We may point out here that it would assist in clear thought if the use of the term "school" could be restricted to those cases in which the erection of a school-house constituted a definite and objective sign of the existence of a school, and to employ the term "class" for such gatherings of teacher and pupils as were held otherwise. If this suggestion could be adopted investigations into the origin of schools would become much more definite and valuable. To illustrate this statement, we may consider the statement in Bede, that Sigebert in 631 "instituit scolam, in qua pueri litteris erudirentur."[166] What does this phrase precisely mean? If the statement had been that Sigebert founded a monastery or a church, then we should not be in any doubt on the matter. We have not been able to trace in any edition of the writings of Bede any interpretation of "scola," as the various editors take it for granted that its meaning is not in dispute. Thus Bright in dealing with the passage in Bede we have quoted, assumes that a school existed at Canterbury in connection with the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, and that the school which Bishop Felix established at the wish of King Sigebert was probably attached to the primitive East Anglian Cathedral which had been erected at Dunwich, then a town on the Suffolk coast, but now annihilated by the sea.[167] But neither at Canterbury nor at Dunwich would a specific building for the school be provided. Consequently the phrase from Bede, which is an important passage in the history of English educational history, simply means that certain priests, who had obtained some experience in the art of teaching, were specifically assigned the duty of teaching the Latin language in classes held in the church buildings, to those who might care to attend. We have not found it possible in this thesis to distinguish carefully between a "class" and a "school." We are obliged to content ourselves with indicating the danger that exists of reading into the medieval use of the term school the meaning commonly applied to the term at the present time. GRAMMAR. The term "grammar" gradually superseded that of "letters" as the specified purpose for which schools were founded. So far as England is concerned, the first occasion on which the actual words "scola grammatice" occur, is in a document of the latter half of the eleventh century.[168] The term became more common in the thirteenth century owing to the necessity of distinguishing grammar schools from the "schools" of the higher faculties in the universities. "The first actual use of the term 'grammar school' in English appears to be in 1387 A.D. when John of Trevisa, translating from the Latin of Ralph Higden's 'Polychronicon,' mentions a 'gramer scole' held at Alexandria."[169] By the fourteenth century therefore the phrase "grammar school" had entered into ordinary colloquial speech.