Winchester School

“ On a fine summer afternoon, the Doctor might accidentally cast his eye over School, and observing that it had rather a deserted expression, would send out the Bible Clerk and Ostiarius to make a foray in Meads, who would presently return with a flock of truants; it being impossible to flog such a number, [113] it was usual to make them “cut in a book,” [7] to settle which half-a-dozen should be distinguished in this manner.
SCHOOL.
The educational system at Winchester is, I believe, most excellent, and turns out a very superior article in many cases. ”

“ ROLL—Any list of boys’ names. “The Roll” par excellence is the list of the boys who have passed their examination for New College, and of those who are to come in to Winchester. There is also a Roll printed every November, which contains the name of every one connected with the School, from the Warden to the Choristers. The lists from which the Præfects of Hall and Chapel called names ”

“ Cross Hospital near Winchester in 1373, [55] when evidence was given that among the 100 poor fed every day in the Hundredmen’s Hall, there were 13 poor scholars sent from the Grammar School of Winchester; some witnesses call them “poorer scholars of the grammar school (scole gramaticalis) of the city of Winchester,” and others, “poor scholars from the grammar school (scolis gramaticalibus) there,” the school being called indifferently the grammar school and the high school of the city of Winchester. ”

“ MANSFIELD, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 30. The eight senior præfects were said to have “full power,” and had some slight privileges not enjoyed by the remaining ten, who were generally called BLUCHERS.
1864. Blackwood, p. 86. The remaining eight college præfects (called in Winchester tongue, BLUCHERS) have a more limited authority, confined to Chambers and the Quadrangle.
1867. Collins, The Public Schools, p. 55. The remaining eight college prefects (called in Winchester tongue BLUCHERS) have a more limited authority, confined to chambers and the quadrangle ”

“ It has been, I believe, often suggested that the boys at Winchester were not allowed sufficient exercise in the open air. I do not think there was any ground for this complaint as regards the College boys at any rate, who were sent at least three times a week to the top of Hills, besides having Meads close at hand during all play hours. Commoners [148] were not so well off, as they only had one hour on school-days to breathe fresh air, in which time they had to walk half a mile out and back to the indifferent field forming their gymnasium; doubtless they now have access to Meads. ”

“ He was admitted into Winchester College in 1545, and was elected to New College, Oxford, where he became a probationary fellow 24 Aug. 1549, and a perpetual fellow in 1551. On 8 July 1550 he graduated B.C.L. (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 149) , and about the same time he was appointed usher, or second master, of Winchester School, under Thomas Hyde (1524-1597) [q. v.] Being attached to the Roman catholic religion he retired to Louvain soon after the accession of Elizabeth, and studied divinity. ”

“ To-day the school numbers over a thousand—twice as many as Winchester—and its graduates include far more men of birth or genius than those of any other public school. Just as Winchester raised the standard of scholarship at Oxford, so Eton has made Oxford the university of the English aristocracy. ”

“ The government of the school is very like that at Winchester. The Captain of the College has much the same duties as the Prefect of Hall, and is aided by the other best scholars. The oppidans have also a Captain, but he is under the Captain of the College. Besides this, the houses have each a Captain, as the Winchester houses, have Prefects. Of course it does not always happen that the man who leads his house in scholarship is man enough to rule the rest; but if he is not, the leading athletes step in and take matters into their own hands. ”

“ I consider mitigated fagging a valuable institution, and I think on this subject I can speak with authority, as when I entered I was junior in College, and during the whole five years that I was there I was always a fag, never having sufficiently advanced in the school to taste the sweets of power. When I went to Winchester the life of a junior was not made very pleasant to him for the first year or two. ”

“ Chapel, with Fromond’s chantry used by Lower-school ‘Men,’—for Winchester is remarkable among schools as having two chapels—and the beautiful cloisters behind it, those cloisters which the Founder himself seems almost to pervade and to spiritualize with his presence, is a place to wander in and dream dreams of the past. Hall, approached, as befits its dignity, up a grand old stairway, is splendidly impressive, with its magnificent open timber roof and carved wainscot, and the Founder’s portrait—a picture of real grace and beauty—dominating the high table or dais at the other end. ”

“ I think it a pity that the Cloisters are so little seen, as they are very beautiful. The Fellows, in general, do not reside at Winchester, and I do not imagine that those who do spend any very great part of their time in such absorbing study that the movements of the Præfects in Cloisters on week days, and of the others on Sundays, would disturb them very much ”

“ The main idea of the discipline of an English school is that as much of it as possible shall be carried on by the boys themselves. At Winchester it was ordained from the beginning that eighteen of the older boys should, in Wykeham's own words, "oversee their fellows, and from time to time certify the masters of their behavior and progress in study." These eighteen are called Prefects, and are chosen from the men who stand highest in studies. To an American boy, I am afraid, it wouldn't seem much fun to have to take care of his schoolmates' behavior. ”

“ At Harrow, in those days—how it may be now I know not—no “fagging” was authorised or permitted by the masters. No boy had any legitimate authority over any other boy. And inasmuch as it was, is, and ever will be, in every large school impossible to achieve such a Saturnian state of things, the result was that the bigger and stronger assumed an authority supported by sheer violence over the smaller and weaker. At Winchester, on the other hand, the subjection of those below them in college to the “prefects” or upper class, was not only recognised but enforced by the authorities. ”

“ A splendid additional cricket-ground has been laid out adjoining the old Meads, which together make, I fancy, the finest playground attached to any school in the world.
The glories of the old Election week have altogether vanished. The election to Winchester is still in the middle of July; and there is a dinner in Hall on Domum Day, but there are very few old Wykehamists in attendance. The parents and tutors of the candidates for election muster strong for the examinations, which last three days ”

“ Education
Rivers and Worcester were not the only men of their day with literary tastes. The colleges at Oxford and Cambridge numbered among their alumni laymen as well as churchmen. The three great public schools of England already existed. The grammar school of Westminster, afterwards to become St. Peter's College under Queen Elizabeth, had a continuous existence from the time of Edward I. Winchester College had been founded by William of Wykeham. Eton College was a foundation due to Henry of Windsor. ”

“ Underneath the hall, and close to the great hall staircase, a passage called “seventh-chamber passage” leads into a third quadrangle of smaller dimensions, called “school court,” on the south of which is the school, and on the east the outside wall of the chapel cloisters; along the entire western side of the College buildings, from College Street to the school, extend the buildings of Commoners, (the boys not on the foundation,) the communication of which with College is through a door on the west side of “school court.” ”

“ After attending the grammar school at Bridport, he entered Winchester as a commoner in 1777, and before the end of the year was already in sixth book and fifteenth boy in the school. In 1778 he entered college, and next year was senior in the school; he gained medals for Latin verse and Latin essay (1778–9) , and was elected to New College in 1780, being second on the roll. ”

“ Winchester College is the first example of a boarding school, pure and simple. Collegiate churches had previously provided for the gratuitous instruction of scholars, but the real object of the establishment of a collegiate church was that divine worship should be rendered in an effective and dignified manner. Endowments had previously been provided for the feeding and lodging of scholars, but this was to be effected in connection with an existing charitable institution. ”

“ Description of School—Scobs—Officers—Division of Classes—Prizes and Medals—Long and Short Half—Easter Time—Commoners’ Speaking—Cloisters—Latin Composition—Flogging—Scraping and Shirking Out—Latin Verses—Pealing.
On descending Hall stairs, and turning sharp to the right through Seventh Chamber passage, we enter School Court. The School is a spacious edifice, (built in 1687,) ninety feet long, and thirty-six broad; it may be a handsome building by itself, but, like the adjacent Commoners, is not favourably contrasted with the venerable Gothic buildings of the College, of which they form part. ”

“ The Warden of Winchester was to be appointed by New College, and New College was also to have extensive powers of visitation.
In Wykeham’s day any separation of the religious element from other aspects of education would have been deemed impossible, and everything was cast in a religious and even semi-monastic mould. Nevertheless the organisations for the school and chantry were kept quite distinct, and while divine service was celebrated practically continuously by the chantry staff, the scholars were required to attend chapel services only on Sundays, saints’ days, or other festivals. ”

“ The nineteenth century has changed all this; the small and close college of pre-Commission days has become one of the largest and most intellectual in the University; but Winchester men in their Oxford college fully hold their own in every way against the scholars from the world outside, who are now admitted to share with them the advantages of Wykeham's foundation.
The bishop's careful provision, however, of good teaching at his school and in his college bore good fruit at first, whatever may have been the result later. ”

“ There were twelve Præfects in Commoners, who had the right of fagging all the rest except those in the class immediately below them, (called senior part the fifth,) who were exempt; when they required the services of a Fag, they did not call “Junior!” but “Here!” They also had an officer whose duties and privileges were somewhat similar to those of Senior Candlekeeper and Deputy in College; his office, however, was conferred by election among the Præfects. ”

“ The former was rather a time of trial for the Juniors, the latter for the Præfects and Senior part.
Standing-up is an institution peculiar to Winchester, I believe. During the whole of the proceeding year all the boys below Senior part were expected to learn a number of lines by heart; there was a minimum limit assigned to each part, but any boy was allowed to take up as many as he [170] chose,—more than ten thousand have been said by one boy. We were allowed to take up Greek prose, one line of which counted for five of Virgil, and one of Latin prose or Greek verse for two ”

“ But each of Wykeham's colleges contained as many members as the French queen's. The severance of the school which was to feed the college exclusively, placing it not at Oxford, but at Winchester, and constituting it a separate college, was a new departure of great importance in the history of education. Ten fellows and 16 choristers were added in 1394 to the 70 scholars, the choristers attending the school like the scholars, and being generally, during the first three centuries of the foundation, promoted to be scholars. The original statutes have not come down to us. ”

“ When Standing-up was over the Commoners went home, as their Præfects and Senior-part had nothing to do with the examination in Election week, which was solely for competition for scholarships at New College, which were not then open to them. ”

“ For among the nicest new things in old Winchester are the Winchester schoolboys. How they spurn the ordinary tourist they meet in the street, and how scornfully polite they are to any unfortunate straying beast who asks them a question, making him feel meaner than any worm! A foreigner must long to ask the consequential youths to "kindly excuse him while he continues to breathe"; for few strangers can sympathize with the contempt we English have, while still in callow youth, for everyone we don't know. ”

“ We are told, indeed, that Wykeham had studied “arithmetic, mathematics, divinity, and, above all, the canon and civil law;” and we see no reason to the contrary. The school of Winchester, a city then second to none in the kingdom in splendour and opulence, would scarcely be deficient of teachers in these courses of study; in the mode, and according to the then understanding of their relative uses and value.
It is, upon the whole, probable that Wykeham gave the first proofs of skill as an Architect in the extension and reparation of Winchester Castle, during his employment by Nicholas Uvedale. ”