SCHOOLS, ENDOWED. An En dowed School in England is a school which was established and is supported by funds given and appropriated to the perpetual use of such school, either by the king or by private individuals. The endowment provides salaries for the master and usher, if there is one, and gratuitous instruction to pupils, either generally or the children of persons who live within certain de fined limits. Endowed schools may be divided, with respect to the objects of the founder, into grammar-schools, and schools not grammar-schools. A gram mar-school is generally defined to be school in which the learned languages, the Latin and the Greek, are taught. Endowed schools may also be divided, with respect to their constitution for the purposes of government, into schools incorporated and schools not incorpo rated. Incorporated schools belong to the class of corporations called eleemo synary, which comprehends colleges and halls, and chartered hospitals or alms houses. [COLLEGE 1.
Endowed schools are comprehended ender the general legal name of Chari ties, as that word is used in the act of the 43rd of Elizabeth, chap. 4, which is enti tled, An Act to redress the Misemploy ment of Lands, Goods, and Stocks of Money heretofore given to Charitable Uses.' Incorporated schools have gene rally been founded by the authority of letters patent from the crown, but in some cases by act of parliament. The usual course of proceeding has been for the person who intended to give property for the foundation of a school, to apply to the crown for a licence. The licence is given in the form of letters patent, which empower the person to found such a school, and to make, or to empower others to make, rules and regulations for its government, provided they are not at variance with the terms of the patent. The patent also incorporates certain per sons and their successors, who are named or referred to in it, as the governors of the school. This was the form of found ation in the case of Harrow School, which was founded by John Lyon, in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth, pursu ant to letters patent from the queen.
Sometimes the master and usher are made members of the corporation, or the master only ; and in the instance of Berkhamp stead School, which was founded by act of parliament (2 & 3 Edw. VI., reciting certain letters patent of Henry VIII.), the corporation consists of the master and usher only, of whom the master is ap pointed by the crown, and the usher is appointed by the master. Lands and other property of such a school are vested in the corporation, whose duty it is to apply them, pursuant to the terms of the donation, in supporting the school. Many school endowments are of a mixed nature, the funds being appropriated both to the support of a free-school and for other charitable purposes. These other purposes are very various ; but among them the union or connection of an hos pital or almshouse with a free-school is one of the most common.
Where there is no charter of incorpo ration, which is the case in a great num ber of school endowments, the lands and other property of the school are vested in trustees, whose duties, as to the appli cation of the funds, are the same as in the case of an incorporated school. It is necessary from time to time for the actual trustees to add to their numbers by such legal 'modes of conveyance as shall vest the school property in them and the new trustees jointly. These conveyances some times cause a considerable expense ; and when they have been neglected, and the estates have consequently become vested in the heir-at-law of the surviving trustee, some difficulty is occasionally experienced in finding out the person in whom the school estates have thus become vested. When the school property consists of money, the same kind of difficulty arises ; and money is also more liable to be lost than land.
Every charity, and schools amongst the rest, seems to be subject to visitation. We shall first speak of incorporated schools.