The Express.
London, England, 1858-05-26 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 26, 1858.

LI7'BRATUBB.

School Days of Sesame MPS. By Joan Min,
F.S.A. London : sent and Co.
The eminent men whose school days are sketched
by Mr. Timbe are all Englishmen. His work aka*
ample materials for viewing the progress of *duos-
tion and literature in this country, trout the days of
Alfred to the present time. Its most striking fea-
ture is the manifest influecoe free schools have
exercised on the educated classes of England, both
before and sines the introduction of 'minting. There
is at present a quiet assumption on the part of areas
who consider themselves the aristocracy of the mid-
dle clams that a learned education is their birth-
right, that the communication of anything more
than the elements of a plain English education
to " snobs" and " common fellows" to an inven-
tion of modern philanthropy as novel as they deem
it pernicious.
The fallacy of this easamption is abundantly shown
by the facts Mr.Timbe his industriously collected and
arranged in such &manner as to give a comprehensive
view of the progress of letters in England. The torch
of learning his been kept alight by collecting its
materials from every class, front the highest to the
lowest, the flame being freely communicated whom-
ever feed could be found for its nourishment. This'
is true not only for modern timm but also for what
we ea/Ith' darker ages. It applied to the era belbee
Olution of well as after. It wee not • discover
eri~irtlnthem the free petnolpist of the
tfsi~ lit woo the systematic polio i -et cloistered
woks. A knowledge that the gifts of the human
Wail an distributed in their highest excellence by
Provklaws to no particular class of society; that
men of the greatest eminence as poets, orators,
statuses, sad philosophers have raised themselves
to the highest ranks from the lowest among their
fellow-mums by these very gifts—this would lead
us to anticipate the wisdom of the broadest possible
culture of the intellect. History alone, however, an
show that success in intellectual progress has been
in proportion to the liberality with which the gifts of
nature have been fostered.

Mr. Timbe divides his work into two portions. In
the first, after • short description of the state of
adulation before the Conquest, he gives • sketch of
seek monsreh's intellectual training, and the progress
of education in his reign, from William the Con-
queror to William the Fourth. The second portion
is devoted to aneedotical biographies, connected with
the early education of the most noted British
authors, philosophers, poets, and other worthies,
arranged in the chronological order of their birth.
A more convenient arrangement than this oould not
well be devised. It is but justice to the author to
state that he has condensed his ample materials with
great skill, and selected sash 'illustrations as most
elucidate the great theme of his work.
Before the Reformation, and during the early
periods of English history, the Church was indebted
for her supremacy as mach to the intellectual train-
ing and vigour of her priests, as to the supposed
ignorance of the powerful barons she menaced and
controlled. The pen of the cloistered scribe was not
confined to the perpetuation of the sacred writings
and the works of fathers and schoolmen. The
choicest classics of Greece and Rome were multiplied
far the culture of the minds of the clergy. Aristotle,
Mono, and Quintilian had their expounders when
the University of Cambridge was contained within •
hired barn. In the days of Edward the Confessor
the son of a citizen of London could learn grammar,
poetry, and logic, in the school of Westminster.
Nor was the culture confined to the clergy.
Edith*, the Queen of the Confessor, was
so well versed in grammar, poetry, and logic,
that she would condescend to try her skill
with the Westminster boys, and after pa:sling
the future Abbot of Croyland send him with the
welcome present of three or four crowns to il
himself at the buttery of the palace. In the dalit
serfs and vilains the Church threw open her doors
to all, from the lowest to the highest. The son of
the citizen of London might saws to the most emi-
nent position in the church. This was true wisdom
—a wisdom dictated, indeed, by that Christianity
which teaches that God is no respeeter of persons—a
wisdom comonant with the soundest policy. The
nobly-born then most affected arms and deeds of
chivalry. Had literature been left to these we
might soon have sank into barbaric ignorance. The
spirit of rangier', no less than the policy of the
Church, secured • succession of sound men of learn-
ing taken from the lower ranks of society. Where-
ever the cathedral rose or the monastery afforded a
quiet refuge, there might be found a school ; there,
amid wars of desolation, were manuscripts, the then
sole depositaries of learning, multiplied. The rich
sad the noble who aspired to a knowledge of letters
here found their instructors. The eon of the peasant
and the son of the noble learnt together on the same
bench that there was no royal road to learning.
Opposite extremes of society were linked together.
Those noble principles, whose fruits we reap in the
true freedom of the present day, were thus early
sown on British soil.

Schools were not confined to cathedrals and monas-
teries ; many were founded independently of these
institutions, commencing the system of our free
grammar schools, which have had such an important
influence on English education. In the reign of
Richard 1., Abbot Sampson founded a school for
forty poor boys at Bury fit. Edmonds. During the
next century, Hofer Bacon and Duns Scotus are
proofs of our intellectual activity i the one in the
world of philosophy and natural science, the other
in the more subtle regions of menial philosophy.
The English language begins to shape itself into
its present form. The works of Sir John de Mande-
ville, !allowed by those of Chaucer and (lower, indi-
ella progress of literature among the laity.
Logan was no longer confined to the clergy.
aflammr, William of Wykeham, and Wickliffe were
solespeeary I names each suggestive of great
=in the literary history of our country.
, the lather of English poetry, shows us
what a layman could acquire in his time. His
writings are good evidence of a sound and extensive
adaentsen, and show that a knowledge of the powers
al nature and the several sciences were then oulti-
allitilos well as the polite literature of Greece and
base. William of Wykeham, the son of poor
gollado, acquired the principles of science which
pi those architectural ornaments of our
Mod et which even a Christopher Wren was wont
it marvel. But William of Wykeham was
art only an architect, he was a school-
ilimmder. The noble institution of Winchester
ear still attests the far-sighted policy of the
mesa who gathered his swarming bees under tempo-
rary roofs, with masters and statutes, twenty yens
before he built his hives. The work still lasts aid
flourishes, as every good work should do when Mid
on so sound a foundation. William sought to per.
pettish) a race of 'cholera taken from those too peee
to obtain learning for themselves—to do for °them
what was done for himself. We still pones, ifs
benefits which have resulted hum his and kindest'
labourers' generosity and devotion. The
schools of England were the gnat mesas krawhit
learning was diffused end the future s
of the Reformation trained for mseteryi.aur&
liffe's obscure birth was no bar to his intellectual
progress. Oxford gave him a philosophical as wall
as • classical education, and sord him for his
Treat work—a work which such a lasting
tnilumnee on England—the of the Scrip-
ture. Into the vulgar tongue. Thoth simultaneously,
lid Chonoer, William se Wybeimm, and Wickhdb,
—sithillastrating in liseirs peeneatha value et a free
ednesties Ie a fho IlemeiMlen at ear reli-
gions and peOW. The bele eulleeled is Mr.
'Tube work imply support the lineal* that even
long before the powerful infisenee ef Ole plating
Fees and the religious freedom of the Iteihroatisa
was felt oar nation was prepared for the reeeption
of both, bt a system of tree and remits's@ eineation
widend "mill all clauses of nobility. It is
to sell attention to the tact, that among other

grammar schools that of the Mani* for seventy
scholars, of any age or place, was founded seven and
twenty years before Carton printed his first book;
that the great lights of the Reformation received a
tree education at these schools; that Wobrey, the son
of an honest poor man, could lay the foundation, at
the free grammar echoed of Ipswieb, of that know-
ledge which raised him to rank with princes and
influence their councils ; that a village parish clerk
NOM prepare Cranmer for his studies at Cambridge;
sad that Latimer, the son of a Leicestershire farmer,
owed his introduction to the same university to the
learning acquired in a free grammar school.
The principle of what we call the dark and intole-
mat ages was to open the portals of knowledge
freely to all; to use competition and selection as the
spurs of genius ; to select the brightest, clearest, and
most vigorous intellects from the village or town
school, and send them to the Universities to be pro-
pared for the highest offioes in Church and State.
The early Reformers felt and knew the secret of
their moms. A great impulse was given to the edu-
cation of the people. Schools sprang up everywhere ;
Christ's Hoore'tal and other foundations of Ring Ed-
ward VI. attest the seal of the Reformers in the cense
at hen aohoola--free to all classes, where the noble and
the peacoat might stimulate each other by generous
ismuletion. Sir Thomas More, Sir Edward Coke,
I Lord Burleigh, and Sir Philip Sydney, obtained
their education at free grammar schools.
To show the influence of cheap and free founda-
tips for the advanoemeat of learning in this country
Mks the Reformation, wip should have to point to
the intellectual nurture or tharly everyman who has
distinguished himself in politica, divinity, literature,
and science. Drayton was the son of • butcher.
Ben Janson worked as a bricklayer at the building
of the garden-wall of Lincoln's-inn, with a trowel
in his hand and a book in his pocket, till Westmin-
ster School freely satisfied his thirst for knowledge.
There his master was Camden, himself rescued from

paper-staining by the fostering care of Christ s Hos-
pital and St. Paul's School. Spencer was a rarer,
that is in those days a free scholar, at Pembroke
College, Cambridge. Shakespeare, Harvey, Bur-
ton, Belden, Oliver Cromwell, Milton, and Locke
received their elementary instruction in free gram-
mar schools. Jeremy Taylor, the son of a barber,
owed his intellectual nurture, as afterwards did Lord
Teaterden, also the eon of a barber, the former to
the free grammar school of Cambridge, and the latter
to that of Canterbury. The parish of St. Margaret's,
Westminster, paid for the degrees of the distin-
guished Westminster scholar and master, Dr. Busby,
at the University of Oxford. The scholars Dryden,
South, and Sir C. Wren are monuments of the wis-
dom of this parochial liberality.
Barrow, Kerr, Isaac Newton, Prior, Addison, Gay,
Wesley, Johnson, Shenstoue, Collins, Cowper, Parr,
Stowell, Eldon, Milner, Gifford, Parson, Canning,
Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, and Davy, bring down
the glorious succession of grammar school worthies
toour own days, and show the wisdom of an education
which few of them could have obtained had it not
been for the liberal endowment of free educational

These names are enough to answer the gainsayers
of the value of free education to all elutes, and to
show that emulation can neither cramp nor destroy
the development of gigantic intellects. Would
" Gray's Elegy" ever have been written, had not
his mother worked at millinery to support him at
Eton ? The feeling about "snobs " and " common
fellows" daring to compete for the honours of the
State did not prevent Canning, the son of an mitres",
from associating freely at Eton with his future com-
panions in the Senate.
When we recollect what the free grammar schools
of this country have done for science, literature, and
art, when we see the worthies they have fostered,
we are inclined to think that we have degenerated
from the wisdom of our ancestors. When we read
" Tom Breprm's lilejaeol-da,
can" and think of Arnold and
•Cr the s or Rugby, we not bat ask
ourselves, has the founder of Rugby's will been
really carried out? Did the grocer of Queen
Elizabeth, who kept shop near toNewgate-market,
devote his fortune to the foundation of a school for
poor boys, or for those who oould afford to pay for
their education ? It is true that the Earls of Stam-
ford, Peterborough, Lords Craven, Griffin, Stowell,
and Ward occur early in the lists of the alumni of
Rugby. We de not complain of this. We see no
reason why the eons of the aristocracy should not
participate in the free education founded for poor
scholars at Eton, Rugby, Harrow, and other
fashionable and good school'. But we do complain
that those who can afford to pay should almost elbow
out those for whom these magnificent foundations
were designed. Have the free scholars of Eton,
Rugby, Harrow, Westminster, Charterhouse, and
many other such institutions, at all increased in
number either with the wants of the community or
the increased value of their own revenues ? The
time must soon come for a sweeping reformation of
our public schools. Had the intention of the ancient
founder' of grammar schools been followed out, or
had William of Wykeham, Sheriff of Rugby, and
Sutton of Charterhouse, been imitated by more
modern wealthy citizens and philanthropists, in pro-
portion to the growing wealth of the country, we
should have been able to give the highest education
the country could afford to every scholar
' thirsting for knowledge, however scanty his
means. Charter house, however, and other nurseries
of aristocratic patronage, afford small encouragement
for modern Sutton. to devote their wealth for the
intellectual progress of their country. The old spirit
is not dead, it only slumbers and requires to be
roused, or citizen merchants of our time would not
devote their five hundred Rounds to acquire the pri-
vilege of introducing their scholar into Christ's
Church or the Blnecoat School, there to be clothed,
fed, and educated.

MUSIC.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.

The first doer et perfeneenoe since the opening
el the aew Omenopries Theatre bas beat from the
Hogiosseth to the Thoriene—the Mend Resists, which
Imam as everywhom We have got Ores Italian Trevistes
at war three Mein opera-bosses, besides ea English Tro-
ll** shout to make her appearance, it seems, at a suburban
thestro. We smog visit a modosl fondly without being
esdurtidued with " Libismo !" from the lips of some refined
young led, ; nor emu we walk the Wirt without
Merin the NM sherd ditty whhdoll by half the
1,1111461 WO =sera Well, /MT dog mud hem his by,
and Verdi wed Ids Ibetrisis mass the net. We bate ady
to eked& the end sppsereace of Bede sad Gerded this
sorma, in the chaseelses of the hell Yr am sad am knee.
Bodo Isabel as lemiesms r wl—pve the pm Ns meek
lima as it is gable ef, NA rag mare brfilleatiy thou
ever. Deified leek the pest et ARredo for the first time
it having beat fbeerety perheited by Mario. Gerdants
Alfredo hod steldnly mate eroisnobioner then Keno's,
whale men motors yams mite kin hr espable of per-
senothig le the lb Or very "groin" yeas guehmen ;
sad he smg the she with much ins sad sweeter. Ora-
Alai, wise also resale his Ant apprises Yin aces, vas
as staellest nspremedstive of the vegeuletie sad ladidesat
peps, sad hes net lost his ins, molar Imam votes The
pleas, la rupees to memory mad esetems, b leselllig put
seem the step ; Ind the pefortesnee was sibyl es Moor-
slily es tits wager cool desire.

Let amain Hat Modesty's Theatre wee crowded
la every pert to whore the capatitica at Deo Oirraasi. The
Choate lax Imo conapiet by the liarl eat Casa** of
Vandals Lady Jur °Threw, lady Olizarese,
the Cen;isee of Gawks, the Rea. Z. Chintlea,
Mortar, Mr. Risiwed Weeded, mil party.
Ms. BALn's Balk the renew
cwaparr, war Ids smosi Moat at Diary-has Theatre
(Ur ease of hie wilige swerim Y thig essairy) as
matt dallitaMeSt May mud* at the=
litaat:SClr jimi
Weherrtn"atbi
Ade of the has emp.4ll
selmlke, with the
714. Dals as emertely iled *III a IMI .