Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/377

 Cfje Grammar I^JjchdI. It may be safely alleged that the origin of schools in connection with Christian churches was a canon of the Council held at Constantinople in the year 680 ; but that the general indifference to learning, or the negligence of priests to whom education was entrusted, suspended for centuries the useful intent of that canon. According to Fleury, the thousand years of the dark ages terminated in 1453, or, according to Hallam, in 1494. It is true that some efforts had been made to remove the shroud from the apparently lifeless body. In England the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which existed chiefly for the train- ing of priests and dignitaries of the Church, and the schools of Winchester (1387) and Eton (1441), for more enlarged educational objects, had been established. Nevertheless, even in these institutions the Church was dominant, and, in consonance with the canon, priests were the usual teachers — the schoolmasters. We cite the original foundation of Eton College to illustrate our position. The governing body and its immediate dependents were a provost, 10 priests, 4 clerks, 6 choristers, 25 poor grammar scholars, and a master to teach them, with 25 poor men. And, in a much humbler way, but under the same system, we find that as early as 1409 certain lands in Bodman [Bamham] were given to the mayor of Dunheved and his successors for ever to find a priest to celebrate within the Church of Mary Magdalene there, and to teach children grammar.