of the reign of Henry VIII. seven classes of educational
establishments, namely, cathedral, collegiate, and monastic colleges,
colleges in connexion with hospitals, guilds, chantries, and
independent institutions. These were worked in perfect co-ordination
with the universities, and in most cases exhibitions were provided for
the poorer scholars. "The Grammar Schools which existed," says a
reliable authority, "were not mere monkish schools or choristers'
schools or elementary schools. Many of them were the same schools
which now live and thrive. All were schools of exactly the same type,
and performing precisely the same sort of functions as the public
schools and grammar schools of to-day. There were indeed also
choristers' schools and elementary schools. There were scholarships at
schools and exhibitions thence to the universities, and the whole
paraphernalia of secondary education. Nor was secondary education
understood in any different sense to that in which it was understood
up to fifty years ago. It was conducted on the same lines and in the
main by instruments of the same kind, if not identically the same, as
those in use till the present generation."[4]

It cannot be said with justice that the English people at the time
were either badly instructed in the principles of their religion or
indifferent to the practices of the Church to which they belonged. The
decrees of the Synod of Oxford (1281), commanding the clergy who had
care of souls to explain regularly in simple language, intelligible to
their hearers the articles of the creed, the commandments, the
sacraments, the seven deadly sins and the seven works of mercy, were
renewed more than once, and presumably were enforced by the bishops.
The books published for the instruction of the faithful as for
example, /The Work for Householders/, /Dives et Pauper/, /The
Interpretation and Signification of the Mass/, /The Art of Good