Wisbech, and administer private baptism when duly required, in such division and district thereof as shall be from time to time fixed and appointed by the Bishop of the Diocese of Ely for the time being. Now if there be one part of the duties of the clergy that is more serviceable, and that conveys more real comfort than another, or where the duties less require the limits and bounds of episcopal prescription, it is that of visiting the sick. When we know, and feel, or imagine that we feel, by some secret yet spirit-stirring admonition, that our days are numbered, or where we are gradually sinking beneath the power of some lingering disease, then is the time that we value the privilege of selecting a minister to read, converse, and pray with us, whose doctrines we approve of, and whose piety we revere: and must we be debarred from calling in this cheering guide in our afflictions because some parochial boundary has been fixed, or some rigid line of demarcation has been marked out as the exclusive sphere of usefulness for the universal minister of God? If this holy duty were more universally sought out, and attended to by our spiritual pastors, no petty feeling of jealousy as to local jurisdiction would ever exist; but they would gladly solicit others to come over and help them: and wherever the couch of the dying man were placed, there would be found some faithful minister enforcing the necessity of repentance and faith, and pointing out the only path to Heaven.

CHAPTER VIII.

Grammar School and other Public Institutions.

In perusing the pages of history and tracing the

periods when education was rendered a matter of national regard, there are none perhaps that give us greater delight than when Alfred applied his time and his talents to civilize and cultivate the habits of his people. It is well known that he divided his kingdom into parishes, and modelled the first code of laws that regulated the various classes of society; and as literature was one of his earliest and most favorite studies, he well knew its value, and most anxiously desired that his subjects should enjoy the same privilege with himself. There is every reason to believe that parochial education, although of course to a limited extent, was established in his reign. Unhappily, however, for his subjects, the succeeding monarchs did not follow up his noble example; foreign invasion and intestine warfare left no leisure for cultivating the arts of peace, and the great anxiety of the clergy, who were the only scholars

of the day, to keep the minds of their people in a state of degrading ignorance, tended much to impede the progress of learning; and we find but few traces of public schools until the sixteenth century.

It was at this period that the present Wisbech Grammar School was, in all probability, erected; although we find the name of Jacob Cresner recorded in Cole's MS. as a schoolmaster in 1446, and another in 1506, yet we must have recourse to the charter of Edward VI. granted in 1549, as the earliest authentic record on which we can rely with any degree of safety.*

This charter, after granting to the inhabitants certain estates, and giving directions as to their management and appropriation of the rents, ordains and directs that

there should be in the town of Wisbech a school or place of learning for the instruction of boys and young men in grammatical knowledge and polite learning; and also a schoolmaster learned in the Latin and Greek languages, and imbued with virtuous morals, to the end that he, the boys and young men whomsoever thither resorting and coming together in grammatical knowledge, and the Greek and Latin languages, should freely without any exaction, institute, teach, and imbue;' and it also directs that the schoolmaster should receive from the inhabitants a salary and stipend of twelve pounds per annum.'

The old records state that William Bellman gave a plot of ground for the school house, in the year 1549— the same year in which the charter of Edward VI. was

* Winchester School was established in 1382, and Eton in 1446.

granted—and there is every reason to believe that the present building was erected at the same time.

The origin of the term grammar-school, and the regulations that were to be observed in public education, are to be found in the Ecclesiastical Canon Laws, passed in 1603.

The 79th canon directed' that all schoolmasters should teach in English or Latin, as the children were able to bear, the larger and shorter catechisms theretofore by public authority set forth: and as often as any sermon should be upon holy and festival days, within the parish where they taught, they should bring their scholars to the church where such sermon should be made, and there see them quietly and soberly behave themselves; and should examine them at times convenient after their return what they had borne away of such sermon.' It also provides that they should teach the grammar set forth by King Henry VIII., and continued in the times of King Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, of noble memory, and none other.

The larger catechism here alluded to is that contained in the book of Common Prayer, and the shorter catechism is that ordained by the letters patent of Edward VI., to be taught in all schools: it was examined, revised, and corrected in the convocation of 1562, and published in 1570, to be a guide to the young clergy in the study of divinity, as containing the substance of our reformed religion.*

The grammar referred to is that compiled and set forth by William Lilly, and others, especially appointed

* See Gibs, 374.

by the king; in the preface to which book it is declared that as for the diversity of grammars, it is well and profitably taken away by the King's Majesty's wisdom, who, foreseeing the inconvenience and favorably providing the remedy, caused one kind of grammar, by sundry learned men, to be diligently drawn and so to be set out only,-everywhere to be taught for the use of learners, and for avoiding the hurt in changing of schoolmasters.'

The 77th canon gives particular directions that no man shall teach either in public schools or private houses, but should 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.' These canons, which were confirmed in the reign of James I. and were incidentally acknowledged by parliament as the law of the land in the Statute of 4th James, c. 7, formed the basis on which all public schools were conducted; and great care, we perceive, was taken to guard the infant mind against imbibing the errors of popery.

Various laws were afterwards enacted enabling persons to give lands for the benefit of the public schools, which they were previously disabled from doing by what is commonly called the Mortmain Act, and several individuals in Wisbech and its immediate neighbourhood, availed themselves of the power granted by the legislature: we find that Thomas Parke, Esq., whose monument we have recorded, gave by his will, twenty acres of land in the parish of Elm, for the use of the