The Charm of Oxford by Joseph Wells
page 46 of 102 (45%)
page 46 of 102 (45%)
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everything was organized from the first. As the great architectural
History of Cambridge says: "For the first time, chapel, hall, library, treasury, the Warden's lodgings, a sufficient range of chambers, the cloister, the various domestic offices, are provided for and erected without change of plan." The chapel especially gave the model for the T shape, a choir and transepts without a nave, which has become the normal form in Oxford. The influence of Wykeham's building plan may be traced elsewhere also--at Cambridge and even in Scotland. In these well-planned buildings, definite arrangements were made for college instruction, as opposed to the general teaching open to the whole University; special /informafores/ were provided, who were to supervise the work of all scholars up to the age of sixteen. This marks the beginning of the Tutorial System, which has ever since played so great a part in the intellectual life of England's two old Universities. Wykeham's scholars all came from Winchester, and were supposed to be /pauperes/, but as one of the first, Henry Chichele, afterwards Henry V's Archbishop of Canterbury and the Founder of All Souls', was a son of the Lord Mayor of London, it is obvious that the qualification of "poverty" was interpreted with some laxity. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that others than Wykehamists were admitted as scholars. The fact that a mere boy was elected to a position which provided for him for life was not calculated to stimulate subsequent intellectual activity, and Wykehamists themselves have been among the first to say that the intellectual distinction of the great bishop's beneficiaries |
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