early in the subsequent year, a Committee of Council was ap- . pointed to dispense the annual Government grant for education, and the amount was increased to 30,000l. a year. The next step was the establishment of Normal Schools under Government inspection. This was followed by the foundation of Training Schools and Colleges, for the education and training of Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses, by apprenticeship as pupilteachers, and other means. And to provide for the children of the destitute poor, "Ragged Schools" have been established with great success, the scheme commencing with a poor shoemaker at Portsmouth.

Lastly, in June, 1857, was held in London, under the Presidency of the Prince Consort, "A Conference of the Friends of the Education of the Working Classes, on the Early Age at which children are taken from School.”

164) were several youths afterward highly eminent, of whom I make special mention of James Abercromby, afterward Speaker of the House of Commons, now Lord Dunfermline; and Joseph Muter, subsequently recognized by the title of Sir Joseph Straton, one of the greatest benefactors of this University. Lord Brougham was 'dux' of the rector's class in 1791. I personally know how pre-eminently conspicuous at this University his attainments were, not in one or two branches of study, but in all to which his attention was directed, and particularly in mathematics and natural philosophy, as well as in law, in metaphysics, and in political science. Some of these shreds of information may not be familiarly known to every one, but I allude no further to a biography which is already, to a great extent, written in our national history." In a later portion of his address, the Principal, who himself entered the University as a pupil in 1794, enumerated the following as having been educated there, cotemporaneously with, or subsequently to, Lord Brougham :-Thomas M'Crie, the historian; George Cranstoun (Lord Corehouse), Mountstuart Elphinstone, Peter Roget, George Birkbeck, Sir David Brewster, Francis Horner, Henry Cockburn, Henry Petty (now Marquis of Lansdowne), John Leyden, Henry Temple (now Lord Palmerston), the Earl of Haddington, Lord Webb Seymour, Lord Dudley, the Earl of Minto, Lord Glenelg, Lord Langdale, and Lord John Russell.

SCHOOL-DAYS OF EMINENT MEN.

Anecdote Biographies.

TH

EARLY FORTUNES OF WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM.

THIS celebrated ecclesiastic, statesman, and architect, was born at Wykeham, or Wickham, in Hampshire, in 1324, of parents who, although poor, were of creditable descent, as well as of respectable character. He was put to school at Winchester, not by his father, who was without the means, but by some wealthy patron, who is traditionally said to have been Nicholas Uvedale, governor of Winchester Castle. The tradition further asserts, that after leaving school, he became Secretary to Uvedale; and that he was Secretary to the Constable of Winchester Castle is stated in a written account compiled in his own time. Afterward he is said to have been recommended by Uvedale to Edyngton, bishop of Winchester, and then by these two friends to have been made known to King Edward III. There seems to be no reason for supposing that he ever studied at Oxford, as has been affirmed. It is evident, indeed, that he had not received a university education, and that he never pretended to any skill in the favorite scholastic learning of his age. He is designated "clericus," or clerk, in 1352. It was, however, by his skill in architecture that Wykeham was, in the short space of 21 years, promoted to be Bishop of Winchester and Lord High Chancellor of these realms. Of the colleges which he built, that at Winchester has been renowned as a seat of learning through nearly five centuries, and its scholars have been known as Wykehamites. And when his growing honors required that Wykeham should adopt a coat of arms, he chose the famous motto:

Manners makyth Man,

which has been written upon the top-beam of our Tudor halls,

and has descended as household words from an age of feudalism to our own times of enlightened free-will.

WILLIAM CAXTON, THE FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER.

In the records of the boyhood and after-life of Caxton, which are chiefly to be gathered from his own hand, we obtain some interesting glimpses of the state of our language in the reigns of Henry V. and VI., before a single book had been printed in England. Caxton's birth is stated at about the year 1412, or, as he tells us: "I was born and learned mine English in Kent in the Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as in any place in England." His father, a proprietor of land, bestowed upon him all the advantages of education which that rude age could furnish; to which he refers with simple gratitude in his Life of Charles the Great, printed in 1485, wherein he says:

"I have specially reduced (translated) it after the simple cunning that God hath lent to me, whereof I humbly and with all my heart thank Him, and also am bounden to pray for my father's and mother's souls, that in my youth set me to school, by which, by the sufferance of God, I get my living I hope truly."

Half a century before Caxton's boyhood, the children in the grammar-school were not taught English at all, but French, so as to make the people familiar with Norman-French, the language of their conquerors; and it was the translating, or procuring to be translated, a great number of books from the French into English, as the latter became more employed, as well as the reduction of rude and broad English into the English of his time; and the reconciliation of the varieties of English spoken in different shires, and the simplification of " over curious terms "-which formed Caxton's business in after-life. Of his school-days we have no positive record. He was put apprentice to one Robert Large, a considerable mercer or merchant, of London. Books were now so costly that there was no special trade of bookselling; but the stationers probably executed orders for transcribing books. The mercers or merchants, in their traffic with other lands, were the agents by which valuable manuscripts found their way into England, and books were part of their commerce. Caxton, from his knowledge of business, became a traveling agent or factor in the countries of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand; he resided abroad for some years, there translated several works, and in the Low Countries learnt the art of printing, which he brought to England in 1474, and there printed in the Almonry, in Westminster, and subsequently in King-street. All Caxton's works were printed in black letter; the two largest assemblages of the pro

ductions of his press now known are those in the British Mu seum, and in Earl Spencer's library at Althorpe.*

BOYHOOD AND RISE OF SIR THOMAS MORE.

Among the eminent men of one of the most remarkable periods of English history is Sir Thomas More, the records of whose early life throw some light upon the education of the time. More was born in Milk-street, Cheapside, in 1480, five years before the accession of Henry VII. to the throne. He was taught the first rudiments of education at St. Anthony's Free Grammar-school, in Threadneedle-street, one of the four grammar-schools founded by Henry VI., and at that period the most famous in London. Here More soon outstripped all his young companions, and made great proficiency in Latin, to which his studies were confined, Greek not being then taught in schools.

It was the good custom of the age that the sons of the gentry, even of persons of rank, should spend part of their early years in the houses of the nobility, where they might profit by listening to the wisdom of their elders, and become accustomed, by the performance of humble and even menial offices, to stern discipline and implicit obedience. The internal economy of a great man's family, resembling on a smaller scale that of the monarch, was thought to be the proper school for acquiring the manners most conducive to success at court. Persons of good condition were, consequently, eager to place their sons in the families of the great, as the surest road to fortune. In this station it was not accounted degrading to submit even to menial service; while the greatest barons of the realm were proud to officiate as stewards, cup-bearers, and carvers to the monarch, a youth of good family could wait at table, or carry the train of a man of high condition, without any loss of dignity. To profit by such discipline, More, when about fourteen years of age, was removed from school to the palace of Cardinal Morton, archbishop of Canterbury and lord high chancellor. Here he attracted notice among the Cardinal's retinue, and was pointed out by him to the nobility who frequented his house, as a boy of extraordinary promise. "This child waiting at table," he would say, "whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man. ing daily to the conversation, and observing the conduct of such a personage, More naturally acquired more extensive views of men and things than any other course of education could, in that backward age, have supplied. Dean Colet, a visitor at the Cardinal's, used to say, "there is but one wit in England, and that is young Thomas More."

Listen

* See Mr. Charles Knight's delightful Biography of Caxton, in The Old Printer an the Modern Press. 1854.