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for searching only. 432 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE
since the first consists of petties, who do not belong to grammar school proper. These petties were to be taught by the pupils of the third and fourth forms. Over the three upper forms, taught by the master almost alone, are distributed the conventional materials in conventional order which ordinarily occupy six or seven forms. Nearly all the other schools we have examined so far have contemplated apparently at least a master and an usher, but Pursglove's regulations probably represent the necessary adjustment in many of the smaller schools where there was only the master. Still, the curriculum was fundamentally the same, except that no provision is made for any other foreign language than Latin.
A further possible adjustment is represented by Blackburn school, examined above, and also by Manchester,4 where the grammar school had both a master and an usher, but the upper pupils taught the petties as in Pursglove's schools. Incidentally, these petties at Black-burn were to be not younger than five when admitted.
Pursglove had intended that the pupils of the upper forms teach the petties, who really do not belong to grammar school at all. In other instances, a single pupil is to assist in such work. At St. Bees in Cumberland, this pupil usher was to teach the accidence as well as petty work, the pupil to begin with the master only when he had reached constructions. This left for the master exactly the same work as was done in form at Eton.
The Schoolmaster for the time being shall have authority to appoint some poor Scholar, that understandeth his Grammar, and can write a reasonable hand, to be his Usher under him; who shall teach the Children to read and write English, and to say by heart the Catechism in English set forth by public authority, with the additions, and the Accidence, and when they are able to learn construction they shall be admitted into the Master's Schools
This usher is thus only a teacher of petties, preparing the boys for what would be the first form in the Eton system.
Perhaps the fullest surviving supplementary list of the subjects and authors to be studied in this period is that for this school of St. Bees, 1583, though it gives no indication of divisions into forms or of methods pursued. It runs;
The A. B. C. in English.
The Catechism in English, set forth by public authority. The Psalter and Book of Common Prayer, in English. The New Testament,
4 Mumford, Manchester Grammar School, p. 479. Carlisle, Grammar Schools, Vol. I, p. 157.
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