Edward Allen Bell

“ But the memories of school in after life are not in the first instance memories of friends, but of the places where those friends were met and the friendships made. A boy's life is made up of moments and impressions, and many of the indelible impressions of his youth are formed in the School Chapel. Hence the gift of a beautiful School Chapel is the greatest gift a man can give. Boys at Giggleswick have at their right hand the natural glories of the Craven District, they have now also a supreme example of the architect's skill and courage and success. ”

“ The Governors bound themselves to choose from time to time men of true and sound religion, fearing God and of honest conversation. In spite of these somewhat grandiose qualifications it was found necessary to make a second regulation by which each Governor on his election should protest and swear before the Vicar of Giggleswick and the rest of the Governors to be true and faithful towards the School and its emoluments and profits and not to purloin or take away any of the commodities of the same, whereby it might be impoverished or impaired in any respect. ”

“ Writing indeed was only beginning to be common in the schools, it had long been looked upon merely as a fine art and for ordinary purposes children had been taught by means of sand spread over a board. Henceforward steps are taken all over England to ensure its teaching; at first the expert, the Scrivener, goes round from school to school, but later the ability of the Ushers improves and no longer need they fear the competition of a rival, they begin to teach the boys themselves and writing becomes a part of the ordinary curriculum. ”

“ The history of Giggleswick School has just two difficulties about it which need to be unravelled. The date of the foundation of the School or of the Chantry of the Rood and the origin of the Seal alone are of interest to the antiquary and I have failed to discover either. The remainder is the story of a school, which has always had a reputation in the educational world and at the same time has left only the most meagre records of itself. The gentry of the neighbourhood were its scholars, but few have made their fame in the world without. ”

“ He came at a time when there was only a collection of boys with no unity and no sound traditions. He left it united and loyal. He came to a rich endowment, which was spending its resources with little visible result. He left the School prosperous, and possessed of a reputation all over England. He had been among the first Headmasters to acknowledge the value of a training in Natural Science, and he showed men that a thorough and efficient training in modern subjects could be given in one of the oldest of England's Public Schools. ”

“ But courage is one of the first essentials in a Schoolmaster, and Mr. Style had a full share. Every old School is steeped with tradition, but much of it at Giggleswick was bad, and Mr. Style did his best to eradicate and replace it. The boy of that period was a rougher boy than is common in public schools to-day, and he needed sterner treatment. Mr. Style was an awe-inspiring disciplinarian, but he was no Busby or Keate in his use of the rod. ”

“ Everything that is of importance has a personal aspect. Whatever a boy sees belonging to his own School is at once invested with a curious sanctity and defended with all the armour of pride. It is of supreme importance that the side of school life, the religious side, which [Pg 202] sometimes appeals to a boy with a greater force than any other, should have a building of its own. The Parish Church can never lay claim to the same devotion, and therefore can never exercise the same influence. A School Chapel develops a feeling of unity and brotherhood ”

“ Giggleswick itself had very considerable opportunities of expanding into one of the foremost Schools in the North of England. The population was growing rapidly. New industries were springing up on every hand. A generation was coming to manhood, whose needs were as yet a matter for speculation. But Giggleswick had a traditional hold upon the minds of the North, it had also a rich endowment. Was it prepared to meet the necessities of the hour, or was it to continue in the same self-centred policy that had served well enough in the past? Mr. Blakiston answered the question at once. ”

“ In 1887 when it was decided to lease Bankwell as a house for those boys who were too young to go immediately into the Hostel, Mr. Mannock, who had been previously a Dormitory Master for the younger boys in the Hostel, was asked to undertake the responsibility of being the Master-in-charge. He continued to do so till his death. The influence that he had exerted was a very remarkable one. No boy ever came away from Bankwell without feeling that for some time in his life at any rate he had lived under the protection of one of the most saintly of men. ”

“ Some confusion existed in men's minds about the primary object of a Grammar School. Giggleswick had not been founded to give elementary instruction but its duty was to impart a sound knowledge of the Classics, in order to enable its pupils to go up to the University with a Scholarship and thence enter one of the learned professions and preferably become a Priest. The boys were welcomed from whatever homes they came, and though leaving Scholarships were given with a preference to the poorer boy, everyone received an education in the higher branches of literature. ”

“ Every evening all the rabble of Giggleswick and Settle assemble in the Schoolyard and conduct themselves in such a riotous manner, that no schoolboy dare enter the yard and no lady dare pass through it. ”

“ The importance of the anniversary is being celebrated by the raising of a fund, from which entrance scholarships of good monetary value may be established, and so a sound educational step forward will have been taken, and one true to the best traditions of the School. The four centuries that have passed by have witnessed many changes in the world of education. New ideals have prevailed and have altered the bases of the past. But Giggleswick may look back upon its history with a consciousness that it has seldom failed to do its duty. ”

“ Morrison desired that an architectural experiment should be made in England. He wished to see the School Chapel built in the Gothic Style but with a dome. Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A., was approached upon the subject and remembering that his former Master, Sir Gilbert Scott, had always hoped to undertake such a work, he gladly made his plans.
The aim of all the best Architecture is to construct a building of such a kind that it will withstand the ruin of the ages and will prove an opportunity for doing well whatever it is built for. The purpose of a house is that a man should be able to live in it. ”

“ Vaughan's Headmastership was the foundation in 1906 of the Giggleswick Boys' Club in Leeds. The great danger of Public School life is the difficulty of realizing that the unit of the School is a part of a larger whole and that one aim of education is the inculcation of an active interest in all spheres of life. The aim of the founders of the Giggleswick Boys' Club was to provide a house in one of the poorer districts, where boys might spend certain evenings in the week in warmth and comfort. ”

“ Latin and Greek and Hebrew had become the touchstone of education, primarily because they were the "holy" languages, and after Religion had long ceased to be the mainspring of education, their intrinsic merits fell into the background. Utility became a more pungent argument. Secondly, the Governors decided that the Endowment and Statutes, together with the particulars of the income of the School, should be laid before a competent Chancery Barrister who should suggest a system of education upon a more extended scale. ”

“ The chief difficulty under which the School was labouring, was the class of boy from which it drew. The whole education was given free and this tempted many parents to send their sons, who in reality were not fitted to take advantage of the curriculum provided. There were exceptions, and some boys of humble parentage had distinguished themselves in an intellectual sphere, but their proportion was not [Pg 160] great. It was therefore suggested that tuition fees should be imposed. Such a charge was revolutionary and was stoutly condemned by all the inhabitants living around. ”

“ A nation without a history is considered to have had the most blessed existence and the same is true of a school. Giggleswick has but once been the prey of the brigand and then it was fortunate enough to have a friend at court. It lost its original endowment and its private character. It gained a larger revenue and a Royal Charter. The placidity of its life was undisturbed by financial deficits. Its income expanded steadily. The close corporation of Governors were never ambitious to display their wealth, they never excited the greed of the statesman ”

“ As to French and Mathematics being taught at a great Classical School, I do not approve of it; the Writing Master should make the scholars quite perfect in common Arithmetic, and in vulgar and decimal fractions, and that knowledge will be a sufficient basis to build Mathematics upon. Greek and Latin require so much time and attention before they can be well understood, that I think there is no time at School for any other language."—Oct. ”

“ But a Church cannot be content only with a building sufficiently well-built to hold its worshippers and sufficiently in tone with its surroundings to express the unity of art and nature. It has a further form of expression that it must satisfy. ”

“ A militant, assertive Puritanism was vigorously putting forward its feelers throughout the length and breadth of England, nor was education the last to be affected. Throughout history it has been the aim of the enthusiast to make education conform to a single standard. Sometimes it has been the value of the disputation, sometimes of the sense of Original Sin, sometimes of the classics. At the close of the sixteenth century Original Sin had become an important factor in the theories of the expert, and its presence is marked in the Giggleswick Ancient Statutes of 1592. ”

“ Throughout the history of the School there have been very few signs of literary exuberance. Only one School song has been written, called "Now Reds" by Mr. J. R. Cornah for the Giggleswick Chronicle, April, 1898. The Giggleswick Chronicle was begun in 1880 but it was edited by Masters and was intended rather to place on record the terminal life of the School than aspire to literary eminence. As such it has achieved its purpose and is a valuable and interesting record. But apart from official matter boys have shewn themselves very loth to summon forth their energies and write. ”

“ If, in the judgment of the Governors, the holder of any Scholarship or Exhibition or any boy exempted as aforesaid is guilty of serious misconduct or idleness, or fails to maintain a reasonable standard of proficiency, or ceases to pursue his education, the Governors may deprive him of the Scholarship, Exhibition, Exemption, or any Maintenance Allowance, but in the case of an Exemption (unless the Rules for Payments otherwise provide) only upon grounds sufficient to justify the removal of any boy from the School. ”

“ It will be recognized that there is a central motive of religion pervading the teaching and conduct of schools towards the close of the sixteenth century, and in the seventeenth, as there always had been. "We have filled our children's bones with sin" says Hezekiah Woodward, "and it is our engagement to do all we can to root out that which we have been a means to root in so fast." ”

“ For three hundred years and more a Grammar School education had been such that by its very breadth it endeavoured to fit men for whatsoever walk in life they intended to adopt. But in the nineteenth century education was becoming more expensive, and the old ideals could not be maintained at the old cost. ”

“ It was to be a "free" school, not in any restricted, unusual sense of the word, not free from ecclesiastical interference, that did not come till the nineteenth century, not free from temporal interference, that has never come, but free from fees, giving gratuitous teaching. The Charter was an English document translated into Latin. Hence it is not a question whether the word "libera" can ever be understood in the sense of gratuitous. The Latin word is used as being not the exact, but the nearest equivalent of the English. ”

“ The Charity Commissioners issued a report in 1825 dealing with the School, in which they gave the numbers of the School as sixty-three, of whom twenty-three were taught by the Master and forty by the Usher. It gave no record of the number in the English Department. These boys had a feeling of distinct hostility against the Grammar School boys. They were of a less wealthy class, they lived in the neighbourhood and they were receiving the priceless boon of a practical and elementary education. The Grammar School boys on the other hand were not all natives of the place. ”

“ Since 1878 he had been a Master at the School and had acted as Form Master, Dormitory Master and later as Bursar. The older generation of Giggleswick boys look back with peculiar affection to the days when they were in his form—The Transitus—as it was then called. They remember his enthusiasm and his loyalty and his conscientious devotion to the School. Many had hoped that his retirement from active work would prelude some years of life released from anxiety, but death has claimed him with the hope unfulfilled. In May, 1912, he made his last visit to the School and two days later he died. ”