Merchant Taylors' School

“ In 1573 he endeavoured, on the score of poverty, to win release from the annual obligation to elect scholars from Merchant Taylors' School (Wilson, History of Merchant Taylors' School) . In 1576 he was appointed dean of Christ Church, and resigned the headship of St. ”

“ HUTTON, THOMAS (1566–1639) , divine, a Londoner by birth, was admitted into Merchant Taylors' School (being the son of a member of the company) on 6 April 1573 (School Reg.) , and was elected in 1585, aged 19, a probationary fellow at St. John's College, Oxford. ”

“ After attending a school in France, he entered Merchant Taylors' School in January 1858, and on leaving continued his education in Germany for eighteen months. He then after a short time as a clerk went at the age of twenty into the works of Lavers & Barraud, glass painters and designers. Thence he moved to the workshops of Clayton & Bell, makers of stained glass, and there he remained for two years, his principal work being to design the cartoons. In 1870 he worked for Heaton, Butler & Bayne on the decoration of Eaton Hall, Cheshire, and in the same year he started for himself in London. ”

“ His works, mostly landscape compositions, in which he introduced figures and groups, were seldom absent from its exhibitions, and his official services were long given without any remuneration. In 1853, 1855, and 1857 he again sent landscape drawings to the Royal Academy, and in 1856 he was appointed drawing-master at the Merchant Taylors' School, from which post he retired with a pension after twenty-seven years' service. ”

“ The school remained under the control of the Merchant Taylors' Company until 1766. Since 1876 120l. a year has been voted by the company towards its support. In 1867 the Rushocke estate was worth 1,212l. ”

“ In 1586 Mulcaster quarrelled with the Merchant Taylors and resigned. In 1596 he became High Master of St. Paul’s grammar school, but it is only conjecture that his influence counted for anything in the revival of plays by the choir master, Edward Pearce. Regular plays at Merchant Taylors probably ceased on his withdrawal. When Sir Robert Lee, one of the Company, became Lord Mayor in 1602, a payment was made to Mr. Haines, the Schoolmaster, for a wagon and the apparel of ten scholars, who represented Apollo and the Muses in Cheapside. ”

“ Taylor was educated at Samuel White's academy in Dublin, the school of Richard Sheridan and Thomas Moore, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he entered in 1809. He obtained a scholarship in 1812, graduated in 1814, and was a prominent member of the college historical (debating) society. In 1824 Taylor was called to the English bar by the society of the Middle Temple, and settled in London, where, in conjunction with Thomas Crofton Croker [q. v.] ”

“ John Baptist (the patron saint of the Merchant Taylors' Company) . The society was to consist of a president and thirty graduate or non-graduate scholars (royal patent of foundation in college manuscripts) . In 1557 the scope and numbers of the foundation were enlarged (5 March, 4 & 5 Philip and Mary; the statutes were further revised under Dr. Willis, cf. Taylor's manuscript History) . The endowment of the college connected it closely with the neighbourhood of Oxford, but it was not a rich foundation. The statutes given were based on those of William of Wykeham for New College. ”

“ Speed was brought up to his father's trade of tailoring, and 10 Sept. 1580 was admitted to the freedom of the Merchant Taylors' Company. In 1582 he married, and settled probably in Moorfields, where he leased a garden and tenement from the Merchant Taylors' Company for 20s. ”

“ TAYLOR, THOMAS (1758–1835) , Platonist, son of Joseph Taylor, staymaker, of St. Martin's-le-Grand, London, was born on 15 May 1758, and was admitted on 10 April 1767 at St. Paul's school. He was removed after three years, during which he suffered more by the cane than he profited by the classics. Three years later, having meanwhile taken a fancy to mathematics and Mary Morton, daughter of a coal merchant in Doctors' Commons, he was placed at Sheerness, under charge of his father's brother-in-law, who was employed in the dockyard. ”

“ The Merchant Taylors’ Hall, a brick building, is in Aldwark. In the smaller room is an inscription setting forth that:—“This Company has beene dignified in the yeare 1679, by haveing on their Fraternity eight kings, eleven dukes, thirty earles, and forty-four lords.” On St. John the Baptist’s Day the Merchant Taylors attend service at All Saints’ Church, Pavement, in accordance with the will of John Straker, who died in 1667. ”

“ With the discovery of certain books of ancient history, Plutarch, Euripides and Emerson's Essays there came an unexpected close to my student life at the Worcester Academy. Several of my classmates and myself agreed that we could be better fitted for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, than where we were, and accordingly we put ourselves under the tuition of Dr. Samuel H. Taylor, at that time the most eminent school and drill-master in New England. Under him I just escaped becoming a classical scholar and also nearly lost the chance of ever acquiring a love for the classics ”

“ Taylor whispered to me, when Skeats frowned at him once for being such an ass. "We shan't see that scholarship swatter here any more."'
'Swatter,' repeated Florence. 'But I thought you said he didn't know his lessons.'
'Ah! that once. But it wasn't for the want of swatting, for it was just that that put the fellows' backs up. He comes into the school looking as meek as a rabbit. "I've been to the board school," he says to Taylor, when he put him through the usual mill. Not a word did he say about French and Latin, and so Taylor thought he would have him for a fag, as he was a junior ”

“ Most people know that Tom Taylor was one of the leading playwrights of the 'sixties as well as the dramatic critic of The Times, editor of Punch, and a distinguished Civil Servant, but to us he was more than this—he was an institution! I simply cannot remember when I did not know him. It is the Tom Taylors of the world who give children on the stage their splendid education. We never had any education in the strict sense of the word, yet, through the Taylors and others, we were educated. Their house in Lavender Sweep was lovely. ”

“ TAYLOR, JOHN (1704–1766) , classical scholar, was born on 22 June 1704 at Shrewsbury, where his father, John Taylor, was a barber. Through the good offices of Edward Owen of Condover, Taylor was sent from Shrewsbury school to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted sizar on 7 June 1721. He graduated B.A. in 1724, and proceeded M.A. in 1728 (Grad. Cant.) ”

“ Taylor was brimming over with the importance of a piece of news he had heard.
'What do you think, Morrison? There are a lot of sneaks in the school who have set up a swatting club without saying a word to us about it!'
'Yes, I know; my pater has heard of it, and wants me to join it.'
'You'll never do it, Morrison!' exclaimed the elder lad.
'Not if I know it. What do you take me for? Isn't it enough to be worried by the masters? No, thank you; I'm going to stick to my friends.'
'Yes, and you must fight with them too, unless you want to see Torrington's ruined as a school for gentlemen. ”

“ Taylor says, it is unfortunate for a business to get the reputation of being nothing but a training school, on the other hand, it has a very salutary effect upon the men to know that their employers are so disinterestedly interested in them that they will provide for their future, even at the risk of the individual business at which they have started having to lose their services. ”

“ To send a boy to Coventry required united action on the part of the whole school, but Leonard Morrison and Taylor, with one or two of their friends, did not despair of persuading their class-mates to follow their example. Of course the boys in the lower classes might speak an occasional word, and the seniors in the upper form might have occasion to do the same, but the classes in this school were large and practically self-contained, so that they had little to do with those in the upper or junior classes ”

“ Marshall’s education was got from his father, from such teachers as the neighborhood furnished, and, for about a year, at a school in Westmoreland County, where his father and George Washington had attended, and where James Monroe was his own schoolmate. But most he owed to his father,—a man of good stock, of enterprise, experience, strong character and sense, himself of no mean education,—who, personally, took great pains with the training of his children. Marshall admired his father, and declared him to be a far abler man than any of his sons. ”

“ There is no such chair in Victoria College; and whenever one shall be established, provision will be made for its support independent of any grant from the state. [148] We claim support for Victoria College according to its works as a literary institution—as teaching those branches which are embraced in the curriculum of a liberal education, irrespective of denominational theology.
We also disclaim any sympathy with the motives and objects which have been attributed by the advocates of Toronto College monopoly, in relation to our National School system. ”

“ THERE are few subjects of broad interest in America that have shown more radical changes of view-point during the last half-century than those pertaining to the aims and influence of college education. When Thoreau entered Harvard the older conviction prevailed, that college must be a stepping-stone to some one of "the gentlemanly professions." The broader sentiment of to-day, that college is preparation for life in any vocation,—profession, trade, society, philanthropy, statescraft,—was then but an embryonic and feeble vision of a few minds. ”

“ Ryerson attach to the value of training institutions for teaching, and so much did he anticipate a demand for them that on page 162 of his "Report on a System of Public Elementary Instruction," published in 1845, he said:—
"As soon as examples of the advantages of trained teachers can be given, I believe [89] the ratio of demand will increase faster than that of supply, and that an additional Normal School will soon be required in each of the most populous districts." ”

“ What a man learns at school, even in Boston, is but a small part of his education. In General Taylor's case, it is probable that things had much more to do with his culture than words. Men nursed on Greek and Latin would probably have called him an uneducated man ; with equal justice he might call many a scholar an uneducated man. To speak and write with grammatical accuracy is by no means the best test of education.
Fondness for a military life is natural in a man born and bred as he was, living in a country where the vicinity of the Indians made every man a Quaker or a soldier. ”

“ In home politics Taylor was an advanced radical, and in his persistent opposition to government extravagance and social inequalities of the pettier kind he may be regarded as the chief custodian for his time of the political principles of the Manchester school. In every English movement for the promotion of freedom he took a keen interest, and generally occupied an official position. ”

“ Disappointments make us conversant with the nobler part of our nature. It will chasten us and prepare us to meet accident on higher ground next time."
As mentioned in the review of John's life, the two brothers enlarged their classes and taught in the Concord Academy from 1839–1841. Though this was a very brief period of the tentative years of Henry Thoreau's life, and it represented all of his direct school-teaching, yet, in a broad sense, his entire influence, widely and subtly extended, was that of a teacher and the trend of his mind was assertive and pedagogical, though rarely pedantic. ”

“ In Scotland, since the passing into law of the Education Bill of 1872, the means of elementary education have been widely extended and the methods of teaching have been greatly improved, but there has been no corresponding advance in the provision of the means of higher education, and as a consequence, at the present day, we find many districts without adequate provision for carrying on the education of the youth of the country beyond the Primary School stage. Secondary education has been provided in some centres by means of endowments ”

“ Taylor. "And that's what we're going to do. It can't be this year, and it needn't to be. None of the kids is very old, and the schoolhouse has got to be built." He now drew a letter from his pocket, and looked at me. ”

“ Our huge city schools are manufactories rather than educational institutions—places where yearly a certain number of the youth of the country are turned out able to some extent to make use of the mechanical arts of reading and writing, and with a smattering of many branches of knowledge, but with little or no training for the moral and civic responsibilities of life. This is evident, it is urged, if we consider how little the school does to counteract and to supplant the evil influences of a bad home or social environment. ”

“ Hobby had frequent occasion to say, when all eyes would turn to George for the solution.
"There is a thousand times more enjoyment in doing things well than there is in doing them poorly," Mr. Hobby said. "The happiest boy in [59] this school is the boy who is thorough in his studies."
The pupils understood the remark perfectly. It was not necessary that their teacher should say whether he meant a particular boy or not. They made their own application. The boy who does his work well is not hid in a corner. It is impossible to hide him. ”

“ The few scattering references to Thoreau's college life in his letters and journals are interesting and suggestive. In "Walden" he questions the economic side of college with a view to its proportionate results. He probably refers to his own secluded experience when he says: "The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge college is as solitary as the dervish in the desert." To live economically and yet live, not play life, seems to him the desideratum for the college student. ”