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DISSENTING ACADEMIES
IN ENGLAND
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER.
3Lombon : FETTER LANE, E.C.
QEdinburgi): roo PRINCES STREET
ſºch, 39 ori; : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
330mbag amt (Talcutta : MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
Oſgrunto : J. M. DENT AND SONS, LTD.
QLokgo: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
All rights reserved

DISSENTING ACADEMIES
IN ENGLAND
Their Rise and Progress and their Place
among the Educational Systems
of the Country
by
IRENE PARKER, M.A.
Tutor and Lecturer in the History of Education
Cherwell Hall, Oxford
Cambridge:
at the University Press
I 9 I4.
(c 34.
. P3.4+
(Damtbridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
2׺ .
Tº 3
( – ) - \42 -
Q:
ſti.&<!*§§
TO
MY FATHER
TO WHOM I OWE MY INTEREST
BOTH IN NON CONFORMITY AND EDUCATION
430,734
PREFACE
IT is difficult to understand why the contribution
made to Education by Puritanism and Dissent
has not yet been fully investigated. The subject is
a vast one and it was with the hope of touching upon
the fringe of it that a few years ago I devoted my
leisure time to making an inquiry into the part played
by the Dissenting Academies. No one can realize
more clearly than I how totally inadequate is the
account here given; if it serve to show that there
exists a field worthy of research the labour will be
amply repaid.
I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to
Sir Alfred Dale and Professor Campagnac for valuable
help and encouragement in my work, and to Dr Selbie
for kindness in seeing it through the press.
IRENE PARKER.
OXFORD, IQI4.
CONTENTS
PART I
GENERAL INTRODUCTION SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT
OF REALISM IN ENGLAND
PART II
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DISSENTING ACADEMIES
PART III
THE PLACE OF THE DISSENTING ACADEMIES AMONG THE
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS IN ENGLAND
APPENDIx I.
3 3 II.
,, III.
INDEX
The Chief Dissenting Academies
Course at Kibworth under Rev. John
Jennings . © ($ ſº
Discipline in Dissenting Academies
Warrington (Period III) Library
Students at Warrington (Period III)
Priestley's Suggestions for Study of
History and Geography gº
PAGE.
45.
I43.
I47
I54
I59.
I6I
I64.
SOURCES
The following are the most important books which
have been consulted. t
ABBEY and OVERTON. The English Church in the Eighteenth
Century.
AIKEN, JOHN. Life of.
BoguE and BENNETT. History of Dissenters.
BROwn, E. E. Monograph on Secondary Education in U.S.A.
CALAMY. Account of Silenced Ministers.
— Continuation of the Account.
— History of his own Life and Times.
— Abridgement of Baxter's Life.
Cambridge Modern History, vols. i., ii, vi.
Castle Hill Church, Northampton, History of.
CLARK. Life and Times of Antony Wood.
— Reminiscences of Oxford.
CLEGG, JAMES. Diary of.
— Life of Rev. John Ashe. -
CowLEY, A. Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental
- Philosophy.
DALE, R. W. History of Congregationalism in England.
DAVIEs. The Tewkesbury Academy with Sketches of its Tutor
and Students.
DE MONTMORENCY. The Progress of Education in England.
— State Intervention in Education.
DEFoE. Earlier Life and chief Early Works of. Ed. H.
MORLEY.
DIRCKs. Biographical Memoir of S. Hartlib.
Documents relating to the Act of Uniformity.
DURy, J. The Reformed School.
GIBBON. Memoirs of my Life and Writings.
GIBBONS, THos. Memoirs of the Rev. Isaac Watts.
Sozz?ces xi
GoRDON. Early Nonconformity and Education.
GRAVEs. Peter Ramus. -
GREEN, J. R. Studies in Oxford History chiefly in the
Eighteenth Century.
GROVE, H. Works of. -
HALL, JoHN. An Humble motion to the Parliament of England
concerning the advancement of learning.
HALLEY. Lancashire Puritanism and Nonconformity.
HARTLIB, S. True and Readie Way to learne the Latin Tongue.
— Considerations leading to the Happy Accomplishment
of England’s Reformation in Church and State.
HENRY, M. Life of P. Henry. -
HESTER, GILEs. Attercliffe as a Seat of Learning.
HEywooD, OLIVER, Autobiography and Diaries of.
How, S. Sufficiency of Spirit's Teaching without Humane
learning.
HULL. Economic Writings of Sir W. Petty.
HUMPHREYS. Correspondence and diary of P. Doddridge.
HUNTER, JOSEPH. The Rise of the old Dissent as exemplified
£n the life of Oliver Heywood.
HURDIE. Vindication of Magdalen College from the Aspersions
of Mr Gibbon.
HUxLEY. Essay on Joseph Priestley.
LEACH, A. F. History of Winchester College.
— Grammar Schools at Reformation.
— Educational Charters and Documents.
McDon NELL. History of St Paul’s School.
MAGRATH. The Flemings in Oxford.
MANN, H. Education in Great Britain.
Manuscript Accounts of Ministers (Dr Williams's Library).
MAssoN. Life of Milton. -
Monthly Repository—especially vols. iv., v, viii, xi.
MULLINGER. The University of Cambridge.
NEwcomE, H. Diary and Autobiography of
NEWTH. Senatus Academicus (Associated Theological Colleges).
NIGHTINGALE. Non-conformity in Lancashire.
ORTON. Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writings of
Rev. P. Doddridge.
xii. Sozºrces
PEACHAM. Compleat Gentleman.
PETTY. Advice of W. P. to Mr S. H. for the advancement of
learning.
POOLE, MAT. Model for the maintaining of students of choice
abilities at the Universities.
PRIESTLE.Y. Miscellaneous Works (Essay on Education).
— Rudiments of English Grammay.
Proceedings at the Opening of Manchester College, Oxford.
RAIT. Life in the Medieval University.
RUTT. Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley.
STOUGHTON. Ph. Doddridge, his life and labours.
— Religion under Queen Anne and the Georges.
ToULMIN. Historical view of the State of Protestant Dissenters
$n England.
Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire.
Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society.
TURNER. Lives of Eminent Unitarians.
Victoria County Histories.
WAKEFIELD, GILBERT. Autobiography of.
WATSON. The Beginnings of the Teaching of Modern Subjects
in England.
WARD, SETH. Vindiciae Academiarum.
WEBSTER. Examination of Academies.
Wesley-Palmer Controversy Letters. 2
WILSON, WALTER. History and Antiquities of Dissenting
Churches and meeting houses, London, Westminster and
Southwark.
WooD, ANTONY. History and Antiquities of the Colleges and
Halls in the University of Oxford.
WooDwARD, H. A Light to Grammar.
— Gate to the Sciences.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF REALISM IN ENGLAND
The development of educational opinion has been
so remarkable during the last century that it is gener-
ally held that all our modern educational ideas had
their birth after 1800. No greater mistake can be
made. The fundamental principles of modern English
education were in process of formation during the two
preceding centuries. The period covered by the years
I600–1800 is the one in which the education of the
middle classes in ‘modern subjects was first not
merely advocated but attempted. It was advocated
chiefly by the Puritans in the first half of the 17th
century; it was attempted by the Tutors of the Dis-
senting Academies. Before describing the work of
these Academies it is necessary to trace the rise of the
educational principles to which they gave expression.
At the beginning of the 17th century our three
great educational systems, the University, the Gram-
mar School and the Elementary School were all in
existence. The elementary school, represented by the
old Song, writing, and cyphering schools (which cannot
here be dealt with) gave boys the education required
On their entrance to secondary education in the gram-
mar Schools. The universities and grammar Schools
P. D. A. I
2 7%e Z)evelopment of
are both very ancient systems; the former date back
to the I2th century; the latter to the coming of Chris-
tian missionaries to the English.
The grammar or language Schools (ludus literarius)
have their origin in the Cathedral schools founded
quite early in the history of the Church in this country.
Augustine and his fellow missionaries were not long in
finding that preaching had to be supplemented by
teaching ; converts had to be trained to help in the
Christianization of the whole country and to take part
in the services of the Church. Very soon after the
establishment of Churches therefore, Schools, modelled
on those of Rome in which the missionaries themselves
had been educated and where they had probably taught,
were started often in some part of the Church building
itself and later, when our Cathedrals were built, schools
attached to them were built also. The earliest record
of the establishment of such a school is as follows: “At
this time (631)... After his (Sigebert, King of the East
Angles) return home, as soon as he obtained the throne,
wishing to imitate what he had seen well ordered among
the Gauls, he set up a School in which boys might be
taught grammar. He was assisted therein by Bishop
Felix, who came to him from Kent, and provided them
with pedagogues and masters after the fashion of the
Canterbury men".’ This of course indicates that a
grammar School had been already established in Canter-
bury. It will be remembered that Alcuin, the school-
master of York, was persuaded to leave England to
teach in the schools founded by Charlemagne.
From the first, then, education was regarded as a
* A. F. Leach, Educational Charters, p. 3.
Realism in AEngland 3
branch of Church work ; ‘ the School was an adjunct
of the Church.” The close connection thus established
had a profound and far-reaching effect ; it at Once
determined control and curriculum. At the head of a
Cathedral school was a cleric, the greater part of whose
time was given to teaching. Both as cleric and School-
master he was subject to his bishop who consequently
exercised a very definite control over the School. So
natural and even necessary did this Church control
seem that later, when schools were founded by the
Guilds or hospitals or by private people, the founders
invariably placed them under ecclesiastical Supervision".
The curriculum also was influenced by this con-
nection with the Church. The Catholic schools were
founded to train clergymen and they had therefore to
teach Latin, which was not merely the language of the
Church, but the One language of educated Christendom.
Latin, therefore, was not merely a subject, it was the
subject—it was, in fact, the whole curriculum. The
language or grammar Schools were the only Schools
which during the Middle Ages provided a classical
education—a definite distinction must be made be-
tween them and the monastery schools which came
into being later. The two were alike in so far as they
both trained youths for a definite career ; but while
the grammar Schools trained boys who were to be
* “For close on IIoo years, from 598–1670, all educational
institutions were under exclusively ecclesiastical control. The law
of education was a branch of the Canon law. The Church courts
had exclusive jurisdiction over schools and universities and colleges
and until I58o all schoolmasters and scholars were clerks, or clerics,
or clergy, and in orders, though not necessarily holy orders,” A. F.
Leach, Educational Charters, Introd. p. xii.
I—2
4 The Development of
clergymen and who were therefore taught Latin, the
monastery Schools trained novices or oblates who were
to be monks and who were therefore taught singing,
writing, illuminating ; the prayers of the Church ; the
rules of their order. The monastery schools rarely com-
peted with the Cathedral grammar schools in the pro-
vision of a classical education.
The boys who attended the grammar schools were
the younger (poor) sons of the squires and the Sons of
yeomen farmers. The sons of the nobles and their
pages (the eldest sons of the Squires) had tutors at
home. After the rise of the wealthy middle class, it
was their boys who filled the town grammar Schools
such as St Paul’s and it then became customary for
the gentry to send their sons to boarding grammar
schools such as Eton, Westminster and Shrewsbury.
On entering a grammar School a boy was expected to
have received a fair grounding in accidence (or a know-
ledge of the concords at least) and to possess ability
to speak and write correctly in English—these founda-
tions were laid in the song or writing Schools or at home.
The boy was then guided through the remainder of
the accidence and afterwards proceeded to the reading
of a few Latin authors; to the formation of a good
style in prose and verse and to the acquisition of the
ease and elegance of a Cicero in disputations. The
Scarcity and, so far as the Scholars were concerned,
the total absence of books made the class work very
laborious. The method (and the uniformity which is
seen in control and curriculum is found in the method
lso) was as follows. First, the text was dictated to
the boys, then punctuated and read through, then
A'ealism in AEmg/and/ 5
construed and finally translated so that considerable
time must have been spent in reading one book. Occa-
sionally an enthusiastic teacher commented on the
subject matter; but for the majority it was enough to
get through the reading and translation only. In Such
comments and explanations as were given was con-
tained all the instruction in natural history,’ history
or geography which the boys received. Once a week
a repetition of the week's work was required. Verse
writing was an important part of the work in the upper
classes and disputes were held sometimes as often as
three times a week, while public disputations in the
presence of the clergy were always held on feast days.
The Eton time-table of I530 shows exactly what was
done in practically all the grammar Schools during the
I5th and I6th centuries.
But it is with education in the 17th century par-
ticularly that this book attempts to deal. The gram-
mar school of the I7th century was in almost every
detail identical with that of the preceding centuries.
Compare with the Eton time-table of I530 the one
at St Paul's almost I50 years later. From 1672–1697
the head of St Paul’s was Thos. Gale and among his
Mss. in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, is
one entitled ‘The Constant Method of Teaching in
St Paul’s, London.’ This is really the time-table
for each of the eight forms; it may be tabulated as
follows :
ETON TIME-TABLE, I530.
From Educational Charters, A. F. Leach, p. 451.
Mondaye. Tewysdaye. Wedenysdaye. Thursdaye, Frydaye.
The Fyrst Parte of stanbridge Idem Idem Idem Quos decet in
Forme. accidence every mensa at the
mornyng with the after-none and
second, thrid, and renderyng Of
fowrth forme. In- Rules.
stitutiones par-
vulorum Vocabula.
And also Latynes.
The Seconde ffabulae Aesopi, Gen- Idem Idem Idem Cato at the after
|Forme era. Lilii Latynys IlCIle Render
4tymysin the weke. rulys.
The Thrid Terence Preterita Idem Idem Idem Most proper
Forme. Lilii. Latynys. Hymmys. atthe
after none render
rulys.
Saterdaye.
Quos decet in
mensa at the
afternone render
Latynys.
Cato and at the
afternone render
Latynys and Vul-
gares.
Properest hymys.
afternone render
Latynys and Vul-
gars.
The Fourthe Terentius,
Forme.
Octo
Partes Lilii Latyns
twies every weke.
The Fyfthe Wrytyng of a theme,
Forme.
Salustius, Versi-
fyeng rulys drawne
owte of despau-
terius and other
modus conscribendi
epistolas.
The Syxte Horatius or tullius
fforme and
the Seventhe
Form.
mosellany's figures
or Copia rerum et
verborum of Eras-
IIll].S.
Idem
The same The
save they save they tullii
make make no- makyng
VerSeS. thyng. of epist-
les beside
Salustius.
All lyke Like as afore Epistole
Monday save they Tullii
save they make no- making
make thyng. of Eplis
VerS6S. beside
Horatius.
Idem
Idem
same Epistole
Vergilii buccolica
in the mornyng.
At the after none
render rulys.
Vergilii Eneis in
mornyng at after
none renderyng
of rul(y)s lernyd
the hole weke.
Vergilii Eneis in
mornyng at after
none renderyng
of rul(y)s lernid
the hole weke.
Vergilii buccolica.
at afternone ren-
der Latynys and
Vulgars.
Vergilii Eneis re-
petyng of latyns
and vulgars
lernyd that weke.
Vergilii Eneis re-
petyng of latyns
and vulgars
lernyd all ye
weke.
Every Quarter one fortenyght every forme rendryth all thyngs lernyd that quarter.
TIME-TABLE OF ST PAUL’s GRAMMAR SCHOOL, C. I690*.
Class Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday.
I-4. Latin Gram. Latin Gram. Latin Gram. Latin Gram. Repetition of Latin Gram.
week’s work.
In the afternoon Ovid's Metamorphosis read in 4th class and the Tristia in the 3rd.
5. Morm. Latin Gram. Greek Gram. Tatin Gram. Greek Gram. Latin Gram. Greek Gram.
Aft. Psalms into Vergil. Psalms to Martial. Psalms to Sallust.
Lat. Verse. Lat. Verse. Lat. Verse.
6. Morn. Greek Gram. Greek Gram. Greek Gram. Greek Gram. Greek Gram. Greek Gram.
Aft. Moral theme. Greek Test. Moral theme. Martial, Moral theme. Divine theme.
Vergil.
7. Morn. Minor poets. Greek Gram. Minor poets. Greek Gram. Minor poets. Greek Gram.
Aft. Moral theme. Horace, Theme. Cicero Oratione. Theme. Theme.
Apollodorus.
8. Moyn. Heb. Psalter or Hebrew. Hebrew. Hebrew. Hebrew. Hebrew.
Gram. - & -
Aft. Moral theme. Homer, Demosthenes. Moral theme. Persius, Theme. Divine theme.
Juvenal.
“ themes of the upper forms seem to have been set as ‘home work ”—to be done in the afternoons—probably
Wednesday afternoon should be shown as a holiday.
* This time-table is drawn up from material given in The History of St Paul’s School, McDonnell, p. 265 et seq.
ZDevelopment of Æea/İsm in AEngland 9
Lists of books" and time-tables of other schools
might be given to illustrate the fact that century after
century both as regards curriculum and method the
grammar Schools remained substantially unaltered.
That is to say, they continued to confine their attention
to the trivium—grammar, rhetoric and logic; Latin, a
little Greek and, in some cases, a little Hebrew—these
were the only subjects; verse-writing, themes and dis-
putations the only exercises. After passing through
seven or eight forms engaged in work of this kind the
grammar School boy was ready at fifteen, sixteen or
seventeen years of age to go to the University.
Beginning as a group or corporation of students
who gathered round some notable scholar, a university
came to mean a recognised association of Students or
of masters under the protection and later under the
control, to a certain extent, Of Some civil authority.
From the 13th and I4th centuries onward the
universities seem to have made a stronger appeal to
men's imagination and sympathy than the monasteries
and the endowment of colleges went on apace. Church-
statesmen, sovereigns, private individuals bequeathed
large sums for this purpose, and the Colleges thus
founded were under the control of the Founder's
statutes and later under a certain measure of State
control also, and after the Reformation, when the Con-
nection between State and Church became so close, the
Church control which had always been acknowledged
became very much increased so that the Church
1 Brinsley's Ludus Literarius gives an excellent idea of the
grammar school in the 17th century.
IO The Development of
dominated both the grammar Schools and the universi-
ties. -
The students who went up to the universities from
the grammar Schools were, as a rule, the younger sons
whose Small patrimony made earning a living essential
and who therefore required professional training. As
has been seen the grammar Schools were supposed to
teach the trivium, but as a matter of fact they gave
instruction generally only in grammar, rarely in
rhetoric and never in logic. Indeed, often a Founder
of a College was compelled to provide for the comple-
tion of the grammar school course before a student
could attend with advantage the university lectures.
Walter de Merton arranged for a master of grammar
in Merton College to teach poor boys and to help the
undergraduates who were to go to him in any difficulty
without any false shame".’
Having perfected himself in Latin, the young under-
graduate proceeded to the study of logic and rhetoric
so as to become a disputant in the Schools—a much
more formidable task than reading a theme in a gram-
mar school. After three years' training he was ready
for his ‘Determination a public disputation at the
end of which he received his B.A. degree. Then, a
trained disputant, he was ready to enter upon his four
years' course in the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry
(including geography), music and astronomy), prior to
* Rait, Life in the Medieval University, p. 34, and see also p. 58.
‘Wm. of Wykeham in providing for the needs of his scholars
availed himself of the experience of the past and created a new model
for the future. The Fellows of New College were to be efficiently
equipped at Winchester (grammar school) for the studies of the
University.”
Realism in AEmg/and/ I I
his inception as a Master of Arts when he received a
licence and, in Some periods, a command to teach.
After the completion of this general course he was free
to take up specialised study in theology, law, or medi-
cine.
This suggests a really liberal education ; but two
facts must be remembered, first that the work of a
lecturer was merely to read to more or less attentive
students the accepted treatises on the various subjects
—interpretations and comments might be added if
the lecturer was desirous of making a reputation; and
Second that almost the whole strength of the students
went to the endless disputes about the veriest trifles.
This is of course tantamount to saying that the uni-
versities aimed first, at the training of a disputant who
should possess, in the highest degree, the art of pro-
ducing the subtlest refinements upon the arguments of
his predecessors or rivals and Secondly, at training
clergymen, lawyers and doctors. Many students how-
ever did not pass to the second stage, and the subjects
of the quadrivium were chiefly useful in furnishing
illustrations for the disputations”. That these subjects
had any bearing upon the realities of life and especially
upon the individual life of the student was not for a
moment suspected. With such aims there was almost
as little change in Curriculum and method in the uni-
versities as there was in the grammar schools.
At first this adherence to the same curriculum and
* “The Quadrivium was of comparatively little importance;
Geometry and Music received small attention ; arithmetic and
astronomy were at first chiefly useful for finding the date of Easter.”
Rait, Life in the medieval University, p. 137.
I 2 The Development of
to the same method for so many centuries seems inex-
plicable, especially when it is remembered that it per-
sisted in spite of the enthusiasm of the Renaissanée.
As a matter of fact, however, there was more change
owing to the Renaissance than is at first apparent.
The interests awakened by the Renaissance were chiefly
two ; first the interest in classical literature and second
that in ‘nature '—in man's physical environment. A
third interest in man himself was present and influenced
the other two but was not worked out ’ until
much later and does not specially concern us here. It
was the interest in classical literature that first capti-
vated men's imagination and enthusiasm. Every
historian of the Renaissance in Italy describes the
eagerness with which search was made for original
MSS. and the zeal with which those which were dis-
covered were read, copied and passed from university
to university to awaken in each increased devotion
to the study of the ancient world. A later stage was
reached when, instead of reading these texts to discover
the knowledge possessed by the Ancients and their
opinions and ideals, students pored over them to note
differences in style and construction. Later, enthu-
siasts began to produce textual notes and to set up
as their ideal as close and perfect an imitation of
classical authors, and especially of Cicero, as possible.
From that time a narrowing to formalism was inevit-
able. The very eagerness of the Humanists was the
seed-plot of Ciceronianism. The resultant effect in the
schools was two-fold. First it was classical and not
ecclesiastical Latin that was studied, and second, gram-
mar was taken more and more as a subject in itself
A'ea/ism in Amg/and/ I 3
existing apart from any text. Evidence of this is seen
in the large number of new grammars which were
written and in the regulations which appeared in the
Charters of new schools as to the grammar to be used".
It will readily be understood that to study the contents
of the classical texts; to attempt to give instruction
in the subjects of which they treated, such as history,
geography and astronomy, demanded a willingness to
change and an enthusiasm which were the possession
of the few ; while to give an increased amount of gram-
mar, a more thorough memory training and drilling in
theme-writing, was but to require a steadier and a more
Settled continuance in the old, narrow ways.
The Second great interest of the Renaissance period
was that in the world of nature. This was awakened
owing very largely to a gradually conceived idea of the
Greek joy in life and in nature and also owing to the
many scientific discoveries of the period. For a time,
this second interest was overshadowed by the rapid
development of the enthusiasm for classics; but little
by little it grew and slowly influenced the old quad-
rivium, the subjects of which became more and more
differentiated. It would seem then that the univer-
sities ought to have been affected ; but the earliest
influence here was, as in the grammar Schools, exerted
by the zeal for the classics. ‘New Learning ' at Oxford
and Cambridge meant classical Latin and Greek. In
* See Eton time-table (supra, p. 6) which mentions, as well as
the famous grammar of Lily, the Stanbridge grammar. Stanbridge
was a schoolmaster at Banbury about I5oo. He made his school so
celebrated by his teaching that the statutes of new schools often
required the master to teach ‘grammar after the manner of Banbury
School.” -
I4. 7/ke Development of
the universities, too, the sanctity of tradition proved
too powerful even for such men as Erasmus, Linacre
and others. That new subjects were introduced is un-
doubtedly true, but their adoption was entirely for-
tuitous and the teaching of the subject invariably
ceased with the removal of the teacher. Moreover,
"after the Reformation, Church control was practically
synonymous with State control and the Tudors, finding
that too much of the ‘New Learning led to the spread
of Puritanism in the universities and to a dangerous
love of theological arguments, confined the work there
L” rigidly defined theological courses. As Mr Mullinger
says of the reign of Elizabeth—‘It had been decided
that Cambridge should be mainly a school of divinity
and that the doctrine taught in her schools should be
defined and prescribed beforehand. . . The main interest
having Centred in the discussion of theological questions
whatever was taught of liberal learning sank to an almost
lifeless tradition”.”
2. Tradition therefore, supported by authority in the
| hands of the Church, decided that both in grammar
| schools and universities there should be faithful ad-
º, herence to the old ways—to the provision of a classical
\ training for the servants of the Church. But however
strong they might be, tradition and authority could not
prevent the working out of the great conceptions that
had their birth at the Renaissance. However narrow
the schools and universities might become, there were
still men who clung to the hope that Humanism would
ultimately triumph. As early as the first half of the
I6th century Scorn was poured upon the Ciceronian
* History of Cambridge University, p. I 54.
A'ealism in AEmg/and I5
teaching in the writings of Erasmus and Rabelais, while
Montaigne's Essay on Pedantry was published in I580.
In our own country Sir Thomas Elyot, in his ‘Boke
named the Governour which was published in I53I,
wrote very strongly against the narrow humanists.
‘And who that hath nothinge but language only,’
he writes, may be no more praised than a popinjay,
a pye or a stare whan they speke featly... wherefore
they be moche abused that suppose eloquence to be
only in wordes or coulours of Rhetorike...undoubtedly
very eloquence is in every tonge where any matter or
acte done or to be done is expressed in wordes clene,
propise, ornate and comely".' Here, Elyot, notable
already for having had the courage to write in English”,
not only writes against the excessive drilling in lan-
guage, i.e. in grammar and in training in eloquence, but
says it is possible to express one's self in One's Own
language and that everyone does not need to spend
long years in the study of Latin only. The course
which he proceeds to sketch for the gentleman is very
broad and includes all the ‘modern subjects advo-
cated by the early Humanists—geography, history,
astronomy, and the rest—and not only has physical
education an important place but painting, carving
and Such subjects are to be included. Elyot's sugges-
tions are typical of those made not only in England but
in Italy and France too during the I6th century when
there was an effort to combine the broad humanistic
Scholarly training with the mediaeval knightly training
* The Governour. Everyman Edition, pp. 54 and 55.
* Compare J. L. Vives who certainly advocated the use of the
vernacular and yet wrote in Latin—De Tradendis Disciplinis.
I6 The Development of
and to produce the scholar-gentleman. That this was
the ideal to be aimed at during the Tudor period is
abundantly clear from a consideration of the life at
Elizabeth's court ; Sidney, Raleigh, Leicester and
many others were perfect embodiments of this con-
ception".
This broader education with its recognition of
physical needs and its practical bearing upon life ap-
pealed strongly to the new Tudor nobility who loved
a much fuller life than was possible in the excessively
ecclesiastical atmosphere of the colleges of Oxford and
Cambridge.
It was just the nobles moreover who, free from the
authority of Church or State and untrammelled by
tradition, could obtain, either at home under their
tutors or abroad in the courtly Academies, which arose
in France”, this new education. In England too at-
tempts were made to supply the new need. At the
Inns of Court a practical and physical education was
obtainable and in I57I Sir Humphrey Gilbert drew up
a Scheme for an academy similar to those in France.
The work in this Academy was to be provided for as
follows: “ For Latin, Greek, one schoolmaster and four
ushers; a teacher of Hebrew ; also one for logic and
rhetoric ; one teacher for moral philosophy and One
in natural philosophy and a reader in physic. The
last-named two were required to conduct experiments
and were afforded a “physic-garden '' for the purpose.
* Castiglione's Il Cortegiano, translated into English by Sir Thomas
Hoby in I561, influenced the development in this direction in England,
and Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman of 1622 is on the same lines.
* Mentioned by many English writers—Lord Herbert of Cherbury
and John Evelyn among others.
A'ea/ism 772 Amg/aſad 17
The rest of the staff included a reader of civil law and
one for divinity; a lawyer for grounds of the Common
Law... one teacher of French (with an usher); one of
Italian (with an usher); one of Spanish ; one of the
High Dutch, i.e. German ; one master of defence ; of
dancing and vaulting ; of music (with an usher); one
herald of arms, and a teacher of riding the Great Horse
... These subjects were to be taught in English and
text-books in English were to be encouraged".’
This Academy and a few others on the same plan
aimed at giving a ‘modern 'education to the nobility—
they, unfettered by Church and State control, were
at liberty to arrange their education as they wished.
Travel at that time played an important part in the
education of a gentleman, and with the rise of ver-
nacular literatures it is not surprising to find that
provision was made for English to be used and for
modern languages to receive attention. Probably the
most notable feature of the curriculum is the natural
philosophy and physic and the injunction that a physic
garden was to be provided. That the ‘modern educa-
tion of those days included instruction in the Sciences
was chiefly due to the influence of Peter Ramus (I515–
I572) whose ‘most fundamental and far-reaching con-
tribution to the development of educational theory
‘ was his aid to the emancipation of Society from the
bondage to mediaeval authority and to the enfranchise-
ment of truth and free investigation”.’
Ramus began his attack upon the philosophical and
* Quoted from The Beginnings of the Teaching of Modern Subjects
in England, by Foster Watson. Introd. p. xxxii.
* Graves, Peter Ramus, p. 204.
P. D. A.
2
I8 The Development of
educational method of his day by maintaining as the
thesis for his M.A. degree the astonishing proposition
“All that Aristotle has said is false.’ This was in I536.
It is difficult for us to grasp the full significance of this
event. When it is remembered that all the labours of
the schoolmen were based upon an unquestioning ac-
ceptance of the method laid down by Aristotle; that
should Aristotle be proved wanting all the toil of the
Middle Ages would be of no avail; in other words, that
if Ramus were right then all the disputations of every
professor and every student in every university in
Europe would be valueless—when this is remembered
it will be seen what tremendous import his argument
had. It was in vain that men said that, but for Aris-
totle, Ramus would not have been able even to dispute ;
the fact remained, he had dared to question and even
to denounce, not merely an authority but the only
authority. This was the beginning of a life spent in
devotion to educational reform. He first set himself
to show the true value of logic and to expound the
right method of knowledge. He was, of course,
ardently opposed to Ciceronianism, and as a result of
his work the curriculum gradually underwent an im-
provement. He very much simplified the subjects of
the trivium and aimed at making the teaching of
language easier. But it was the subjects of the quad-
rivium that were especially influenced ; as Graves says
‘He improved all literary and expression studies and
helped to give mathematics and Science a start 1.” At
first there was the inevitable storm of opposition to
the Innovator—a person to be avoided in those days;
* Peter Ramus, p. 218.
A'ealism in AEmg/and/ I9
but gradually many Scholars in the great universities
realised that Aristotelian philosophy—or at least, the
mediaeval conception of it was inadequate—and that
adherence to mediaeval methods was responsible for
the slow growth of knowledge. The result was that
before long a new idea took shape—that if only a right
method could be adopted not only would men's know-
ledge increase but with the spread of knowledge would
vanish the Social evils of the day. The first desideratum
was the increase of knowledge. Gradually, in practi-
cally every country in Western Europe were found
men who accepted the new philosophy—Ramism, as
it was called, and having substituted the ‘method of
experience ’ for reliance upon authority, set themselves
to prosecute vigorous inquiries into every branch of
knowledge. The Geometry of Euclid" and Mathe-
matics generally were eagerly studied ; astronomy was
developed ; natural philosophy and physics gradually
divided up into medicine, anatomy, botany, and
physics.
Closely connected with the desire to add to the sum "
of human knowledge was the wish to apply that know-
ledge to the augmentation of the sum of human hap-
piness. It was in North Europe especially that
Humanism developed an interest in social questions
and in this, of course, it was allied with the Reforma-
tion. Ramus, who became a Protestant, was as eager
as anyone to ameliorate social conditions, and his edu-
cational reforms were inspired very largely with the
desire to bring education into line with the Social needs
of the day and to place it within the reach of every one. _l
1 Ramus' Geometry, founded on Euclid was published I596. "
2—2
2O The Development of
During the latter half of the I6th century, then, two
streams of thought may be traced ; one concerned
with the development of science—with the study of
natural phenomena ; the other concerned with the
attempt to modify education in accordance with eco-
nomic changes and to give Some education to every
individual. In the 17th century both these tendencies
were recognised by Comenius who undertook the task
of noting the trend of public opinion and of formu-
lating educational theories in accordance therewith.
But Comenius must be dealt with later. In the mean-
time the attitude of Englishmen to these two tendencies
must be noted.
England took no Small share in the development of
Science and, as we have seen, the nobles were eager in
the pursuit of the new subjects which formed part of
the curriculum of the Courtly Academies. It is curious
to note that in Sir Humphrey Gilbert's scheme no
branch of mathematics is included, though, owing to
the geometry by Ramus which was translated into
English by Thomas Hood in I590, the subject became
more widely studied, especially by Cambridge scholars.
The acceptance of Ramism by these scholars at Cam-
bridge prepared the way for the work of later mathe-
maticians and especially for that of Newton. It is
probable that Bacon, who later followed Ramus in his
examination of Aristotelian philosophy, came under
the influence of Ramism at Cambridge. At Oxford,
too, Some interest was being taken in mathematics ;
the founder of the Savilian professorship, Sir Henry
Savile, lectured in his subject about I570. But as
was the case when Erasmus taught Greek at Cambridge
A'ealism in AEmg/and/ 2 I
at the beginning of the I6th century, the teaching was
casual and cannot be said to have formed a definite
part of the University course or to have in any but
the slightest way influenced the general attitude of the
University to the new subject.
When inquiry is made as to the progress of the
sciences it is found that they developed independently
of the support of the University as such. It is true
that in this branch also advanced men strove to awaken
the authorities to the trend of the times ; but without
much result. For example, a physic garden was opened
in Oxford in I632 and was designed to be of special
service in the medical course, while Antony Wood
records that on April 23, I663, he began a course of
chimistry under the noted chimist Peter Sthael of
Strasburgh.” These chemistry lectures to a ‘club
which consisted of ten at least ’ were probably the first
that had been given in Oxford and were of course
quite unconnected with the University. Sthael, a
Lutheran was taken to Oxford by Robert Boyle in
I659 and began to take to him scholars in the house
of John Cross next on the west side to University
College where he began but with three scholars".’
Wood gives the names of several of those who attended
the lectures, among them were Dr J. Wallis, Mr Chris-
topher Wren and Dr Ralph Bathurst; he also records
that the ‘Chimical Club ' which he joined concluded
on May 30th, 1663, ‘And A.W. paid Mr Sthael 30 shill-
ings, having in the beginning of the class given 30 shill-
ings beforehand,’ and then he makes this comment
‘ A.W. got some knowledge and experience but his mind
* Life and Times of Antony Wood (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. p. 472.
22 The Development of
still hung after antiquities and music".” In the next,
year Sthael went to London to become the ‘operator
of the Royal Society' and continued in that position
for the next seven or eight years. It was the group
of men who meeting in London”, in the years following
I645, and spoken of often as the ‘invisible College '
and the Oxford group of ‘48–50 –Wilkins of Wadham,
Bathurst, Wren, Wallis and for some time Boyle and
Petty and others—who about 1660 organised their
meetings and formed the Royal Society. From that
time it was the Royal Society and not the universities
which became the centre of the scientific movement
and to which all the Scientific discoveries were reported.
It must not be forgotten, of course, that all scientific
studies were regarded as more or less closely connected
with the Black Art, and the theologians still harboured
Something of the spirit which in earlier days had de-
lared Galileo a heretic. In the I7th century many
considered not only scientists but mathematicians also
as Atheists and the professors of them “limbs of the
devil?,’ and therefore it is not to be wondered at that
the universities, the strongholds of ecclesiastical feeling,
should regard with suspicion the new learning and that
the members of the Royal Society had for years to
endure ridicule and censure. The work of the Royal
* Life and Times of Antony Wood, p. 475.
* Sometimes at Gresham College, founded under the will of
, Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579). He endowed professorships in
divinity, astronomy, music, geometry, law, medicine and rhetoric ;
he encouraged the use of practical methods and required the teaching
to be in English and not in Latin. The work of Gresham College was
therefore more utilitarian and realistic than that in the universities.
* Antony Wood’s Athenae Oxon. II. p. 336.
A'ealism in Amg/and 23
Society may be described as serious and scientific in
the strict sense of the word ; in other quarters there
were attempts made to keep abreast of the times in
the study of science, and books containing descriptions
of animals and of collections of rarities of all kinds
were published. This is of course merely the first
stage in the development of any science ; but these
books, under the general influence of the time, had often
a strong Scriptural and ethical tone. This type of book
is represented by such a work as that of Samuel Purchas,
‘A theatre of flying insects where especially the nature,
worth and work, wonder and manner of the right order-
ing of the bee is discovered and described with theo-
logical, historicall and morall observations".” As Mr
Foster Watson shows in his Beginnings of the Teach-
fing of Modern Subjects in England books of this kind
probably influenced some schoolmasters and occasion-
ally, therefore, some attempt would be made to improve
the curriculum. Desires of this nature are seen not
only in the work of an advanced schoolmaster here
and there like Hezekiah Woodward, who advocated
nature study for schools, or John Dury, but in the
numerous pamphlets and addresses which appeared in
the first half of the I7th century—an age of pamphlets
and of all manner of schemes for the amelioration of
the conditions of the people.
There is no doubt that with the rise of Puritanism
the I6th century saw a strengthening and a Crystal-
lising into definite shape of the Reformation ideal of
* Foster Watson, Beginnings of the Teaching of Modern Subjects in
England, note p. I89.
24 7%e Development of
the recognition of the worth of the individual. This .
resulted in the growth among the people of England
not only of a desire to exercise their reason with regard
to religious questions or even to obtain a measure of
control over the government, but also of a firm con-
|
viction of the need for universal education. To think
of the leaders of the Commons of England in the 17th
century as being interested in religious and constitu-
tional questions without recognising that they grasped
the importance of sound universal education is not to
do justice to the breadth and enlightenment of their
views. Moreover, just as they strove to obtain a re-
formed church and a reformed method of government,
so they laboured to bring about a reformed education.
The worthless, formal grammar grind of the schools
was criticised almost as strenuously as the formalism
of the Church, and it is not too much to say that as
there were two parties (broadly speaking) in the Church,
so there were two parties in the Schools, one satisfied
in continuing to give the old classical training, the
other wishing to introduce new methods and new sub-
jects. And the members of the ‘reforming ' party in
the schools were generally to be found among the ‘re-
forming 'party in the Church; for the Puritans, driven
by persecution to Holland and Switzerland, had there
come into contact with the strongest forces making for
progress, and in the Protestant centres of learning
under the stimulating guidance of such men as Cordier,
| Bérauld and Calvin had been much influenced by
the new philosophy. Eager in the pursuit of the
new knowledge which was rapidly opening out, the
| Puritans were enthusiastic also in their determination
A'ealism in Amg/aſad 25
to apply the great principle enunciated by Bacon,
that since observation (use of the senses) is the
true way to learning (and not scholastic philosophy)
everyone can, with the aid of the right method, be
taught everything. Probably the most enthusiastic
worker along these lines among the Puritans” was
Samuel Hartlib, a Polish merchant, who seems never
to have done any business, and who, a refugee, came
to England about 1628 and remained here until after
the Restoration, when he seems to have gone to Hol-
land. During the whole time he was engaged in trying
to set on foot various philanthropic schemes so that
Milton, one of his many friends, wrote of him as ‘a
person sent hither by some good Providence from a far
country to be the occasion and incitement of great
good to this island.’ Hartlib appears to have been a
gentle lovable man with as many friends as enthu-
siasms. Writing to Dr Worthington, Master of Jesus
College, Cambridge, he says ‘ I could fill whole sheets
in what love and reputation I have lived these thirty
years in England being familiarly acquainted with the
best of Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Viscounts, Barons,
Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen, Ministers, Professors of
both Universities, merchants and all sorts of learned
or in any kind useful men etc.” The last phrase is
significant. Hartlib seems to have spent his time
making the acquaintance of and corresponding with
learned men and particularly with men interested in
1 The term is used loosely to cover Independents, Presbyterians,
Lutherans, etc.—all extreme ‘low ’ churchmen.
* Quoted in Biographical Memoir of S. Hartlib by G. H. Dircks,
P. 4.
26 The Development of
new subjects, in inventions and in philanthropic
schemes, as Masson says ‘nothing of a hopeful kind
with novelty in it came amiss to Hartlib'.” For
years he corresponded with Robert Boyle and a
characteristic letter to him in I649 shows him ready
to help another scientific inquirer—' My endeavours
are now how Mr Petty may be set apart and encouraged
for the advancement of experimental and mechanical
knowledge in Gresham College in London.' That
Hartlib was imbued with the spirit of his time is abund-
antly evident. He was filled with enthusiasm about
*the wonderful discoveries that were being made ;
ready to sympathise with Petty in his excitement about
a machine for double writing he had invented ; eager
to tell John Evelyn of improvements in German stoves.
In fact, anyone interested in things of this kind was
sure to find in Hartlib not only a man ready to listen
but a friend ready to help by arranging for the
publication of a pamphlet which should introduce
Some new marvel to the general public. He seems
indeed to have been in himself a kind of ‘ Office of
Public Address’ and thus to have actually for his own
circle of friends put into execution one of his most
cherished schemes. Among his multifarious interests
the chief were religion and education and these brought
him into close friendship with two men devoted to
both causes—John Dury and John Amos Comenius.
It was Dury's life work to bring about a reconciliation
of the Calvinists and Lutherans, and in fact a union
of all the Protestant churches of Europe on some broad
basis which could be accepted by all. It was Hartlib's
* Masson, Life of Milton, Vol. III. p. 215.
A'ealism in AEngland 27
part to publish various letters and pamphlets and to
introduce them and Dury to influential people who
might be expected to further the project. These
endeavours brought both men into close contact with
Comenius, an exiled Moravian bishop, and the bond of
union between the three was further strengthened by
the fact that very dear to each of them was the problem
of social and of educational reform. It was Comenius
who was destined through his writings to have the
greatest influence on the development of education.
Alive to the philosophic thought of his day he became
the great exponent of Realism in educational theory.
During the silence enforced upon him, as a minister,
by persecution, he applied himself to the task of becom-
ing acquainted with books on education and to the
formulation of a new theory which should be based
upon a recognition of the need for a useful and practical
as well as for a universal education. He himself, as
he tells us, had suffered in a grammar School one of
‘ those slaughter houses of the young ' and he laboured
therefore first, to reform the methods in use there.
He became for a time head of the Gymnasium at Lissa,
and his experience as a teacher led him to issue simpli-
fied Latin school texts which soon became known in
every Country in Europe. As early as I633 knowledge
of Comenius had reached England ; for in that year
Thomas Horne, M.A., a Schoolmaster in London, and
then Master of Eton, had published a Janua Linguarum
which is said by Antony Wood to have been mostly
taken from Comenius—the title is his at any rate. But
it was Hartlib who was really to make Comenius known
in this country—it was possibly he who had introduced
|
28 The Development of
his texts to the notice of Horne and others. Whether
this was so or not, in I637 we find Hartlib publishing
Preludes of the Endeavour of Comenius from the Library
of S.H., Oxford. There is first a preface to the reader
and then the treatise—‘Porta Sapientia Reserata etc.—
the Gate of Wisdom opened or the Seminary of all
Christian knowledge ; being a new compendium and
solid method of learning more briefly, more truly and
better than hitherto, all the sciences and arts and what-
ever there is manifest or occult that it is given to the
genius of man to penetrate, his Craft to imitate, or his
tongue to speak. The author that Rev. and most dis-
tinguished man, Mr J. A. Comenius.’ The story of
this publication is told by Comenius himself. Hartlib,
it seems, had heard of Comenius' plan for a large work
dealing with an educational system which, should pro-
vide not only for an improved method of teaching
languages, but also for a method of teaching ‘things.’
Comenius was begged by Hartlib to give him a sketch
of this intended ‘Janua Rerum.” “Being thus en-
treated says Comenius, ‘ by the most intimate of my
friends, a man piously eager for the public good, to
communicate some ideas of my future work, I did
communicate to him in writing in a chance way what
I had thought of prefixing sometime or other to the
work in the form of a preface and this, beyond my hope
and without my knowledge was printed at Oxford under
the title of Conatuum Comenianorum Praeludia”.’ The
pamphlet gives an idea of the realistic position. Start-
ing with the conviction that ‘ nothing is in the under-
Standing which was not before in the senses the
* * Quoted in Masson's Life of Milton.
A'ea/ism in AEmg/and 29
realists proposed to replace the old memory and
language training—mere ‘words '-by a training of
the understanding through the cultivation of the
powers of observation. Lessons about real things
were to be given, illustrations were to be used and
above all the subject was to be approached from the
point of view of the child’s limited capacity for under-
standing. The realists were ‘encyclopaedists' also ;
for, since the senses were the gate-way to knowledge,
a training of the senses would bring all knowledge
within the grasp of the child, and therefore there was
no subject which at Some stage he might not learn.
Though Comenius was no doubt somewhat annoyed
by Hartlib's over-zealousness, their friendship was not
broken, for in I64I Comenius was induced to come to
England for the purpose of putting into practice some of
his educational theories. No doubt Hartlib's publication
had helped to increase his already great reputation in
England, and Comenius writes as though he had been
invited by Parliament. Whether the invitation was
sent by Parliament or not is not known ; but it is
Certain that there were many teachers and many in-
fluential friends of Hartlib exceedingly anxious to
reform English education with the help of the acknow-
ledged leader of education in Europe. The plan was
to arrange for the opening of a realistic College in
London which should give a scientific—an encyclopaedic,
education based on the new methods enunciated by
Bacon and Comenius. It was felt that to attempt
anything of this kind at Oxford or Cambridge, which
were so embedded in Ciceronianism, would be futile.
Besides, the new education was to be utilitarian and
3O The Development of
was to appeal not only to professional but to Com-
mercial and middle class men generally, so that London
was a better centre than the ancient universities would
be. There was, moreover, more probability of Success
for the new education in a College on a fresh foundation
than in the universities which could not be expected to
welcome studies so little in keeping with the mediaeval
atmosphere which still hung about them. This visit
is of very great importance ; it shows unmistakably the
great interest taken in education on the eve of the Civil
War. Unfortunately the outbreak of that war pre-
vented Hartlib and his friends from making use of
Comenius as they had hoped, but that does not mean
that the visit was a failure. The fact remains that it
was to England that the great educational reformer was
invited; that so early as in the first half of the 17th
century there was a great desire to establish here the
new education ; that the opening of a College giving
expression to the ideas of Bacon and Comenius was
thought to be so well within the bounds of possibility that
sites were discussed. Too much emphasis cannot be
placed upon this scheme ; it goes to prove that England
was in the forefront of educational reform and it was
moreover the beginning of a realistic movement which,
though interrupted for a time, never really died down.
While Comenius was in England, Hartlib published
Once more his views on the reformation of Schools.
During the months that Comenius was here Hartlib
must have been a happy man. To have the great
educationalist of the day staying with him ; to be
able to introduce Comenius to sympathetic friends; to
be constantly arranging gatherings for the discussion
A'ealism in AEngland 3I
of their pet theories—how Hartlib must have revelled
in all this And what an influence the visit was
destined to have When Comenius went away it
is true no Pansophical College had been opened in
London to give a realistic education far in advance
of that given at Oxford or Cambridge ; but there were
left behind men more determined than ever to leave
no stone unturned to further their aims.
Hartlib was as active as ever; in I644 at his earnest
request, Milton, who had been teaching his two nephews
and a few other boys since I639, wrote his views on
education. The Tractate is too well known to need
much comment. In it Milton repeats the criticism of
the current university and grammar school methods
which is to be found in all advanced writers of the
period, and is quite in agreement with Comenius in his
desire to give a realistic education. Unlike Comenius,
who planned a complete System of national education
beginning with the school of the mother's knee, followed
by the vernacular School which led on to the grammar
school and university, Milton dealt with the education
of upper class children only, and, ignoring the #
tary system, wrote only of Secondary work. e Sug-
gests an academy in which both grammar School and
university education should be given ; he wished indeed
to do away with the established universities entirely.
Here of course he is but voicing the general feeling of
the Puritans—that Oxford and Cambridge were so
averse to anything new that the only hope of effecting
a change was to set up rival universities which should
from the first devote themselves to giving expression
to realism. This feeling of the Puritans was so openly
32 The Development of
expressed that Antony Wood writes of the ‘endeavours
to pull down Academies '— It is well knowne he
writes in 1659, ‘ that the Universities of this land have
had their beginnings and continuances to noe other
end but to propagate religion and good manners and
Supply the nation with persons chiefly professing the
three famous faculties of Divinity, Law and Phisick.
But in these late times when the dregs of people grew
wiser than their teachers and . . . therefore abovel all
religion ordinarily profest, nothing could satisfie their
insatiable desires but aiming at an utter subersion of
them”, church and Schools. . . . Intelligent men knew
and saw verie well that it was their intent to rout up
all and to ruine those things that Smelt of an Academy,
never rejoycing more then when they could trample on
the gowne and bring humane learning and arts into
disgrace. This I may verie boldlie Say and none can
denye it that these domestick confusions among our-
selves about matters of religion and insurrections of
seditious subjects that have and doe pretend to refor-
mation, hath bin the Only reasons why these nurseries
must first feele the Smart of their implacasy....And
as it was a common matter to declaime against uni-
versities in publicke, Soe was it also in the private
meetings and conventicles of Anabaptists, Quakers
and Such like unstable people, challenging also
sometimes the gowne itself to oppose what they
did and said and this ever in the universities them-
selves”.’
Here, no doubt, Wood is referring to the extremists
1 i.e. ‘superior to.” * The universities.
* Wood's Life and Times, Vol. I. pp. 292, 293.
A'ea/ism in AEag/and/ 33
who, now and then, were concerned to show ‘The
sufficiency of the Spirit's teaching without Humane
Learning.” This is the title of a ‘Treatise tending to
prove Humane Learning to be no help to the Spiritual
understanding of the word of God’ written by a cob-
bler, S. How. As a matter of fact two separate Con-
troversies raged. Puritan extremists of How's type
contended that ministers did not require much educa-
tion and considered the universities not merely useless
but harmful. Milton in his Likeliest means to ré%006
hirelings out of the Church had some slight share in
this discussion. He saw no need for the training of
ministers in disputations and regarded the time spent
at the universities as wasted, because so little was
gained there. ‘A minister can receive his education,”
he writes, at any private house instead of at the uni-
versity. Else to how little purpose are all these piles
of sermons, bodies and marrows of divinity besides all
other Sciences in our English tongue—many of the
same books which in Latin they read in the Univer-
sity ?” It was not an educated ministry to which
Milton objected—far from it ; it was against the waste
of time and the bad methods at the universities that
he wrote. And this was the burden of the writings of
those who took part in the larger controversy which
dealt with the question of the value of such training
as was given in the universities. The general body of
the Puritans did not wish, as Wood suggests they did,
to Sweep away all learning, but they did desire to get
rid of all narrowness in the universities and also of all
negligence and Supineness".

* The Wood collection of pamphlets in the Bodleian contains
P. D. A. 3
34 The Development of
The account which Wood himself gives of the uni-
versity of Oxford during the Commonwealth shows that
so far from doing away with education, the Presby-
terians and Independents who during the ‘Intervall'
filled the colleges, were earnest hard-working men who
did their utmost to promote Sound learning.
But to return to Milton. The account which
Edward Phillips gives of his uncle's teaching shows
that Milton wrote from a knowledge of what might
be done and that he went a great way in the accom-
plishment of what he suggested. Apparently Milton
hoped to develop his small Academy and to carry out
his theories, but in I647 he had to discontinue his
teaching. There is no reason to suppose, however,
that his interest in education diminished. As time
went on he became more at One in his opinions with
Cromwell, and no doubt the Protector and his Latin
Secretary were often associated in educational schemes.
Meanwhile Hartlib continued to publish pamphlets.
One issued in 1645 by his young friend William Petty
deserves notice. Born in I623 Petty received the usual
grammar School education, at I2 he had acquired a
competent Smattering of Latin.” Then he was appren-
ticed as cabin boy on an English merchantman” but
having broken his leg he was put ashore in France not
one by Mat. Poole ‘A model for the maintaining of students of choice
abilities at the University and principally in order to the ministry’
it is followed by an address (a ‘begging ' letter) ‘To the Rich that
love Christ, the Church, the Gospel and themselves * and pleads
the need of a learned ministry. It is signed Richard Baxter (1658).
* It was a common practice to apprentice boys in this way as a
means of continuing their education, Sir Thomas Gresham had been
apprenticed to his uncle, a merchant in the Levant.
A'ea/ism in AEmg/and/ 35
far from Caen. Here his Smattering of Latin procured
him entrance to a Jesuit College where he received
further instruction in grammar ; picked up French ;
and Supported himself by teaching navigation to an
officer and English to a French gentleman. After
returning to England for a short time, he entered the
Navy and in 1643 joined the army of the English
refugees in the Netherlands where he vigorously fol-
lowed his studies especially that of medicine at Utrecht,
Leyden and Amsterdam’.” Two years later he was
in Paris studying anatomy and, in 1648 after the re-
organisation of the University by Parliament, reaped
the advantage of his studies in his appointment as
deputy to Clayton, professor of anatomy, whom he
succeeded as professor in January 1650. The note
prefixed to the ‘Advice of W. P. to Mr S. Hartlib for
the Advancement of Some particular parts of Learning '
in the Harleian Miscellany seems to suggest that one
way of promotion was to address a pamphlet on educa- -
tion either to Parliament or to Hartlib. The note runs
as follows—' Sir Wm. Petty having in 1644 invented
an instrument for double writing obtained a patent
from Parliament for the sole teaching of that art for
seventeen years. Though this project (however pro-
mising in theory) did not turn to any great account
in itself, yet by this means our author was brought
into the knowledge of the leading men of those times;
and observing their proceedings at Oxford, he resolved
to lay hold of the opportunity of fixing himself there.
Having therefore written his “ Advice to Mr H.” he
* Economic writings of Sir Wm. Petty. C. H. Hull. Introd.
3–2
36 7%e Development of
went thither in I648 and became a great promoter of
academical Science.’
The pamphlet under discussion expresses contempt
for traditional methods and advocates a realistic and
utilitarian education. Petty Suggests a ‘literary work-
house where children may be taught to do something
towards their living as (well as) to read and write ’;
indeed he urges that every child, even those of the
highest rank, should be taught some genteel manu-
facture in their minority—such as making watches,
painting, carving and embossing. In no case is draw-
ing or designing to be omitted ; the elements of arith-
metic and geometry are to be studied by all and such
as ‘ have any natural ability and fitness to music" are
to be encouraged and instructed therein.’ The school
should have in it a complete theatrum botanicum –
stalls and Cages for all Strange birds and beasts ; for
‘ children do most naturally delight in things and are
most capable of learning them”.’
In this pamphlet Petty is so concerned with advo-
cating the new realistic or Scientific education that he
entirely breaks away from the old language curriculum.
In this he is very different from Milton who retained
not only humanistic Studies such as history and litera-
ture but a thorough Latin training also. But Milton,
and Comenius too, included the scientific branch of
studies also. It is certainly unusual to find a writer
who, like Petty, ignores the humanities—except to
condemn excessive language teaching. Possibly the
omission was not because Petty did not consider some
1 Petty became Professor of Music at Gresham College.
* ‘Advice of W. P. to Mr S. Hartlib,” Harleian Misc. p. 13.
A'ea/ism in AEmg/and/ 37
language teaching necessary but because he knew it
was safe to conclude that languages would assuredly
be taught and because he felt it was imperative to
concentrate his attention on the teaching of those new
subjects which must have seemed so absolutely essential
to an enthusiastic Scientist.
The educational reforms of the period were chiefly
concerned with two propositions, one dealing with a
new method of teaching the classics, and the other with
the introduction of new subjects. The two reforms
were of course closely connected, and were based upon
the corner-stone of Realism—' things not words.’
Comenius, having urged the reform of grammar
teaching by advising that the Latin words should be
associated with the things for which they stood and
which were represented by illustrations in his Orbis
Pictus, went on to advocate the imparting of informa-
tion about the things themselves. In the same way
his followers in England passed naturally from advo-
cating the use of what they called ‘lively and vocal
alphabets' to the use of actual things in language
lessons— because Some things cannot be pictured out
with ink”.’ From this use in grammar lessons of
pictures and things it was not far to lessons on the
things themselves, i.e. to object lessons or ‘nature
study.’ A noted schoolmaster friend of Hartlib's who
introduced both these new ways in his school was the
Puritan Hezekiah Woodward (I590–1675), who gradu-
ated B.A. from Balliol College, Oxford, I612. After
sometime abroad, he opened a SCHOOT at Aldermanbury
1 Charles Hoole in his preface to his translation of the Orbis
Pictus under the title of The Visible World, 1659.
|
38 7 he /)evelopment of
in I619. About I649, having been for some years in
sympathy with the Independents, he was presented by
Cromwell to the vicarage of Bray near Maidenhead.
He wrote several pamphlets on religious questions, but
he was also intensely interested in education. Teach-
ing experience, and remembrance of his own early
useless education*, Soon led him to inquire into ques-
tions affecting method, and later to attempt reform.
Charles Hoole, in his translation of Comenius's Orbis
Pictus, refers to Woodward as an eminent schoolmaster,
and his educational writings have the advantage of
being the outcome of years of experience. Several
books from his pen are important and prove him a
realist in complete agreement with Comenius. Two
pamphlets, written by him in I64I and bound together,
show him urging both the reforms mentioned above,
they are A Light to Grammar and all other Arts and
Sciences or the Rule of Practice, proceeding by the
clue of nature and conduct of right reason so opening
the doore thereunto,” and ‘A Gate to Sciences opened
by a naturale key or a Practicall lecture upon the
great book of nature whereby the childe is enabled
to reade the creatures there.” In the former Wood-
ward inquires into the nature of the child mind and
says that hitherto teachers had thought only of the
subject to be taught, he feels that grammar must be
taught so as to be simple to the child—' hee that can
stoope lowest and Soonest fit his precognition to the
child, he is the best teacher”,” and he proceeds to
advocate language teaching by a ‘direct method with
* To which he refers in the preface to Of the Child’s Portion.
* From the preface to A Light to Grammar, -
A'ea/ism in AEmg/aſad 39
plenty of illustration and explanation. The second
pamphlet urges the teaching of science. In his pre-
fatory letter to Hartlib, Woodward says ‘The title
tells us that all Sciences are lighted into the under-
standing through the door of the senses and this is
true enough for certaine it is that a child, yea a man
also doth taste and relish no knowledge but what he
finds drencht in flesh and blood.’ There is no ques-
tion that Realism had reached England and was, in
Some Schools at least, making an Onslaught upon
Ciceronianism. Woodward was one of the most im-
portant schoolmasters to undertake measures for reform
and in his struggles, and in the midst of the opposi-
tion of the Ciceronian Schoolmasters was supported by
Hartlib. This is not conjecture. A letter addressed
to Hartlib forms the preface to A Light to Grammar
and leaves one in no doubt as to Woodward’s labours
on the one hand and as to Hartlib's untiring efforts
in encouraging any reformer, on the other. Woodward
begins by thanking Hartlib for his encouragement, and
after referring to the opposition of those who prefer
the ‘old, old way that is always the best way,’ pro-
ceeds to sketch his attempts at reform. He then
thanks Hartlib again saying since you came into
these parts those discouragements about Our School
points began to weare out, such hath beene your active-
ness therein ; and which is the greatest meanes to
make our way clearer you have been a meanes to
make Comenius knowne amongst us, the greatest light
in this kind of learning that ever was set up in the
world. What, tho’ the most will not think So—no
wonder, that for the most judge all Out of the way who
4O 7%e Development of
drudge not on, just in the old road and beaten
way".’
Enough has been said to show that Hartlib and his
friends were anxious to reform, in these two directions
of method and new subjects, the education given in
the schools of their day. But Hartlib did not stop
here. There was still another reform just as urgently
needed. Hartlib seems to have felt more and more
that the State should hold itself responsible for educa-
tion which ought to be given to everyone. The idea
that the giving of a thoroughly good, practical educa-
tion to the middle classes is a matter of deep concern
to the State, finds expression again and again in his
own writings and in the advertisements or letters
to the reader which he was in the habit of prefixing
to the pamphlets he published for his friends. For
instance, in his ‘Considerations tending to the Happy
Accomplishment of England's Reformation presented
to Parliament in I647 he mentions among the duties
of magistrates that of seeing ‘schools opened, provided
with teachers, endued with maintenance, regulated with
constitutions. . . and the right ordering of these schools
is to be lookt upon as the main foundation of a reformed
commonwealth without which no other work of refor-
mation will ever bee effectual”.” Again in his letter
to the reader prefixed to John Dury's Reformed School
he writes, ‘the readiest way to reform both Church
and Commonwealth is to reform the schools of educa-
tion therein. . . and the way to reform these is to send
* Preface to A Light to Grammay.
* “Considerations tending to the Happy...Reformation,” p. 21.
A'ea/ism in AEngland 4. I
forth reformed schoolmasters’.” This need for re-
formed schools and teachers was very strongly felt by
numbers of the Puritans, many of whom seem, according
to this letter by Hartlib, to have had an idea of forming
a community of men and women set apart to teach
boys and girls on the new lines. Dury's Reformed
School (I651) contains, in fact, the rules for the educa-
tion of the boys in this projected institution, and the
care with which the scheme was thought out shows
the tremendous interest taken by the Puritans in
education. It may be said that this was only another
dream of Hartlib and Dury who spent their lives
making plans which could not be put into execution.
Possibly this is true ; both men were visionaries, and
there was probably no more possibility of this idea of
the Reformed Schools being carried out than there was
of Dury's scheme for a reconciliation of the Protestant
Churches being successful. But it at any rate shows
the direction in which these men's minds were working
and behind them were many sympathisers. There is
no doubt that the work of Hartlib and his immediate
circle was watched with interest not only by reforming
schoolmasters and advanced university men, who, find-
ing no outlet for their activities in Oxford or Cambridge,
laboured with the Royal Society, but also by statesmen
too. Whether it be true or not that, as some believed,
Parliament invited Comenius to come to England to
advise Englishmen about education, it is true that, the
war being over, and the Commonwealth established, Par-
liament turned its attention to education. Grants were
made not only to the universities for the maintenance
* Preface to Reformed School, p. 4. ;3
42 7%e Development of
\
º
|
of the masterships of colleges and to Scotland for
educational purposes but also to Small necessitous
schools and schoolmasters in different parts of the
country". A new university was planned for the
North of England to be situated at Durham, and pro-
bably the scheme broached at the time of Comenius'
visit to London was revived, for Gresham College and
the meetings which developed into the Royal Society
naturally suggested that there were good grounds for
establishing a university in the capital.
The Commonwealth then, may be described as a
time of considerable educational activity when men
were big with hope for the future of learning. The
work done between I640—I660 was the natural outcome
of the attempts made in those and the preceding years
o influence public opinion in the direction of demand-
ring educational reform. There is no doubt that the
t
leaders among the Puritans were convinced of the im-
portance of education and of the fact that without
reform in education there could be no reform in the
State. The majority of them had accepted the ‘ne
education of the Realists and had quite definite ideas
as to what reforms were necessary. They hoped that
Realism would change existing institutions as much as
possible, and that to counteract the influence of the
universities and those grammar Schools which remained
Ciceronian, new institutions might be started. Men
felt that the dream of Bacon and Comenius, and of the
early Protestants indeed, was about to be realised, and
* See article on ‘State and Education during the Commonwealth '
by Prof. Foster Watson in the English Historical Review for Jan. Igoo
and see also A. F. Leach, Educational Charters, pp. 535–538.


Realism in AEngland 43
that learning which had been the monopoly of the
upper classes was at last within the reach of every
individual who desired it. During the Commonwealth
the door leading into the world of knowledge, of in-
creased capacity, and of fuller life, was slowly opening
to admit the men who stood expectant without. But
just as they were on the threshold the door was shut
—shut by the Restoration, and the way barred by
the Clarendon Code.
ſ Probably no event in English history has had so
|
far-reaching and disastrous an effect upon education
as the Restoration. Reform was put back nearly
200 years. After the return of Charles II there was
the same attempt made to get rid of everything Puritan
in education as in Church and State. Clarendon and
his supporters understood only too well the Puritan
demand for a reformed education. If Church and
State were to be restored,’ then education too must
be ‘restored.” If Church and State were to remain,
they and they alone must control education. Puritans
must be thrust out of the Church, realists—generally
Puritans too—out of the schools. The very fact that
so much attention was paid by the Restoration Parlia-
ment to education is evidence of the interest taken in J.
it by the Puritans. Clarendon was plainly aware of
the presence of a reforming party in the Schools and he
and his friends were as alarmed by the ‘advanced
views of many of the teachers as by those of some of
the clergy. It was therefore felt that to secure uni-
formity of worship and belief, and the Supremacy of
the State-Church, independence of thought and action
must be crushed in the school as well as in the Church ;
44 Development of Kea/ism in AEngland
it was of no use requiring uniformity from preachers
while leaving teachers free to spread new ideas which
were so dangerously contemptuous of authority and
tradition. No time was lost therefore in passing the
Conformity legislation of I662 and the following years
—legislation which affected the schools and teachers
no less than the churches and clergy. The effect on
the churches is well known ; the effect on the schools
was similar. From I662 date the Dissenting churches;
from that year also date the Dissenting Academies.
The Dissenting Academies gave not merely an educa-
tion to Dissenters but a ‘Dissenting education—an
education that is, which was different from that in
the other Schools—an education which became much
broader than that in the universities and in the schools
established by law and controlled by the Church. As
will be seen the ‘Dissenting ' education was realistic ;
for the Dissenters kept alive in their Academies the
spirit of Hartlib and of those who had worked with
| him in the spread of realism.
II
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DISSENTING
ACADEMIES
When the complete History of Education in England
appears, probably no chapter will cause more surprise
to all students of education, except the few already
interested in that time, than the one dealing with the
period 1660–1800 which saw the rise of the Dissenting
Academies.
These academies, diverging from the main stream
of education, drained off more and more of its life
and vigour until the parent stream grew weaker and
weaker.
The change from the flourishing, energetic grammar
Schools of the I4th, I5th, and I6th centuries to the
decaying lifeless ones of the I7th and I8th is so remark-
able that it has been considered as the chief feature
of the period, and the Schools which make those years
really interesting and noteworthy have been overlooked.
The Dissenting Academies were, however, the greatest
schools of their day. During a period when the gram-
mar Schools slept and when the universities were sterile
the Dissenting Academies were not merely in existence,
but were thoroughly alive and active, doing remarkably
good work. In an age when those centres of learning
46 The Rise and Progress
to which men naturally turned for instruction, lament-
ably failed to fulfil the purpose of their founders, the
Dissenting Academies did their utmost to satisfy the
needs of the youth of this country, and an inquiry into
the state of education between I660 and ISOO shows
us that they stood immeasurably higher, as regards
efficiency, than any other educational institutions.
The fact was soon recognised by men of their own day
with the result that the academies trained men who
filled the foremost places in every department of life,
and that they eventually developed into the most
important educational system of their day. Without
the story of the Dissenting Academies the history of
education in England for those I40 years would indeed
be a dull and barren record ; as it is, these academies
prevent those years from being a reproach to us; for
while other institutions were at a standstill they pro-
gressed, and it is therefore to them that the honour of
furthering the development of educational opinion in
this country belongs, -
The Dissenting Academies were very largely the
result of the Conformity legislation of I662 and the
following years; that is to say, the passing of the
Clarendon Code forced upon the Dissenters the execu-
tion of educational projects which had been in the
minds of Puritans before I660. The Act of Uniformity!
provided that “Every Schoolmaster keeping any public
or private School and every person instructing or teach-
ing any youth in any house or private family as a
tutor or School master ' should subscribe a declaration
* For the complete text see Documents relating to Act of Uni-
form?ty, p. 39.I.
of the Dissenſing Academies 47
that he would conform to the liturgy as by law estab-
lished and should also obtain a licence permitting him
to teach from ‘ his respective archbishop, bishop or
ordinary of the diocese.’
The effect of the Conformity legislation was to
accentuate the differences between what may be called
the orthodox State schools and the unorthodox Dis-
senting schools. Moreover, far from putting an end to
the teaching of the Nonconformists, the Clarendon Code
only served to give it that impetus which finally set
the Dissenting Schools far in advance of those—the
grammar Schools—under the control of the Church ;
for it was not to be expected that Dissenters would
offer no resistance to legislation which affected what
they held to be so precious—liberty of conscience
and a free liberal education. The ejected ministers
and teachers were ready to fight for both. Of course,
there was too, the practical side of the situation.
These men had to obtain a living and consequently
stern necessity was added to inclination, and therefore
the determination was strengthened, with the result
that further legislation, in the shape of the Five Mile
Act of 1665, followed. -
The fact that this Act was felt to be necessary only
three years after the Act of Uniformity is in itself full
of significance. The Act was most severe ; Noncon-
formists were forbidden to teach under the enormous
penalty of £40, and the Act was very strictly enforced
by both civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Arch-
bishop Sheldon ordered the bishops to see whether
‘said schoolmasters, ushers, Schoolmistresses and in-
structors or teachers of youth publicly or privately
48 The Rise and Progress
do themselves frequent the public prayers of the
Church and cause their “scholars ” to do the same ;
and whether they appear well-affected to the govern-
ment of His Majesty and the doctrine and discipline
of the Church of England".’
This increase of legislation and this diocesan in-
spection of teachers can mean only one thing—that
Dissenting Academies were even then becoming im-
portant. The reason is not far to Seek. The Dissenting
Academies were supported and became important
because of three causes which operated quite naturally.
First, Nonconformist ministers and laymen would not
allow their sons to go to the universities where they
would have to subscribe the Act of Uniformity and
where they would be taught the doctrines for the
sake of which their fathers had left livings, profes-
sorships or tutorships. Secondly, just as the ejected
clergy were among the best in the Country, so the
ejected teachers were among the most efficient and
progressive—the ejected teachers were, of course,
almost always clergymen. Reference to the list of
academies and tutors will show that the majority of
these men had been educated at a university and that
many of them in 1662 were fellows or tutors in Oxford
- ... -- **** - *-* ~ * = ...--
or Cambridge”. It will be clearly seen that in propor-
tion as the Dissenting Academies profited by the good
work of the ejected teachers the grammar schools
lost, so that, as has been well Said, ‘ the first result of
the Conformity legislation was the destruction of the
* de Montmorency, The Progress of Education in England, p. 46.
* Appendix No. I. Academies, Period I.

of the Dissenting Academies 49
Elizabethan system’.” This brings us to the third
cause. It was not long before the effect of the legis-
lation on the existing Schools and on the universities
was felt and people in those days were quite as anxious
to get as good an education as possible for their money
as they are to-day and therefore, in order to obtain a
good education—the best education, in fact—Anglicans
were very soon sent to the academies of the Dissenters
which, requiring no oath of belief in any doctrine, were
open to every one. The following extract from Wilson's
‘History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and
meeting houses in London, Westminster and South-
wark' is but one of a number which might be given to
illustrate this : ‘Mr Wm. Hocker received the rudi-
ments of classical learning from Rev. Joseph Halfey
ejected from the Rectory of St Michael Penkerel whose
house, on its being known that for lack of a convenient
school he had taken on himself the instruction of his
own children, was thronged with gentlemen's Sons of
the first rank, though many of them were averse from
Nonconformity.’
It was these three causes, then, which led to the
immediate success of the Dissenting Academies. As
time went on the Dissenters felt more secure and their
work gained more and more recognition. This is what
one would expect ; the severe legislation naturally led
to a reaction which expressed itself in no uncertain
manner in the judgment given in Bates' case, I670, to
the effect that if the schoolmaster were a nominee of
the founder or of the lay patron of a school he could
not be ejected for teaching without a Bishop's licence.
* de Montmorency, The Progress of Education in England.
P. D. A. 4.
5O The Rise and Progress
Bates' case was a direct incentive to Dissenters to
found schools. Evidence of the fact that advantage
was quickly taken by the Dissenters of the pronounce-
ment of the law-courts is shown by a table giving the
dates when the endowed schools, in existence in I85I,
were founded, which is given in Horace Mann's Popular
Education in Great Britain—the official report of the
Commission of Inquiry into Charities. The Commis-
sioners reported 3000 endowed schools and of these
nearly IOOO were founded between 1660–1730—these
were of course chiefly elementary Schools due not only
to the effect of Bates' case but also to Cox's case, I'700,
by which it was held that ‘ there was not and never
had been any ecclesiastical control over any other
than grammar Schools '; to Douse's case which affirmed
that it was not a civil offence to keep an elementary
school without a bishop's licence; and to the Act of
I7I4 which exempted elementary schools from the
penalties of the Conformity legislation".
But it is not with Dissenting schools in general that
this book is concerned but with Dissenting Academies,
a distinction which must be borne in mind. The Dis-
senting Schools were charity foundations and probably
differed little from the ordinary schools of the day.
The Dissenting Academies on the other hand, were
schools of university standing. That is to say 'that
the academies were in the words of Toulmin ‘Semin-
aries, which, but for a malignant policy would never
have existed,’ and which ‘were opened in various parts
of the kingdom to meet the wishes of such as would
* de Montmorency, The Progress of Education, p. 42.
of the Dissenſing Academies 51
otherwise have sent their sons to the Universities”.'
There is clear evidence (from the lists of students with
dates of entry and from lives of eminent men who
received an academy education) which shows that boys
went to the academies at the age of I5, I6 or I7, i.e.
at the ordinary university age. Many names might be
given; among them are: Belsham entered at Daventry,
and Chorlton at Rathmell when I5, Doddridge and
Caleb Ashworth both entered when I6, John Ashe
went to Rathmell when I6 ; some were older : Thos.
Dixon was IQ when he entered Chorlton's Academy,
Wm. Bull went to Daventry when 20 ; on the other
hand, Defoe and Calamy were only I4 when they went
to Newington Green and Cradock's Academy respec-
tively. In a letter to the Rev. John Barker, Philip
Doddridge, D.D., Principal of the Acadeſhy at North-
ampton, writes that he does not generally take boys
who have not been through a grammar School and got a
good knowledge of classics.
Occasionally an explanation of the adoption of the
term Academy has been attempted. It has been
suggested” that the Dissenters used the term in con-
scious imitation of Calvin whose Academy established
at Geneva in I559 was ‘the first European University
not fortified by powers conveyed under a Papal Bull.”
It has been Suggested also that in his choice of the
term Academy, Calvin, ‘in thus invoking Plato who
taught in the Olive grove of Academe,’ wished to
* Toulmin's Historical View of the State of the Protestant Dissenters
in England, Vol. II. p. 217.
*-In an address on Early Nonconformity and Education by
Principal Gordon.
*
4–2
52 7%e Aºise and Progress
proclaim his sympathy with Humanism and to empha-
sise his breach with the Schoolmen. It is impossible to
say how much truth there is in these suppositions;
they are certainly attractive to anyone dealing with
the Humanism of the Dissenting Academies but they
must not on that account be taken over without Some
examination.
There does not seem to be any evidence in Support
of the view that the term Academy was intended by
Calvin to mean anything more than an institution at
which higher education was obtainable. The word
Academy was in general use at the time. It was
considered as synonymous with university and was
constantly employed to designate the great universities
of Europe" or to indicate any institution giving in-
struction in the subjects of the quadrivium. The
instruction given by Sturm at Strasburg in the higher
subjects received recognition when in I562 the Emperor
Maximilian II gave to the Gymnasium the right to
grant degrees, and when, as a consequence, the Gym-
nasium became known as an Academy.
As far as England is concerned the Dissenters were
certainly not the first to apply the term to a place of
higher education, for there are numerous instances of
the same general use which obtained on the Continent.
• Antony Wood often speaks of Academies when re-
ferring to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge ;
Milton in the Tractate uses the term merely as equi-
valent to university, to a place giving higher education;
This is shown by the titles of several books on the reform of
the University of Paris by Ramus, e.g. Pro philosophica Parisiensis
iAcademia disciplina oratio. Published 1551. -
of the Dissenting Academies 53
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Bolton, Gerbier and others who
endeavoured to introduce the education of the French
courtly Academies into England clearly employed the
term to indicate an institution giving instruction in
the university subjects of the quadrivium.
The fact that the term Academy was widely used
in Scotland, owing no doubt to the influence of Knox
and Calvin, seems to give colour to the idea that the
Dissenters were invoking Calvin as he is thought to
have invoked Plato, and certainly the English Puritans
were influenced by Calvin but they were also un-
doubtedly and to a very great extent influenced by
their intercourse with Holland and Germany.
Possibly the term was used by the Dissenters to
indicate that their work was of university and not of
grammar School standard ; indeed the use of the term
by Hartlib in 1660 to describe a school of a definitely
realistic type may have suggested that ‘Academy'
should be adopted as the name for these institutions
which were so very different from the ordinary schools
of the day. But it must after all be remembered that
it is highly probable that in the early days the
Dissenters themselves spoke of their schools or semin-
aries and not of their Academies.
An interesting parallel might be drawn between
Calvin’s Academy and the Dissenting Academies.
Both were primarily for the training of ministers for
*** --~~~. s
the Church. Both were unorthodox, i.e. both gave an
education in advance of their day and both were for
a time brilliantly successful in meeting the demand for
a new education. Inasmuch as the Dissenting Acade-
mies were at enmity with the ecclesiastical authority
|
54 7%e Rise and Progress
of their day and aimed at Supplying an educated
ministry for their own Church they may be considered
as in line with Calvin’s Academy, but except in so far
as both Calvin’s Academy and the Dissenting Academies
in England were the outcome of Protestant enthusiasm
for education there is no definite connection between
them. On the Continent Protestant schools and
Academies were founded as the result of a definite
Protestant policy which aimed at the propagation of
Protestant teaching. That these Protestant schools
were important is seen from the fact that the Jesuit
schools were founded to counteract their influence. In
England there was no such general development, for
after the Reformation all the Church schools and the
universities became Protestant. With the Restora-
tion and the Clarendon Code the Dissenters, cut off
from the education supplied by Church and State,
were compelled to provide for themselves and had no
conception of the importance of the work they under-
took and certainly no idea of establishing an educa-
tional system which should rival the universities.
The course in the academies usually extended over
four years, and throughout the country it was under-
stood that before entering, the students must have a
general knowledge of classics. For example, in 1695,
the Independent or Congregational Fund Board was
established (I) to assist poor ministers, (2) to give
young men who had already received a classical educa-
tion, the theological and other training preparatory
to the Christian ministry. Later, in I730, the King's
Head Society was founded by laymen in London who
were dissatisfied with the management of the Fund
of the Z)issenting Academies 55
Academies. ‘ One chief point of objection was the
rule which limited its students to those who had
already passed through a classical training".’ They
resolved to found an academy with a six years' course,
where young men, without a general classical education,
would receive it during the first two years and could
then proceed to the usual classical-theological course.
Naturally the theological course was the most im-
portant ; it was wide and included Divinity lectures,
comprising the study of Greek and Hebrew and of the
Jewish language and antiquities, Ethics, Natural Philo-
sophy and Metaphysics. Lectures on Sermon writing
and pastoral care were also given and the Sermons of
Baxter, Tillotson, Charnock and others were read as
models by the students. This work followed a train-
ing in Logic and Rhetoric which the theological students
shared with those entered in other faculties”.
* Senatus Academicus, p. 51.
* In his Defence of the Academies (against Samuel Wesley's attack)
Palmer gives an account of the course at Bethnal Green where he was
educated under Dr Kerr. The Ist year time-table is shown in full ;
Logic and some, if not all, of the Rhetoric were replaced by Meta-
physics in 2nd year, Ethics in 3rd and Natural Philosophy in 4th.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Logic Logic Logic Logic Logic Logic
Rhetoric Rhetoric Rhetoric Rhetoric Rhetoric Rhetoric
(Disputation) (Disputation) (Disputation)
1st year. Div.
Lecture. [Bu-
chanan's Psalm]
inner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner
Div. Gk. Test. Classics Classics Classics Div. Gk.Test.
Divinity Practical Div. Prac. Div. Prac. Div. Prac. Div. Prac.
2nd year. Meta-
physics
3rd year. Ethics
4th year. Nat.
Philo.
Sat. Morn. all
superior classes
declaimed by
turns 4 & 4 on
some noble &
useful subject
such as ‘‘ De
Pace.”
56 The Rise and Progress
The Dissenting Academies were not merely institu-
tions of university standing, they were the rivals of the
universities. No true conception of the greatness and
importance of these academies can be formed unless it
be clearly understood that though first starting practi-
cally even with the grammar Schools they outstripped
not only these schools in efficiency and influence, but
having afterwards adopted university Subjects and
methods—moved to a higher plane as it were—they
soon outstripped the universities also. They became,
then, rivals who were acknowledged as such, not only
by the general public who supported them, but by the
university authorities who bitterly opposed them and
did their utmost to ruin them. As a result, there were
constant endeavours made to show that the tutors
were preaching and teaching schism and resistance to
civil law and the King. One of the most notable
disputes in this connection was the Wesley-Palmer
controversy". This hostility on the part of the acade-
mies is referred to also in More Short ways with Dis-
senters where Defoe (educated at Newington Green
Academy) says ‘Open a door to us in your universities
and let our youth be fairly admitted to study there
without imposing Oaths and obligations upon them and
it shall no more be said that we erect schools in opposi-
sion to you.” The door remained closed ; but in spite
of opposition, both Civil and ecclesiastical, the academies
prospered.
Though the Dissenting Academies became so very
important, they were by no means large or numerous.
* See page 67 for full account of Wesley's remarks about
academies.
of the Dissenting Academies 57
Many of them were started by the ejected men, in
their own homes, where they taught their sons and
those of a few friends.
Some of the academies thus started lasted only a
few years and died with their founder—of these the
one at Islington under Ralph Button, M.A., 1672–1680,
is an example. Owing to persecution under the Act of
Uniformity and the Five Mile Act, the work was often
interrupted ; some of the tutors suffered fine and
imprisonment, and others had often to remove many
times to out-of-the-way parts of the country. The
academies were, therefore, very scattered, and as a
consequence of this isolation they were carried on by
men who had little or no communication with others
similarly engaged, with the result that each academy
had its individual characteristics. In attempting to
form an idea of them and of the true nature of their
work, One has to guard against taking what is recorded
of one as applicable to all. In spite of this, however,
features common to all can be discerned ; for though
the tutors at their head acted separately with regard
to details, yet they were one in spirit and aim and in
the more important matters acted in accordance with
the opinions of their co-religionists; in the details of
time-table they differed, in requiring no religious test
and in general principles of teaching they agreed.
The academies may be divided into three classes,
(1) those of the first period, 1663 to about 1690, founded
by ejected ministers in which, as a rule, there was only
one tutor, (2) those founded I691–1750 in which there
were several tutors and which were more ‘public ’
than the early ones and (3) those founded much later,
58 7%e Ā’ise and Progress
about 1750, which gave, in addition to a professional
training, a good general education to youths going into
business".
The academies of the period 1663–1690 were ‘pri-
vate with usually about 20 or 30 students and Only
one tutor. Dissenters and Anglicans were trained to-
gether for the learned professions—the Church, Law
and Medicine. The first period academies resembled
the grammar Schools, but showed a tendency to work
on university lines, the tutors, university men, naturally
employed all the methods already familiar to them”.
Latin was not only used in all the classes and lectures,
but had to be spoken by the students until after evening
prayers ; Latin essays and disputations were required ;
public exhibitions of skill in reciting Latin and Greek
declensions were given once a week and a recital of
the whole grammar, ‘especially of the Oxford Latin
Grammar once a year.
One of the first of these academies was that opened
about 1667 by Charles Morton in London (Newington
Green (2), see Appendix no. I). It is of special interest
seeing that it was there that Daniel Defoe was educated.
Charles Morton, M.A. (Wadham, Oxford), the son
of Nicholas Morton, Rector of Blisland (Bodmin), was
descended from Cardinal Morton. There are con-
flicting accounts as to the date when he started his
academy, but it was certainly opened after the Five
1 For complete list see Appendix No. I.
* “Our dissenting academies arose out of the universities.
Persons educated in the universities afterwards taught what they had
there learned and what some of them had there taught.” Bogue
and Bennett's History of Dissenters, I. p. 296.
of Żhe Dissem/?ng Academies 59
Mile Act (prior to 1665 Morton was in Cornwall) and
probably not after I670, for, according to Bogue and
Bennett, Morton had an academy nearly 20 years,
and it is known that in 1685 he went to New England.
Morton was famous for his proficiency in mathematics;
while a student at Oxford his work won the special
notice of the Warden, Dr Wilkins, brother-in-law to
Cromwell. Morton's qualifications for his position
were acknowledged on all sides and under him the
academy was most efficient.
Information about this academy is to be obtained
from the great Wesley-Palmer controversy. Samuel
Wesley (father of John and Charles) first attended
Veal's Academy at Stepney, and afterwards, failing
to enter at Oxford, went to Newington Green. Wesley
afterwards conformed and was untiring in his attacks
upon Dissenters. In his ‘Letter from a country
Divine. . on the education of the Dissenters in their
private academies in several parts of this nation he
writes of Morton's Academy, and his account is worth
quoting. ‘This Academy,’ he writes, was indeed
the most considerable, having annext a fine Garden,
Bowling Green, Fish Pond and within, a laboratory
and Some not inconsiderable rarities with air pump,
thermometer, and all sorts of mathematical instru-
ments.’ The academy was evidently very much up-
to-date. Interesting light is also thrown on the dis-
cipline of the academy. After mentioning the names
of several persons of quality who were there, he adds,
‘ and not a few knights’ and baronets' sons and one
Lord’s son, who were sent hither to avoid the debau-
cheries of the universities, though some of 'em made
6O The Rise and Progress
themselves sufficiently remarkable while they were
with us.”
Anxious as Wesley was to condemn the academies
whenever possible, he could not say more than this ;
and, of course, he practically admits that in the eyes
of the public the academies were better, as regards
discipline, than the universities. Morton cannot be
blamed for the misdemeanours of youths whose parents
were afraid to send them to Oxford or Cambridge.
According to Wesley, the students themselves were
mainly responsible for the discipline. They had, it
appears, ‘a sort of democratical government ' amongst
them, each man being allowed to propose laws and
punishments, and to vote (by ballot) their adoption
or rejection. TT
In his ‘Defence of the Dissenting Education in
their private academies in answer to Mr Wesley's
written reflections upon them ’ Palmer describes his
education under Dr Kerr at Bethnal Green (Period II).
He speaks eulogistically of Kerr's treatment of the
classical authors and gives a list of studies and books
similar to those given in other accounts".
It is to Defoe that we owe further details of the
Subjects and methods in Newington Green. In one of
his Reviews Defoe says he had been master of five
languages, that he had studied mathematics, natural
philosophy, logic, geography, history, and politics
as a Science.’ The last subject, as part of the cur-
riculum of Defoe, whose after life was made up largely
of pamphlets and prison as a result of politics as an
art,” is interesting !
***-* *- - - -
* See The Bethnal Green Course, p. 62.
of the Dissenſing Academies 6 I
In connection with the study of Modern Languages
at Morton's Academy, we have still further evidence
from Defoe, who, in reply to one Tutchin who had said
that Defoe was no scholar, wrote ‘As to my little
learning and this man's great capacities, I fairly chal-
lenge him to translate with me any Latin, French and
Italian author, and afterwards to translate them each
crossways, for the sum of £20 each book ; and by this
he shall have an opportunity to show before the world
how much Daniel Defoe, hosier, is inferior to Mr Tutchin,
gentleman".’ -
With regard to the method of the academies of his
day, the founder of the English novel has a word of
censure. ‘’Tis evident that the great imperfection
of our academies is the want of conversation. This
the public universities enjoy, Ours cannot... from our
schools we have abundance of instances of men that come
away masters of Science, critics in Greek and Hebrew,
perfect in languages and perfectly ignorant of their
mother tongue”.’ Defoe does record, however, that
Morton gave all lectures in English and turned out
good preachers.
It is recorded that on One occasion Morton, against
whom a ‘capias ' was issued, went into Concealment,
leaving for a short time, a few of his older students in
charge—an arrangement which was not in accordance
with what Mr Samuel Wesley thought the circumstances
required, and consequently that gentleman left and did
not feel under obligation to refund the Gale exhibition
* Wilson's Life and Times of Defoe, I. pp. 31, 33.
* Wilson, ibid.
62 7%e Ā’ise and Progress
of £Iol. This is of interest, not on account of Mr Samuel
Wesley's action, but because it throws light on the
plans of a benefactor of Dissenters, Theophilus Gale,
M.A., the tutor of the other academy at Newington
Green (N. G. (1)). By his will most of his pro-
perty (his library, except philosophical books, went to
Harvard) was put in trust to furnish exhibitions of £IO
each for students designed for the ministry. Gale,
believing that before long students trained in academies
would be allowed to qualify for degrees at Oxford and
Cambridge, wished each exhibitioner to enter his name
at Some college so as to be ready to go into residence
when the subscribed oaths were no longer required.
From these accounts it will be seen that under
Morton Newington Green (2) was an important academy
of the first period. There is no doubt that in spite
of interruption owing to persecution—seizure of goods
and danger of imprisonment—Morton did a good work
until, in 1685, he went to New England. There he
became pastor of a church, and was chosen Vice-
President of Harvard College, where he introduced
the systems of science that he used in England. This
suggests an interesting field for research ; for it was not
through Morton alone that the Dissenting Academies
influenced the education of New England. After Mor-
ton's departure, three men, Lobb, Wickens (Emmanuel,
Cambridge, an authority on Jewish and Oriental sub-
jects), and Glasscock read lectures in the academy,
which was discontinued about I706. This academy is
especially noteworthy as exhibiting two features. First,
instruction was given which was beyond the grammar
* Congregational Historical Soc. Tyans. Vol. III. p. 398.
of the Dissenſing Academies 63
School standard ; Defoe mentions not only the grammar
school subject, Latin, but also Greek, Hebrew, Logic,
Mathematics and Science—that is to say, the subjects
of the quadrivium, university subjects, were taught.
Secondly, many subjects quite outside the ordinary
university Course were taken, e.g. French, Italian,
Geography, History. Wesley moreover makes special
mention of mathematical (i.e. scientific) instruments
so that experimental work, though on a small scale,
was attempted. Newington Green (2) was no doubt
as Wesley said the most considerable academy,’ and
it would be quite wrong to Suppose that advanced work
of this kind was carried on elsewhere ; but as indicating
the development of academical teaching it is important.
Of the other first period London academies we have
not such complete accounts. Newington Green (I),
famous on account of having given Dr Watts part of
his education, and Islington (2) illustrate the necessity
the tutors were under of constantly seeking new quarters
to avoid the enforcement of the Five Mile Act. Wap-
ping (or Stepney) and Islington (I) died with their
founders. The present School at Mill Hill rejoices in
being able to trace—along somewhat devious paths,
it is true—its descent from the academy set up there
about the end of the I7th century.
Details are lacking of the majority of the academies
outside London. Many are merely names and are
only casually referred to in accounts which noncon-
formist historians give of the ejected ministers. There
were three, however, which were really noteworthy—
Rathmell, Sheriffhales and Shrewsbury.
Rathmell, a little village near Settle, Yorkshire,
\
64 The Rise and Progress
has the honour of being the oldest Non-conformist
seat of learning in the north of England".’ It was
here that Richard Frankland, M.A. (Christ's College,
Cambridge), started his famous academy, which was
carried on, in spite of much persecution and many
removals, for nearly 30 years.
Richard Frankland (born 1630) was educated at
Giggleswick Grammar School. (Rathmell is, strictly
speaking, a hamlet in the parish of Giggleswick.) Later,
he was sent to Cambridge where he took B.A. I65I and
M.A. 1655. He was afterwards appointed to a living
at Bishop Auckland, and when Cromwell was making
arrangements for the university which he proposed to
establish at Durham, Frankland was mentioned in
connection with a Tutorship”. Owing to the Restora-
tion, of course, that College was never started. In 1661
Frankland lost his living. After being ejected from
Bishop Auckland he went to Rathmell, near his old
home, and a little later, acting upon the suggestion
of his friends, he began an academy there. The first
pupil was George Liddell, the son of Frankland's friend,
Sir Thos. Liddell, who entered March 8th, 1669. In
four years he received I5 pupils, six of whom became
nonconformist ministers. He then removed to Nat-
land near Kendal, and during the nine years of his
stay there he not only continued his work as a minister
and preacher, but instructed 77 students. Kendal was
a corporate town, and at length the Five Mile Act was
enforced and Frankland removed to Calton-in-Craven
near Settle. Though some pupils went with him, there
* Congregational Historical Soc. Trans. Vol. II. p. 422.
* There seems to be no evidence of his appointment.
of the Dissenting Academies 65
is no doubt that this removal and the three which
followed in the next three years—first to Dawsonfield
(near Crosthwaite), second to Hullbarrow (near Cart-
mell Fell) and then to Attercliffe—interrupted his
work very seriously, and yet, in spite of this, his fame
seems to have been spreading ; for, during the period
I686–1699 no fewer than 51 students were received.
After the Revolution and the Toleration Act, Rathmell
again became the seat of the academy, which Con-
tinued there till a few months after Frankland’s death.
During this last period about I42 students were trained,
some for the ministry (about one-third of the total
number became ministers) and some for the other
professions. The entire number of Frankland's stu-
dents is given as 303. There is no doubt that this
was certainly the most important academy in the
north of England, and that it reached so eminent a
position, in spite of disturbance which would have
gone far to destroy many institutions, is a high tribute
to Frankland and his work.
In his Life of Rev. John Ashe", James Clegg, M.D.
(himself a student under Frankland, and Ashe’s
nephew), says that in 1688 Ashe went under “That
well-known tutor Rev. Mr Frankland who had then
under his conduct the most numerous and flourishing
private academy in England and who was indeed by
great learning, wisdom and an admirable temper excel-
lently qualified for that Post and service...I never
knew a tutor so entirely beloved by them all nor one
that so well deserved it. His unaffected gravity,
Sweetened with candour, meekness and humility,
* Life of Rev. John Ashe, p. 53.
66 7%e Aºise and Progress
procured him that esteem and veneration even from the
most licentious, that made them ever afraid of grieving
or offending him.’
Nor was it the students only who esteemed him ;
he won the goodwill of every one who was privileged
to know him and counted among his friends, not only
many Dissenters, but several Anglicans also, among
whom was Archbishop Sharp, a friend who later ren-
dered Frankland good service. Frankland was one of
the tutors who were persecuted on the pretence of
having broken the ‘Oxford Oath".” For centuries
all Oxford and Cambridge graduates had been re-
quired to swear that they would not teach as in a
University' without the sanction of the university
authorities—an oath which had remained long after
the reason for it (the attempted new university at
Stamford, I334) had vanished, and an oath moreover,
to which no one attached any importance whatever.
It was used, however, as a pretext for persecuting
many tutors in dissenting academies. On one Occasion
* Every graduate swears :
(1) To keep and observe the statutes, privileges, customs
and liberties of the University.
(2) You shall also swear that in that Faculty to which you
are now admitted Graduate, you shall not solemnly perform
your readings as in a University anywhere within this kingdom
but here in Oxford or in Cambridge ; nor shall you take degrees,
as in a University, in any Faculty whatsoever, nor shall you
consent that any person who hath taken his Degree elsewhere
shall be admitted as a master here in the said Faculty, to which
he shall be elsewhere admitted.
(3) You shall also swear that you will not read lectures, or
hear them read, at Stamford, as in a University study, or college
general.
of #/ºe /Dissenſing Academies 67
Frankland was ordered to appear before the bishop's
court and on his not appearing he was excommunicated.
His friends, however, Lord Wharton and Sir Thomas
Rokeby, took up the matter, and as a result, William III
ordered his absolution to be read in Giggleswick Church.
Later, in I697, proceedings against him, in an eccle-
siastical court, were stopped, it is believed, by Arch-
bishop Sharp's intervention.
To Rathmell, in 1695, was sent James Clegg, who
writes thus: ‘I was sent to Frankland's at Rathmell,
a noted Academy in the North. He had at that time
about eighty young men (who boarded with him and
in the town near him) to whom he read Lectures with
the help of an assistant.’ This assistant was probably
Mr Issot, an old pupil; there are mentioned also two
other pupils as assistants, Richard Frankland the
younger and John Owen, but whether they were
Frankland's colleagues is not definitely known—so
large a number as 80 students, however, would make
it imperative that there should be at least one other
tutor.
Clegg reproaches himself for not applying himself
more earnestly to his work and for being too ready to
read the “light English books read by Frankland's
daughters. The diary contains no account of the work
done during Clegg's time, but in the Life of Rev. John
Ashe (p. 55), Clegg tells us of the work his uncle did.
A rough time-table, drawn up from this account, is
given on p. 68. No doubt the work was very similar
in Clegg's own time.
In 1698 Clegg records “In October the great and
good old man Mr Frankland died. I saw him depart.
5–2
68 The Rise and Progress
This was a wide breach ; now we were left as sheep with-
out a shepherd. Mr Chorlton was desired to take charge
of the academy but declined it. Afterwards others
were proposed, but none were fully agreed upon and
the young men began to drop away and so that academy
fell.’
After Frankland's death, very determined efforts
were made to continue the academy which had been
doing such admirable work and which was, of course,
a means of supplying the pulpits in the north of
England. Oliver Heywood several times refers to the
difficulty of getting any one to fill Frankland's post,
and at last, as Clegg says, the students began to leave.
Heywood gives a list of several who went to Man-
chester, and among these was Clegg who records this
removal in his diary—‘In 1699, he says, “when I left
Rathmell, I placed myself in Manchester for the bene-
fit of the library and the conversation of other young
Frankland's Academy. (Clegg's Ashe.)
7 a.m. Prayers.
Breakfast.
Logic, Thursdays Theses and public
Metaphysics, Disputations ap-
Somatology, pointed by Tutor.
9 (?) Lectures Pneumatology,
Natural Saturdays, (before evening
Philosophy. 5–6 prayer) Analysis,
1.e. methodical and
I2 (?) Dinner. critical dissertation
Private reading or on Some verses of
IRecreation. psalm or chapter.
6 p.m. Prayers.
Supper.
Students’ Discussion in own rooms.
of the ZDissenſing Academies 69
scholars. . . . Several young men who had been under
Mr Frankland's tuition also came about that time and
placed themselves under Mr Chorlton.’
With Frankland's death, therefore, Rathmell ceased
to be the seat of the great Northern Academy, but, as
Clegg and Oliver Heywood record, eleven of Frank-
land’s students finished their course under Chorlton
who ‘set up teaching University learning in a great
house in Manchester.’ Chorlton's Academy is there-
fore looked upon as the successor to Rathmell. As at
Newington Green (2) so at Rathmell, the work was of
university standard. It is interesting to note that
only a third of the large number of students entered
the ministry. There must have been a great demand
for the new ‘realistic instruction ; for Rathmell, it
must be remembered, was but One of 22 academies
known to have been founded by ejected ministers.
It is true that the majority were quite small, but the
following accounts will show that even in the small
academies important work was being done. A fairly
full account of the academy at Sheriffhales (Shrop-
shire) under the Rev. John Woodhouse, is given by
Toulmin', who obtained his information from MSS.
lent to him by Mr John Woodhouse Crompton of
Birmingham.
The Sheriffhales Academy was in existence from
I663–1697. Here the students were trained for the
various professions, and, as was usual, took a course
of lectures in logic, anatomy, mathematics, physics,
ethics, and rhetoric—these all the students took
1 Toulmin, Historical View of the State of the Protestant Dissenters
*n England, Vol. II. p. 225.
70 The Rise and Progress
and then, later, specialised in Theology, Law or
Medicine1.
From the records which we have of the method
employed, it would seem that Mr Woodhouse was very
careful to require thorough work. Lectures were not
merely delivered, with no thought as to whether they
were understood or remembered. Careful explanation
was given and, before a new lecture started, an account
of the preceding one was required, and the lectures
were ‘commonly committed to memory, at least as to
the sense of them.’
Sheriffhales is noticeable as a first period academy
in which work outside the ordinary curriculum was
done. Classics, of course, came first, and public
declensions and disputations had a prominent place
week by week, and especially on the great day of the
year, when the whole grammar was recited ; but this
1. Arts Course at Sheriffhales.
Authors chiefly studied.
Mathematics Galtruchius, Gassendi, Gunter, Leybourn, Moxon,
and Euclid's Elements.
Natural De Carte's Principia, De Stair, Heereboord, Magirus,
Science URhegius, Robault.
Logic Burgedicius with Heereboord’s Commentary, San-
derson Wallis, Ramus and his commentator
Downam for private study.
Rhetovic Quintilian, Radeau, Vossius,
Metaphysics Baronius, Facchaeus, Frommenius ; all Blank’s
Theses and Ward’s Determinationes.
Ethics Eustachius, Heereboord, More, Whitby.
Geography Euchard.
History Puffendorf.
Anatomy Gibson, Bartoline and Blancardi, Anatomia Refor-
%ata.
Hebrew Bythner's Grammar and his Lyra Prophetica.
of the ZOissenſing Academies 7I
was not all. We are told that ‘ Practical exercises
accompanied the course of lectures and the students
were employed at times in Surveying land, composing
almanacs, making Sun dials of different constructions,
and dissecting animals '—this reminds one of Milton's
recommendations. But even more important than
these practical exercises is a statement to the effect
that the students were in the habit of writing English
compositions in the form of letters and speeches,
‘And,’ continues the writer, ‘students designed for
the ministry drew up skeletons or heads of sermons,
schemes of prayer, etc., and set psalms to two or three
tunes (metres 2).” Whether the writing of English
composition may be traced to the influence of the
sermon-writing required in the divinity course is not
known ; but the hypothesis seems probable, and if
there were casual connection between the two, it is
not unlikely that the adoption, in the other academies,
of English in the lectures (long before it was adopted
in Oxford or Cambridge) and later, of English as a
subject in itself, is due to the same cause.
Sheriffhales did not become so large as Rathmell,
but there is evidence of there having been 40 students
in residence at one time, and this accounts for the fact
of the names of two ministers, Southwell and Beresford
being given (but in sources other than the MSS.) as those
of Woodhouse's assistants, though whether they really
did occupy that position is not certain.
Among the students were several ministers and
lawyers, and also some who filled, if not better, yet
more public positions. Among these were Robert
Harley, Earl of Oxford and Henry St John, Viscount
f
72 The Rise and Progress
Bolingbroke. It was these men who afterwards, in
1714, supported the Schism Bill which enacted that
‘ no person should keep any public or private School
or teach or instruct unless he conforms to the Estab-
lished Church.” The bill, it will be remembered, passed
the Commons with a large majority—Owing largely to
the strenuous endeavours of Harley. In the Lords,
however, it was vigorously opposed, and in a strong
speech Lord Wharton, ever ready to uphold Non-
conformists, reproached Harley, saying ‘Such a measure
was but an indifferent return for the benefit which the
public had received from these schools in which the
greatest men had been educated—men who had made
a glorious peace for England, who had paid the debts
of the nation, and who had extended its commerce.”
Such is the testimony of a contemporary who was well
qualified (since he was acquainted with many tutors
and Schools) to speak of the work of the academies.
But before this, the academy at Sheriffhales had
ceased to exist—owing, it is thought, to ill-health,
Woodhouse had to leave Shropshire for London, and
in Consequence, in I697, the academy was closed.
Two years later, however, another academy in the
Same County was becoming important.
The chief Source of information about this academy,
which was situated at Shrewsbury, is the MS. in
Dr Williams's Library. Soon after the ejection, an
academy was started in Shrewsbury by Francis Tallents,
M.A. (Cambridge) Fellow and then Vice-President of
Magdalen College, who, in I642, was in France as tutor
to the Earl of Suffolk's sons. Tallents ministered to
the Nonconformists in Shrewsbury, as also did Bryan,
of the Dissenſing Academies 73
and the two were associated in academical teaching.
It was not, however, until the academy came under
the control of James Owen in I699, that it became very
strong. Owen had started an academy in Oswestry
about 1660. He was, according to the MS. ‘ versed in
many languages ancient and modern, but his greatest
skill was in history, especially ecclesiastical.’ The
account also says As to polemical Divinity, he was a
champion.” No doubt Owen's powers in this direction
would have some influence on the pupils and though
there is no mention of English as a subject, it may be
conjectured that, as in other academies, it was given
some slight notice. The following list of authors read
at Shrewsbury is taken from the Ms. (Dr Williams's
Library):
Logic . . . . Burgersdicius, Heereboord, Ramus.
Metaphysics . . Frommenius, Eustachius, Baronius.
Philosophy ... Le Clerc, Du Hamel.
Geometry ... Euclid, Pardie (??).
Astronomy . . Gassendius.
Chronology ... Strauchius.
º Spanheim.
Theology. . . . Wollebius, Byssemus.
Among the list of students at Shrewsbury during
Owen's time are the names of two who afterwards
occupied important positions as tutors—Perrot of
Carmarthen I7I5–1733 and Samuel Jones of Tewkes-
bury.
James Owen died 1706 and his place was filled by
Samuel Benion, M.D., who, after 1691, was with
Philip Henry at Broad Oak. Here Benion seems to
have taught some youths boarding with Henry and
74 The Rise and Progress
to have received instruction from him in ‘Academical
Knowledge ' and in theological studies. It is recorded
of Benion that at Shrewsbury he hit upon a better
plan of education than his predecessors. He drew up
Several Schemes of Sciences, logic, pneumatology, natural
philosophy, ethics –but here the manuscript stops,
leaving us ignorant of the exact nature of the changes.
The academy continued under Reynolds and Giles
until about I708, when many of the students left, to
attend either Jones' Academy at Tewkesbury or
Latham's at Findern, which were then growing and
becoming more important.
Such, then were the academies of the first period.
As we have seen, they resembled the grammar schools;
but the best of them worked more and more on uni-
versity lines. There is no doubt that classics had the
chief place in the curriculum, then came logic, rhetoric,
mathematics, theology and law—in these subjects
lectures were read by the tutor. The lectures seem
to have been designed to throw light upon the text-
book—that is, the text-book was the basis of the
lectures, which were not given independently of any
one book. Before a new lecture, questions were often
asked to ascertain what the students remembered of the
previous one, and after the lecture they were allowed
to ask for further explanations if necessary. Besides
the set text-books there were books recommended for
private reading. The text-books were those ordinarily
used by university students. Henry Fleming, an
undergraduate at Queen's College, Oxford, who went
up in 1678, read the same books that were used at
Sheriffhales and Shrewsbury. In logic, Brerewood,
of the Dissenting Academies 75
Sanderson and Burgersdicius, in ethics, Eustachius,
Brerewood". An interesting difference is that both the
Sheriffhales and the Shrewsbury list mention the logic
by Ramus—this, apparently, was not known to Fleming.
As a rule in the early academies there were no lectures
in Geography, History, Natural philosophy, Anatomy,
Ethics, and Metaphysics; books on these subjects were
read privately and occasionally the students' work was
‘ heard.’ The only one of these subjects which seems
to have interested Henry Fleming was Geography ;
his letters to his father contain requests for a geography
book and his accounts show he possessed one and an
atlas, but there is strong reason for thinking that this
was an interest outside his university course and akin
to the half-amused interest which his father and his
tutor took in the early beginnings of the Ashmolean
Museum or the ‘knick-knackery' as it was called.
The above account of academy work would in all
probability apply to all the academies of the first
period—that is to say if details of the work in all of
them were available it would be unlikely that one would
be found doing less than this ; there were, however,
some in which, as has been seen, even more advanced
work was taken—English essays, at Sheriffhales;
modern languages, at Newington Green ; practical
exercises in science, at both these places; such work,
however, in the first period was exceptional ; it was
not until the later years of the second period that the
majority of the academies undertook it.
The second period academies (1691–1750) were |
moré public’ than the early ones. In some cases
* See The Flemings in Oxford, Vol. I. pp. 250–255, 32 I.
76 7%e Rise and Progress

they had been private academies which, after the death
of the foliñdër or the early tutors, were controlled by a
group of ministers who had the appointment of the
tutor in their hāfīds—the appointment of P. Doddridge
as the successor of Jennings of Kibworth is a case in
point; in other cases they were founded as the result
of the efforts of leading Dissenters and were supported
by the churches, by ministers' societies or by such
funds as that of the London Congregational Fund
Board (1695). They were therefore not the property
of the tutor (as those started by the ejected ministers
had been) and were under some measure of ‘public’
control. These academies differ chiefly from those of
the first period just described in being not only more
‘ public but also in having several tutors each of whom
was a specialist in his subject, with the result that one
academy became the resort of those reading theology,
another, of those reading mathematics, and a third of
those requiring science, and so, as in the earlier days,
students travelled from academy to academy". More-
over, the academies of this period, while teaching
university subjects and employing university methods,
yet became more and more modern. Classics still
remained important, but Latin had to be spoken only
at certain times and in certain places. Before the end
of this period all lectures were, not as formerly, in
Latin, but in English. English exercises and essays
were required and even English books, e.g. Bacon's
Essays at Kibworth, were read ; that is to say, English
* Secker went from Attercliffe to Tewkesbury (probably for
Theology) and thence to London (No. 22, period II) to study Science
under J. Eames, F.R.S.
of Żhe Dissenſing Academies 77
was read as literature—not because it was a vehicle of
information. The second period academies are of great
interest seeing that they illustrate very clearly on the
one hand the growing demand for a ‘realistic education'
and on the other hand the desire on the part of the
academies to adapt their work to the needs of the day.
Thirty-four academies are grouped in the second period ;
among them are several which have been continued as
theological training colleges—Attercliffe is connected
through the old Rotherham College with the present
Yorkshire United College, Bradford—Idle and Heck-
mondwyke are also connected with the same institution :
practically no records were kept of the actual teaching
in the majority of the academies; but we are fortunate
in having a full account from various sources of the work
of Northampton Academy, which from the influence it
exerted was by far the most important in this period.
Under the Rev. Philip Doddridge, D.D., the academy
at Northampton became One of the most famous in
the country. It was in reality a continuation of an
academy to which Doddridge himself had gone in
I719 when a youth of seventeen, and which was started
at Kibworth in Leicestershire about 1715 by the
Rev. John Jennings.
In a letter" (dated 1728) to the Rev. Thomas
Saunders, Doddridge gives a very full account of his
education under Jennings. The course, so far as
classics and theology are Concerned, is similar to that
in the academies of the first period, but far more time
was given to modern subjects. Doddridge writes ‘Our
* Correspondence and diary of P. Doddridge (ed. by Humphreys),
Vol. II. p. 462.
78 7%e Rise and Progress
course of education at Kibworth was the employment
of four years and every half year we entered upon a
new set of studies or at least changed the time and
order of our lectures.’ The first half year’s work was
as follows—' Geometry and algebra, three times a week
[i.e. the work of the quadrivium' was started], Hebrew
twice, Geography, French, Latin prose authors and
classical exercises once a week.” Boyer's French
Grammar was used and there was some reading of
phrases and dialogues without regarding the pro-
nunciation with which Mr Jennings was not acquainted.’
It will be noticed that a lecture period was given to
geography. ‘The lecture,” writes Doddridge, was
only an examination of the account we could give of
the most remarkable passages of Gordon's Geography ;
this comment also applies to history taken in the Second
half year. Reference to the full course" will show not
only when the usual subjects such as Divinity, Jewish
Antiquities, Ecclesiastical history, Pneumatology, etc.
were taken, but also that science, mechanics, hydro-
statics, physics, anatomy, and astronomy had an im-
portant place in the time-table; that English essays,
with Bacon, Addison and Steele as models, were
regularly written ; and that in the Oratory class
‘English orations were the most common and turned,
I believe, to the best account.’
After giving all the work and the text-books used
Doddridge gives some information about the general
administration of the academy. All the students were
examined before admission and were expected to have
done some Latin. The students had always to converse
* See Appendix No. II.
of Żhe Dissenting Academies 79
in Latin at certain times and in certain places; the
Scriptures were read ‘in the family' (i.e., when they
all assembled for prayers) from Hebrew, Greek, or
French into English. Mr Jennings allowed the students
to use his library. In summer they rose at 6.30, in
winter at 7.30 ; they had a fortnight's vacation at
Christmas and six weeks at Whitsuntide. An idea of
the fees will be gained from Doddridge's bill at Christ-
mas, I72O :
£ S. d.
Half year's board and tuition .. 8 Io o
King’s “Inquiry * tº e g º º 4 3
Appendix to Logic tº ſº º tº º º 2 6
Interleaved New Testament tº tº 3 8
£9 O 5
In 1722 the academy removed to Hinkley. Mr
Jennings died in I723, and it was some time before
a successor was appointed. At last, at a general
meeting of Nonconformist ministers, held at Lutter-
worth, April I729, it was suggested that the academy
should be established at Harborough 1 and Dr Doddridge
began his work there in the following June”. Before
his appointment, Doddridge had some correspondence
On the matter with several ministers, among whom
was Dr Isaac Watts, whose letters throw light on the
work and position of academies in those days. For
example, in one of his letters Watts says ‘You will
have many lads coming from the Grammar Schools,
and as many such Scholars will not be fit to enter upon
your academical Course with proper advantage, should
* The removal to Northampton was made in the same year—1729.
* This shows the more ‘public’ character of the IInd period
academies.
8O 7 he Rise and Progress
not the perfection of the studies of grammar, algebra
and geometry be the business of your first half year' 2 ”
Doddridge replies ‘I propose that the perfection of
these studies should be the employment of the first
year.” Again, Dr Watts says ‘Are the hands of the
enemies effectually chained up from offering us any
violence, that they cannot indict or persecute you under
the pretence that your academy is a school?’ Dodd-
ridge replies ‘I know not how it may be in other
places, but about us I cannot discern so much fury
in the clergy; nor do I imagine they could make
anything of a prosecution. It was once attempted,
to the shame of the undertakers, with regard to
Mr Matchens Of Mount Sorrel?.’
As a matter of fact, however, the clergy did attempt
a prosecution. No Sooner had the academy begun to
thrive than attempts were made to injure it. The
Archdeacon of Northampton, Dr Reynolds, ordered
the wardens of All Saints to ‘present ' the ‘fellow in
the parish who taught a Grammar School’ unless he
held a proper licence from the Bishop. The citation
is still preserved and is given in the History of Castle
Hill Church”. It is worth giving in full.
To Philip Dotteridge of the Parish of All Saints, in the Town
of Northampton, in the County of Northampton, Gentle-
100.3.Il.
By virtue of a Citation under seal herewith shewn unto you
I cite you to appear personally before the Reverend George
Reynolds Doctor of laws Vicar General Commissary General
* Diary and Correspondence of P. Doddridge (ed. Humphreys),
Vol. II. p. 478 et seq.
* Ibid. Vol. II. p. 481. * p. 21.
of the Dissenting Academies 8I
and Official Principal in spiritual matters of the Right Reverend
father in God Robert by Divine Permission Lord Bishop of
Peterborough and also official of the Reverend the Archdeacon
of the Archdeaconry of Northampton or his lawfull Surrogate
or some other competent Judge in this behalfe in the Con-
sistory Court adjoyning to the Parish Church of All Saints in
the same town of Northampton on Tuesday the sixth day of
November 1733 at the usual time of hearing causes there then
and there to answer to certain Articles or Interrogations to be
objected and administered to you concerning your soul’s health
and the Reformation and correction of your manners and excess.
And especially your teaching and instructing youth in the
Liberal Arts and Sciences not being licensed thereto by the
Ordinary of the Diocese touching either your Learning and
Dexterity in teaching or your right understanding of God’s
true religion or your honest and sober conversation at the
promotion of and pursuant to a certain Detection or present
ment exhibited against you by Thomas Rand and Benjamin
Chapman, Churchwardens of the said parish of All Saints
in the said town of Northampton. And farther to do and
receive according to Law—Justice.
W. M. SPENCER.
' Doddridge was promised a licence if he would
apply, but fortified with the assistance of the London
Committee of Protestant Dissenters he refused.’
Doddridge appealed against the Citation and finally,
nearly a year afterwards, the whole proceedings were
stopped by a message from George II, who insisted
‘ that in his reign there should be no persecution for
conscience' sake".’
Doddridge began with only three pupils intended
for the ministry and says of them they had made a
very considerable progress, both in Latin and Greek ;
indeed, far beyond what many others have done who
* History of Castle Hill Church, pp. 21 and 22.
P. D. A. 6
82 The Rise and Progress
have just left a Grammar School.” In 1732, David
Jennings wrote to Doddridge, strongly advising him
to change his intention of taking only students who
meant to be ministers. Jennings thought it a mistake
to compel Dissenters to send their sons who were to
be physicians, lawyers or gentlemen to Oxford or
Cambridge, or ‘to make them rakes in foreign uni-
versities.” Doddridge needed no second advice, but at
once threw open his academy to boys preparing for
the various professions, and Consequently his numbers
increased. The average number in residence was,
probably, between 30 and 50. In 1730 there were about
40 ; in I743 63 signed the rules Doddridge drew up ;
in 1747 there were only 29. A letter" to the Rev.
John Barker, who had written about a poor youth of
exceptional promise, shows Doddridge ready to take
the boy, though he does not generally take boys who
have not been through a grammar School and acquired
a good knowledge of classics. The fees were £1.6 per
annum, for board (students dependent on charity funds,
f.e., collections from Churches, paid £I4 per annum for
board) and £4 for tuition. When pupils enter the
academy, says Doddridge, they pay a guinea each
for a closet and bring a pair of sheets. They find their
own candles and put out their washing.’ A comparison
between these terms at Northampton and Doddridge's
Kibworth bill given above (p. 79) with the following
sent home by Pitt, Earl of Chatham, who was at
Oxford during the same period, serves to illustrate the
* Correspondence and Diary of P. Doddridge (ed. Humphreys),
Vol. III. p. 206.
of the Dissenting Academies 83
enormous expense which was avoided by sending youths
to an academy.
TRINITY COLLEGE,
January ye 20th, I726/7.
HOND. SIR.
After such delay, tho’ not owing to any negligence on
my part, I am ashamed to send you ye following accompt
without first making great apologies for not executing your
Commands sooner.
£ S. d.
Matriculation Fees . . tº º & e I6 6
Caution Money tº º tº gº . . IO O O
Benefaction . . gº º gº º . . IO O O
Utensils for ye Coll. . . 2 O O
Common Room 2 O O
Coll.-servants’ fees I I5 O
Poddesway gown & cap 8 I2 o
Tea, table china ware, etc. 6 5 o
Glasses . . tº º tº º tº e tº wº II O
Thirds of chamber & furniture . . 4I 7 8
Teaspoons tº º tº º g tº ... I 7 6
. Summe total 84 I4 8
Balance paid me by Mr Stockwell I5 O5 4
I have too much reason to fear you may think some
of these articles too extravagant, as they really are, but all I
have to say for it is, humbly to beg you would not attribute
it to my extravagance but to ye custom of this place, where we
pay for most things too at a high rate. . . and am with all
possible respect
Sr. Yr. most dutyfull son
WM. PITT.
Moreover, three months later, April Ioth', Pitt sent
home another bill for £47. 5s. Od. which includes the
following items: ‘Three months' learning French
* Chatham, Rosebery, p. 34.
6–2
84 7%e Rise and Progress
£2. 2s. Od. ; for a course of experimental philosophy
£2. 2s. Od. ' and at Northampton the terms were £4 for
tuition per annum—with French and experimental
philosophy included ! It is not surprising in view of
these facts that ‘it frequently happened that the
clergy and lay members of the National Church to
whom the expense of the University was an object of
difficulty availed themselves of these academies with
advantage and without any fear that an undue influence
would be exercised upon the minds of the children".’
A letter which Dr Doddridge received from Lord
Kilkerran (Sir James Fergusson) in I743 gives another
reason for the growing popularity of the academies.
Lord Kilkerran says ‘the education of my children in
a right way is what I have much at heart and that
I foresee many dangers in sending them to the Uni-
versity, I have been of opinion that the better way is
to send them to an academy under virtuous people.’
From the first, discipline in the academies had
received the careful attention of the tutors and reference
is often found to regulations framed to Secure good order
and strict attention to work. Probably the most
detailed rules for an academy were drawn up by
Doddridge in 1643°. There were several sections deal-
ing with such matters as ‘Attendance on Family
Prayer and Lectures at appointed times '; ‘Of shutting
up the gate and retiring to bed '; ‘Of the Hours, Place
and Order of Meals.’ There is a section containing
the usual Library rules and One with regulations for
* Quoted from J. D. Humphreys, editor of the Diary and Corre-
spondence of Dr Doddridge, Vol. I. p. 31.
* A History of Castle Hill Church, Northampton, contains a copy
of the original manuscript book now at New College, London,
of the Dissenſing Academies 85
‘Conduct when Abroad,’ i.e. when outside the academy.
A selection of these rules is given in Appendix No. III.
Perhaps the most important here is Section II, No. 3,
which requires every student to be ready for lecture
within five minutes of the hour fixed or to forfeit
twopence ; this rule was meant to be obeyed, for in
the section dealing with the duties of the office of the
monitor we find that he had to call over the roll not
only before morning and evening prayer but also before
‘ all lectures appointed for the whole academy together
and if he fail to do it—he is to forfeit sixpence for
every such failure.’ The usual fines were required for
being ‘Gated ' and a further regulation reads ' when
the small pecuniary fines here appointed evidently
appear to be despised, they will be exchanged for some
extraordinary exercises, which, if they are not per-
formed, must occasion complaint to the friends of the
student in question ; for the intent of these laws is not
to enrich, the box at the expense of those who are
determined to continue irregular but to prevent any
from being so.” A rule requiring tradesmen's bills to
be delivered to the Tutor twice a year when all accounts
had to be settled would probably do much to prevent
the extravagant running up of bills which was so often
a source of trouble to parents whose sons were at
Oxford or Cambridge. The section dealing with
* Academical studies ' will be better taken when the
course of instruction is under consideration. That
claims attention now.
The time-table and course of lectures may be
tabulated as follows:
86 7%e Rise and Progress
Northampton Academy Time-table.
a...IIl. p.m.
6. Rise 2. Dinner.
6. Io. Roll-call and prayers. 7. Evening prayers.
Private reading. “Tutorials’ or “coach-
ing ” in languages.
8. Family Prayer. before 9. Supper.
Breakfast. IO. Gate locked.
Io–2 p.m. Lectures. Io.30. Students in their own
TOOIſlS.
Lectures from Io a.m.—2 p.m.
First Yeay Second Year Third Year Fourth Year
Logic Trigonometry Nº Histo Civil Law
IRhetoric Conic Sections Civil ry Mythology
Geography Celestial Anatomy and Hiero-
Metaphysics Mechanics Jewish Antiquities glyphics
Geometry Natural and Divinity English Hist.
Algebra Experimental Orations Hist. Of Non-
Philosophy conformity
Divinity Divinity
Orations Preaching
Pastoral
Care, etc.
It will be seen that in the first year Logic and
Rhetoric, the two subjects of the trivium, ignored in
the grammar schools, were taken together with the
‘ first steps ' in the quadrivium—Geography, Geometry
and Algebra. The second year’s work was devoted
mainly to the quadrivium, and from Orton's Life of
Doddridge we learn that the system of natural and
experimental philosophy (comprehending mechanics,
statics, hydrostatics, optics, pneumatology, and as-
tronomy) was read “with reference to the best authors
of the Dissenting Academies 87
on these subjects and was illustrated by a neat and |
pretty large philosophical apparatus.’ This natural
and experimental philosophy did not contain anything
very advanced, and the method was probably either
that the tutor read to the students his own “system ’
(lectures) consisting of information gleaned from such
books as then existed on the subject, or that the
students read the chief books, and the lecture consisted
in ‘hearing ' their account of the chief parts. But
though the lectures were no doubt Superficial, yet the
fact, which must not be lost sight of, is that such subjects
were taken and that an attempt, however crude, was
made to take them experimentally. In the third and
fourth years history has a notable place and more time
was given to specialisation ; naturally the students
wishing to qualify as lawyers or doctors would not be
required to attend lectures on Divinity and Preaching ;
for them special lectures were given in required subjects
so as to fit them to take up more advanced reading in
such institutions as were specially concerned with the
training for the medical and legal professions. The
arrangement of the course is quite on university lines
and quite in accordance with the suggestion of Milton
who, it will be remembered, considered that at an
academy a good general and useful education should
be given in all subjects and that highly specialised
work was to be taken in separate institutions.
One important omission from the time-table claims
our attention. Languages are Conspicuous by their
absence—except that there were evening tutorials
in languages, and that at prayers the students read
the Bible from Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or French into
88 7%e Rise and Progress
English. This seems to suggest that languages were
neglected ; in fact Priestley, who went as a student to
the academy the year after Doddridge's death, I'75I
(when probably Doddridge's methods were continued),
speaks of getting up early to do Greek with another
student, and adds ‘These voluntary engagements were
the more necessary in the course of our academical
studies as there was then no provision made for teach-
ing the learned languages. We had even no Com-
positions or orations in Latin'.' Doddridge was evi-
dently no Ciceronian, but there is considerable evidence
to show that languages were not ignored. In I750,
Dr Doddridge wrote that he hoped to have a third
tutor ‘who, while I am employed in theological studies,
and Mr Clark in philosophy, might teach the languages
not only to academical pupils but also to Some lads
who are forming their first acquaintance with them, or
who...are not of an age, standing or attainments to
be ranked with any of our classes.’ This suggests that
Doddridge was, at this time, not requiring from students
On entrance even a good grounding in Latin and Greek,
and it Suggests, too, either (I) that he was taking in
younger boys than he did at first—taking them before
they had really finished at the grammar school or
(2) if they were boys of the usual age, I6 or 17, that
they were not so well prepared by the grammar school
as they had been IO or II years before. But from
a statement by Bogue and Bennettº it seems that
Doddridge from the first gave help to backward
students after evening prayers in Latin, Greek, and
* Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, Rutt, II, p. 26.
* History of Dissenters, Vol. II. p. 334.
of the Dissenting Academies 89
Hebrew, so that he was really engaging a third tutor
not to do new work but to relieve him of work which
had always had a place on the time-table. Indeed, in
the rules drawn up by Doddridge (see Appendix No. III)
No. IO in Section I dealing with academical studies
provides for definite private ’ reading in classics for
all students. The rule is four classics, viz. one Greek
and One Latin poet and One Greek and One Latin prose
writer, as appointed by the tutor, are to be read by
each student in his study and observations are to be
written upon them to be kept in a distinct book, and
communicated to the tutor whenever he shall think
fit.’ This provision and the fact that language classes
were of the nature of ‘tutorials —coaching students
with special needs—indicate that Doddridge in the true
realistic spirit condemned excessive study of languages
and did not require more than a general knowledge
from a student unless he was preparing for some pro-
fession in which specialised knowledge was required".
For example, Lord Kilkerran writing in I743 about his
son, said he was I7 and had learnt Latin and Greek at
a public School, but that as he was intending to study
Law he would require to do more Latin. The rules,
already referred to, show that in the first and second
years a Latin disputation alternated with an English
One ; if Latin compositions or orations were not required
in Priestley's day (1752–1755) the probability is that
* The Ms. account (Dr Williams's Library) of Tutors and
Academies gives the course at Daventry (whither the Northampton
Academy rémoved after the death of Doddridge) and adds this
note ‘The French lang. is taught when desired & ev. student de-
signed for a learned profession takes his turn in orations and
other public exercises.’
90 The Rise and Progress
before his death (1752) Doddridge had become still more
firmly convinced of the wisdom of requiring all essays
to be in English.
The rules for ‘Academical Studies' are important
and are here given in full. They show the care with
which the work was arranged and the steps taken to
see that requirements were fulfilled. Doddridge had a
keen sense not only of the value of education but of the
greatness of the responsibility of his position.
SECTION I. OF ACADEMICAL STUDIES.
I. Ist year. Translations from Latin into English
and vice versa as appointed by the tutors to be showed
them at the day and hour appointed and in the last
three months of the year orations are to be exhibited
in Latin and English alternately every Thursday, which
is also to be the time of the following exercises.
2. ln first half of second year these orations are
to be continued, and in the latter part of the year each
is in his turn to exhibit a Philosophical Thesis or
Dissertation.
3. In third year Ethical Theses or Dissertations are
to be exhibited weekly as above, and toward the end of
this year and during the fourth Theological.
4. The Revolution of these is to be so adjusted
that every student may compose at least six Orations,
Theses or Dissertations before the conclusion of his
fourth year.
5.
6.
of the Dissenting Academies 9I
7. Exercises are to be first written in a paper book,
then reviewed and corrected by one of the tutors, after
that, fairly transcribed, and after they have been
exhibited in the manner which shall be appointed, a
fair copy of them, with the author's name annexed,
shall be delivered to the tutor.
8. Two sermons on given subjects to be composed
by every theological student in his eighth year, to be
read over by him in the class, and having been there
corrected to be preached in the family if the student
does not propose preaching in public before he leave
the Academy, and besides these, at least six schemes of
other sermons on given texts are to be exhibited in the
class during the fourth year by each student.
IO. Four classics, viz. one Greek and one Latin
poet and one Greek and one Latin prose writer as
appointed by the tutor are to be read by each student
in his study and observations are to be written upon
them, to be kept in a distinct book, and communicated
to the tutor whenever he shall think fit.
II. Each student of the upper class may be allowed
to propose a difficult scripture to the Principal Tutor
every Thursday to be discussed by him the next
Thursday. But it will be expected that the person
proposing them write some memorandum of the solu-
tion...etc.
I2. . . .each Theological Pupil will be expected to
write, either at meeting or afterward. . . .Hints of all
the Sermons he hears, to be examined by the Tutor
... etc.
I3. On the four Thursdays preceding the long
vacation, the whole Academy is to meet at ten in the
92 The Rise and Progress
morning, and all the forenoon is to be spent in the
examination of Students. . . . And on the first of these
days disputations shall be held by the two upper classes
in the Presence of the Juniors, that they may learn by
example the method of Disputation...etc.
I4. In case of a total neglect of preparing an
appointed exercise sixpence is to be forfeited to the
box. . . .
The chief part of Doddridge's teaching was with the
theological students; the staple of their curriculum was
a ‘system of two hundred and fifty lectures (the pre-
paration of which occupied many years of Doddridge's
life) on ‘The Principal subjects in Pneumatology (i.e.
Psychology), Ethics and Divinity.’ These lectures were
in English and were followed by questions and discus-
Sions about any points not perfectly clear. Jennings,
Doddridge's predecessor, had always lectured in Latin,
as did most of the tutors of the period, but so great was
the influence of Doddridge that his lectures in English
were imitated with the result that after his day a
lecture in Latin (in an academy) was exceptional.
Before a new lecture Doddridge generally questioned
the students on what had been taken at the last ;
during the lecture (and during Sermons, too) the students
were required to take notes in shorthand and to tran-
Scribe as much as possible afterwards. Rich's short-
hand as improved by Doddridge was, therefore, studied.
Doddridge's students came from all parts of the
United Kingdom and some even from Holland ; among
them were several who occupied positions of importance
as lawyers, doctors or ministers in various parts of
the country. One of these ministers was Samuel
of the Dissenting Academies 93
*-
Mercer" of Chowbent, Lancashire ; in his Lancashire
Nonconformity” Mr Nightingale gives a letter from
young Samuel Mercer while at the academy, to his
parents. It is well worth giving in full.
Novy. I2, I'75o.
HoNotſ RED PARENTs,
“I received your last, which I had intended to have
answered Sooner, had I not had so much business upon my
hands, which to have omitted would have been to my dis-
advantage, etc. As for seeing you and my brother at North-
ampton I should be extremely glad, but, perhaps, you may
think that may be an excuse for my not coming home, for,
I will assure you that I cannot go to London along with you,
for our vacation will begin the latter end of June, so that if
you come it will be unnecessary charges for you to come through
Northampton, but I should be very glad if you would send me
word in your next letter whether you would have me come
home or no, etc.
“If I have been extravagant in my expenses I am not
sensible of it. You see always all my bills that are of any
importance, and as I have sent you some enclosed in this letter,
which I hope you will have no objection to. The everlasting
which you see is for two pair of . . . . . . . . . . waistcoats, one pair
of which I have worn out almost ; and my gown is so far gone
that it will scarce last me till a few weeks longer. I have
bought a new wig which I stood in great need of. I wore my
old one till it was not worth a penny, and that wig which I
had when I first came is almost done. And I have bespoke a
new pair of boots, which I cannot possibly do without, for if
you knew what I undergo by going into the country towns to
repeat sermons and pray. It happened I and another of my
fellow pupils were gone out to repeat a sermon and being
without boots we were two hours in a storm of rain and wind.
We were lost in a country where we did not know nothing at
1 Minister at Toxteth Park, Liverpool.
* Vol. VI. pp. IOI, Io2.
94 The A'ise and Progress
all of, so that I think it is not only useful but necessary to have
a pair. I have, according to your desire, bought a quantity of
coals, of which I have bought IO Hund., which cost 12s. which
I borrow'd of my mistress. I should be very glad to know in
particular whether Mr Harding preached from that text and
whether he has converted any of the new notioners by preaching.
I should be very glad if you would desire Mr Harding to let me
have a few of his most Orthodox sermons to go to repeat. I
wish you would be so good as to ask him that favour, if you
think it would not be improper. If he could I hope you would
send them immediately. Let me know in your next how the
affair is, since sermons of the same kind are so very scarce
that we can scarce light on a book to write a good sermon out
of, but one or another has heard. Pray let me know in this
particular the next letter. And I should be very glad if you
would send me my watch and send me a box with a few of your
best books, which will be the most convenient for me, as soon
as possible. And let me know how my brother Robert goes
on, whether he is gone to St Helen's School—and if he is pray
don’t, and I earnestly beg you would board him at William
Claughton's, for if you do, so young as he is, he will certainly
be ruined ; for I have seen the many dangers and difficulties,
and have wondered since how I broke through them ; so that
for your own happiness and his everlasting happiness, do not
send him thither, for if I thought you would send him thither
I should never be easy, etc. So I must beg leave to conclude
with my respects, as due.
From your very dutiful son
S. MERCER.
P.S. Dº Father, I should esteem it not only as a great
favour, but as a great honour paid to me, if you would be so
good as it is for my interest, to make a present to the doctor
of a couple of Cheshire cheeses", not strong, but mild and fat
which will be very acceptable to the doctor, as he provided me
a tutor last year, and I do not know whether he will be paid
* Samuel's father was Joseph Mercer, a farmer and cheese factor,
of Allerton near Liverpool.
of the Dissenting Academies 95
for it, and likewise if you please that I should make a present
of something about a crown value to the doctor’s Assistant,
who, when he should have been taking recreation has been
instructing me so that it would be a means of my further im-
provement, and likewise to send my Dame for she is a widow
and she behaves very well to me. I hope, father, you will not
forget. And I must beg the favour in particular to send a
Cheshire cheese to one of my particular acquaintance, a shop
keeper, where I buy my stockings, and where I am positive of
it, I am used as if I were almost some of their family, whose son
I have under my care to teach Latin, and, who, if it lay in their
power, would help me in the greatest extremity, who has
made me several handsome presents and sell me their goods, as
I have seen with my own eyes—a pair of stockings I have
bought 6d. cheaper than they have sold to any of our gentle-
men—who are very religious people, not those who cant people
out of their money, and give them fair words.
This letter is illustrative, not only of the pecuniary
difficulties of many of the students in the academies,
but also of the willingness of the Tutors to give free
tuition to poor youths. An extract from Doddridge's
diary evidently refers to the circumstances mentioned
by Mercer ; ‘Whereas the income of my people and
estate, presents included, has not been above a hundred
and fifty pounds more than by pupils, of which more
than one-tenth has been given in the education of four
of my pupils—Walker, B. Strange, Mercer and White.’
Among the students were also John Aikin, Tutor at
Warrington, Samuel Merrivale, Tutor at Exeter, and
Caleb Ashworth, Doddridge's successor at Daventry.
After twenty-two years' toil, Doddridge, never a
strong man, had to leave Northampton, 1751. He died
in the following year.
A few years after beginning his work at Northampton,
96 7%e Rise and Progress
Doddridge had been approached as to his willing-
ness to be the first Theological Tutor of an academy
established under the will of a wealthy Nonconformist,
Mr Coward, who died 1738. Mr Coward’s trustees
supported several young men in Doddridge's academy,
but did not seek to direct its management. After
Doddridge's death, however, the academy was taken
under their control ; Dr Caleb Ashworth of Daventry
was appointed the Theological Tutor; and the academy
was moved to Daventry, where it remained till I789.
There were several other removals, and in I833, in
“order that the students might attend the Arts course
at University College and receive only theological train-
ing from their Principal, it was established in Byng Place
and was known as Coward's College. This arrangement
continued until the union of the three London Colleges
in 1850*.
Development in the second period is really suf-
ficiently shown by this account of Northampton, but
Tewkesbury, one of the Smaller academies of the period,
deserves special mention as having educated two notable
dignitaries of the Established Church, Archbishop
Secker and Joseph Butler. Samuel Chandler, too, was
at Tewkesbury for a time. The Tutor at Tewkesbury,
Samuel Jones, was a man of remarkable ability and
one to whom both Jennings and Doddridge were in-
debted in the preparation of their lectures.
One of the entries in the MS. collection of the lives
of Dissenting ministers (in Dr Williams's Library) reads
as follows :
* Senatus Academicus, p. 53. List of Academies, no. 26, period II,
Appendix No. I. )
of the Dissenſing Academies 97
‘About the year 1708 or 9 he (Samuel Jones) began
an Academy at Gloucester and then removed to Tewkes-
bury. . . and, for the space of twelve years, had a most
flourishing Academy, famed for as much learning as
any one seminary among the Nonconformists. The
Languages and Mathematics were very much studied
here. About IOO students were brought up in twelve
years.’
The founder of this academy, Samuel Jones, though
not an Oxford or Cambridge man, had received a very
good education. After having attended two Dissenting
Academies in Wales, at Abergavenny (perhaps, however,
this was a grammar School) under Roger Griffith, and
at Knells (Radnorshire) under John Weaver, an ejected
minister and University man, Jones went to Leyden
University, I'706. There he came under the influence
of Some of the most illustrious scholars of the day—
among them, Hermann Witsius and James Perizonius.
Jones was, therefore, well qualified by university learn-
ing to start an academy.
Jones remained at Gloucester until I7I2, and then
the necessity of obtaining larger premises caused him
to go to Tewkesbury. While the academy was still at
Gloucester, Thomas Secker (afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury) entered in 1710.
Secker had been under Timothy Jollie at Attercliffe,
and, no doubt, moved to Jones' Academy in the hope of
obtaining special advantages under him in Some branch
of his work—just as he, later, moved first to London to
study Science under John Eames, F.R.S. (Moorfields—
See No. 22, Period II) and then to Paris and Leyden,
where he graduated as M.D., and finally, having
P. D. A. 7
98 The Aºise and Progress
conformed, to Exeter College, Oxford. It may be Con-
jectured that the subjects in which Secker wished to
specialise at Tewkesbury were those allied to biblical
study, of which Jones made a special feature, for under
Witsius he had spent much time on Jewish Antiquities,
Hebrew and Greek Testament and kindred studies.
Writing to Dr Watts, Secker says “I began to learn
Hebrew... we read every day two verses apiece in
the Hebrew Bible, which we turn into Greek (no one
knowing which his verses shall be, though at first it
was otherwise).’ A wise change of method of reading
in class seems to be suggested here.
In the same letter to Watts' Secker gives an account
of the work done at Tewkesbury. He mentions the
usual subjects, amongst which Theology seems to have
the chief place. Heereboord's Logic and Locke's Under-
standing are specially named. The parts of his letter
dealing with Jones's methods are more interesting and
deserve to be quoted at length. ‘What Mr Jones
dictated to us was but short, Containing a clear and
brief account of the matter ; references to the places
where it was more fully treated of and remarks on, or
explications of, the authors cited, when need required
it. At our next lecture we gave an account both of what
the author quoted and Our Tutor said, who commonly
gave a larger explication of it and so proceeded to the
next thing in order. In the morning the students took
Hebrew, Greek and Logic, critical lectures on the
Antiquity of the Hebrew Language—corruption of the
Scriptures, etc.... this is what we first set about in the
afternoon, which, being finished, we read a chapter in
* See Gibbons' Memoirs of Dr Isaac Watts, p. 346 et seq.
of the Dissenting Academies 99
Greek Testament—after that Mathematics—Algebra
and proportion ; first six books of Euclid. This is our
daily employment, which in the morning takes about
two hours and something more in afternoon. Only
on Wednesdays in the morning we read Dionysius's
Periegesis, on which we have notes, mostly geo-
graphical, but with Some criticisms intermixed. In
the afternoon (Wednesday) we had no lecture".’ During
college hours Latin had always to be spoken. Secker
speaks of the Library which is composed for the most
part of foreign books, which seem to be very well
chosen and are, every day, of great advantage to us.”
Owing, no doubt, to Samuel Jones's education at
Leyden, the Theological course at Tewkesbury was
more emphasised than the other work, and probably
received more attention than was paid to it in other
academies. The result of this work was the production
of such great Scholars and theologians as Joseph Butler
and Samuel Chandler.
Butler entered the academy in the Gloucester days
and removed to Tewkesbury. While there he read
many philosophical and theological works. In I7I4
he conformed, and, desiring to take orders in the
Established Church, went to Oriel, Oxford, where, he
says ‘the frivolous lectures quite tired me out”.” Were
they such a contrast to the serious work of the academy P
Chandler, too, was at the academy and formed there
* Secker's Time-table in 1712 works out as follows:
Morning (2 hours) Afternoon (2–3 hours) Evening
Hebrew Hebrew Language and Literature Private
Greek Greek New Testament Reading
Logic Mathematics
* Quoted in Davies’ Account of Tewkesbury Academy, p. 23.
7—2
IOO The Rise and Progress
life-long friendships with Butler and Secker. He, too,
did great service in the defence of Christianity and
wrote many theological works. He became the most
influential and respected minister of the Presbyterian
Church, and was honoured with the degree of D.D. by
Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Another student to be
mentioned is John Bowles, who had, like Secker, been
under Jollie. After leaving Tewkesbury, he continued
his Law Studies and in I757 became Lord Chancellor of
Ireland.
Other students who filled important positions as
ministers or Tutors were Andrew Gifford, Jeremiah
Jones, Edward Godwin and Vavasor Griffiths.
Samuel Jones, the Tutor, died October IIth, I'7I9.
He had not had a peaceful time at Tewkesbury, for
there, as in other parts of the country, when Sache-
verell's preaching and the agitation about the Schism
Bill raised the cry of ‘The Church in danger,’ there
were disturbances which threatened to be serious. In
spite of these troubles, however, Jones toiled on. The
following is Archbishop Secker's estimate of his Tutor.
* Mr Jones, I take to be a man of real piety, great
learning and an agreeable temper; one who is very
diligent in instructing all under his care, and very well
qualified to give instructions, and whose well-managed
familiarity will always make him respected. He is very
strict in keeping good orders, and will effectually
preserve his pupils from negligence and immorality".’
Jones won a reputation as a thoroughly good Scholar
and Tutor. His lectures were not published, but in
MS. those on Jewish Antiquities were used by Jennings
* Memoirs of Dr Isaac Watts, Gibbons, p. 347.
of the Dissenting Academies IOI
at Kibworth and by Doddridge, who made use of his
Ethics lectures also. z
After Jones's death the academy was discontinued.
There is a tradition which says that the academy was
removed to Carmarthen, but probably the only founda-
tion for this is, that the Library was sent there.
One cannot read the accounts of the second period
academies without realising that within less than a
hundred years from the Conformity legislation the Small
struggling academies had developed into an important
educational system doing a much needed work in the
country. There is a great difference between the small
early academies, often started diffidently and in some
Cases in an almost apologetic spirit, and these later
academies with their more complete organisation and
their specialised studies which made them so successful
in competing with the universities.
Doddridge was great not only in his own academy
at Northampton but in his influence in the country
generally. In his day, to mention Northampton
academy was not merely to speak of the best educa-
tional Centre in the country, it was also to speak of a
new education.
The period 1690–1750 was a period of transition.
The first period academies, I662–1690 can only be
described as ‘classical,’ those of the second period
I690–1750 were classical-modern. During the period
there gradually strengthened the recognition of the
fact—dimly seen by the ejected teachers—that the old
aim of education in the grammar Schools and the uni-
versities, to fit a man to become a clergyman—a clerk—
was too narrow. Consequently the academies opened
I O2 7%e Rise and Progress
their doors to youths who, not wishing to become
professional men, needed a good general education with
| possibly a knowledge of French or Science as a prepara-
tion for a commercial life. By degrees the academy
students were divided and there came into being
distinct groups taking ‘modern subjects. More time
was therefore given to History, Geography, to various
Sciences and to modern languages, and these subjects
received a definite place in the time-table, and instead
of being just read by the students in their rooms each
had a lecture period allotted to it. And if often the
‘lecture consisted in nothing but questioning the
students on their reading, or if French were ‘read
without regard to the pronunciation of which Mr Jen-
nings had no knowledge,’ still an advance had been
made. Attention has been drawn to the cheapness of
the academies, and as time went on their splendid
education appealed more and more to the middle
classes who were becoming convinced of the power
given to them by knowledge. In method, too, changes
were made. There seems to have been more care for
-- - - - "
the individual in the second period academies. The
attempt to help backward students in the evening at
Northampton is indicative of this, and then, too, the
lectures were not merely read with no desire on the
part of the lecturer that they should be understood.
They were all, as has been noticed, in English and after
the lecture, questions and discussions, which seem,
during the period, to have developed into debating
societies" were invited. -
* Doddridge’s Kibworth course, see Appendix No. II; influence
of rationalism, see below, p. I45.
of the Dissenſing Academies Iog
Priestley, who went to the Northampton Academy
just after the removal to Daventry, occasioned by the
death of Doddridge, writes ‘In my time the Academy
was in a state peculiarly favourable to the serious
pursuit of truth, as the students were about equally
divided upon every question of much importance, such
as liberty and necessity, the sleep of the soul, and all
the articles of theological Orthodoxy and heresy; in
consequence of which, all these topics were the subject
of continual discussion. Our tutors also were of
different opinions; Dr Ashworth taking the orthodox
side of every question and Mr Clark, the sub-tutor, that
of heresy, though always with the greatest modesty.
Our lectures had often the air of friendly conversations
on the subjects to which they related. We were
permitted to ask whatever questions and to make
whatever remarks we pleased, and we did it with the
greatest but without any offensive, freedom. The
general plan of our studies which may be seen in
Dr Doddridge's published lectures was exceedingly
favourable to free inquiry, as we were referred to
authors on both sides of every question, and even
required to give an account of them".’
Indeed, the Tutors seem to have been desirous not
of cramming their students with facts but of educating
them and of training them to think, and what is more,
to express their thoughts in their own tongue.
These advances prepared the way for the work of
the next period. The wish to give clearer expression
to these new educational ideas crystallised into still
more definite action about themiddle of the 18th century,
1 Rutt, Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, Vol. I. p. 23.
IO4. 7%e Rise and Progress
when a very real attempt was made to bring education
into closer touch with life. “Why,’ it was asked,
‘should youths be trained to be ministers, lawyers and
doctors and not be trained to be merchants, clerks and
tradesmen 2 * This broader conception of the aim of
education received expression in Priestley's Essay on
Education in the preface of which he says: ‘I mean to
point out one capital defect in the usual method of
educating young gentlemen, who are not designed for
any of the learned professions, in places of public and
liberal education and at the same time in Some measure
to supply that defect by giving a delineation of a Set
of lectures equally useful for any department of life,
such as has a nearer connection with their conduct in
it and therefore may bid fair to engage their attention
and be of more real use to them than any branch of
learning to which they have hitherto been made to
apply, after they have left the Grammar School'.”
In accordance with these ideas the modern subjects,
and new methods already attempted in the academies of
the second period, received more attention. In addition
to all the lectures being delivered in English there were
lessons in English itself—from being only a vehicle for
the communication of knowledge it came to be recog-
nised as a subject worthy of study for its own sake.
This study of English and also of History, Geography
and Chemistry was strongly advocated by Priestley”
who was fortunate in having an opportunity of putting
into practice his advanced views on Education in
an academy at Warrington, which, because of the
--~~~~--- - * -º- - --
.*
* Essay on Education, Priestley.
* For Priestley's syllabuses, etc., see Appendix VI.
of the Dissenting Academies IO5
circumstances attending its foundation and the exceed-
ingly broad aims of the directors, was peculiarly fitted
to be the institution in which educational experiments,
of the nature suggested, might be made.
About I753–5 the Rev. John Seddon, a young
minister in Warrington, began to appeal for Subscrip-
tions to start an academy which should be for the
education of ministers free to follow the dictates of
their own judgments in the inquiries after truth, with-
out any undue bias imposed on their understandings ’
and which should “give some knowledge to those who
were engaged in commercial life as well as in the
learned professions and in the more useful branches
of literature".’ Seddon appealed to churches and to
the principal merchants of the northern commercial
centres ; in I754 he had received promises of help
from churches as far away as Bristol and Exeter, and
from Manchester ſo.4. IOS. Od., from Liverpool {46.4s. Od.,
Birmingham £44. I2s. 6d., and Warrington £31. I5s. 6d.
These sums were contributed by laymen—business men.
Their interest in the undertaking is evidence of the need
for an education on what might be called a ‘commercial'
basis. - ... ------~~~T
The undertaking was evidently regarded as most
important ; plan Succeeded plan, and the discussion
seemed endless, but at last, on January 30th, I757,
at a meeting of the Supporters of the academy,
‘proposals for carrying into execution a plan for the
liberal education of youth were definitely considered;
trustees appointed ; necessary staff discussed and fees
* From Transactions of Historical Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire, Vol. XI.
IO6 7%e Rise aſed Progress
arranged. Mr Seddon, as the Secretary, had the
arrangements to make. Owing probably to jealousy
between Manchester and Liverpool, the academy was
to be at Warrington and a suitable house was taken
(this house is still standing). It was decided to have
four tutors, but only three were appointed—Dr Taylor,
of Norwich, ‘whose learning was so generally acknow-
ledged that in I754 all the English and Welsh bishops
and archbishops, except four, were among the Sub-
scribers to his great Hebrew concordance,’ became
Tutor in Divinity; Mr Holt, of Kirkdale, ‘whose
whole soul was absorbed by his science,’ in Natural
Philosophy (Mathematics); and Mr Dyer, of London,
in Languages and polite literature and ‘for the present
in Moral Philosophy.’ Each was to receive from the
fund £IOO per annum, and from each of the richer
students £2 per annum (poorer students were free).
In order to make their income suffice for their needs,
the tutors (they were non-resident) took boarders into
their houses at £15 per annum for those who had two
months’ vacation and £18 for those who remained the
whole year—tea, washing, fire and candles were extra.
Mr Dyer, though appointed, did not go to Warring.
ton and Dr Aikin (Mrs Barbauld's father) took his
place.
Among the preparations for the academy must be
mentioned the endeavours of the Trustees to form a
Library ‘in some degree correspondent to the extensive
plan contemplated.’ They were fortunate in obtaining
books from a few benefactors, among whom the chief
were Dr Percival, of Liverpool, Kendall, of Ulverstone,
and the Son of Dr Benjamin Grosvenor, of London,
of the Dissenting Academies 107
who gave all his father's valuable library. A catalogue
was printed and is useful as indicating the books of
reference used by the students". *
The academy opened with three students on
October 20th, I'757. In accordance with the customary
practice, the Divinity Tutor took the position of Head
of the academy. Unfortunately, Dr Taylor became
involved in a quarrel with the Trustees, and this
unhappy circumstance, no doubt, proved a drawback
to the academy which did not become so large as its
founders had hoped. The entries average I4 a year,
393 students being trained there during its short
existence, I'757–1783.
A list in Vol. Ix of the Monthly Repository enables
an analysis of the students taking various courses to be
made—it is as follows :
Entered for Law 22
y y ,, Medicine 24
J. J. ,, Divinity 52
3 3 ,, Commerce 98
Course not specified Ig?
‘Commerce seems to indicate the course taken by
merchants, bankers, and those designed for the leading
positions in large Commercial companies. Brewers,
shop-keepers—all ‘tradesmen –are among the “un-
specified as also are many who later entered the army
and some who were styled ‘ country gentlemen.” These
had a good ‘general 'education”.
* See Appendix IV for Analysis of Catalogue and full list of books,
under heads (1) History, Geography, Voyages, etc., (2) Miscellaneous.
* See also Appendix V.
IO8 The Aºise and Progress
The Tutors' at this academy are particularly
interesting and seem to justify the following eulogistic
remark, ‘At Warrington Academy were collected some
of the noblest literati of their day. Here the free
thought of English Presbyterianism first began to
crystallise into the Unitarian theology. Here for a
time was the centre of the liberal politics and the
literary taste of the entire country”.’ One can imagine
the life in Warrington in those days—the theological
******
***** ** = ,
discussions, the political and social talks of the tutors,
the literary enthusiasm of Dr Aikin's daughter and her
friends. - -
In 1761 Dr Taylor died, and Dr Aikin took his
place. Dr Aikin's successor was Joseph Priestley. In
* Divinity .. tº tº tº e ... John Taylor, D.D., 1757–1761.
John Aikin, D.D., 1761–1780.
Nicholas Clayton, D.D., 1780–
I783.
Classics . . tº dº to º ... John Aikin, D.D., I758–I76I.
Languages and Belles Lettres . . J. Priestley, LL.D., 1761–1767.
Languages and Natural History J. Reinhold Forster, LL.D.
1767–1770 (?).
La Tour, 1770—(?).
Belles Lettres tº º & Cº © . John Seddon, I767–1770.
Wm. Enfield, LL.D., 1770–1783
Classics . . tº e tº º ... Gilbert Wakefield, A.B., 1779–
I783.
Pendlebury Houghton, I778–
I779 (Assistant).
Mathematics © º tº e ... John Holt, 1757–1772.
George Walker, F.R.S., 1772–
I774.
Wm. Enfield, LL.D., 1774–1783.
Rector Academiae tº gº ... John Seddon, 1767–177o.
Wm. Enfield, 1770–1783.
* Transactions of Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire,
Vol. xI.
of the Dissenting Academies Io9
the following year the academy moved to larger and
more convenient buildings in Academy Place, and there
it entered upon its period of greatest prosperity.
Priestley was succeeded by John Reinhold Forster,
a German scholar and naturalist. Forster went with
Captain Cook in his second voyage round the world and
was considered one of the best botanists of his day.
He lectured in Natural History and Modern Languages
and took the junior forms in Latin and Greek. While
at Warrington he published a few books, among which
were translations of Bougainville's Voyage Round the
World and of Baron Riedesel's Travels through Sicily.
According to a report issued by the Trustees, I770,
‘foreigners, from time to time, were engaged to fill
Reinhold Forster's place ’; but there is only one name
given, Mr La Tour, who is believed to have taught
drawing and book-keeping, in addition to Modern
Languages. The Rev. George Walker, who succeeded
Holt, stayed only two years; he afterwards became
Tutor of Divinity at Manchester New College ; Gilbert
Wakefield, the Editor of Lucretius, ‘claims rank among
the foremost of Cambridge men who have thrown light
on the ancient Classics.” Before his death in I770,
Seddon had become Rector and had lectured on Oratory
and grammar. His lectures were continued by
Dr Enfield, who was untiring in his work while the
academy lasted. Certainly, the Trustees did their best
to secure good men. Of all the Tutors, Dr Aikin and
Dr Priestley, were the most important, and an idea of
this academy, which was so far in advance of its pre-
decessors, will best be gained by an account of their
methods
I IO 7%e Rise and Progress
Dr Aikin’s ‘passion for Literature led his father
to take him from a foreign merchant's office (where he
had acquired ‘ extraordinary facility in French ') and
to allow him to continue his education at a school kept
by a retired actor with a taste for declamation, which
he seems to have imparted to Aikin. Later, in I732,
Aikin became a pupil under Doddridge and then pro-
ceeded to Aberdeen, where he obtained the degree of
D.D. and whence he returned to be assistant at North-
ampton. He had, therefore, had some academical
experience before going to Warrington. Gilbert Wake-
field, for a short time his colleague, says he was ‘a
gentleman whose endowments as a man and as a
scholar it is not easy to exaggerate. His acquaintance
with all true evidence of revelation, with morals,
politics, metaphysics was most accurate and extensive
—he knew Hebrew, French, Greek and Latin.” Aikin
first lectured in classics I758–61 and then as Lecturer
in Divinity, became head of the academy I761–1780—
he was, therefore, connected with it for almost the .
whole period of its existence. Writing to the Monthly
Repository in 1812, an old student gives many interest-
ing details about Dr Aikin's work". The method he
adopted in his classical lectures is described at some
length. It was his plan to give first a general account
of the author, the time in which he lived, scope of his
subject and his treatment of it. The students, each in
turn, read the book through with the guidance of the
tutor, who cleared up difficulties and illustrated the
scope and tendency of the argument with uncommon
clearness and precision.' It is recorded that Dr Aikin
* Monthly Repository, Vol. VIII. p. 166.
of the Dissenſing Academies I I I
usually selected, not those books most commonly taken
in Schools, but those which the students might not
Otherwise read and those which were connected with
their other studies—the parts of Herodotus which might
illustrate what they read in the Old Testament about
ASSyria and Egypt and Justinian's Institutes when
there were several reading for the Bar. Passages from
modern poetry, in which Dr Aikin was widely read and
which he delighted to quote, often served as illustrations
of the Subject in hand. The Doctor was always anxious
to be understood ; at the end of a lecture, he invariably
added ‘Gentlemen, have I explained the subject to
your Satisfaction ?? and then waited to meet any
difficulty which might be stated.
The Divinity students were required to write
exercises and take them to the Saturday morning
lecture. ‘First year, essays on subjects connected
with their course, or Latin Translation or Free Com-
position—second and third year, schemes of sermons,
fourth year sermons and critical dissertations. These
were read by the student and criticised by the Tutor.
After the exercises were examined he would turn to
Some of the finest passages of the English poets—
Milton, Pope, Thomson, Young, and Akenside, and,
having first read a considerable portion, he heard each
of the students read in order and pointed out their
defects. This lecture was often the most satisfactory
and improving of any in the whole week.’
The same writer gratefully remembers the ‘frequent
Small parties to drink tea with him ' that Dr Aikin had.
* Monthly Repository, Vol. VIII. pp. 166–7.
I I 2 7%e Rise and Progress
On these occasions the students were encouraged to
discuss the various topics which interested them.
These details leave us in no doubt as to the value
of Dr Aikin’s work. His lectures must have been
really interesting—Latin and Greek must have been
vastly different from the Latin and Greek of the old
days and of many of the Schools of his day.
More important, however, was his work in English.
By the ‘free, familiar conversation at his tea-parties;
by discussion after the lectures; and by that delightful
Saturday morning class, Dr Aikin was doing a great
work in remedying that serious defect in the early
academies so much regretted by Defoe. As Principal,
he may be regarded as responsible for the newer
subjects which were introduced ; but it is chiefly to
Joseph Priestley that the honour of modernising the
curriculum belongs. Priestley was a member of the
staff only from 1761–67, but in that short time he
revolutionised the work. Appointed as Lecturer in
Languages and Belles. Lettres he undertook subjects
such as Chemistry, Anatomy, etc., History and
Geography, so that when he left, two men divided his
work ; Forster taking Languages and Natural History,
and Seddon, Belles Lettres.
Priestley (born 1733) was adopted by his aunt in
I742 and sent to a large free school, where he learnt
Latin and Greek, and Hebrew on holidays; ‘with a
view to trade,’ he writes, ‘ I learned French, Italian and
High Dutch.’ He was sent to Daventry 1752 under
Dr Caleb Ashworth (Doddridge's successor). His
account of his education is too interesting to be omitted ;
‘ between my leaving the grammar School and going to
of the Dissenſing Academies II 3
the academy, I went two days a week to Mr Hagger-
stone, a Dissenting minister. Of him I learnt geometry,
algebra, various branches of mathematics, theoretical
and practical, and read Gravesande's Elements of
Natural Philosophy, Watts's Logic and Locke's Human
Understanding, and made such proficiency in these
branches that when I was admitted at the Academy
I was excused all the studies of the first year and a
great part of those of the second. While at the
grammar School I learned Mr Annet's Shorthand. . . .
Among other things at this time I had a great aversion
to plays and romances, so that I never read any works
of this kind, except Robinson Crusoe, until I went to
the Academyl.’
Priestley remained at the Daventry Academy for
three years, I'752–1755. In I758 he took charge of a
church at Nantwich. Here also, he not only had a
school but gave what seem to have been courses of
popular lecturers on scientific subjects to adults. One
course was on the Use of the Globes. The proceeds
(IOS. 6d. for twelve lectures) and the school fees enabled
him to ‘purchase a few books, some philosophical
instruments, a small air-pump, electrical machine, etc.,
and by entertaining the parents and friends with
experiments in which the scholars were generally the
Operators and sometimes the lecturers too, I extended
the reputation of the school”.’ It was for the use of
these scholars that Priestley wrote his Rudiments of
English Grammar, adapted to the use of Schools, with
observations on style, which he afterwards had printed,
* Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, J.T. Rutt, p. 13 et seq.
* Ibid. Vol. I.
P. In , A. 8
II.4. The Rise and Progress
and a copy of which is to be found in the present library
at Warrington. In the preface he writes: ‘The pro-
priety of introducing English grammar into English
schools cannot be disputed, a competent knowledge of
our own language being both useful and Ornamental
in every profession, and a critical knowledge of it
absolutely necessary to all persons of liberal education
. . . . though the grammar School be, on all accounts,
the most proper place for learning it, how many
grammar Schools have we, and of no small reputation,
which are destitute of all provision for the regular
teaching of it! 2 At the end of the book are ‘examples
of English composition,’ and among these are to be
found extracts from the Bible, Addison, Young, Boling-
broke, Hume, Swift, Pope and others. Wolsey’s fare-
well is the only one from Shakespeare. -
So much for Priestley's work at Nantwich—work
which prepared him for that at the academy to which
he went in I76I. He was appointed Tutor of Languages
and Belles Lettres, and, judging from a letter written
after he went to Warrington, he must have been well
occupied. He writes (probably about 1765): ‘I think
myself honoured by Mr Blackburn's inquiry after my
department in the Academy. Besides the three courses
of Lectures of which an account is given in the Essay”
I teach Latin, Greek, French and Italian and read
Lectures on the Theory of Languages and Universal
grammar, on Oratory and Philosophical criticism and
also on Civil Law”.'
* Priestley, Rudiments of English Grammar, Preface, p. viii.
* I.e. Priestley’s Essay on a Liberal Education.
° Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, J. T. Rutt, Vol. I,
p. 46.
of the Dissem/img Academies I I5
Priestley worked at Warrington from I761–67–
teaching almost every subject in the curriculum and
doing his utmost to make the education of real value
to the students. During this time he attended a course
of lectures on chemistry delivered at the academy
by a learned apothecary and chemist, Dr Turner of
Liverpool. He also wrote and published courses of
lectures, essays on educational and social questions and
theological works. The establishment of a printing
press by Eyres in Warrington synchronised with the
foundation of the academy, and no doubt each influenced
the other—the academy found work for Eyres, and the
fact of there being so good a printer in the neighbour-
hood encouraged the tutors to print their essays and
translations. -
Priestley's Essay on a Course of Liberal Education
for Civil and Active Life (1765) is noteworthy for its
insistence upon the necessity of altering the curriculum
so as to suit the changing needs of the day. He says—
‘Formerly, none but the clergy were thought to have
any occasion for learning. It was natural therefore
that the whole plan of education, from the grammar
School to the finishing at the university should be
calculated for their use".' He goes on to show that
times have changed, that life is more complex and that
consequently the Supine inattention with which affairs
were formerly conducted is no longer safe and that a
‘ different and better furniture of mind is requisite to
be brought into the business of life.’ This Priestley
sees is certainly a call upon us to examine the state
of education in this country.” He then proceeds to

* Essay on Liberal Education, p. 2.
8—2
I I6 The Rise and Progress
advocate a wide study of history" (with which geography
is to be closely connected) and requires that a youth
going through the courses he outlines should know
sufficient Latin as to enable him to read the easier
classics and to understand and use the more difficult
English words which are derived from the Latin”.’ A
good knowledge of French he considers very necessary;
the more useful branches of practical mathematics
should be known, and if possible he should have some
knowledge of algebra and geometry, which are indis-
pensable in every plan of liberal education”.’ Priestley
was no mere idle theorist. His work at the academy
proves conclusively his serious interest in education,
and accounts of the reforms he was attempting evi-
dently reached other tutors, for there are requests from
some of them for his advice on certain matters relating
to teaching. Priestley's replies show, not only what
methods he employed, but also the considerations
which guided him in their adoption. Writing to a
Mr Caleb Rotherham under date February 14th, 1766,
he says: ‘I introduced lectures on history and general
policy, laws and Constitutions of England and on the
history of England. This I did in consequence of
observing that though most of Our pupils were young
men designed for situations in civil and active life,
every article in the plan of their education was adapted
to the learned professions. In order to recommend
such studies as I introduced, I Composed an “Essay on
a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Activelife”.”
* See Appendix VI for extracts from course of lectures.
* Essay on Liberal Education, pp. 18, 19.
* Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, ed. J. T. Rutt,
Vol. I, p. 50.
of the Dissenſing Academies I 17
To the same friend he says: ‘I made use of Holmes'
Latin Grammar. ... My English grammar was not
ready in time enough for me to make a trial of it.
It has been out of print two or three years and I shall
not consent to its being reprinted [he changed his mind],
Lowth's is much better ; but I question whether it will
signify much to teach any English grammar. Making
the scholars compose dialogues, themes etc., correcting
their bad English and making occasional remarks, I
always found of most real use. Let them write fair
copies of the English of many of their lessons and omit
no opportunity of making them write in their own
language. This you will find pleasant to yourself, and
of prodigious service to your pupils. Do not fail to
teach geography along with the classics, for by this
means your pupils will, indirectly, acquire much real
knowledge. I had a little school library, consisting
chiefly of books of natural and civil history, with
books of travel which I made them read (as a favour)
with the map before them".’
| Such were Priestley's ideas; such was his work; its
results cannot be so definitely set down. It can only
be said that his influence was very great. There was
first, of course, the result of his work in the academy
in the training of the young men under him. Then,
through the continuance of his work by those who
succeeded him there was carried on his attempt to
modernise, to humanise the curriculum. Again,
through his letters and essays and through the reputa-
tion gained by the academy, the influence was spread,
* Life and Correspondence of Joseph Priestley, ed. J. T. Rutt,
Vol. I. p. 64.
I 18 7%e Rise and Progress
it is not too much to say, throughout England. And,
finally, the growth of a new idea about education (an
idea which still persists) may perhaps be traced to this
work of Priestley—the idea of the necessity of a
Dissenting education for lay Dissenters. Priestley
certainly made the curriculum suitable for laymen
outside the learned professions, and by So doing, he
enlarged the borders of the Dissenting academies, and
probably hastened the expression of what may have
been felt before—the need of a Dissenting education
for Dissenters; that is to say, that what in 1662 was
a makeshift, an adaptation to changing circumstances,
became, about 1800, a necessity. Expression is given
to this idea in a letter on the “Necessity of a Dissenting
education for Lay Dissenters' from ‘A friend to the
permanence of Unitarian Dissent ' in the Monthly
Repository for 1812+. This may not, of course, have
been the first time the idea was expressed ; but it was
one of the earliest expressions of it.
As before mentioned, the year after Priestley went
to Warrington the academy had to seek larger premises.
A new academy and houses for the tutors were built,
and this undertaking involved the Trustees in a debt
of almost £2000. This difficulty was increased by the
gradual dropping off of the promised subscriptions.
This, suggests the writer in the Monthly Repository
quoted above, was due partly to the quarrel between
Dr Taylor and the Trustees and partly to the somewhat
natural apathy of the Subscribers, to whom no account
of the annual expenditure was sent and who were
probably ignorant, not only of the manner in which
* Monthly Repository, Vol. x. p. 286.
of #/ºe /)issenſing Academies I 19
their money was spent, but also of the work the academy
was doing. The lack of funds prevented adequate
salaries being paid to the tutors, and several of them,
because of actual necessity, had to seek other work.
This was the reason of Priestley's removal to Leeds
in 1767, and it was also the reason for Mr Seddon's
undertaking to give various lectures, and for the offers
from other tutors to take extra work. New regula-
tions and one or two changes made in the administration
in 1767 throw light upon the discipline of the academy.
The account" is as follows: ‘To remove all danger of
dissatisfaction with any of the tutors, a person uncon-
nected with the conduct of any branch of education
was engaged to provide the commons for the students,
and a regular code of laws was drawn up (a printed
copy given to each student, who was explicitly to
promise obedience). The Trustees appointed, in the
person of Mr Seddon, a Rector Academiae, whose
particular office it should be to superintend the discipline
and morals of the students. . . . An exact weekly register
was to be read over by the Rector every Saturday
afternoon publicly before all students and such repri-
mands and admonitions to be given by him and the
tutors as to them should seem necessary. . . . the Tutor
is to proceed to appoint the delinquents a proper
exercise and on no account to dispense with the per-
formance of it.’ A report, in the case of the delinquents,
was to be sent once a quarter to the parents or guardians,
and if these measures did not suffice expulsion was to
follow. After Mr Seddon's death Mr Enfield, who had
been appointed Tutor in Belles Lettres in 1770 and had
* Monthly Repository, Vol. VIII. p. 427.
I 2C) The Rise and Progress
volunteered to take Mathematics after George Walker
left in 1774, became Rector. He was quite in accord
with the new methods, and as his Speaker and
Exercises in Elocution testify, was as anxious as
Aikin and Priestley to train the students in the use of
their mother tongue. He continued the special Saturday
morning class, and ‘in Order to encourage among the
students at large an alacrity to engage in voluntary
exercises, he, in conjunction with his friend Dr Aikin,
Junior (who settled at Warrington as a surgeon, and
continued the course of lectures in anatomy, physiology,
chemistry etc.), promoted the formation of societies or
clubs for improvement in elocution and composition.
They both became members and took turns in sub-
mitting to general discussion, essays of their own.”
During all this time the academy was in debt and
the number of students gradually decreased, until in
I783, it having been decided to open a new academy
in Manchester, the Warrington Academy, which had
done such magnificent work for about five-and-twenty
years, was closed. The academy in Manchester, called
‘Manchester New College,’ was closely connected with
the Warrington Academy. The Warrington library
was transferred to Manchester; the first Principal,
Dr Barnes, was trained at Warrington ; and the second,
Rev. G. Walker had been tutor there.
Though at different times situated in various places
(Manchester, York, Manchester, London, Oxford)
Manchester New College has had an uninterrupted
existence and is now represented by its lineal descendant,
Manchester College, Oxford. Until 1853 it remained
an institution for training both ministers and laymen
of the Dissenting Academies 121
—since then, its work has been theological only.
Manchester College has now the old Warrington library
and the minutes of the Trustees. The Warrington win-
dow in the present library commemorates the connec-
tion between the two institutions. Manchester College
claims descent not only from Chorlton’s Academy (as
Stated in the Victoria County History of Lancashire) but
also from Frankland's Academy at Rathmell”. For
this claim there is no justification whatever. Even if
it be allowable to group together, as in the appendix
referred to, Rathmell, Chorlton’s, Whitehaven, Bolton
and Kendal as the Northern Academy (there was really
no connection between Chorlton’s and Whitehaven or
between Bolton and Kendal), it is not possible to regard
Warrington, which was an entirely new foundation, as
descended from these earlier academies.
It seems natural that the first big attempt to give
a business education should have been made in the
district most influenced by the 18th century develop-
ment of industry. A similar attempt was made in the
South-west of England and seems to have been on
the whole successful. The West of England Academy
situated at Taunton I672–1759 (Period I, No. 17) was
closed on the removal of the last Tutor, Dr Amory, to
London. After he had gone the Nonconformists of the
district decided to establish ‘a seminary not for the
ministry alone but also for other learned professions
and for civil life.’ A house in Exeter was given
and the library from Taunton removed to the new
academy, which was placed under the direction of
* See appendix on Ancestry of Manchester College in Proceedings
and Addresses on the Opening of Manchester College, Oxford.
I 22 The Rise and Progress
Samuel Merivale, who had been under Doddridge at
Northampton.
The MS. account of academies in Dr Williams’
Library gives the total number of students at Exeter
as ninety-three. Among those whose calling is given
3.TC
6 attorneys or barristers.
4 ministers".
7 physicians.
24 merchants or ‘trade.”
7 navy or navy office men.
I3 esquires.
2 apothecaries.
3 army men.
This academy therefore aimed at Supplying the broad,
modern education given at Warrington, as also did the
* less literary seminary started about the same time
in London.
This, no doubt, does not complete the list of institu-
tions working on the same lines. Among the Quakers
and other Nonconformist bodies there were in all
probability similar plans put into execution during the
same period. It is to be regretted that just when this
further and very important development was contem-
plated the academies forgot the breadth of view with
which they had started and began to require from their
students acceptance of definite creeds. It was probably
Owing to this departure from their original practice
* A list in the Monthly Repository, Vol. XII., is different; I2
Thinisters are mentioned and only 49 names are given.
of the Dissenting Academies 123
that the academies gradually declined. As the I8th
century closed they seem to have become institutions
more bent upon giving a training in the principles
of particular Nonconformist bodies rather than upon
giving the best liberal education obtainable at the
time, with the result that they no longer offered so
striking a contrast to the other educational systems of
their day.
III
THE PLACE OF THE DISSENTING ACADEMIES AMONG
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS IN ENGLAND
Beginning at the time when the Uniformity Legisla-
tion was undermining the existing School system built
up by Elizabeth and the early Stuarts on such remnants
of the old system as survived the ravages of Henry VIII
and Edward VI, the academies were the result of an
effort to give education where it was withheld. At
first, merely an expedient of the moment, they, later,
became a definite and necessary part of the educational
machinery of their day. Differing from all other
centres of learning—unique both in aim and accom-
plishment—they constitute a separate educational
system—an educational system, moreover, which de-
serves no mean place among the various systems of
this country.
Though comparatively small, the academies were
thoroughly active. Their tutors were first-rate men ;
all of them real students who gave themselves whole-
heartedly to the work they had in hand. Such men
would make great demands upon their students, and
there is abundant evidence that discipline was main-
tained and that measures were taken to secure honest
work.
Importance of Dissenting Academies 125
The academical system of education was short-
lived—a distributary which, a little further down the
course, returned to the main river. But the distri-
butary accomplished much, not only fertilising the
land through which it passed, but after its return
purifying the main stream and quickening its sluggish
flow.
The predominating influence of 18th century thought
was Rationalism, and the academies, Puritan and
Realistic as they were, were naturally much affected
thereby. Discussions which were the natural conse-
quence of a belief in an appeal to reason played an
important part in the academies, and indeed so much
importance was attached not only to the weekly
disputations but to the impromptu discussions after
lectures and to those in the students’ own rooms that
it is not too much to say that with many tutors the
aim was rather to cultivate sound judgment than to
impart information. In one of his essays' Mark
Pattison, writing of the period 1688–1830, says: ‘In that
Age higher education acquired its practical aim, an aim
in which the development of the understanding and
the acquisition of knowledge are considered secondary
objects to the formation of the sound secular judgment
of the “scholar and the gentleman’’ of the old race of
schoolmasters.’ It is in the academies that this new
practical aim is first seen. The writings of Locke were
widely read in the academies, and undoubtedly exercised
a tremendous influence there. The result of these
discussions and of this aim was that academy-trained
men took a foremost part in the controversies of the
* Essays, Vol. II. p. I3.
I 26 Aducationa/ /m/ortance
day. Two of the greatest defenders of Christianity,
Chandler and Butler, against the attacks of the Deists,
were students in a Dissenting Academy. In his
Studies Subsidiary to Butler, Mr Gladstone says: “All
the theology of Butler's Analogy is derived straight
from the Holy Scriptures and ends, as well as begins,
with them. Butler never but once quotes a theologian,
and that only in one of the notes. With regard to
the exclusiveness of his habit of quoting from Holy
Scriptures it seems probable that his education as a
Presbyterian Dissenter may have done much to form
the habit of his mind".’
Besides theological writers the academies trained
preachers who could afterwards deal with controverted
points, and certainly this freedom of discussion was
partly responsible for the spread of Unitarianism. The
non-theological students also, in various walks of life,
gave expression day by day to ideas which had been
formed under the influence of the Dissenting education
they had received. Among these the influence of Defoe
was the greatest, and though it cannot be claimed that
either his general literature or his pamphlet-writing
was due to his academy education, nevertheless each
would no doubt have been different had he been
educated, say, at Oxford.
The influence of the academies on English thought
and life as a whole was that of a modified Puritanism.
In general they stood—for independence of thought, but
at the same time objected to freedom of action, that is,
many of them looked far more askance at departure
from received Puritan custom in small details of conduct
* Studies Subsidiary to Butley, p. 108.
of the Dissenſing Academies 127
/
-
than at the acceptance of heterodox opinions. In spite
of much deplorable narrowness, their firm stand for
broad principles, their sober earnestness and their high
moral tone had, to say the least, a salutary effect upon
the country.
But in addition to exerting this general Puritan
influence they made a very definite impression on edu-
cation in particular. In this connection probably the
most important statement that can be made about them
is that they developed, that throughout the whole course
of their existence they steadily advanced. The sig-
nificance of this lies in the fact that the other educational
systems show no development whatever—that they
were moreover not merely at a standstill but were
steadily declining. Abundant and conclusive proof
of this is found whenever reliable reference is made to
the condition of education in the grammar Schools or
Universities in the 18th century. Every historian of
the Universities or of the public Schools when dealing
with the period following the Restoration writes of ‘the
decay which became so evident in the middle of the
18th century,’ of the period at which the Univer-
sities reached the lowest depths of attainment and
discipline.’
Writing of St Paul's School, Mr M. F. J. McDonnell
says: ‘The intellectual blight which in the 18th century
fell over Oxford and Cambridge and many of the public
schools, did not leave St Paul’s unaffected", and
Mr A. F. Leach says that though very successful
towards the end of the I7th century, owing probably
to Charles II’s plan of building a palace at Winchester,
1 History of St Paul's School, M. F. J. McDonnell, p. 296.
I 28 Aducational /m/ortance
the school there sank in the 18th century to the ‘lowest
depths of depression”.’ The decay began with the
reaction against Puritanism at the Restoration—a
reaction as marked in the schools and Universities as
at the Court. All that savoured of Puritanism was
out of fashion—devotion to learning no less than
abhorrence of pleasure-seeking.
In his description of Oxford after I660 Antony Wood
shows clearly that it was held to be a point of honour
to make everything as different as possible from what
had obtained during the ‘Intervall.’ This was seen
not only in such matters as the return to May-games,
morrises, revells etc.’ So loathed by the ‘precise party,’
but in the altering of University regulations; in the
discontinuing of many lectures and in an exaggerated
mode of life which hated lectures, disputations and
books and delighted in coffee houses, gossiping and
plays. ‘Till the Act of Conformity was published,’
writes Wood, ‘the Presbyterian preachers laboured
much to keep their disciples together and to strive by
their fluent praying and preaching to make that way
used by the prelaticall party ridiculous. And really,
had not the said Act taken place, which drew over very
many to their (i.e. the prelaticall, the Church) party,
they would have found themselves much weakened.’
After the Conformity Legislation, however, the In-
dependents and Presbyterians had to leave the
Universities, and Wood goes on to describe the state
of things in Oxford which ensued. ‘They seldom
preached. . . . which made many think they would not
venter to do it for feare they should be disrellisht and
* A History of Winchester College, A. F. Leach, p. 367.
of the Dissenting Academies I29
find not that applause which the Presbyterians and
those educated in the Intervall did.’ This refers to
the services at St Mary's. The actual work of the
Universities was discontinued too: “As the lectures of
Divinity were neglected, so those of the Civill Law and
what was done at all, was by a deputy. The Medicine
likewise was neglected. . . . and as for the Greek lecture
the reader thereof.... read scarce one lecture from this
year till about 1664.” As a matter of fact in 1660 the
Church returned to her own, and having defined her
borders and placed those outside her communion under
civil disabilities she settled down in the firm conviction
that the House of Stuart once more on the throne,
everything would go well. The majority of the country
clergy were fox-hunting Squires who cared nothing for
learning and who therefore made no demands upon the
Universities. It was not long before those who required
a sound education went either to the Dissenting
Academies or to foreign Universities—Oxford and
Cambridge were of no use. In his Studies in Oxford
History chiefly in the Eighteenth Century Green gives
an account of life at Oxford which was an ‘imitation
of High Life in London.’ ‘Education,’ he writes, ‘may
be found anywhere save in the lecture-room”. The
writings of 18th century men acquainted with the
Universities leave no doubt as to the general opinion
about them. Chesterfield, writing to his son, I'749,
said that Cambridge is sunk into the lowest
obscurity and the existence of Oxford would not
* Life and Times of Antony Wood, Clark, Vol. I. pp. 360, 361.
* Studies in Oxford History chiefly in the Eighteenth Century
(Oxf. Hist. Soc.), J. R. Green, p. 30.
P. D. A. 9
I3O Aducationa/ /m/ortance
be known if it were not for the treasonable spirit
publicly avowed and often excited there.” Gibbon’s
censure of Magdalen and indeed of the whole Uni-
versity of Oxford is well known. There is probably
little doubt that his statements were exaggerated and
that the condition of the College and of the University
was not so appalling as it appears in his pages, but
Gibbon was by no means the only man who, looking
back on his career at Oxford, was constrained to admit
that he had done little or no work, and what is more
important, that the University had demanded practi-
cally nothing from him. Adam Smith, at Balliol from
I740–46, Says he sought in vain for the proper means
of being taught the sciences which it is ‘the proper
business of these incorporate bodies to teach.’ Southey
was told by one of his tutors that if he had any studies
of his own he had better pursue them, ‘for you won’t
learn anything from my lectures, sir.’ While at Oriel,
Butler, who was acquainted with serious lectures at
Tewkesbury Academy and with the voluntary, strenu-
ous work of the students, wrote: ‘we are obliged to
mis-spend so much time in attending frivolous lectures
and unintelligible disputations that I am quite tired
out with such a disagreeable way of trifling.” Many
writers refer to the worse than useless Latin disputations
which continued in the Universities till the beginning
of the Igth century, and at Oriel one a week was required
until 1857 Undergraduates were in the habit of
memorising ‘Strings,’ as lists of questions and answers
composing a dispute were called, in readiness for their
‘ determination for the B.A. degree. These strings
were handed down from one generation of students to
of Żhe Dissenſing Academies 13 I
another, and many who used them had no idea of the
meaning of the Latin which they declaimed”."
When the Honours Schools were instituted (1800)
Sidney Smith wrote: ‘If Oxford is become at last
sensible of the miserable state to which it was reduced,
as everybody else was out of Oxford, and if it is making
serious efforts to recover from the degradation into
which it was plunged a few years past, the good wishes
of every respectable man must go with it.’ These
efforts at reform were not made until the end of the
18th century. ‘If I700 witnessed the University's
greatest inactivity and degradation, I800 saw it begin-
ning that system of education which led the way to
higher and nobler intellectual efforts” ”
Before ISOO there had been, practically speaking,
no attempt at reform. In his Vindication of Magdalen
College from the Aspersions of Mr Gibbon the Rev.
James Hurdie gives the work required of an under-
graduate in that college, about the middle of the
I8th century, for ‘collections or term-end examina-
tions. “In Ist year he must be proficient in, the Ist term,
Sallust and characters of Theophrastus; 2nd term,
Vergil Aen. I–VI, first 3 books of Zenophon's Ana-
basis ; 3rd term, Aen. last VI books, Anabasis, the
last IV; 4th Term, The Gospels of St Matthew and
St Mark”.’ The only change in the next three years is
in the set books and in the addition of Greek authors,
There was, therefore, no examination in anything but
classics, and there is no doubt that Latin and Greek
* See account in Reminiscences of Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.).
* Studies in Oxford History chiefly in the Eighteenth Century,
Green, p. 240. -
* Reminiscences of Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), p. 136.
I 32 Aducationa/ /m/ortance
Still Occupied most of an undergraduate's time. It is
true that Some attention was given to logic and ethics
and also to geometry and physics, but the work done
seems to have been very slight. Letters from Henry
Fleming, an undergraduate at Queen's, who entered in
July 1678, show the kind of work he was doing. In
September 1678 he wrote: ‘My tutor reads to me once
for the most part every day and sometimes twice in
Sanderson's Logick", which booke is all he reads to me
as yet wherein I have read two of ye first bookes and
part of ye third. And in Spaire hours from Logick I
read Lucius Florus, Sallus and such histories, out of
which I write collections. And for exercise I make
none yet, but such as all ye scholars make which is
verses every Saturday during ye terme and sometimes
declames”.’ In May 1679 he tells his father that having
read all Sanderson's Logick he has to begin Ethicks and
that in the afternoon he will continue Latin histories.
On Dec. Ist of that year he writes: “My tutor reads to
me now a compendium of Geometry having done with
Logick and Ethicks”.’ A compendium of ‘physicks'
was begun in Aug. I680.
From a comparison of the Universities and academies
it is clear that while the former continued to give an
essentially classical education, the academies paid more
and more attention to science and to modern languages
and later to ‘commercial’ subjects. In other words,
the Universities and academies differed fundamentally
in their opinion as to what constituted a ‘liberal ’
* This was of course in Latin.
* The Flemings in Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), Vol. I. p. 262.
* Ibid. p. 3O4.
of the Dissenting Academies I.33
education. The Universities held that the more educa-
tion was removed from the ordinary activities of life,
the more liberal it was ; that liberal or ‘culture
studies were those which were if not useless, at least
definitely non-utilitarian. Moreover, under the in-
fluence of Ciceronianism, the ‘culture ' studies did not
include the broad, literary study advocated by the
Renaissance humanists, but merely the narrow, pedantic
training in classics and formal logic. However anxious
a few enthusiasts might be to introduce reforms, there
was always a sufficiently strong majority in the Uni-
versities to ensure the continuance of the traditional
methods. As we have seen, the earliest attempts at
reform were made in the I6th and I7th centuries, but
though Savile, Lucas, Camden and others founded
professorships the general attitude of the Universities
remained unchanged. Indeed the history of the Uni-
versities even during the Igth century shows that
though definitely utilitarian subjects had been pre-
scribed, it had very often been possible for the professors,
to whom the framing of the syllabuses had been left, to
make the work done in those subjects so narrow and
pedantic as to defeat the end the reformers had in view.
In other words, the spirit in the Universities has remained
practically unchanged ; much of the work is pedantic
still. It is true that now Humanistic Studies such as
English Literature and History have a definite place,
yet the work is often so detailed and specialised as to
be anything but humanistic in spirit. The academies
on the other hand held that for an education to be \
liberal it was imperative that it should be in touch with
life and should therefore include as many utilitarian
I 34 A:aucaſiona/ /m/ortance
\ subjects as possible. As has been seen, English early
received attention as also did French, and in some
cases German, Italian and Spanish ; history and
geography came to be quite regularly taught ; while
‘science’ in some academies was the most important Sub-
ject. But the difference between the two educational
systems is seen not so much in the introduction into the
academies of ‘modern’ subjects and methods as in the
fact that among the Nonconformists there was a totally
different spirit-at-work from that found-in-the Univer-
sities. The spirit animating the Dissenters was that
which had moved Ramus and Comenius in France and
Germany and which in England had actuated Bacon
` and later Hartlib and his circle. The academies were
the first educational institutions in England to put into
practice the realistic theories which had found expres-
sion in the works of a series of writers from Rabelais
and Montaigne, Mulcaster and Elyot to Bacon and
Comenius, Milton and Petty. It was in the academies
alone that, while the Universities remained mediaeval
in Outlook, an attempt was made to meet the changing
needs of the time. In the 16th century the Courtly
Academies had endeavoured to satisfy the demand on
the part of the nobility for an education which the
Universities could not give. In the 18th century the
Dissenting Academies strove to satisfy the needs of
the upper middle class for a practical modern education
which the Universities made no effort to supply. There
*** * * * ****
arex.rººts awº-ºº: ** ***** ***
is a further point of similarity between these two types
of academies. The Dissenting Academies were not less
Successful in making their conception of what con-
Stituted a good middle-class education seem the only

of Żhe Dissenting Academies I35
one possible, than the Courtly Academies were in
making the Scholar-gentleman ideal fashionable. In
the I8th century the education to be sought was an
academy education. Moreover, it was an education
which was obtainable nowhere but in these academies.
They are important not merely because they gave a
new education but for the fact that they showed the
people of England that it was no longer necessary to
depend solely upon the old institutions for learning.
In so far then as they taught modern subjects,
and employed the newest methods advocated by the
educational reformers, and opened their doors to the
‘ people,’ they exerted a true realistic influence, and
thus became the forerunners of the modern Univer-
sities in our commercial centres. In this respect, as
in others, they may be compared with the schools of
the Pietists in Germany, which under Francke and his
followers prepared the way for the Realschulen, for there
can be no doubt that just as the Pietists carried on the
work of Comenius in Germany, so the Dissenters put
into practice the theories of Comenius' English followers,
Hartlib, Milton and Petty.
Reference has already been made to the extent to
which Locke was read in the academies". There is no
doubt that the influence of Rationalism and the
remarkable freedom of inquiry which was allowed in
the academies were responsible for the spread of Uni-
tarianism, and this led to the Tutors requiring from
the students on entering, subscription to a definite
* It is interesting to note that Locke's writings were censured in
Oxford, I703, and reading of the Essay on Human Understanding
forbidden.
136 /m/ortance of Dissenting Academies
creed. This narrowing of their borders, together with
the general decline in Nonconformity towards the end
of the 18th century, was the cause of the decay of
the academies as centres of general learning. Those
founded at the close of the century, like "the new
college in Hackney in which Priestley was interested,
and which was founded about 1788, were definitely
denominational, and indeed owing to the influence of
this Dissenting Educational system there grew the
idea that denominational Schools for youths not entering
the ministry were as necessary as denominational
Colleges designed to give ministerial training.
Before the decline of the academies their successful
adoption of realistic subjects and methods had drawn
considerable attention to the subject of education.
By the middle of the I&th century many men in
England had decided that the ‘new’ education could
be made to pay. As a result, academies, largely
of the Dotheboys Hall type, appeared in all parts of
the country. These attempted to give instruction in
‘Science,’ arithmetic, and English ; but as education
was coming to be regarded as a trade rather than as an
art, their work was not of a very high order. The work
of the Dissenting Academies, that of keeping alive in
England Realism and of breaking down the educational
monopoly of the Universities and grammar schools,
being accomplished, they ceased to be a definite system
and became part of the main stream of education. In
the meantime, the effective teaching of modern subjects
and the application of the democratic principle to edu-
cation awaited the social and educational awakening
of the Igth century.
APPENDIX I
THE CHIEF DISSENTING ACADEMIES
This list has been compiled from information from various
sources, some of which are the MS. account of Dissenting
Ministers, kept at Dr Williams's Library ; Calamy's Account
and History ; Bogue and Bennett's History ; Toulmin’s
History ; Lives and Funeral Sermons of various ministers ;
Dictionary of National Biography.
The academies given were Presbyterian or Independent;
one, Bristol, No. 9, Period II, was Baptist, and was probably
the first Baptist Academy—the General Baptist Education
Society was not formed until 1794. The Quaker Schools, and
such institutions as that started for the Methodists by George
Whitefield at Kingswood I74o, are not given. The dates have
been carefully examined but many of them cannot be authen-
ticated.
ACADEMIES OF FIRST PERIOD.
I. Broad Oak (Flint) 1690–1706. Tutors, Ph. Henry, M.A.
(Christ Church, Oxford). He taught Samuel Benion,
who helped him with instruction of some ‘young
gentlemen (gram. School and academy). After P.
Henry's death, 1696, Benion continued academical work
till in I706, after death of James Owen, he removed to
Shrewsbury (see above, No. 17).
2. Bromsgrove (or Stourbridge) 1665–1692 (?). Tutor, Henry
Hickman, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen, Oxford (d. 1692).
3. Brynllwarch, near Bridgend, Glamorgan 1668–1697 (?).
Tutor, Samuel Jones, M.A. (Fellow and Tutor of Jesus
College, Oxford). Students, James Owen (tutor,
Shrewsbury), etc.
I38 A//endix / /
4.
IO.
II.
I2.
I3.
Coventry 1663–17oo (removed 1700 to London by Dr Old-
field). Tutors, Dr John Bryan (d. 1675), Dr Obadiah
Grew (d. 1689), Thomas Shewell, M.A. (d. 1693),
Dr Joshua Oldfield, assisted by Wm. Tong.
Dartmouth I668–1691. Tutor, John Flavel, B.A. (d. I69I).
Students, only four.
Islington (I) I672–1680. Tutor, Ralph Button, M.A., B.D.
(Exeter, Oxford), Fellow and Tutor of Merton (?),
Oxford, 1642, Professor of Geometry in Gresham
College, 1647, Canon of Christ Church and University
orator (d. 1680). Students, Sir J. Jekyll, lawyer,
etc.
Islington (2) I672–1707 (?). Migratory (Woodford Bridge,
Essex (plague), Battersea, Wimbledon, etc.). Tutors,
Thomas Doolittle, M.A. (Pembroke, Camb.), assisted
by Thomas Vincent, M.A. (Christ Church, Oxford),
T. Rowe (?). Students, Calamy, Kerr, M.D. (tutor
Highgate and Bethnal Green), Matthew Henry, etc.
Knell (Radnorshire) (?) 1675–(?). Tutor, John Weaver.
Students, Samuel Jones, Tutor of Tewkesbury, etc.
Lincoln I668–1680. Tutor, Edward Reyner, M.A. (d. 1680).
Mill Hill (?)-1701 (?). Tutor, Richard Swift (d. 1701).
Nettlebed (Oxon) I666–1697. Tutor, Thomas Cole, M.A.
(Christ Church, Oxford). John Locke was a student of
Cole's before his ejectment. *~
Newington Green (I) I665 (?) to about I706. Migratory
(Little Britain, Clapham). Tutors, Theophilus Gale,
M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford (d. 1678).
T. Rowe (d. 1706). Students, Isaac Watts, D.D. (Edin.),
Dr J. Evans, Daniel Neal, Henry Grove (Tutor at
Taunton), J. Hughes (poet and dramatist), Josiah Hort
(conformed—Archbishop of Tuam), etc.
Newington Green (2) I667 (?) to about 1706. Tutors, Charles
Morton, M.A. (Wadham College, Oxford). In 1685 he
went to New England, he was succeeded by Stephen
Lobb; Wm. Wickens (Emmanuel College, Cambridge),
Francis Glasscock. Students, Daniel Defoe, Samuel
Wesley, Kitt, Butterby, Wm. Jenkyn, etc.
A//endix / I39
I4.
I5.
I6.
I7.
I8.
I9.
2O.
2.I.
22.
23.
Nottingham I680—(?). Tutors, Ed. Reynolds and John
Whitlock, Thos. Hardy (same academy?).
Rathmell 1669–1698. Migratory (Natland, Kendal, etc.).
Tutor, Richard Frankland, M.A. (Christ's College, Camb.),
assisted by ISSOt. Students, John Ashe, James Clegg,
M.A., John Owen, T. Jollie (Tutor at Attercliffe), etc.
Sheriffhales I663–1697 (closed before Woodhouse went to
London). Tutors, John Woodhouse, assisted by South-
well. Students, Robert Harley, Henry St John, Lord
Foley, Thomas Hunt, Benjamin Bennett (author of
Christian Oratory).
Shrewsbury I663–1730 (?). Tutors, Francis Tallents, M.A.,
Camb., Fellow, Tutor and Vice-President of Magdalen
College (d. 1708), John Bryan (?) (d. 1699), James
Owen (d. 1706), Samuel Benion, M.A. (d. 1708), John
Reynolds (d. 1727), Dr Gyles (d. 1730 2). Students
(under Benion), Latham (tutor at Findern), etc.
Sulby, near Welford, Northampton 1680–1688. Tutor, John
Shuttlewood, B.A. (Christ's College, Camb.).
Taunton I672–1759 (when Amory went to London).
Tutors, Matthew Warren, Robert Darch, Stephen James,
Henry Grove, Thos. Amory, D.D. Students, Thomas
and John Wright of Bristol, etc.
Tubney I668–1699. Tutor, D. H. Langley (d. 1697).
Wapping 1675 (?) to 1680–I. Tutor, Ed. Veal, M.A. (Christ
Church, Oxford). Students, Samuel Wesley, I678–1680, etc.
Whitchurch 1668–1680 (?). Tutor, J. Maulden (d. 1680).
Wickhambrook 1670–1696 (?) (when tutor removed to
Bishop's Stortford). Tutor, Samuel Cradock, B.D.
(Emmanuel College, Camb.). Students, Edmund Calamy,
D.D., etc. -
ACADEMIES OF SECOND PERIOD.
Attercliffe I691–1744. Tutors, Timothy Jollie (d. 1714),
John De la Rose, J. Wadsworth (?). Students, Nicholas
Saunderson, J. Bowles (Lord Chancellor of Ireland),
Jennings of Kibworth Academy, Samuel Price, Thomas
Bradbury, etc.
I4O
A/ºffendix /
2.
f
IO.
II.
I2.
I3.
I4.
I 5.
Alcester (?)-1720 (?). Joseph Porter, on whose death
students were removed to Stratford-on-Avon (see below,
No. 29).
Abergavenny 1757–(?). Fund Board withdrew their
support from the Carmarthen Academy and established
one of their own. Migratory (Oswestry, Wrexham,
Llanfyllin, Newton), Brecon College since 1839. Tutors,
David Jardine (d. 1766), Benj. Davis, D.D. (d. 1787), Ed.
Williams, Jenkin Lewis, George Lewis, D.D. (d. 1822), etc.
Bedworth I690—(?). Tutors, Julius Saunders and John Kirk-
patrick. -
Bethnal Green 1680(?)–1696(?). Migratory (Highgate, Clerk-
enwell). Tutors, John Kerr, M.D. Students, Samuel
Palmer, etc. -
Bridgenorth I726–1740 (?). Tutor, Fleming, who removed
to Stratford-on-Avon (No. 29) when John Alexander
went to Dublin. -
Bridgewater (?)-1747. Tutor, John Moore, M.A. (d. 1747).
Bolton I723–1729. Tutor, John Barclay, M.A.
Bristol 1720—(?). First Baptist Academy. Tutor, Foskett,
continued the work of Ed. Terril and Caleb Tope.
Carmarthen I700–present day. Migratory (Llwynllwyd,
Haverford West, etc., Carmarthen, and probably con-
tinuation of Brynllwarch : see No. 3, Period I). Tutors,
Wm. Evans, Thos. Perrot (under whom were about 150
pupils) (d. 1733 or 1734), Vavasor Griffiths, Evans Davis,
etc.
Exeter (about) I700–1722. Tutor, Joseph Hallet. Academy
declined and was closed because of a subscription
quarrel.
Findern (?)-1754, afterwards at Derby. Tutors, Thomas
Hill (d. I'720), Samuel Latham, M.D. (d. 1754).
Gosport I789–(?). Tutor, David Bogue, M.A. 1800 the
Missionary Society placed their missionaries under
Bogue for preparation.
Gloucester I696–(?). Tutor, James Forbes (d. 1712).
Hungerford I696–17OI (?). Tutor, Benjamin Robinson, edu-
cated at Sheriffhales (d. 1722 or 1724).
A//endix / I4 I
I6.
I7.
I8.
I9.
2O.
2.I.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
Hoxton Square 1700–1729 (?), removed to Hoxton Square
from Coventry (see No. 4, Period I). Tutors, Joshua
Oldfield, D.D., John Spodeman, M.A., Lorimer,
M. Capel.
Heckmondwyke I756, merged in Rotherham College.
Tutors, James Scott (d. 1783), Samuel Walker, etc.
Idle 18oo, merged in Airedale. Tutor, Wm. Vint. 1886
Rotherham and Airedale became Yorkshire United
College, Bradford.
Ipswich I698–1734(?). Tutor, John Langton (d. I704).
Kendal 1733–1752. Tutor, Dr Caleb Rotherham.
Lyme Regis or Colyton I690, removed to Shepton Mallet and
then to Poole. Tutors, John Short, Matthew Towgood.
London (various parts) 1696–1744 supported by Fund
Board. Migratory (Pinner, Moorfields: see Newington
Green, No. 24, Period II). Tutors, Thos. Goodwin, Isaac
Chauncey, M.A., M.D., Thos. Ridgley, D.D., John Eames,
F.R.S., Jos. Densham.
Manchester 1698–1710 (?), countenanced by and promised
support from the Lancashire ministers. Tutors, John
Chorlton (d. I705), John Conningham, M.A. Students,
J. Clegg, etc.
Newington Green I730–1744–1850, established by King’s
Head Society. Migratory (Deptford, Stepney, Addle
Street (whither it removed in 1744 after having joined
the Fund Board Academy [No. 22, Period II]), Mile End,
Homerton), now represented by New College, London.
Tutors, Abraham Taylor, D.D., Samuel Parsons, John
Hubbard after I744, Zephaniah Marryat, D.D., John
Conder, D.D., etc. (see Northampton, No. 26, Period II).
Newport Pagnell I783, merged in Cheshunt (?). Tutors,
W. Bull, J. Bull, M.A., J. Watson, W. Foggart.
Northampton I715 (?), represented by New College,
London. Migratory (started at Kibworth under John
Jennings, moved to Hinkley, Harborough, and in 1729
to Northampton. After 1752 to Daventry, back to
Northampton, Wymondley, Byng Place, and 1850
merged in New College, London). Tutors, John Jennings
I42
A//endix /
27.
28.
29.
3O.
3I.
32.
(d. 1723), Philip Doddridge, D.D., Caleb Ashworth,
Thos. Robins, Thos. Belsham, John Horsey, Wm. Parry,
etc.
Ottery St Mary 1752–(?), started by Congregational Fund
Board, now represented by Bristol. Migratory (Brid-
port, Taunton, Exeter, Plymouth, Bristol). Tutors,
J. Lavington, James Rooker, Thomas Reader, James
Small, etc.
Saffron Walden I680—(?). Tutor, John Payne, assisted by
Fund Board when the latter was first started.
Stratford-on-Avon I715 (?) at Gloucester. (?) Tutors, John
Alexander, who I729 went to Dublin; John Fleming, who
had begun an academy at Bridgenorth (1726–1727), then
went to Stratford.
Tiverton (?)—(?). Tutor, John Moor (d. 1740).
Tewkesbury I680 (Gloucester) to 1719, moved to
Tewkesbury in 1712. Tutor, S. Jones (d. 1719 or I720).
Students, Secker, Chandler, Butler, etc.
Warvington I700–1746. Tutor, Charles Owen, D.D. (d.
I746).
33. Wellclose Square I744–1785, removed to Hoxton in I762.
34.
I
Tutors, Samuel M. Savage, D.D., David Jennings, D.D.,
Andrew Kippis, D.D., Abraham Rees, D.D., F.R.S.
Whitehaven I7Io—1723. Tutor, Thos. Dixon, M.A., M.D.
Students, John Taylor (at Warrington, No. 3, Period III),
Geo. Benson, Caleb Rotherham. Removed to Bolton
1723–1729 (?). (See No. 8, Period II.)
ACADEMIES OF THIRD PERIOD.
Exeter 1760–1786. Tutors, Samuel Merivale, Michah Tow-
good, John Turner, John Hogg, Thos. Jervis. Students
(see Appendix No. V).
London I760—(?). Tutor, Samuel Pike, ‘a less literary semi-
nary but it continued only for a few years.”
Warrington I757–1783. Library moved to Manchester
New College, I783; other removals, York (1803), Man-
chester, London, now represented by Manchester College,
A//endix // I43
Oxford. Tutors, Dr Taylor, Dr Aikin, J. Holt, J. Priest-
ley, LL.D., Wm. Enfield, etc.; at Manchester, Thos.
Barnes, D.D., George Walker, F.R.S., John Dalton,
D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., Ralph Harrison, etc.; and at
York, Charles Wellbeloved, Hugh Kerr, M.A., etc.
Students (see Appendix No. V). -
APPENDIX II
COURSE AT KIBWORTH UNDER REV. JOHN JENNINGS
Source. Letter from Ph. Doddridge (student) to Rev.
Saunders, 1728: “Our course of Education at Kibworth was the
employment of four years and every half year we entered upon
a new set of studies or at least changed the time and Order of
our lectures.’
Year Subject Lectures Notes on Books and Method
per week
Ist Geometry 3 Barrow’s Euclid Book I and then started
half- or Algebra (a) fundamental opera-
year • tions, Algebra and | System drawn
arithmetic ; up by Jen-
(b) reduction of equa- nings.
tions.
“ Under every head we had demonstration
as well as practical rules.”
Hebrew 2 Bythner's Grammar.
Geography I Gordon's Geog. ‘Lecture only an exami-
nation of the account which we could
give of the most remarkable passages.”
French I Boyer's Grammar.) “Without regarding
pronunciation with
Familiar phrases which Mr Jennings
and dialogues. was not acquainted.’
Latin I Selections from Suetonius, Tacitus, Seneca,
(I hr.) etc., and especially Cicero.
Method. Ist to read Latin according to
grammatical order of the words and
then render it into as elegant English
as we could.
I44
A//endix //
Year
Ist
half-
year
2nd
half-
year
3rd
half-
year
Subject Lectures Notes on Books and Method
per week
Classical I Latin-English, English-Latin, many pass-
Exercises (I hr.) ages in Spectator and Tatler, both
serious and humorous.
Geometry 2 Euclid Books III, IV, and VI.
and
Algebra
Logic 2 Burgesdicius in about six lectures. Mr Jen-
ning’s system, ‘a great deal of which
was taken from Mr Locke.’
Civil 2 Puffendorf's Intro. to Hist.) , W d
continuation and his ****
we did Gor-
History of Asia, Africa * ..." – ?
don,’ i.e. in
and America. } e
History of England. private, and
Dupin’s Compendium. were ques-
Spanheim’s Elenchus. tioned at the
lecture.
King’s Constitution, etc. J
French 2 Telemachus.
Selections from Bourdeleau’s sermons.
‘Perhaps, if we had tasted a greater
variety of authors it had better
answered our end.”
Latin I Virgil, Horace, Terence, Lucretius, Juve-
Poets and mal, Plautus, etc.
exercises
Hebrew I
Oratory and I Oratory exercises. ‘Bacon's Essays often
exercises of used, and our exercises were a kind of
reading and Comment upon Some remarkable sen-
delivery tences they contained.”
Mechanics 2 System on lever, screw, pulley, wedge, etc.
Hydro- 2 Abridgment of some of Mr Eames’s
statics lectures.
Physics 2 Le Clerc's system.
Greek I Theocritus, Homer, Pindar, “I do not
Poets remember that we ever read in our
public course any Greek History,
oratory or philosophy.’
A//endix // I45
Year Subject Lectures Notes on Books and Method
per week
3rd History of I Browne’s 2 vols., ‘which in the main
half- England were very good.’
year Anatomy I Eames's in English. “We took in the
collateral assistance of Nievwentyt,
Reil and Cheselden.’
Use of I Jones.
Globes
Astronomy Il Mr Jennings’ system printed amongst
Chronology I' his Miscellanies.
Miscellanies I Short sketches of Fortification, Heraldry,
Architecture, Psalmody, Physiognomy,
Metaphysics, etc.
* e in Eng- e g
Logical I | Piºn. *** | Neither in a syllo-
Disputations Thesis in Latin. gistic form.
‘One of the class made the thesis, each of
the rest read an exercise either in
prose or verse, English or Latin. I
think English orations were the most
common and turned, I believe, to the
best account.”
4th Pneumatology 2 Mr Jennings. ‘This with our divinity,
half- which was a continuation of it, was
year by far the most valuable part of our
course. Mr Jennings had bestowed a
vast deal of thought upon them and
his discourses from them in the lecture
room were admirable.”
Physics
Miscellanies I
Jewish An- 2 Abridgment of Mr Jones's (Tewkesbury)
tiquities notes on Godwin with some very
curious and important additions.
5th Ethics 2 Grotius.
half- Puffendorf.
year Wollaston's Religion of Nature Delineated.
Critics I Abridgment of Mr Jones's.
Pneumatolo- I
gised disputation
P. D. A. IO
146
A//endix //
Year
6th
half-
year
7th
half-
year
8th
half-
year
Subject
Divinity
Christian
Antiquities
Miscellanies
Homily
Divinity
Ecclesiasti-
cal History
Sermon
Theological
Disputation
Divinity
History of
Controversies
Miscellanies
Theological
Disputation
ILectures
per week
3
I
:
I
Notes on Books and Method
Sir Peter King's Constitution of the Primi-
tive Church with The Original Draught
in answer to it.
“Of a Thursday night.”
Dupin's Compendium—‘very defective in
places.’
‘On art of preaching and pastoral care
Mr Jennings gave us very excellent
advice, and some valuable hints on
the head of Nonconformity.’
*
Spanheim’s Elenchus.
Vol. II—a brief historical account of
ancient philosophy.
‘We preached this last half year, either
at home or abroad as occasion required
and towards the beginning of it were
examined by a committee of neigh-
bouring ministers to whom that office
was assigned at a preceding general
meeting.’
A//endix /// I47
APPENDIX III
DISCIPLINE IN DISSENTING ACADEMIES
Rules of Doddridge's Academy.
Source. A History of Castle Hill Church, Northampton,
contains a copy of the original manuscript book now at New
College, London.
Extracts from the rules are given below.
Constitution, Orders and Rules relating to the Academy at
Northampton agreed upon by the Tutors and the several
members of it in December 1740 and then established as the
future conditions of Admission into the Academy or continuance
in it.
SECTION I. OF ACADEMICAL STUDIES.
I. Ist year. Translations from Latin into English and
vice versa as appointed by the Tutors to be showed them at the
day and hour appointed and in the last three months of the
year orations are to be exhibited in Latin and English alter-
nately every Thursday which is also to be the time of the
following exercises.
2. In first half of second year these orations are to be
continued and in the latter part of the year each is in his turn
to exhibit a Philosophical Thesis or Dissertation.
3. In third year Ethical Theses or Dissertations are to be
exhibited weekly as above and toward the end of this year and
during the fourth, Theological.
4. The Revolution of these is to be so adjusted that every
student may compose at least six orations, Theses or Disserta-
tions before the conclusion of his fourth year.
5. All subjects to be disputed upon are to be given out
with the names of the Respondent and opponent—at least as
soon as the Academy meets after the long vacation and at
Christmas and, if possible, before the vacation.
6. The absence of the Tutor is not to occasion the omission
of any of these exercises. . . etc.
IO-2
I48 A//endix ///
7. Exercises are to be first written in a paper book, then
reviewed and corrected by one of the Tutors, after that, fairly
transcribed and after they have been exhibited in the manner
which shall be appointed, a fair copy of them, with the author's
name annexed, shall be delivered to the Tutor.
8. Two sermons on given subjects to be composed by
every theological student in his eighth half year to be read over
by him in the class and having been there corrected to be
preached in the family if the student does not propose preach-
ing in public before he leave the Academy, and besides these,
at least six schemes of other sermons on given texts are to be
exhibited in the class during the fourth year by each student.
9. If any student continue a fifth year he is to compose
at least one sermon and exhibit two schemes every quarter
whether he do or do not preach in public. Besides which
he is this fifth year to exhibit and defend two large
Theological theses. . . .
Io. Four classics viz.: one Greek and one Latin poet and
one Greek and one Latin prose writer as appointed by the
Tutor are to be read by each student in his study and observa-
tions are to be written upon them to be kept in a distinct book,
and communicated to the Tutor whenever he shall think fit.
II. Each student of the upper class may be allowed to
propose a difficult scripture to the Principal Tutor every
Thursday to be discussed by him the next Thursday. But it
will be expected that the person proposing them write some
memorandum of the solution. . . etc.
I2. . . . each Theological Pupil will be expected to write,
either at meeting or afterward. . . . Hints of all the Sermons he
hears, to be examined by the Tutor. ... etc.
I3. On the four Thursdays preceding the long vacation,
the whole Academy is to meet at ten in the morning and all
the forenoon is to be spent in the examination of Students. . . .
And on the first of these days Disputations shall be held by
the two upper classes in the Presence of the Juniors that they
may learn by example the method of Disputation... etc.
I4. In case of a total neglect of preparing an appointed
exercise sixpence is to be forfeited to the box. . . .
A//endix /// I49
SECTION II. OF ATTENDANCE ON FAMILY PRAYER AND
LECTURE AT APPOINTED TIMEs.
I. Every Student boarding in the House is to be present at
the calling over the names in the great parlour at IO minutes
after six in the morning or to forfeit a penny.
2. Family Prayer is to begin in the morning at eight
o'clock and in the evening at seven. . . and every one absenting
himself from either. . . is to forfeit two pence.
3. Every student is to be ready for Lecture. . . within five
minutes of the Hour fixed for the beginning. . . or to forfeit
two pence, and if Lecture be entirely neglected and no reason
can be assigned which the Tutor (who is always to be the judge
of such reasons) shall think sufficient, he is to be publicly
reproved at the next meeting of the whole Society, and if the
neglect be repeated within a month he is to have some extra-
ordinary exercise appointed as the Tutor shall think fit.
4. Each Pupil, after he hath entered on the second half
year of his course, shall take his turn at family prayer in the
evening . . . etc.
5. . . . nor shall a change of turns be permitted without the
Tutor’s express leave.
6. If the person whose turn it is to go to Prayer in the
evening absent himself and have not procured another to
officiate for him he shall forfeit sixpence or take his turn twice
together... etc.
SECTION III. OF THE HOURS, PLACE AND ORDER OF MEALs.
I. The time of breakfast is to be from the end of family
prayer till 5 minutes before Ten.
2. It is to be eaten either in the Hall or the great
parlour, a blessing having first been asked by the senior Pupil
present at each table if the Assistant Tutor be not at one of
them.
3. They that choose tea in the morning may either break-
fast with the Tutor in his parlour, or at the other tea board
in the great parlour, each, in that case, providing his own tea
and sugar in a just proportion as the company shall agree.
I 50 A//endix ///
4. Dinner is to be set on the table precisely at two when
every student is to be in the Hall before the blessing... and
not to leave the room till thanks be returned.
5. Supper is to be eaten in the Hall between the conclusion
of evening prayer and 9 o'clock. ... etc.
6. Neither breakfast, dinner nor supper is to be carried
into any room, besides that appointed for the family meal,
except in case of sickness... etc.
7. As making toasts and butter and toasting cheese has
been found to be more expensive than can conveniently be
afforded on the usual terms here, that custom is to be disused
except by the Parlour boarders.
SECTION IV. OF SHUTTING UP THE GATE
AND RETIRING TO BED.
I. The gate is to be locked every night at ten and the key
is to be brought to the Tutor or his Assistant and every Pupil
who comes in after that time is to forfeit two pence for every
quarter of an hour that he hath exceeded ten.
2. If any one go out of the house without express per-
mission, after the gate is locked, he is to pay One shilling for
such offence and should any one get into the house irregularly
after the door is locked he and each person assisting him in
such irregular entry must expect that immediate information
will be sent to his friends.
3. If any pupil procure a key for the gate he shall not only
forfeit it as soon as discovered but be fined two shillings and
sixpence. .
4. If any one keep a guest beyond half an hour past ten
he shall forfeit for every quarter of an hour which such guest
stays as if he had stayed abroad himself.
5. If any one stay out all night and do not the next day
of his own accord take an opportunity of acquainting the
Tutor or assistant with it and giving reason for so extra-
ordinary a conduct, he must expect that if it afterward come
to the Tutor's knowledge an immediate complaint will be
A//endix /// I5 I
lodged with his friends without any previous notice taken of it
to him.
6. An Account is to be brought to the Tutor every
Saturday morning by the person who has kept the key the
preceding week, of every one who has been let in during that
time after ten o’clock.
SECTION V. RULES RELATING TO THE
CHAMBERS AND CLOSETS.
I. That the Chambers and Closets be chosen by persons
paying the same price according to the seniority of classes. . .
etc.
3. . . . . . .
4. That if Windows be broke, furniture wantonly de-
molished or any other hurt be done to the House by the fault
of any of the pupils the repair. ... be charged to the person by
whom it is done. N.B. This extends to the instruments of the
apparatus and even to any detriment which may arise to them
by the carelessness... etc.
SECTION VI. RULES RELATING TO THE LIBRARY.
I. Every pupil is to pay a guinea to the Library when he
enters on the second year of his course if he propose to go
through the whole ; but if he purpose to stay only two years
he is to pay but half a guinea and that from the time he enters
on the second half year.
2—IO. Ordinary rules for borrowing and returning books.
SECTION VII. RULES RELATING TO THE
OFFICE OF THE MONITOR.
I. Every Academical student in the Family is to be monitor
in his turn excepting only the Senior Class for the time being,
and if any of them shall, in his turn, choose to officiate as
monitor his assistance shall be thankfully accepted.
I52 A//endºw ///
2. The monitor is to call up every student at six o'clock
in the morning, winter and summer, Vacation times Only
excepted, and having rung the bell twice at ten minutes after
six is to call over all the names, distinguishing on his bill those
who are absent and for every quarter of an hour for which he
delays he is to forfeit two pence. He is also to call over his
list before morning and evening prayer as above, as also before
all Lectures appointed for the whole Academy, together, and
if he fail to do it. . . he is to forfeit sixpence for every such
failure.
3. He is to review the Library on Saturday at 3 in the
afternoon and to call over the catalogue of the books wanting,
according to Section VI. No. 7, under a forfeiture of a shilling
and he is to see that a pen and ink be left in the Library for
public use.
4. He is to lay up the Bibles and Psalm books after prayer
in the cupboard... and as an acknowledgment for that trouble
is to claim one farthing for every one who shall neglect to bring
his Psalm book with him at those times, if he choose generally
to keep it in his closet.
5. The monitor is to have an eye on the door to see whether
any one goes out during divine service and to inform the Tutor
of it and is to send the junior pupil present to call the Tutor
if in the House as soon as he begins to call over the names.
SECTION VIII. RULES RELATING TO CONDUCT
ABROAD.
I. No student is to go into a Publick House to drink
there on penalty of a public censure for the first time and the
forfeiture of a shilling the second ; unless some particular
occasion arise which shall, in the judgment of the Tutor, be
deemed a sufficient reason.
2. No One is to begin a P.M. at any place in the town with-
out the knowledge and approbation of the Tutor.
3. If any one spread reports abroad to the dishonour of
the family or any member of it he must expect a public reproof
and to hear a caution given to others to beware of placing any
confidence in him.
A//endix /// I 53
SECTION IX. MISCELLANEOUs RULES NOT COMPREHENDED
JNDER THE FORMER SECTIONS.
3. When the small pecuniary fines here appointed evi-
dently appear to be despised, they will be exchanged for some
extraordinary exercises, which, if they are not performed, must
occasion complaint to the Friends of the student in question ;
for the intent of these laws is not to enrich the box at the
expense of those who are determined to continue irregular but
to prevent any from being so.
5. Accounts with the Tutor are to be balanced twice a
year and all bills from tradesmen, if such there be, are to be
delivered in to the Tutor by the persons from whom they are
due, at the seasons at which they respectively know their
accounts are to be made up.
6. No student is to board abroad unless at the desire and
under the direction of the tutor. And those who do so board
abroad are, nevertheless, to attend family prayers and lectures
at the appointed times.
7. The news bought for the use of the family is to be paid
for out of the box.
8. . . . . . .
9. In the absence of the Principal Tutor the Assistant
Tutor is to be regarded as his deputy... etc.
Io. . . . If any gentlemen, not intended for the ministry
... take up their abode amongst us, whatever their rank in
life be, it is expected and insisted upon that they govern them-
selves by these rules, excepting those which directly relate to
exercises preparatory to the ministry. . . etc.
P. DoDDRIDGE, D.D. Dec. IOth, I743.
T. BRABANT.
We whose names are hereunto subscribed do hereby declare
Our Acquiescence in these Constitutions, Orders and Rules as
the terms of our respective Admission into or continuance in
the Academy at Northampton. -
Then follow 63 signatures.
I 54 tº A//endix //
APPENDIX IV
WARRINGTON (PERIOD III) LIBRARY
Source. ‘Select Catalogue of Books in the Library belong-
ing to the Warrington Academy,’ printed by Eyres for the
academy in 1775. *
The catalogue is arranged under subjects as follows:
I. Greek and Roman Classics, 70 titles (separate volumes
not counted).
Translations, Ig.
Dictionaries, Grammars (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French,
Italian), 36—among which are Priestley's Grammar,
Seddon's Lectures on Grammar, Ward's Essays on the
English Language.
4. Biography, 50. The following, chosen at random, ex-
hibit a catholic taste: Lives of the Professors of Gresham
College—Lives of the Philosophers, Voltaire's Charles XII,
Cromwell, Pope Sextus V, Mahomet, Ignatius, Sully,
Descarles, Memoires de Philippe de Commines.
5. History, Chronology, Geography, Voyages, Travels, 82.
This list is interesting as showing what means the
students had of reading in these modern subjects and is
therefore given in full (see next page).
6. Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, etc., 81.
7. Politics, Commerce and Law, 40.
8. Sermons, 41.
9. Morals and Metaphysics, 25.
Io. Evidences of Christianity and Ecclesiastical History, 67.
II. Theological and Scripture Criticism, 85.
12. Miscellanies, 78 (given in full).
s
A//endix // I 55.
Complete List of Books in Section 5—History,
Geography, etc.
Rircheri's Chinae Historia.
Purchas's Pilgrim, 5 vols.
Prideaux's Introduction to History.
History of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Thuani Historia, 4 vols.
Macaulay's History of England, 4 vols.
Hume's History of England, 8 vols.
Vertot's Roman Revolution, 2 vols.
Fresnoy on History, 2 vols.
Ludlow's Memories, 3 vols.
Buonamici's Commentaries on the Wars of Italy.
Swift's Memoirs of the four last years of Queen Anne.
Strauchius's Chronology.
Holberg's Introduction to Universal History, by Sharp.
Methodus Legendi Historiae, A. Wheer.
Philips's Account of Malabar.
Bernier's History of the Empire of the Great Mogul.
Mainbourgh’s Histoire de la Décadence de l'Empire après.
Charlemagne.
Fontenelle's History of Sweden.
Spon’s History of Germany.
Nicholson's English Historical Library.
Ricaut's History of Peru.
Le Bruyn's Travels.
Raleigh's History of the World.
Newton’s Chronology.
Hooke's Roman History, 4 vols.
Buchanani opera, 2 vols.
Robertson's History of Scotland, 2 vols.
History of Charles II, 3 vols.
Bacon's History of Henry VII.
Rapin’s History of England, 21 vols.
La Motte's Animadversion upon ancient Historians.
Puffendorf’s History of Sweden.
Introduction to History, 3 vols.
I56 A//endix //
De Wit's Republic of Holland.
Savage's History of Germany.
Sprat's History of the Royal Society.
Bolingbroke on the Study of History.
Temple's Works.
Pitt's History of the Mahometans.
Montesquieu's Reflections on Rome.
Josephus’s Works, 6 vols.
Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg.
Malley's Observations on the Romans.
‘Gleidanus de quatuor Imperiis.
Magna Charta.
Davies's Introduction for History.
Martinii Historia.
Harris's Voyages and Travels, 2 vols.
Blair's Chronology.
Antient and Modern Universal History, 65 vols.
Goldsmith’s History of England, 4 vols.
Rennet's Roman Antiquities.
Potter's Antiquities of Greece.
Verenius's Geography, 2 vols.
Lockman's Jesuit, travels, 2 vols.
Memoirs of Pollnitz, 4 vols.
Geographia Classica.
Gage's Survey of the West Indies.
Burnet’s Travels through Italy and Switzerland.
Warwick’s Memoirs of Charles II.
History of the East Indies.
Ray's Travels through the Low Countries, 2 vols.
Jennings on the Use of Globes.
Bacon’s History of England.
Stowe's Survey of London.
History of Switzerland.
History of Denmark.
History of Sweden.
Reign of James I, by Overbury.
Rollin's Antient History, Io vols.
Letters on History of English, 2 vols.
A//endix // I 57
Pomponius Mela de Situ Orbis.
Reign of Richard II.
Hayward’s Reign of Edward VI.
Ray’s Journey through Germany, Italy and France.
Les Voyages de Tavernier, 2 vols.
Campbell's Present State of Europe.
La Houtan’s Voyages to North America, 2 vols.
Herrira's History of America, 6 vols.
Marigny’s History of the Arabians, 4 vols.
Lyttelton's Life of Henry II, 6 vols.
Miscellanies.
Gil Blas, 4 vols.
Shakespeare's Works, 9 vols.
Tales of a Tub.
Osborne's Works.
Bacon’s Remains.
Batteaux’s Principes de la Littérature, 5 vols.
Oeuvres de Rapin, 3 vols.
Oeuvres de Fontenelle, 2 vols.
Oeuvres de Boileau, 3 vols.
Clerici ars critica.
Dodsley's Poems, 6 vols.
Gray's Poems.
Prior’s Poems, 2 vols.
Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, 2 vols.
Pope's Works, 6 vols.
Thomson's Works, 4 vols.
|Baker's Medalla, Portarum Romanorum, 2 vols.
Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination.
Boileau's Works, 2 vols.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Hudibras.
Bruyère's Works, 2 vols.
Letters concerning Mythology.'
Ray's English Proverbs.
Chaucer’s Tales.
Hughes's Miscellany.
I 58 A//endix //
Dryden's Fables,
Occasional Papers, 2 vols.
Shaftesbury's Characteristics.
Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead.
Reflections on Poetry and Painting.
Kain's Elements of Criticism, 3 vols.
Fordyce's Dialogues on Education.
Mrs Montague's Remarks on the Writings and Genius of
Shakespeare.
Rapin’s Critical Works, 2 vols.
Young's Love of Fame.
Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty.
Middleton's Works, 4 vols.
Sheridan on Elocution.
Hill's Review of the Royal Society.
Boffu on Epic Poetry.
Lettres du Voiture.
Waller’s Poems.
Instructive Histories, 2 vols.
Spence on Pope's Odyssey.
Cato's Letters, 4 vols.
Erasmus's Apothegms of the Antients, 2 vols.
Independent Whig, 4 vols.
The Guardian, 2 vols.
Addison’s Miscellanies, 4 vols.
Freeholder.
Private Life of the Romans.
Goldsmith’s Essays.
Hurd's Commentaries on Horace, 3 vols.
Webb on Poetry.
Gerard on Taste.
Spectator, 8 vols.
World, 4 vols.
Philips's Poems.
Mason’s Poems.
Wharton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope.
FitzOsborne's Letters.
Burke on Sublime and Beautiful.
A//endix / I 59
Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead.
Harris's Treatises on Art, Music, Painting and Poetry, Happi-
IlêSS.
Rice on Reading.
Letters concerning Taste.
Ward's Oratory, 2 vols.
Swift's Miscellany, 2 vols.
Congreve's Works, 2 vols.
Cambray on Eloquence
Nourfe's Essays.
Locke's Familiar Letters.
Halifax's Works.
Cousinus de Eloquentia.
Peddon's Lectures on Oratory, Ms., 2 vols.
Blount's Remarks on Poetry.
Cowley's Works.
APPENDIX V
STUDENTS AT WARRINGTON (PERIOD III)
Source. List of Students in Monthly Repository, Vol. Ix,
Total Number, I757–1782, is 393 (see table p. I60).
Entered for Law tº e tº e © tº 22
2 3 ,, Medicine e - e & 24
> y ,, Divinity tº e - © 52
3 y ,, Commerce e Լ - - 98
Course not specified . . e e . . I97
* Commerce ’ seems to indicate merchants, bankers, etc. ;
brewers, shopkeepers—all ‘tradesmen are among the “un-
Specified ' and also many who entered the army and some
who were ‘country gentlemen.” These had a good ‘general'
education.
I6O A//endix /
STUDENTS AT ExETER (I'76O PERIOD III)
Source. Ms. in Dr Williams's Library.
Total Number on list is 93. Among those whose calling is
given are
attorneys or barristers.
ministers".
physicians.
merchants or ‘trade.”
navy or navy office men.
esquires.
I2
apothecaries.
army men.
Table showing number of students entered for various causes in
different years at Warrington, I757–1782.
Year Medicine Law Divinity Commerce Unspecified Total
I757 I *-*. I 3 *º- 5
I758 3 * 3 6 6 I8
I759 I I 5 2 7 I6
1760 I smºmºmºmº 2 5 4. I 2
1761 I 3 2 7 4. I7
1762 º * 4. 4. I 9
I763 2 emºsºmºs, I 4. 4. II
I764 I ** *E* I2 5 I8
I765 2 *-* I II 8 22
1766 * ==== gºmºsºmº I 5 9 I5
1767 * * I * 8 9
1768 g-º I 2 5 8 I6
1769 ** 2 3 6 7 I8
1770 I *e 2 * 5 8.
I77I - 2 “msºs 5 I3 2O
1772 2 I I 3 I6 23
I773 I * 2 I 3 7
I774 *º 2 3 2 5 I 2
#! 2 4. 3 3 II 23
1777 3 &===º Ö 3 II 23
1778 ºmsºme 3 2 9 I3 27
I779 * 3 I I I8 23
1780 *-* I 3 I I4. I9
1781 I I 3 *E* 9 I4
1782 *-*E* ºmº *-* * 8 8
22 24 52 98 I97 393
* A list in the Monthly Repository, Vol. XIII. is different ; I2
ministers are mentioned and only 49 names are given.
A//endix // I6 I
APPENDIX VI
PRIESTLEY'S SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY OF HISTORY
AND GEOGRAPHY
Source. Miscellaneous works containing Essay on Educa-
tion and Syllabuses of lectures in History given at Warrington.
The following extracts from Priestley’s syllabuses show his
treatment of History in his lectures.
III.
IV.
SYLLABUs of COURSE OF LECTURES ON THE
STUDY OF HISTORY.
General Uses of history.
Sources of history in oral traditions, poems, monuments,
coins, Heraldry, use of archives, books not properly
history, language.
What is necessary or useful to be known previous to the
Study of History—philosophical knowledge in general,
Geography, Chronology, methods of the estimation
of riches and power of ancient nations—money values
etc.
Directions for facilitating the study of history—Compen-
diums, Chronology, tables, Sturt's tables, Chart,
History of biography, Fortifications explained—
model cut in wood.
Order in which histories may be read and method of studying
English History—Gildas, Bede, Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth, Matthew Paris, R. Higden, Froissart, Thomas
of Walsingham, William Caxton, John Ross, Robert
Fabian. . . Hollingshead. . . Clarendon, Whitlock and
Ludlow, Burnet, Rapin, Hume, Robertson, Histories
of particular lives and reigns—of William the Con-
queror, by William of Poictiers; Edward II, by
Thomas de la More ; Henry V, by Titus Livius ;
. D. A.
II
I62
A//endix //
Edward IV, by Haddington ; Edward V, by Sir
Thomas More ; Henry VII, by Sir Francis Bacon ;
Henry VIII, by Lord Herbert of Cherbury; Edward
VI’s own diary; Elizabeth, by Camden. Lives
written by Harris and others, Ecclesiastical writers,
Burnet's History of the Reformation, Cranmer's
Memorials, Littleton and Coke; Year Books; Reports;
records; proclamations.
VI. . The most important objects of attention to a Reader of
History—Biography—cause and effect should be
noted in all changes of human affairs. Ancient and
European History ; English History ; most interest-
ing periods in the history of Literature and Arts
from earliest antiquity to the present time; History
of Commerce; government despotism ; advantages
of democracy. English government traced from the
constitution of the ancient German States. . . . How
feuds became hereditary. ... how the clergy became
an essential part of the state. . . method of
administering justice. . . . Feudal system. . . . Rise of
Corporations. . . . Decline of Feudalism not equal in
all parts. . . . Expenses of government... necessity of
attention to agriculture. . . fisheries. . . balance of
trade—interfering of the legislature in commerce—
Navigation Acts ; use of colonies; uniformity of
weights and measures ; dreadful consequence of a
total depravity of manners ; Gaming ; Education ;
food; dress and habitation; ramparts; methods of
fighting, etc.
“Together with the study of history, I would
advise that more attention be given to Geography
than I believe is generally given to it; particularly to
... commercial geography, exhibiting the state of
the world with respect to commerce, pointing out
the most advantageous situations for carrying it on;
and more especially noting those articles in the
Natural History of countries which are, or may be,
the proper subjects of commerce. This branch of
A//endix // I63
knowledge is as yet very much confined. We are
probably strangers to some of the most useful pro-
ductions of the earth on which we live, but a general
attention once excited to the subject by teaching it
to youth in all places of liberal education would be
the best provision for extending it. . . . . . a knowledge
of chemistry is absolutely necessary to the extension
of this useful branch of Science (commercial geo-
graphy).’
INDEX
‘A Light to Grammar. . . opening
the door thereunto' 38, 39
“A Gate to Sciences. . . creatures
there’ 38
Academies, Courtly I6, I7, 20,
53, I3
Dissenting—for separate Aca-
demies see under place
name; origin and growth
of etc. 46—56
I. Period, aims of and work
in 57, 58, 74, 75
II. Period, aims of and work
in 57, 75–77, IOI, I O2
III. Period, aims of and work
in 57, IO4
compared with Calvin’s Aca-
demy 53, 54 . . ...
compared with Universities
I32, I34
an educational system 46,
I24, I25, I36
influence of, on English
thought I26
development in 46, 63,
I27
rationalism in I25, 135
modern subjects in I33,
I 35
decline of I36
Puritan endeavours to pull
down 32, 33
Academy, meaning of term 51–
53
Calvin's 53
Milton's 34
Act of Uniformity 47
Five Mile 47, 57, 59, 63, 64
Toleration 65
* Advice of W. P. to Mr S. Hartlib
... Learning 35
Aikin, John 95, Ioë, IoS-II2
John, Jun. I2O
Algebra 78, 79, 86, 99
Anatomy Ig, 35, 69, 75, 78, II 2
Aristotle I8
Arithmetic Io, 36
Ashe, Rev. John, Life of 65, 67
Ashmolean Museum 75
Ashworth, Caleb 5I, 95, 96, Io9,
II 2
Astronomy Io, I 3, 15
Attercliffe Academy 77, 97
Bacon, Francis 20, 29, 30, 42, I34
Barnes, Dr I2O
Bates’ Case 49
Bathurst, Ralph 21
Beginnings, The, of the Teaching
of Modern Subjects in
England 23
Belles Lettres II2, II.4, II9
Benion, Samuel
Bethnal Green Academy 60
Book-keeping Io9
Botany IQ, 36
Bowles, John Ioo
Boyle, Robert 21
Butler, Joseph 96, 99,
I3O
Analogy I26
Button, Ralph 57
I26,
Calvin 24, 51, 52
Calvin’s Academy 53
Cambridge University,
Learning at I3
A Divinity School 14
Ecclesiastical atmosphere of 16
Ramism at 20
Greek at 20
Ciceronianism in 29
Chesterfield on 127
Chandler, Samuel 96, 99, 126
Chemistry IOA, II2, II 5
Club at Oxford 21
New
Index
I65
Chesterfield I29
Chorlton, Rev. 68, 69
Chorlton's Academy 51, 69,
I2 I
Ciceronianism I2, 18, 29, 39
Civil Law 16, II4, 129
Clarendon Code 43, 46, 47
Classical education required in
Academies 55
Classics I2, I3, 70, Io9
teaching of at Northampton
88, 89
Clegg, James 65, 67
Comenius, J. A. 20, 26–30, 36,
39, I34.
Commercial or business educa-
tion IoS, Io'7, 121
Committee of Protestant Dis-
senters 81
Commonwealth 4I, 42, 43
Oxford University during 128
Conatuum Comenianorum Prae-
ludia 28
Conformity legislation 44, 47,
48, 128
Congregational Fund Board 54,
6
7
‘Considerations. . . Accomplish-
ment... England’s Reforma-
tion’ 4o
Coward’s College 96
Cox's Case 50
Cromwell 34, 59, 64
Daventry Academy 95, 96, Io9,
II2, II3
‘Defence of Dissenting Educa-
tion in their private Acade-
mies in answer to Mr Wesley's
written reflections upon them ’
6O
Defoe 56, 60, 61, I:26
Discipline in Dissenting Acade-
mies 60, 84
‘Dissenting’ education 44, II 8
Divinity I6, 32, 55, 78, 87, Ioč
Doddridge, Philip 51, 76, 77, 80
et seq., 95, 96, IOI, IO2, II2,
I2 I
Douse's Case 50
Drawing 36, Io9
Durham, plan for University at
64
Dury, John 23, 26, 27, 40, 4I
Eames, John 97
Ecclesiastical proceedings against
Frankland 67
Education 34, 35, 38, 49, 53, Io.4
a ‘new’ 53, I 36
Commercial IO5, Io.7, 121
Commonwealth activity in 42
Dissenting 44, II 8
Practical 41
Priestley’s Essay on Io.4, II 5,
II6
Puritan concern for 24; de-
mand for reformed 43
Realistic, in Academies 133,
I35
Elements of Natural Philosophy
II.3
Elyot, Sir Thos. I5, 134
Enfield Dr Io9, IIg
Enfield’s Speaker and Exercises
Žn Elocution I2O
English I5, 20, 33, 76, 89, 9o,
. I O2
Composition at Sherriffhales
7I
Exercises in II. Period Acade-
mies 76
Grammar, Rudiments of II 3
Lectures at Newington Green
(2) 61 - -
Literature at Warrington III
the study and teaching of 4,
I7, IO4, II2, II.4, II 7
Erasmus I4, IS, 20
Essay on Human Understanding
II3
Essay on Pedantry 15
Ethics 55, 69, 75, I31, 132
Exeter Academy I21, 122
Fees at Kibworth Academy 79
at Northampton Academy 82
at Trinity College, Oxford 83
at Warrington Academy Ioé
Findern Academy 74
Five Mile Act 47, 57, 59, 63, 64
Fleming, Henry 74, 132
I66
Amedea:
Forster, J. Reinhold Io9, II2
Francke I35
Frankland, Richard 64 et seq.
French I7, 61, 63, 78, Io2, Iro,
II2, II4, II6, I33
Gale, Theophilus 62
The, Exhibition 62
‘Gate, a to Sciences. . . creatures
there 38
Geography 5, Io, I3, I5, 60, 63,
75, 78, 86, IO2, IO4, II2, II 7,
I3 -
Geometry (or Euclid) Io, 19, 20,
36, 78, 80, 86, 99, I31, 132
German (High Dutch) 17, II2,
I33
Gibbon, Edward 130
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey 16, 20, 53
‘Governour, Boke named the’ I 5,
I6
Grammar, teaching of English
II 7
influence of Ciceronianism on
Latin, I2, I3
Holmes' Latin II.7
the Oxford Latin 58
Priestley's Rudiments of
English II 3, II 7
Lowth's (English) 117
Universal, lectures on II.4
Schools—curriculum 3, 9 ;
methods 4; Church control
3, 50 ; Ciceronianism in I3;
decay of in 18th century
I27
Schools, St Paul’s, time-table
8; Decline of 127
Schools, Eton, time-table 6
Schools, Winchester, decline of
I27
Greek 5, I6, 55, 61, 63, 88, 89,
99, IIO, II2, II.4, I29
Gresham College 26, 42
Harley, Robert 71
Hartlib, Samuel 25, 26, 28 et seq.,
53, I34, I 35
Harvard College 62
Hebrew 5, 16, 55, 61, 63, 78, 98,
II.O, II2
Henry, Philip 73
Heywood, Oliver 68, 69
High Dutch (German) I7, II2,
I33
History 5, 13, I5, 36, 60, 63,
75, 87, IO2, IO4, II2, I33
‘History and Antiquities of
Dissenting Churches. . . in
London. . . . 49
of Castle Hill Church, North-
ampton 8o
Holt, John Ioff
Hood, Thos. 20
Hoole, Charles 38
Horne, Thos. 27
How, S. 33
“Humane Learning no help to
Spiritual... word of God’ 33
Humanism I4, I5, IQ, 52
Humanistic studies 36, I33
Hydrostatics 78
Islington (I) Academy 51, 63;
(2) Academy 63
Inspection, diocesan, of teachers
48
Italian 6I, 63, II2, II4, I.33
Janua Linguayum 27
Janua Rerum 28
Jennings, Rev. J. 77–79, 92, 96,
IOO
David 82
Jewish Antiquities
IOO
Jollie, Timothy 97, Ioo
55, 62, 78,
Ribworth Academy 76–79
Ring's Head Society 54
Rnells Academy 97
Rnox, John 53
Lancashire Nonconformity 93
Latin 3, 5, I6, 33, 34, 58, 61, 76,
78, 88, 89, 99, IIo, II2,
I3O
Grammar, the Oxford 58
Grammar, Holmes’ II.7
grammars, increase of I3
La Tour, M. Io9
Law II, I7, 32, 58, 7o. 8o
Mºdex
167
‘Letter from a country Divine
... on Education of Dissenters
in their private Academies. . .
nation' 59
Leyden University 97, 99
Licence, Bishop's, to teach 49, 50
‘Light, a, to Grammar. . . 38, 39
‘Likeliest means to. . . hirelings
. . . Church’ 33
Literary Workhouse 36
Locke, John 98, II.3, I25, I35
Logic 5, Io, I6, 55, 60, 63, 69,
75, 86, 98, I31
Manchester New College Io9, I2O
College, Oxford I2I
Mathematics I 8, 19, 20, 60, 63,
69, 76, 78, 97, 99, II9
Mechanics 78
Medicine II, IQ, 58, 7.0, I29 (see
also physic(k))
Mercer, Samuel, letter from 93
Merrivale, Samuel 95, I2I
Merton, Walter de Io
Metaphysics 55, 75
Milton, 31, 33, 34, 36, 71, 87,
I34
Modern Languages 61, Io9
(see also French, German,
Italian)
Montaigne I5, I34
Monthly Repository Io'7, IIo, II8
Moral philosophy I6, I7, IOG
More Short Ways with Dissenters
56
Morton, Charles 58–62
Mulcaster I34
Music Io, 22, 36
Natural history 5, Io9, II 2
philosophy I6, 55, 60, 75, 86,
IO6
Nature study 37
Newington Green (I) Academy
62, 63
(2) Academy 58, 6.2, 63, 69;
modern subjects at 63
Northampton Academy 77, 79–
96, IOI
Classics at 88, 89
Discussions at Io9
Northampton Academy, “Tutori-
als’ at 89, IO2
Object lessons 37
Oratory II.4
Orbis Pictus 37
Owen, James 73
Oxford Oath 66
Chemical Club at 21
Physic-garden at 21 -
University, Chesterfield on
I29; Ciceronianism in 29;
‘Determination' methods
I3O ; during Common-
wealth 34, I28; during
18th century 129; Mathe-
matics at 20 ; Magdalen
censured I30; Magdalen
syllabus for ‘Collections’
I31 ; Balliol censured
I30; Oriel censured 130 ;
H. Fleming at Queen's
74, I32 -
Pattison, Mark I:25
Perizonius, James 97
Petty, Sir Wm. 26, 34, 35, I34,
I35
Philosophical Criticism, lectures
On II.4
Pietists 135
Plato 51, 53
Pneumatology 78
Populay Education in
Britain 50
Priestley, Joseph 88, 9o, Io9,
IO4, Io9, II2–II9, I36
Puritans advocate modern sub-
jects I, 24, 31, 33, 53
Physic-garden I6, 21
Physic I6, I7, 32 (see also
Medicine)
Physics Ig, 69, 78, I31, 132
Quadrivium Io, II, I 3, 18, 52,
53, 63, 78, 86
Quakers 32, I22
Rabelais I5
Ramism IQ, 20
Ramus, Peter 17–20, 134
Great
I68
Index
Taylor, Dr Ioff, Io'7, 118
Tewkesbury Academy 96–IoI
Theology II, 70, 76
Theory of Languages II.4
Toleration Act 65 -
Tractate on Education 31, 52
Travels through Sicily Io9
Trivium g, Io, I8, 86
Turner, Dr II.5
Uniformity, Act of 46–48
Legislation I24
Unitarianism IoS, I26, 135
Universities, origin of 9
Course at IO
Church control I4
Ciceronianism in I4, I.33
compared with Academies I32,
I34 -
decline of, in 18th century I27
grants made by Parliament
to 4 I
Humanism in I33
Vacations 79
Vindication of Magdalen College
from the aspersions of My Gib-
bon. I31
Voyage Round the World Io9
Wakefield, Gilbert Io9, IIo
Walker, Rev. Geo. Io9, IIg, I2O
Wallis, J. 21
Warrington Academy Ios—I2O
Watts, Isaac 79, II 3
Wesley-Palmer Controversy 59
Wesley, Samuel 59–61, 63
West of England (Taunton) Aca-
demy I2I
Wharton, Lord 72
Wilkins, Dr 58
Witsius, Hermann 97
Wood, Antony 2I, 27, 32, 33,
52, I28
Woodhouse, John 69, 70, 72
Woodward, Hezekiah 23, 37, 39
Wren, Christopher 21
Rathmell Academy 63–69
Rationalism I25, I35 &
Realism 27, 37, 39, 42, I26
Realistic College in London,
plans for 29
Instruction, demand for 69
Realists 29
Reformed School 40, 41
Schoolmasters 41
‘Reforming' party in the schools
24
Religious test, absence of, in
Dissenting Academies 49
test required in later Dissent-
ing Academies I35
Renaissance I2–14
Restoration 43, 54, 64
Rhetoric 5, Io, I5, I6, 55, 69,86
Robinson Crusoe II 3
Rotherham, Caleb II6
Savile, Sir Henry 20
Schism Bill 72, Ioo
Science I8, 39, 61,63, 78, IO2, I34;
development of in England 20
Secker, Thos. 96, 97, 98, IOO
Seddon, J. IO 5, Io9, II2, II9
Sermon-writing 71
Sharp, Archbishop 66, 67
Sheriffhales Academy 69–71
Shorthand 92, II3
Shrewsbury Academy 72–74
Smith, Adam I 30
Sidney I 31
Social life in Dissenting Acade-
mies II 2
Society, the Royal 22, 41
Spanish I7, I.33
Stamford University 66
Sthael, Peter 21
St John, Henry 71
Studies subsidiary to Butler I26
Studies in Oxford History chiefly
£n the Eighteenth Century I29
Sturm 52
Tallents, Francis 72
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