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began to triumph, especially after the Assembly of Divines had commenced to hold its session in Westminster Abbey, they deemed it expedient to keep out of the way. Accordingly, there being no one in responsible charge either of the abbey or of the school, the Long Parliament passed an ordinance on the 18th of November, 1645, entrusting the management of both institutions to a committee of its own way of thinking, and on the members of this committee devolved the share of power in electing scholars which had previously appertained to the dean and chapter. They naturally elected promising youths of their own party; and during the few years following their appointment the school that had hitherto been appropriated exclusively by royalists was opened to the sons of puritans. We can readily understand how Popham, entering parliament as member for Bath in October, 1645,2 was able to obtain a nomination for the son of his friend and agent in Somersetshire, and we may fairly assume that young Locke became a Westminster boy early in 1646.

Westminster School, growing out of a much older appendage of the ancient abbey, had been formally established about a hundred years before Locke was admitted into it. Henry the Eighth had made provision by charter for a school to contain forty boys, and soon after her accession Queen Elizabeth had reorganized it under a new charter, which, in addition to the forty foundationers, or king's scholars, provided for the education of eighty other boys,-some as pensionarii, resident with the masters and ushers of the school, or with the

1 The ordinance is cited by Widmore, History of Westminster Abbey' (1751), p. 214.

2 See note on p. 9.

dean and prebendaries of the abbey; others as oppidani, town boys living with their parents or other kinsfolk; others as peregrini, country boys boarding with any neighbouring householders who would undertake the charge. Queen Elizabeth's charter is still the basis of the school establishment, but even before Locke's day the number of outside boys had been allowed greatly to exceed the prescribed limit of eighty. From these outside boys, and as far as convenient from the sons of tenants of the chapter estates-nominally by merit, but really very often by favour-the king's scholars were elected at Whitsuntide, generally about ten each year. At the end of four years the most suitable were transferred to the universities, there to be provided with a free education during seven years more; three being usually elected each Whitsuntide to junior studentships at Christ Church College, Oxford, and three being sent to Trinity College, Cambridge.1

Locke, probably, having begun school-life at Westminster as a peregrinus in 1646, was made a king's scholar in 1647. If the rules and usages of the school were strictly conformed to in his case-and we must never forget that these were years in which strict conformity to rules and usages could not be relied upon, and that they were, as regards religious affairs, compulsorily broken through-he had, before he could become even a peregrinus, to prove that he was of good morals and of teachable mind, and well grounded in the rudiments of knowledge. Before he could become a king's scholar it was requisite that he should pass a stiff examination in

1 The Statutes of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, printed, so far as relates to the school, in the Appendix to the Report of the Cathedral and Collegiate Church Commission, 1854.

1616-52.

Et. 14-19.

A KING'S SCHOLAR AT WESTMINSTER.

ARY

VERSITY

19RNIA

Latin, if not in Greek as well, and in "at least eight parts
of grammar," and also that he should be able to write
at any rate tolerably well." That done, he was entitled
to instruction and residence without charge, and to an
annual allowance of 13s. 4d. for "livery," and 60s. 10d.
for (6
commons," with some extra allowance for luxuries
on festivals and holidays.1

Locke passed six years in Westminster School, a year longer than the ordinary curriculum. At Whitsuntide in 1652 he obtained a junior studentship at Christ Church, Oxford. We have no direct information concerning his life and occupations during the interval, but it is not difficult to understand something about them.3

The famous Dr. Richard Busby was head master of Westminster in his day, having been appointed to the post in 1638, and holding it until his death in 1695; and under his rule there was no relaxation in the discipline of the school, albeit some change in theological

1 The Statutes of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster. 2 Welch, Alumni Westmonasterienses' (1852), p. 139. Though only Welch's name appears on the title-page of this second edition, it owes most of its value to the copious additions by its editor, Mr. C. B. Phillimore.

3 John Dryden, the poet, and Robert South, the witty preacher and scurrilous theologian, were Locke's schoolfellows, and his seniors in the school by a year; but if he had much intimacy with either of them at Westminster, it was certainly not continued in after-life. Among the youths with whom he did maintain friendly relations in later days, and with whom we shall accordingly make some acquaintance hereafter, were William Godolphin, elder brother of the more famous Sidney Godolphin, and destined to acquire some small distinction in the world of politics, Thomas Blomer, who became a clergyman, and Richard Lower and Walter Needham, who became successful physicians. John Mapletoft, another doctor of repute, was afterwards one of Locke's most intimate friends; but as he left Westminster for Cambridge in 1648, they probably at this time knew little of one another.

training and forms of religion, during the Commonwealth period. There was more hearing of sermons and prayers, but not less attendance to the school routine.

The boys rose, dressed themselves, and attended prayers before six o'clock in the morning, when the school-work began. Two hours were spent in Greek and Latin grammar repetitions, in extempore Latin paraphrases and expositions by the elder scholars of passages given to them out of Greek or Latin authors, and in repetitions by the younger scholars of passages that they had learnt overnight, under the correction and instruction of the masters. An hour was then allowed them in which to prepare other exercises, and between nine and eleven they were examined in prose and verse composition, still of course in Greek and Latin, were called upon to translate viva voce passages from English authors into Latin or Greek, according to their capacities, and listened to their masters' expositions of classical authors on which they were to be examined in the afternoon. Two hours were devoted to dinner and such pastime as the reading of Latin manuscripts, in order that they might be familiar with mediæval handwriting. Between one and three they were examined in the passages previously expounded to them, and exercised in "construing and other grammatical ways, examining all the rhetorical figures, and translating out of verse into prose, or out of prose into verse, out of Greek into Latin, or out of Latin into Greek." Between three and four they were allowed to walk about in the recreation ground; and after that, till supper time, they were chiefly employed in translating Greek or Latin prose into English prose, or Greek or Latin verse into English verse, and in preparing their exercises for the morrow. So four days of the week were filled. Fridays were set apart for re

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petitions, and Saturdays for Greek and Latin declamations. In the upper forms, part of the time was devoted to the study of Hebrew and Arabic, instead of the classical languages, and during the summer, after supper, a little elementary geography was taught.'//

With such a wonderful school diet, it is not strange that a good many Westminster boys should have become either pedants or dolts. "I heard and saw such exercises," wrote Evelyn, on the 13th of May, 1661, "at the election of scholars at Westminster School to be sent to the university, in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, in themes and extemporary verses, as wonderfully astonished me in such youths, some of them not above twelve or thirteen years of age. Pity it is that what they attain here so ripely, they either do not retain, or do not improve more considerably when they come to be men; though many of them do."

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John Locke was one of those who did improve in learning when he came to be a man; but very little of his eminence can have been due to the excessive quantity of indigestible scholarship that was forced upon him in his youth, and long after he had left school he took occasion, in his Thoughts concerning Education,' to condemn the teaching and the method of teaching to which he had been subjected. "A good part of the learning now in fashion in the schools of Europe, and that goes. ordinarily into the round of education," he wrote, "a gentleman may in good measure be unfurnished with,

1 See a long and graphic account of his studies, written by a Westminster scholar of the generation before Locke's, quoted in The Public Schools' (1867), a volume full of interesting gossip about Westminster, W nchester, Shrewsbury, Harrow, and Rugby, which first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine.

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