And so far has this inconvenience
spread itself that it is in my time a hard matter for a poor man's
child to come by a fellowship (though he be never so good a scholar
and worthy of that room). Such packing also is used at elections that
not he which best deserveth, but he that has most friends, though he
be the worst scholar, is always surest to speed, which will turn in
the end to the overthrow of learning. That some gentlemen also whose
friends have been in times past benefactors to certain of those houses
do intrude into the disposition of their estates without all respect
of order or statutes devised by the founders, only thereby to place
whom they think good (and not without some hope of gain), the case is
too too evident: and their attempt would soon take place if their
superiors did not provide to bridle their endeavours. In some grammar
schools likewise which send scholars to these universities, it is
lamentable to see what bribery is used; for, ere the scholar can be
preferred, such bribage is made that poor men's children are commonly
shut out, and the richer sort received (who in time past thought it
dishonour to live as it were upon alms), and yet, being placed, most
of them study little other than histories, tables, dice, and trifles,
as men that make not the living by their study the end of their
purposes, which is a lamentable hearing.
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