On the whole the teaching in later years was not efficient. J. S. Howson relates how before he was eight years old he had said the Latin Grammar through four times without understanding a word of it. This was a remarkable achievement but not adequate evidence of supreme genius in the teacher. Education, like most other things, was everywhere at its nadir, and Giggleswick was no exception. In the whole of Ingram's time as Headmaster--43 years--he had three Ushers. One was mad, one died after four years, and one--John Howson--grew grey-headed with the work. He had during the same period three Writing Masters, of whom one was most cantankerous, another stayed twenty-four years, and the third--John Langhorne--was not wholly a success. He managed the School Accounts from 1839-1845, but they were found to be "so inaccurate and confused" that Mr. Robinson had to enter them in the book afresh. The constancy of a staff which from 1814-1831 never varied, and of whom two were local men, contributed to the depression of the School. Another contributory cause lay in the constitution of the Governing Body. During the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the next the Governors showed themselves very diligent in the pursuit of the School's welfare. But as time went on, the increasing revenues created an increasing thirst for more. The Accounts dealt less and less with things appertaining to the School, more and more with the management of the North Cave Estate. Between the years 1810 and 1843 there were not more than two meetings of the Governors, the minutes of which refer to the conduct of the School; instead they refer constantly to the growing balance in the Bank (in 1817 it was over £1,500) and they dissipated it by gratuities equivalent to half a year's salary to the several Masters and in profuse expenditure in building and repairs. There was but one man among them who had known the days when £350 was all they had a year, and only a tumbledown school to teach in. John Clapham must have looked back with mixed feelings as he regarded the energy, the efficiency, and the swelling numbers of that early part of the century and compared them with later years.