or tutor assisted in enforcing it. The formal charter of foundation was given by Henry in December 1546, but the grammarians are not mentioned therein.