Cambridge Papers. W. W. Rouse Ball
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accommodation was considerably extended.
About this time a further step was taken by throwing most of the advanced lectures open to members of other colleges. Thus in a few years instruction by tutorial sides was replaced by college lectures and class-work, and then this, to a large extent, by teaching organized on a university basis, supplemented by individual and catechetical instruction in college: with this, the custom of using private tuition has largely disappeared. Ultimately the title of assistant-tutor was dropped; the last appointment under that title was made in 1885, but from about 1870 we may say that practically the duties of an assistant-tutor were those of a lecturer. Thenceforth tutors also took their share of lecturing on subjects connected with their own lines of study, and did not confine their instruction to their own pupils, though for a year or two lectures on elementary mathematics and classics to freshmen on each particular side survived as a historic curiosity. These changes led to the existing scheme under which tutorial and tuition duties are separated, and thus the giving of direct instruction to [47] his pupils is not now necessarily part of the duties of a tutor.
The sequence of tutors on each side has been published, and I am sorely tempted to add various anecdotes on the way in which some of these officers fulfilled their duties, but such additions lie outside the object of this essay.
Of course during this long period there have been bad as well as good tutors, but I think everyone will admit that on the whole the system has worked well. Its special characteristic is a personal relation between the tutor and the pupil, materially strengthened by constant intercourse and by the fact that practically all the correspondence with the parents of the pupil passes through the hands of the tutor: experience shows that the tutorial influence has not been weakened by the fact that in most cases direct instruction is now given by other lecturers.
17 The history of the University prior to 1546 covers some three centuries and a half, that is, about as long a period as has elapsed since 1546.
[48] CHAPTER III. THE WESTMINSTER SCHOLARS.
The relations between Trinity College and Westminster School have always been of an intimate character. Under the Elizabethan statutes of the two foundations a limited number of boys from the school were entitled, if duly qualified, to election to scholarships at Trinity, and later an attempt was made to extend the privilege to fellowships. The whole matter is now one of ancient history, but it may be interesting to put on record some of the facts connected with it.
The school at Westminster owes its foundation to queen Elizabeth. Of course the abbey is many centuries older, and in a sense so is the school, for a grammar-school (in addition to the choir-school) had been attached to the medieval monastery, though doubtless it existed only at the pleasure of the monks. When Henry VIII created the diocese of Westminster with the former abbey as its cathedral, he also established a school connected with it. The diocese soon disappeared, and later the church and buildings were given by queen Mary to the Benedictines. The arrangement made [49] by Mary was in turn annulled by Elizabeth, who, shortly after her succession founded the collegiate Church of St. Peter, divided into two branches, one ecclesiastical and the other scholastic, the whole being placed under the rule of the dean and chapter. Thus Elizabeth is rightly designated as the founder of the present school, though a link with the past has been preserved in the fact that the sequence of headmasters dates by custom from 1540. The buildings were divided between the two sides of the College; for the scholastic side, one part of the monastic dormitory was made into a school-room, the granary was turned into a school dormitory, and the boys were allowed the use of the refectory for meals.
The queen interested herself in the school she had established; its connection with particular colleges at the universities was suggested by the precedents of Winchester and Eton, and it was natural that she should desire to associate it closely with the Houses at Cambridge and Oxford which had been founded by her father. There is some reason to think that the details of the arrangement made were due to Bill, the first dean of Westminster, who was at the same time master of Trinity and provost of Eton; a fortunate pluralist!
On 29 March 1560, Elizabeth gave new statutes to Trinity College, Cambridge, and in statute 13, [50] dealing with the sixty-two scholars of the College, she directed as follows:
Sumantur autem potissimum et eligantur ex eorum numero, si modo idonei et ceteris pares reperiantur qui Schola Regia Westmonasterii educati … sint. … Ex aliis regni partibus ac locis indifferenter ad numerum supplendum qui maxime idonei videbuntur, semper sumantur.
In June 1560, she gave statutes to the Collegiate Church at Westminster, and in statute 6, dealing with the forty scholars of the school, she directed that three scholars from the school should be elected annually to the foundation of Christ Church, Oxford, and three to that of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is said that the queen did not ratify these statutes. Be this as it may, in the following year, on 11 June 1561, she sent to Trinity College letters patent referring to the Westminster statutes as indicating her wishes in the matter, and expressing her desire that the Society should select as many scholars from Westminster as was possible. This then was the position in 1561, and it was recognised these letters were binding and conferred rights on duly qualified Westminster scholars.
Throughout the three centuries of the existence of these rights, candidates usually preferred the Christ Church studentships, which, being tenable under certain conditions for life, were much more valuable than Trinity scholarships, since the latter [51] ran out in less than seven years. Perhaps too the boys were attracted to Christ Church rather than to Trinity by the fact that there they formed a larger proportion of the whole Society than in Henry’s foundation by the Cam. Further a boy elected to Christ Church entered sooner into the emoluments of his studentship than a boy elected to Trinity—the latter not being admitted to his scholarship until the next annual election of scholars which took place in the following spring, usually some six months after he had commenced residence.
There were only forty scholars at Westminster and a provision for the election from them every year of six scholars to the two universities was more than ample. Thus in 1561 one scholar was elected to each university, during each of the six following years, 1562–67, two scholars were elected to each university, in 1568, six scholars were for the first time presented, and each university took three. In 1569 the school again presented three boys for election at Trinity, but the master, Whitgift, refused to elect more than two, alleging that there were not vacancies in the House for more than that number. Thereon the scholar or his friends appealed to Sir William Cecil, the chancellor of the University. Correspondence ensued, but the Society refused to give way on the particular election. On the general question the College [52] addressed a letter18, dated 3 July 1569, to Cecil entreating him to interpose with the queen to lighten the burden imposed on Trinity by the royal statutes, and asserting that the Westminster scholars took up so many places as to act to the detriment of other and more worthy students. The crown assented to this proposal, and it was agreed that thenceforth three scholars should be chosen every third year, and not necessarily more than two in the other years.
This arrangement lasted but a short time, for a year or two later, perhaps in 1575, Goodman, dean of Westminster, petitioned19 the lord treasurer to confirm or re-enact the original statutes whereby three Westminster scholars were to be elected each year to each of the two universities. The petition was granted, and, I conjecture, was the occasion of the letters patent sent by the queen on 7 February 1576, to Trinity College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford, wherein she repeated and explained her former injunctions. In these letters she stated that Westminster scholars were not to be allowed