there twice a week (to wit, Sundays and Thursdays) at two round tables, for the convenience of discourse; which shall be for the most part of such matters as may improve their studies and professions; and to keep them from falling into loose or unprofitable talk, shall be the duty of the two arbitri mensarum, who may likewise command any of the servant scholars to read to them what he shall think fit, whilst they are at table: that it shall belong likewise to the said arbitri mensarum only to invite strangers; which they shall rarely do, unless they be men of learning or great parts, and shall not invite above two at a time to one table, nothing being more vain and unfruitful than numerous meetings of acquaintance.

That the professors resident shall allow the college twenty pounds a year for their diet, whether they continue there all the time or not.

That they shall have once a week an assembly, or conference, concerning the affairs of the college, and the progress of their experimental philosophy.

That, if any one find out any thing which he conceives to be of consequence, he shall communicate it to the assembly, to be examined, experimented, approved, or rejected.

That, if any one be author of an invention that may bring in profit, the third part of it shall belong to the inventor, and the two other to the society; and besides, if the thing be very considerable, his statue or picture, with an elegy under it, shall be placed in the gallery, and made a denison of that corporation of famous men.

That all the professors shall be always assigned to some particular inquisition (besides the ordinary course of their studies), of which they shall give

an account to the assembly; so that by this means there may be every day some operation or other made in all the arts, as chemistry, anatomy, mechanics, and the like; and that the college shall furnish for the charge of the operation.

That there shall be kept a register under lock and key, and not to be seen but by the professors, of all the experiments that succeed, signed by the persons who made the trial.

That the popular and received errors in experimental philosophy (with which, like weeds in a neglected garden, it is now almost all overgrown) shall be evinced by trial, and taken notice of in the public lectures, that they may no longer abuse the credulous, and beget new ones by consequence or similitude.

That every third year (after the full settlement of the foundation) the college shall give an account in print, in proper and ancient Latin, of the fruits of their triennial industry.

That every professor resident shall have his scholar to wait upon him in his chamber and at table; whom he shall be obliged to breed up in natural philosophy, and render an account of his progress to the assembly, from whose election he received him, and therefore is responsible to it, both for the care of his education and the just and civil usage of him.

That the scholar shall understand Latin very well, and be moderately initiated in the Greek, before he be capable of being chosen into the service; and that he shall not remain in it above. seven years.

That his lodging shall be with the professor whom he serves.

That no professor shall be a married man, or a divine, or lawyer in practice; only physic he may be allowed to prescribe, because the study of that art is a great part of the duty of his place, and the duty of that is so great, that it will not suffer him to lose much time in mercenary practice.

That the professors shall, in the college, wear the habit of ordinary masters of art in the universities, or of doctors, if any of them be so.

That they shall all keep an inviolable and exemplary friendship with one another; and that the assembly shall lay a considerable pecuniary mulct upon any one who shall be proved to have entered so far into a quarrel as to give uncivil language to his brother professor; and that the perseverance in any enmity shall be punished by the governors with expulsion.

That the chaplain shall eat at the master's table (paying his twenty pounds a year as the others do); and that he shall read prayers once a day at least, a little before supper time; that he shall preach in the chapel every Sunday morning, and catechise in the afternoon the scholars and the school boys; that he shall every month administer the holy sacrament; that he shall not trouble himself and his auditors with the controversies of divinity, but only teach God in his just commandments, and in his wonderful works.

THE SCHOOL.

THAT the school may be built so as to contain about two hundred boys.

That it be divided into four classes, not as others are ordinarily into six or seven; because we suppose that the children sent hither, to be

initiated in things as well as words, ought to have passed the two or three first, and to have attained the age of about thirteen years, being already well advanced in the Latin grammar, and some authors.

That none, though never so rich, shall pay any thing for their teaching; and that, if any professor shall be convicted to have taken any money in consideration of his pains in the school, he shall be expelled with ignominy by the governors; but if any persons of great estate and quality, finding their sons much better proficients in learning here, than boys of the same age commonly are at other schools, shall not think fit to receive an obligation of so near concernment without returning some marks of acknowledgment, they may, if they please (for nothing is to be demanded), bestow some little rarity or curiosity upon the society, in recompense of their trouble.

And, because it is deplorable to consider the loss which children make of their time at most schools, employing, or rather casting away, six or seven years in the learning of words only, and that too very imperfectly :

That a method be here established, for the infusing knowledge and language at the same time into them; and that this may be their apprenticeship in natural philosophy. This, we conceive, may be done, by breeding them up in authors, or pieces of authors, who treat of some part of nature, and who may be understood with as much ease and pleasure, as those which are commonly taught; such are, in Latin, Varro, Cato, Columella, Pliny, part of Celsus and of Seneca, Cicero de Divinatione, de Naturâ Deorum, and several scattered

pieces, Virgil's Georgics, Grotius, Nemesianus, Manilius: And, because the truth is, we want good poets (I mean we have but few), who have purposely treated of solid and learned, that is, natural matters (the most part indulging to the weakness of the world, and feeding it either with the follies of love, or with the fables of gods and heroes), we conceive that one book ought to be compiled of all the scattered little parcels among the ancient poets that might serve for the advancement of natural science, and which would make no small or unuseful or unpleasant volume. To this we would have added the morals and rhetorics of Cicero, and the institutions of Quinctilian; and for the comedians, from whom almost all that necessary part of common discourse, and all the most intimate proprieties of the language, are drawn, we conceive, the boys may be made masters of them, as a part of their recreation, and not of their task, if once a month, or at least once in two, they act one of Terence's Comedies, and afterwards (the most advanced) some of Plautus's; and this is for many reasons one of the best exercises they can be enjoined, and most innocent pleasures they can be allowed. As for the Greek authors, they may study Nicander, Oppianus (whom Scaliger does not doubt to prefer above Homer himself, and place next to his adored Virgil), Aristotle's history of animals, and other parts, Theophrastus and Dioscorides of plants, and a collection made out of several both poets and other Grecian writers. For the morals and rhetoric, Aristotle may suffice, or Hermogenes and Longinus be added for the latter.