Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Election day is the great college festival-both wardens, the posers, and resident fellows, all dine on the daïs in hall, the boys sitting at their tables below, with somewhat better fare than ordinary, especially one ancient dish-a kin of mince-meat-highly popular under the name of “stuckling." One table, by a curious traditionary custom, is called the "children's table "-the wardens and fellows present each choosing one of the junior scholars for their "child," and presenting him with a guinea and a luxurious dinner at this privileged board.

Games.

The games at Winchester, as at most public schools, are almost entirely confined to cricket, football, and fives. The annual matches with Eton and Harrow, formerly played at Lord's, have made cricket the most popular and historical. The first match on record, as played against any other school, was their victory over Harrow in 1825, on Lord's ground, when the two brothers Wordsworth were captains of their respective elevens. Next year they beat Harrow and Eton successively at Lord's; on the whole, the laurels have been pretty evenly divided amongst all three schools, Eton having rather the best of it, as, from their great superiority in numbers, it would be only reasonable to expect. College and commoners join, of course, to form the Winchester eleven. Of lato the authorities have thought it undesirable, for many reasons, that these matches should be played in London, but the Eton and Winchester elevens have been allowed to meet alternately on each other's ground and keep up the friendly contest. The largest innings on record in any public schools' match is that of E. B. Trevilian, who played in the eleven four years running, and finished with 126 to his name, against Eton, in 1862. None showed more enthusiastic interest in these matches than the late excellent warden, Robert Speckott Barterloved and respected by all who knew him from the time that he was a boy in college, (whence he was elected to Oxford, over the heads of many seniors, at sixteen,) and whose death in 1860 was a public loss to Winchester. He had seldom missed a match at Lord's from the time he played in the school eleven himself. He was a tremendous hitter in his day; and the remarkable punishment which he dealt out to the ball, when he was lucky enough to catch it on the "half-volley," has given to a long hit of this character at Winchester (and even elsewhere) the name of "a Barter." His hospitality to the stranger eleven, when they came down to Winchester to play, endeared him to many Etonians in only a less degree than his own Wykehamists. Kindly and gentle as his nature was, beaming out from every line of his joyous face, he could be rather terrible upon just occasion. Traveling outside the coach to Oxford when quite a young man, a fellow-passenger persisted in using language of gross profanity, undeterred by his quiet remonstrance At last that powerful arm seized the ribald by the collar, and, holding him out over the coach-wheel, Barter vowed to drop him if he did not promise to be silent. Such maintenance of order and decency by the strong hand falls in exactly with the humor of all honest-hearted school boys; and the story did as much for their warden's popularity with the successive generations of Wykehamists as the hardest "drive" he ever made on the cricket-ground.

The Winchester football game is peculiar. It is played "in canvas," as it is called. A portion of Meads, some eighty feet by twenty-five, is marked off by screens of canvas on each side, within which the game is played, the two other

1

ends forming the lines of goal, across which the ball is to be kicked. It is placed in the middle of the ground to begin with, and a "hot" formed round it by the players stooping down all close together, with their heads down, and at a given signal trying to force the ball or each other away. The canvas screens answer to the Rugby "line of touch." When the ball escapes over these, it is returned into play by juniors stationed for the purpose, and a hot is formed afresh. But no verbal description could give an adequate notion of the game. Matches are usually played with six only on each side; and in this respect the Winchester game differs entirely from the exciting scene of the Rugby matches, where a hundred players, in their parti-colored caps and jerseys, may be seen carrying on the struggle at once. But the game is fierce enough after its own fashion, there having been two broken legs during the present season. The great annual match is that between the "first sixes" of commoners and college, played on "egg-flip day," as the founder's commemoration day (the first Thursday in December) is popularly called. But the more attractive match (at any rate to a stranger) is between twenty-two of each, on the 5th of November.

Breaking-up for Vacation.

The breaking-up ceremonies at Winchester are peculiar and interesting, though some of their picturesque medievalism' has disappeared of late years. Some, of intermediate date, are perhaps less to be regretted. The scholars no longer rush out of gates after early chapel, on the last dark morning of the winter half-year, each with a blazing birch broom, up College street, and along the wall of the close up to the old White Hart Inn, where a sumptuous breakfast was prepared before the chaises started for their respective destination. This curious torch-race, (in which the burning birch must have had a symbolical meaning,) long the terror of old ladies who lived on the line of the course, gave place subsequently to a race of the senior boys in sedan chairs. Top-boots are now no longer considered by young gentlemen of twelve "your only wear" to go home in; although the term for them-gomers, (i. e., go-homers)—still survives in the Winchester dictionary. Great were the struggles of the happy possessors, with the aid of soap and other lubricators, to get into them; and the bootmakers were always in attendance on that morning to assist in the operation. Still greater must have been the difficulty in some instances, when boys from a distance had traveled two days and a night on the top of a coach, to get them off again. Railway stations and cabs have destroyed much of the poetry of "going-home." But the beautiful old hymn, "Jam lucis orto sidere," is still sung in procession round the "sands" of chamber-court, on the last morning of the summer half-year, on coming out of chapel, by the whole body; the head and second masters, followed by the grace-singers, leading the way. On the six last Saturdays, just before going to Hills, the old Wykehamist melody, which all schools have borrowed from them in some form or other, "Dulce Domum," is poured forth lustily in hall, the old "Domum tree" having long disappeared.

[ocr errors]

EXTRACTS from "Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners on Certain Colleges and Schools-1864."

THE COLLEGE.

Endowments, Revenues, and Expenditure.-The endowments of Winchester College consist of landed property and funded stock, which produced, on an average of the seven years ended in 1860, a gross annual income of £15,494 178. 6d.

The total expenditure for 1860 (excluding nearly £1,200 spent in purchase of land and in obtaining the renewal of a lease) was £20,098 6s. 7d., exceeding the receipts by £2,476 1s. 2d. The excess was paid out of a balance which remained in hand from previous years.

Among the items are expenses of management, £2,610; provisions, lighting, and warming, servants, &c., £3,347; stipends to head-master and other masters, £1,035; warden's share of fines, &c., £1,750; ten fellows' share of fines, &c., £6,598.

The college likewise holds, on special trusts for exhibitioners and other purposes, the large sum of £60,132, with land which produces a net income of £204 14s. 11d.

Governing Body.-The warden and fellows (now ten but to be reduced to six) are the governing body of the college.

The warden has the general government of the foundation, like the head of a college, and is elected by the fellows of New College, and to be a candidate he must be a graduate in theology or law, or a Master of Arts, in priest's orders, and thirty years of age. By the ancient statutes, besides a suitable provision for his table, he received £20 a year, and twelve yards of cloth. The salary is now largely increased, besides a house and household expenses, his shares of leasehold fines and allowances, which in 1860 was £1,750.

The fellows are elected for life, and the vacancies are filled by the warden and fellows; they are non-resident, and visit Winchester four times a year, and when summoned. They hold seven out of thirteen livings in the gift of the college, (of the average value of about £300,) and receive annually at least £500 each from the "Fines and Allowances." They elect the head and second master, and a majority must consent to the expulsion of a scholar.

Choristers.-The choristers at Winchester are admitted out of regard for charity—" intuitu charitatis," to make the beds of the fellows, and help to wait in hall, and to live upon the "fragments and relics" of the fellows' and scholars' tables, if these were sufficient for them; if not, they were to have suitable nourishment at the expense of the college. The choristers are now boarded, lodged, educated, and at the proper age apprenticed, at the cost of the college. The expense under this head in 1860, including the schoolmaster's salary, board during the holidays, books, and medical attendance, bills for clothing and apprentice fees, was £336 3s. 8d.

Scholars.-The scholars are elected by the warden, sub-warden, and headmaster of Winchester College, and the warden and two fellows of New College. By the ordinance of 1857 the boy must be over eight and under fourteen years of age, with aptitude for study. No inquiry is made as to pecuniary circumstances. Until 1854 the electors nominated the scholars without a competitive examination; in that year the system was exchanged for open competition. Eton, which owes so large a debt to Winchester, set her in return the example

of this great and beneficial change, which is clearly agreeable to the spirit, and not at variance with the letter, of the statutes of both colleges. The Bishop of Winchester, who was on intimate terms with Dr. Hawtrey, (Eton,) and had heard from him of its success, proposed of his own accord the introduction of it, and it was carried into effect against the expressed opinion of the head-master; "I feared," writes Dr. Moberly,—

That we should be liable to have boys brought in among us of whose character and connections we had no assurance, and who might prove to be very undesirable members of our community, and I wished that in our elections (a thing which I still think much to be desired in the competitions of older candidates for public positions) a scheme might be devised to combine the advantages of a very real competition with the responsibility of nomination. But I am bound to acknowledge that with us the change has been unmixedly beneficial. The candidates are very young, and we find that we have the best of securities for the character and connections of such young boys, when we find them capable, from ten to fourteen years old, of winning such a race on such subjects. It is not in ill-conducted families that little fellows of that age learn their grammars so well, or know how to write Latin verses. Let me offer my testimony without reserve. The open elections have been excellently successful. In point of ability, good conduct, and general promise, we have lost nothing, and we have gained much. We do not know what it is to have a thoroughly stupid boy a scholar.-Letters to Sir W. Heathcote, pp. 5, 6.

The whole school has reaped great benefit from it. "Of old we had a small connection and a considerable narrowness in the system altogether. We were comparatively poor in boys. This open competition brings boys of all abilities, of all families, from all parts of the country, and so spreads our connection very widely."

In 1857 the system of open competition was rendered obligatory on the college by an ordinance of the Oxford University Commission, which had been appointed by act of Parliament in 1854.

It is the custom to give previous notice of every election in the "Times," and to send circulars conveying further information to every person who makes inquiries on the subject.

The "children,"* as they were formerly called, still eat their dinners on little trenchers of wood, which they would be unwilling to exchange for plates, and sleep in the six chambers originally allotted to them, (to which, however, the ancient school-room has since been added as a seventh,) on oaken bedsteads more than two centuries old. Until the sixteenth century they slept on bundles of straw, and their chambers were unfloored; the bedsteads and flooring were the gifts of a famous Wykehamist, Dean Fleshmonger. In the early part of the seventeenth century a scholar paid, on his entrance, for his bedding, for his surplice, for the making of his gown, for candles, and for his "scob" (box) to hold his books in school. He paid also 1s. to his predecessor for "glasse windowes," and 14s. "for learning to write." There is a visitor's letter extant, dated early in the eighteenth century, which orders that bed-makers should be appointed for the chambers, "and the children relieved from the servile and foul office of making their own beds, and keeping the chambers clean." We gather, however, from the warden's evidence, that no bed-makers were in fact provided till lately. The choristers were previously made to perform this office.

"If you are a commoner you may say your prayers in your own chamber, but if you are a child or a chorister then," &c.-Bishop Ken's Manual, quoted in Mackenzie Walcott's William of Wykeham and his Colleges, p. 196. So also Christopher Johnson, (De Collegio)—“ Nomine seu Pueri vociteris sive Choristæ."

The statutes of Winchester, like those of Eton, prohibit the master and usner in the most precise and stringent terms, from "exacting, asking, or claiming" any payment for instruction from the scholars, their parents, or friends; the Eton clause was in fact a copy of the Winchester clause, with the insertion of words extending the privilege of free instruction to non-foundationers. It was nevertheless the practice at Winchester for a charge of £10 to be put into the bills of each scholar, for “Masters' gratuities," the words "if allowed" being parenthetically inserted, out of respect for the statutory prohibition. Dr. Goddard, who was head-master for not more than seventeen years, (from 1793 to 1810,) received the money during his tenure of office; but he felt that if not illegal, it was morally questionable, and after his retirement, but several years (Walcott says ten) before his death, he made a voluntary gift to the college of £25,000 stock, in trust to pay the dividends to the head and second masters for the time being. The head-master now receives from this source £450, and the second master £300. From that time no charge has been made for the instruction of the scholars except in respect of modern languages.

THE SCHOOL.

"The School" at Winchester is composed of boys-a limited number-who were originally admitted as pupils, but without charge to the college funds, and are termed commoners. They were the sons of nobles and special friends of the college, "filii nobilium et valentium personarum dicti Collegii specialium amicorum." They board with the head-master, and in four other houses specially rented for their accommodation, and numbered in 1861, 131-to be increased to 200. The profits on the boarders are about £25 each.

Government of the School.-The general government of the school is vested in the head-master, subject to such control as is exercised over him by the warden, or by the warden and fellows.

The head-master "must be sufficiently instructed in grammar, and experienced in teaching;" and as officer of the college he is "hired and removable" by the warden and fellows, (who also elect the second master,) and subject to the superintendence of the former. But as the head of the commoners he claims to be exempt from any interference with "the school" proper. "If you put an adequate man as master at the head of a school of this kind he ought to be supreme," "subject to general rules laid down for his guidance, and removable by a body of men.”

It is not the practice, as at Rugby and Harrow, for the head-master and as sistants to meet for the discussion of matters affecting the studies of the school. "We are all very much together," Dr. Moberly says, "and often talk over things relating to the school." "No doubt," he observes in his written answers, "the head-master would always be anxious that the opinion of the under-masters in charge of classes should have great weight in these matters. Practically, indeed, the under-masters, with the control and sanction of the head-master, arrange these things for their classes." And he is not sure that it would not have been better if on his part there had been rather more systematic interference.

Emoluments of Masters.-The head-master has a house large enough for his family and about one hundred boarders. His net income from all sources (boarders, entrance fee, Goddard Fund, £450) is about £3,000. The second

« AnteriorContinua »