[26]
CHAPTER II.
THE TUTORIAL SYSTEM.
Table of Contents The word Tutor is used at Cambridge to describe an officer of a College who stands to his pupils in loco parentis; now-a-days he may, but does not necessarily, give direct instruction to them. The object of this chapter is to describe the development of the office in Trinity College.
Trinity College was founded in 1546 by HenryVIII. It is, however, essential in dealing with its early history to bear in mind that it was founded in a pre-existing17 University having well-established rules and customs. Nearly all the original members of Trinity had been educated at Cambridge, they were familiar with its traditions, and even the buildings they occupied were associated with the college life of earlier times. It was intended that the Society should promote the reformed religion and the new learning, but there is no reason to suppose that in establishing it, it was wished or proposed to alter the existing practice about the tuition, guidance, and care of the younger students.
In the system in force in the University shortly [27] before the foundation of Trinity, the students corresponding to our scholars and sizars lived in endowed colleges (of which eight were founded before 1353 and seven between 1440 and 1520), most of those corresponding to our pensioners in unendowed private hostels (of which in the sixteenth century there were twenty-seven and in earlier times possibly a few more), and most of those belonging to religious orders in monasteries or monastic hostels. A student on admission to the University was apprenticed to some master of arts or doctor who directed the lad's studies until he took a master's degree. This graduate was known as the student's "master": in the case of a member of a college we may assume that the master was chosen from among the senior members of the House, though it is doubtful if this was necessarily so in the case of the hostels. The head of a college or hostel was responsible for the conduct and control of the lad in non-scholastic matters, but in colleges in later times this work was assigned to a dean. Thus for practical purposes a tutorial system already existed in the medieval system of apprenticeship and control.
The royal scheme for Trinity College comprised a master, fifteen senior fellows, twenty-five middle fellows, twenty junior fellows (of whom, in 1546, thirteen were undergraduates), and forty grammarian school-boys. In addition to these, there were [28] servant-students (known as sizars or subsizars), each being attached as gyp to a particular fellow, and receiving education, board, and lodging in lieu of money wages. There is nothing to show whether or not the presence of pensioners was contemplated.
We have a list, apparently complete, of all the intended officers; tutors do not appear among them, though a schoolmaster and usher were provided for the grammarians. Hence it would seem that the relation between an apprenticed undergraduate and his master was regarded as personal, and that the latter was selected and paid by his pupil or pupil's guardian, and not by or through the College-I conjecture that this was the usual medieval practice. The deans are mentioned as officers of the College, and the discipline of the younger members was part of their business, though no doubt a lad's master or tutor assisted in enforcing it. The formal charter of foundation was given by Henry in December 1546, but the grammarians are not mentioned therein.
During the next six years, 1546-1552, three important developments took place. First, the grammar-school side of the College was abandoned, and all boys then in the school were entered as scholars of the House; next, and perhaps consequent on the abolition of the school, a distinction between fellows and scholars was drawn; and finally, following the [29] growing custom of other colleges, the admission of pensioners was definitely recognized as desirable, thus introducing a class of students below the standing of scholars. Before coming to the subject of tutors it will be well to add a word or two about the pensioners and scholars of these early days.
With the upset of the medieval scheme of education the number of pensioners and fellow-commoners seeking admission to the University greatly decreased, and the reception of a limited number of them in the colleges fairly met the needs of the University. The private hostels were then no longer wanted and being unendowed disappeared. Thus when again, as soon happened, the number of would-be pensioners increased, it was necessary (unless new non-collegiate arrangements were made for their reception in the University) to admit them in larger numbers to the colleges. At Trinity a limit was, in theory, placed on the number of pensioners admissible, but not on that of fellow-commoners. A pensioner at Trinity, and I suppose also at other colleges, had to be qualified by learning and morals for admission, and I conceive further that his entry was conditional on his finding a fellow who would receive him. A pensioner or fellow-commoner had no rights, and resided only on such terms and as long as the College or the fellow receiving him willed. I believe that students of this class did not [30] often stay here for more than three or four years unless in due course they became scholars.
A most important question for the new College was how the supply of scholars and fellows should be provided. In King's Hall vacancies were filled by royal nomination, and boys came into residence as scholars-elect. We do not know what was proposed in 1546, but I think that, as far as entry to the grammar-school was concerned, nomination by the senior fellows was the most likely method to have been contemplated. The abandonment of the school and the enrolment of all its members as scholars of the House must however have raised the question in an acute form, and it was settled in or before 1552 by the establishment of an annual examination for the election of scholars. Probably from the first it was intended that the new fellows should be formally elected and admitted.
The charter of 1546 contains a reference to statutes to be given later by the king. There was considerable delay in preparing these, and the liberty of action thus left to the Society seems to have been used unwisely, for the commissioners of 1549 reported that its state was "much out of order, governed at large and pleasure for want of statutes ... the fellows for the most part too bad."
In November 1552 the College received the long-expected [31] statutes by which it was to be governed: with their appearance we leave the field of conjecture and come to facts. The foundation as here described included a master, fifty fellows of the standing of master or doctor, and sixty bachelor and undergraduate scholars: provision was also made for student-servants or sizars. Vacancies in the roll of scholars were to be filled by an annual election held at Michaelmas on the result of a two days' examination. Bachelors of arts and those insane or suffering from contagious disease (a curious conjunction) were ineligible: also there could not, at any one time, be more than three scholars from any one county. The regulation that a bachelor was not eligible for election to a scholarship suggests that a candidate might be in residence as an undergraduate, though it does not exclude the candidature of those who were not already members of the House, but the custom (if it ever existed) of electing non-residents had died out before 1560. The admission of pensioners, not exceeding fifty-four in number, was definitely recognized in 1552: of these the master might take as his pupils four, and each fellow one. The pensioner which every fellow might thus receive was in addition to such scholars as had been assigned to him as pupils, but though scholars had tutors, the fellow responsible for a pensioner is not explicitly described as his tutor. [32] It seems that an important part of the duty of a tutor was to see that all payments due to the college from his pupils were made punctually. Scholars, unlike pensioners, had definite rights.
The following are some of the regulations:
Nemo ex discipulis sine tutore in collegio sit, qui fuerit, expellatur. Pupilli tutoribus pareant, honorem paternum et reverentiam exhibeant, quorum cura consumitur in illis informandis et ad pietatem scientiamque instruendis. Tutores fideliter et diligenter quae docenda sunt suos doceant, quae agenda instruant et admoneant. Omnia pupillorum expensa tutores collegio praestent, et singulis mensibus aes debitum pro se et suis quaestoribus solvant. Quod ni fecerint, tantisper commeatu priventur dum pecunia dissolvatur. Pupillus neque a tutore rejiciatur, neque tutorem suum ubi velit mutet nisi legitima de causa a praeside et senatu probanda; qui fecerit collegio excludatur.... In discipulis eligendis praecipua ratio ingenii et inopiae sit, in quibus ut quisque valet maxime ita ceteris proferatur. Eo adjungatur doctrinae studium et mediocris jam profectus, et reliqui temporis spes illum fore ad communem reipublicae posthac idoneum. Horum studium sit ut vitae innocentiam cum doctrinae veritate conjungant, et in veritate rerum inquirendi et honestate persequenda laborent.... Sic sint grammaticis et studiis humanitatis instituti ut inquisitiones aulae sustinere et domesticas exercitationes suscipere...
