It is very strange that rich noblemen-the great landowners and place-owners of the United Kingdom-cannot afford to pay for their sons education, without despoiling those for whom these institutions were founded, and it is equally strange, that clergymen cannot be found, who would be satisfied with salaries derivable from the large foundations, without adding to their professions the trade of licensed victuallers, as Mr. Ayrton said in the House of Commons in 1868.

I promised at page 631 to give the correspondence on the question of the meaning of the term "Libera Schola" in an appendix, but as I afterwards considered that the essence of it would be better placed in the Preface, I altered my intention.

I also altered my intention as to replying to the letters of an anonymous M.A. in the Birmingham Daily Gazette on that question, as I found that he had taken all his arguments from Dr. Kennedy's letters, which appeared in the Shrewsbury Journal, as replies to a series of mine in the Shrewsbury Chronicle. It will thus be found that I reply to them both at the same time.

On the 23rd of June, 1860, Dr. Kennedy delivered an Address at a general meeting of the College of Preceptors, in London. In this address (which was published in a pamphlet) he threw down a challenge to the effect that the term "Libera Schola," as generally applied to schools founded in Edward the Sixth's reign, meant "Free from ecclesiastical jurisdiction," and not "Free School," i.e., free from charge for the education imparted in these foundations, and he concluded his challenge thus, "If any arguments of weight can be urged against it, the time is surely come for their production; if none appear, the interpretation may fairly be considered true.

He had also published his interpretation before this, in a sermon preached at Bath, in 1853, and in a preface to the 2nd edition of "Sabrina Corolla," so that he no doubt fancied that the "third time would be the charm," and that for ever after all men should hold their peace.

Having received a copy of the printed Address, I immediately replied, and as the saying is that "the bigger the bear the better the baiting," I thought that a D.D. would be worth contending with; especially as he was head master of a much perverted Endowed School.

Shrewsbury school was founded for the sons of burgesses, and for native boys of the County of Salop; but the head master made it "free" to all youths of the United Kingdom, provided that their parents would pay handsomely (say £100 per annum including expenses) for their board and education. In this point he forgot the founder's order, and in place of it established what the founder never contemplated, a "Barrack Monastery," alias a Boarding School, whereby he cleared some thing like £5,000 every year.

But in his desire to hide the enormity of this system, he overshot the mark in stating that the term "Libera Schola" meant "freedom from ecclesiastical jurisdiction" as he himself was an ecclesiastic, and the visiter of the school, the second and other masters of the school, and the examiners of the school were all ecclesiastics! Surely then the school was under ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the strongest sense.

Doubtless £ s. d. was at the root of his plan, and he feared that if boys were admitted free of charge, his revenue would be seriously damaged.

But now I must state in as condensed a form as I can, the arguments I brought to bear against his unsupported assertion.*

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Dr. Johnson defined the words "free school" to mean 66 school in which learning is given without pay." The word liber means "free from anything, unrestrained, unimpeded, unshackled," and the word "schola" means "a place in which teachers and pupils assemble for purposes of instruction-viz., a school." Take cathedral schools which undoubtedly are under “ ecclesias

* Vide, Letters between the Rev. B. H. Kennedy, D.D., head master of Shrewsbury Grammar School, and Mr. George Griffith, with articles from the "Shrewsbury Chronicle" and "Shrewsbury Journal" on the Question of the Free Schools of England, and their Abuses. J. Watton, Shrewsbury.

tical jurisdiction," therein boys are not only taught free, but are entitled to be fed and lodged free, and to receive a stipend, and not only so, but a specified number were to be sent to the Universities, and taught free there also.

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The seventy foundation boys at Eton, were to be those whose parents were 'poor and needy." The Charter House School was founded for the maintenance and education of forty "poor children, such as wanted the means to bring them up." The Bromsgrove school was founded for the sons of those who were of the "meanest degree or ability." The Wolverley school for "free teaching and instructing only of children of the parish," and at Stourbridge it was ordained, "that no money should be demanded of any child." This is very much the case with foundation schools throughout the country.

Dr. Kennedy forgot that the houses occupied by him and the second master were free of rent, simply because the foundation was to be free to all concerned, masters and boys alike. Did it never strike him that these residences were not free from ecclesiastical jurisdiction, so long as he and another ecclesiastic resided in them. The words in the Charter are "Libera Schola Grammaticalis," or a school for the free teaching of grammar, or the science of language; and in fact in one of the ordinances it is ordered, that the sons of burgesses were not to be charged for the education of their sons.

Further; in all the schools founded or rather re-founded by Edward VI., the rules and orders were to be enacted by and with the sanction of the bishop of the Diocess, and as these bishops succeeded the Catholic ecclesiastics, undoubtedly the schools still remained under the same power of jurisdiction. Birmingham is one of Edward's foundations, and no boy has ever been charged a penny for education; but on the contrary the Charter orders the free sustentation of the school to be held "inviolably from time to time for ever," and on the Seal of the Charter the words "libere scole" appear. There are also the following free schools of the same King's foundations, free to scholars as ordered by him. Bury St. Edmunds, free to sons of

residents; Chelmsford free to forty boys; Giggleswick free to the whole Kingdom; Grantham, free for an area of one mile; Great Grimsby, free to the sons of freemen; Christ's Hospital, London, free for deserted and motherless children; Macclesfield, free for all residents; Morpeth, for sons of freemen; Norwich for thirty boys; Penwortham, for the whole parish; Sedbergh, no limitation; Stafford, for all who can read in the New Testament. These show clearly that Edward VI. meant free from charge by the words "libera schola," and Wykeham adopted the same meaning, when he founded New College, at Oxford, as he ordered that the boys were to be taught the "liberal arts and sciences" free of charge.

But the statement made by Dr. Kennedy, that such schools as bore the title "libera schola" were not to be subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, has another great flaw in it; there was no class of men in Edward the Sixth's time, fit to conduct such schools but the clergy; therefore it is simply ridiculous to say that he wished to dispossess the very class of men who alone were capable of giving instruction.

Besides this, there is only the bare assumption of Dr. Kennedy as to the meaning of the term. If it was intended to mean freedom from "ecclesiastical jurisdiction," surely these words would have had their representatives in the Latin title. And what are the foundation salaries paid for but to teach native boys free? or is the large sum of £900 paid to the masters to encourage them not to teach native poor boys, but as a bonus for teaching non-Salopians who have no right whatever to be admitted to the school, on any terms.

I think it advisable here to quote from a published letter, addressed to the Lord High Chancellor, by Mr. Grady, the Recorder of Gravesend, in which treating upon the correspondence between Dr. Kennedy and myself, he says:

"But 'liber' is a word that is well known to lawyers, and is in general use amongst them to express the meaning attached to it by Mr. Griffith.

"Libera" is a livery or delivery of so much grass or corn to

a customary tenant, who cut down or prepared the same grass or corn, and received some part or portion of it as a reward or gratuity (Cowell). "Libera batella," a free boat; right of fishing. Plac. in itin. ap. Cestr. 14 H. VII., (i.e., without money payment); Libera Chasea Habenda, a judical writ granted to a person for a free chase belonging to his manor, after proof made by inquiry of a jury that the same of right belongs to him (Reg. Orig. 36). "Libera piscaria," a free fishery, which being granted to one, he hath a property in the fish, &c., (2 Salk. 637). "Liber Taurus,' a free bull (Norf. 16 Edw. I). Libera eleemosyna, (Frankalmoigne), a tenure by which spiritual service, where an ecclesiastical corporation, sole or aggregate, holdeth lands to them, and their successors, of some lord and his heirs in free and perpetual alms, and perpetual supposes it to be fee-simple, though it may pass without the word successors (Litt. ss. 133, Co. Lit. 94). "Liberum Tenementum," a freehold."

It is a fact, too, that the word free, in the sense of gratuitous, was applied to grammar schools in the times of Henry II., Henry VI., as well as of Edward VI., and that the term is well known to the law in that sense also.

Besides all this, is it reasonable for any one to be asked to pay a charge for the use of what is his own; this is what Dr. Kennedy did, when he charged any Shropshire boy for his education. The school and its revenues are theirs, (altogether in round numbers £3,200 per annum, besides the residences and school house), and therefore they should be taught free, let "libera schola" mean what it may; or on the other hand the masters should quit the premises, and teach their boarders some where else at their own discretion and cost, and let the Shropshire boys enjoy their own properties and revenues.

Having now shown the past and the present state of our endowed schools, I enter upon the consideration of what I conceive would be necessary reforms in their constitution for the future.

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The most potent agency necessary to their reformation would