164 Additional Re marls on the

Of Grammar fchools there was not a fcarcity, " there having been more creeled and endowed within thirty years before the Re- formation, than there had been in thirty years preceding. So that, as Dr. Knight fuggefted, there wanted rather a regulation than an increafe of them [0]." But not in any Grammar fchool, as I fuf- pedl, was the fcience of Arithmetic^ a branch of the original infli- tution. A knowledge of the primary rules of it was not a previous qualification for admiffion into them. What was required of a fcholar expectant was " that he fhould be able to rede and write fufficiently his own leflbns in Latyn and Englyfhe [/>]." Not any ufher or affiftant was provided to teach this " Ground of Arts," or to fupply to the fcholar a cup Out of this " Well Spring of Sciences :" nor was an hour in a week appropriated for this eflen- tial branch of erudition. This was an overfight in the eftablifh- ment of fchools which at that time, and long afterwards, had its inconveniences. And, whatever may be the prefent ufage, it is within recollection that fifty years ago there were fent from capital fchools to the univerfity youths of good abilities, and not by any means wanting in grammar and clamcal learning, yet fo little verfed in the vulgar figures as to be obliged to have recourfe to the matter of a day-fchool in the town for inftruclion in the four fun- damental rules of Arithmetick, Record, as an academic, muft have difcovered this omiffion in the inflitution of the Grammar fchools in his days; and, as I ap- prehend, it was one defign of his treatife to endeavour to obviate Mr. Boys, Cyphering was not an art deemed a neceffary acquifition by fir Robert, though to the young inhabitants of a Cinque Port, and of the parifhes contiguous, one fhould have imagined that Come of the time appropriated for their inftru6tion might have been as ufefully employed in figures as " in varying of Latin, pradlifmg exerciies of Anthonii Progymnafmata, or in pearcing/ome of the words of a leffon.'* p. 230, 231. [c] The Life of Dr. John Colet, dean of St. Paul's, p, 100. [/>] Ibid, p. 124. I the