It appears from the rules of many grammar-schools that religious instruc tion according to the principles of the Church of England, as established at the Reformation, is a part of the instruction which the founder contemplated ; atd when nothing is said about religious in struction, it is probable that it was always the practice to give such instruction is grammar-schools. That it was part of the discipline of such schools before the Reformation cannot be doubted, and there is no reason why it should have ceased to be so after the Reformation, as will pre sently appear. It is generally asserted that in every grammar-school religious instruction ought to be given, and accord ing to the tenets of the Church of Eng land; and that no person can undertake the office of schoolmaster in a grammar school without the licence of the ordinary. This latter question was argued in the case of Rex v. the Archbishop of York. (6 T. R., 490.) A mandamus was di rected to the archbishop directing him to license R. W. to teach in the grammar school at Skipton, in the county of York. The return of the archbishop was that the licensing of schoolmasters belongs to the archbishops and bishops of England ; that R. W. had refused to be examined; and he relied as well on the antient canon law as upon the canons confirmed in 1603 by James I. (The Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, ' Schoolmas ter,' 77, 78, 79.) The return was al lowed, and consequently it was deter mined that the ordinary has power to license all schoolmasters, and not merely masters of grammar-schools. As to schoolmasters generally, the practice is discontinued, and probably it is not al ways observed in the case of masters of grammar-schools.
The form of the ordinary's licence is as follows :—" We give and grant to you, A. B., in whose fidelity, learning, good conscience, moral probity, sincerity, and diligence in religion we do fully confide, our licence or faculty to perform the office of master of the grammar-school at H., in the couoy, &c., to which you have been duly elected, to instruct, teach, and inform boys in grammar and other useful and honest learning and know ledge in the said school allowed of and established by the laws and statutes of this realm, you having first sworn in our presence on the Holy Evangelists to re nounce, oppose, and reject all and all manner of foreign jurisdiction, power, authority, and superiority, and to bear faith and true allegiance to her majesty Queen Victoria, &c., and subscribed to , the thirty-nine articles of religion of the United Church of England and Ireland and to the three articles of the thirty sixth canon of 1603, and to all things contained in them, and having also before us subscribed a declaration of your conformity to the Liturgy of the United Church of England and Ireland as is now by law established. In testi mony,' &c.
From this licence it appears that the master of every school who is licensed by the ordinary must be a member of the Church of England, and must take the oath and make She subscriptions and declarations which are recited in the licence.
It is a common notion that the master of a grammar-school must be a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, and in holy orders; and such is the present practice. But it i3 by no means always the case that the rules of endowed schools re quire the master to be in holy orders. The founders seem generally to have considered this a matter of indifference, but many of them provided that if the master was in orders, or took orders, he should not at least encumber himself with the cure of souls. The principle clearly was, that the master of a gram mar-school should devote himself solely to that work, and it was a good principle. The Court of Chancery has in various cases ordered that the master should be a clergyman, where the founder has not so ordered. Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's School, London, ordered by his statutes, that neither of the masters of that school, if in orders, nor the chap lain, shall have any benefice with cure or service which may hinder the business of the school. He appointed a chaplain to the school, thereby appearing to intend that the religious instruction should not be given by the masters of grammar, who would be fully employed otherwise.
It has sometimes been doubted whether a master of a grammar-school could hold ecclesiastical preferment with it. If the founder has not forbidden this, there is no rule of law which prevents him. If the holding of the two offices should cause him to neglect the duties of either, the remedy is just the same as if he neg lected either of his offices for any other cause.
Many grammar-schools are only free to the children of a particular parish, or of some particular parishes ; but this privilege has occasionally been ex tended to a greater surface, as in the case of Tunbridge school. Some are free to all persons, which is the case with some of King Edward VI.'s endowments. Sometimes the number of free boys is limited, but the master is allowed to take pay scholars, either by usage or by the founder's rules. At present the practice is for masters of grammar-schools to take boarders if they choose, but in some cases the number is limited. Abuses un doubtedly have arisen from the practice of the master taking boarders, and the children of the parish or township for which the school was intended have been neglected or led to quit the school some times in consequence of the head master being solely intent on having a profitable boarding school. But in most cases the school has benefited by the master taking boarders ; and this has frequently been the only means by which the school has been able to maintain itself as a grammar-school. When the situation has been a good one, an able master has often been found willing to take a grammar school with a house, and a small salary attached to it, in the hope of making up a competent income by boarders. As this can only be effected by the master's care and diligence in teaching, a small neighbourhood has thus frequently en joyed the advantage of its grammar school, which otherwise would have been lost.