The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.
§ 10. Harrow
Of the gradual change of the former into the latter, the foundation of John Lyon, a yeoman of Harrow, affords a remarkable illustration. In the year 1571, he had procured a charter for a free grammar school in the village of Harrow-upon-the-Hill, at which children of the village were to receive gratuitous instruction. In 1590, having duly endowed the same, he appointed six governors and created four exhibitions, two at Oxford and two at Cambridge, of the value of five pounds each. But it was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that this modest beginning expanded into a project for attracting the sons of well-to-do parents to a centre which, by virtue of its healthiness, proximity to the capital and excellent system of instruction, offered an unprecedented combination of advantages; while its unrestricted extension was facilitated by the full discretion originally conferred on the governors to modify the statutes as they thought fit.