Note 77 — Chapter VIII

The oldest of the great public schools, or “grammar” schools, of England is Winchester, founded in 1381 by William of Wykeham, a Bishop of Winchester, the year after he had founded “New College,” Oxford. There is no doubt, however, that Winchester school, in its original shape, is of much greater antiquity than the time of William of Wykeham, some authorities tracing its existence to the introduction of Christianity into Britain. It has the only English motto of all our great public schools, “Manners makyth man.” Royalty frequently visited the school for the first two hundred years after Wykeham’s endowment. In 1570, Queen Elizabeth pleasantly asked one of the scholars whether he had ever endured the famous Winton birching. He happily replied from the “Æneid,”