The origin and development of the university colleges in connection with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge has been so fully dealt with by various writers that little more than a passing reference is necessary here. Dr. Hastings Rashdall describes Walter de Merton as "the true founder" of the English college system. In 1264,[627] he founded at Maldon "The House of Merton's Scholars" "for the perpetual maintenance of twenty scholars living in the schools at Oxford, or elsewhere where a university might happen to flourish and for the maintenance of two or three ministers of the altar of Christ living in the same house."[628] The idea of this founder, originally, was the provision of funds for the education of his nephews or the descendants of his parents, or (failing a sufficient number of these) of other "honest and capable young men."[629] The men supported by these funds were to hire a hall and live together as a community in the university. In 1274, a new code of statutes for the control and regulation of the foundation was issued. Here, in the first of the English colleges, the monastic institutions form the model which was imitated. At the head of the institution was an official corresponding to the abbot, next come certain officials who resembled the various officers of a monastery; these include the "Vicenarii" who were placed over every twenty scholars, and the "Decani" over every ten scholars. The scholars corresponded to the monastic novices. The scheme for the control of the boys (because some of the scholars might often be only thirteen or fourteen years of age)[630] resembles in its general spirit the regulations of Lanfranc for the oblates and novices school at Canterbury.[631] The similarity between a monastery and Merton's foundations manifests itself still more clearly when we realise that he even provided for a class which would correspond to the oblates. He enacted that "if any little ones of the kindred aforesaid becoming orphans or otherwise through their parents poverty want maintenance while they are receiving primary instruction in the rudiments, then the warden shall have them educated in the house aforesaid."[632] The example set by Walter de Merton was followed by Bishop Balsham of Ely in his foundation of the first college at Cambridge in 1280. He placed some poor scholars in the Hospital of St. John "to live together and to study in the university of Cambridge according to the rule of the scholars of Oxford who are called Merton's."[633] The experiment did not prove a success because "in process of time from various causes, matter of dissension had often arisen between the brethren of the same house and the scholars aforesaid,"[634] as a result of which the scholars were moved outside the town "and translated to the inns by St. Peter's Church"[635] which was appropriated to them, and in consequence the college received the name of Peterhouse by which it is still known.