A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

SCHOOLS. The word was anciently of larger application than at present, and signified places of instruction not only for children, but for those of more advanced age. It was applied generally to what are now called universities. Thus Shakspeare, in Hamlet, speaks of being at school at Wittenberg, that is, at the university. The places in the universities where exercises for degrees are performed, and lectures read, are still called schools, both in England, and at least in the older universities of Europe: and academical degrees were often called degrees of school.

But taking the term in its usual modern acceptation, as places of education for the young, it may be convenient in these days to have a concise history of schools. The following, therefore, is given from Dr. Burn and other writers of authority:—

The determinations in the courts of law relative to schools at the time Dr. Burn wrote, had not been delivered with that precision which was usual in other cases. And indeed, excepting in an instance or two in the court of Chancery, the general law concerning schools did not seem to have been considered as yet upon full and solemn arguments. And, therefore, he says, a liberty of animadversion is taken in some of the following particulars, which would not be allowable in matters which had been finally adjudged and settled.

By the 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 37. Whereas it would be a great hinderance to learning and other good and charitable works, if persons well inclined may not be permitted to found schools for the encouragement of learning or to augment the revenues of schools already founded, it shall be lawful for the king to grant licences to aliene, and to purchase and hold in mortmain.

But, by the 9 Geo. II. c. 36, after June 24, 1736, no manors, lands, tenements, rents, advowsons, or other hereditaments, corporeal or incorporeal, nor any sum of money, goods, chattels, stocks in the public funds, securities for money, or any other personal estate whatsoever, to be laid out or disposed of in the purchase of any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, shall be given or any ways conveyed or settled, (unless it be bona fide for full and valuable consideration,) to or upon any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, or otherwise, for any estate or interest whatsoever, or any ways charged or encumbered, in trust or for the benefit of any charitable uses whatsoever; unless such appointment of lands, or of money, or other personal estate, (other than stocks in the public funds,) be made by deed indented, sealed, and delivered in the presence of two witnesses, twelve calendar months at least before the death of the donor, and be enrolled in Chancery within six calendar months next after the execution thereof; and unless such stock in the public funds be transferred in the public books usually kept for the transfer of stocks, six calendar months at least before the death of the donor; and unless the same be made to take effect in possession for the charitable use intended, immediately from the making thereof, and be without power of revocation. And any assurance otherwise made shall be void.

By Canon 77. “No man shall teach either in public school or private house, but such as shall be allowed by the bishop of the diocese, or ordinary of the place, under his hand and seal; being found meet, as well for his learning and dexterity in teaching, as for sober and honest conversation, and also for right understanding of God’s true religion; and also except he first subscribe simply to the first and third articles in the 36th canon, concerning the king’s supremacy, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and to the two first clauses of the second article, concerning the Book of Common Prayer, viz. that it containeth nothing contrary to the word of God, and may lawfully be used.”

And in the case of Cory and Pepper, T. 30 Car. II., a consultation was granted in the court of King’s Bench, against one who taught without licence in contempt of the canons; and (the reporter says) the reason given by the court was, that the canons of 1603 are good by the statute of the 25 Hen. VIII., so long as they do not impugn the common law, or the prerogative royal.—2 Lev. 222. Gibs. 995.

But this is unchronological and absurd; and as the office of a schoolmaster is a lay-office (for where it is supplied by a clergyman, that is only accidental, and not of any necessity at all); it is clear enough, that the canon by its own strength in this case is not obligatory.

Therefore we must seek out some other foundation of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and there are many quotations for this purpose fetched out of the ancient canon law, (Gibs. 1099,) which, although perhaps not perfectly decisive, yet it must be owned they bear that way.

The argument in Cox’s case seems to contain the substance of what has been alleged on both sides in this matter, and concludes in favour of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction; which was thus: M. 1700. In the Chancery: Cox was libelled against in the spiritual court at Exeter, for teaching school without licence from the bishop: And on motion before the lord chancellor an order was made, that cause should be shown why a prohibition should not go, and that in the mean time all things should stay. On showing cause, it was moved to discharge the said order, alleging, that before the Reformation this was certainly of ecclesiastical jurisdiction: Wright, lord keeper, decided that both courts may have a concurrent jurisdiction; and a crime may be punishable both in the one and in the other: The canons of a convocation do not bind the laity without an act of parliament: But I always was, and still am of opinion, that keeping of school is by the old laws of England of ecclesiastical cognizance: and therefore let the order for a prohibition be discharged. Whereupon it was moved, that this libel was for teaching school generally, without showing what kind of school; and the court Christian could not have jurisdiction of writing schools, reading schools, dancing schools, or such like; to which the lord keeper assented; and thereupon granted a prohibition as to the teaching of all schools, except grammar schools, which he thought to be of ecclesiastical cognizance.