The idea of monopoly in connection with trade and industry can be traced back to a very early date in the history of our country. To trace the origin and development of this idea generally, would not only be a valuable, but also an interesting contribution to our knowledge of our economic development. Here, we must content ourselves by limiting our investigation to the educational aspect. The earliest known instance of the claim to this monopoly dates from the eleventh century, and will subsequently be described. It is highly probable that the idea of the monopoly of keeping school in a prescribed area is of much more ancient date, as records, of necessity, only exist when some actual or threatened infringement of the monopoly necessitated recourse to some authority, who possessed the power of enforcing its observance. A preliminary question naturally arises: if instruction was given gratuitously, why was there any need for the desire to possess this monopoly, why should not all comers teach school, if they so wished? A solution of this problem may be obtained from a consideration of that tendency for social exclusiveness which everywhere manifests itself. Even to-day, in this time of free education, parents, who can barely afford to do so, prefer to send their children to a fee-paying school for social reasons, even though the instruction given in the public free school may be given by better qualified and more efficient teachers than are to be found in the fee-paying schools. By analogy, we can reconstruct the situation in the eleventh and succeeding centuries. A knowledge of Latin was perceived, by this time, to possess value, and the boy who had received an education was recognised as being in a position to make his way in the world. We may, therefore, assume that some parents were prepared to make payments, in order that this education might be obtained. Where was this education to be gained? There were two possibilities. One was that the church schoolmaster might give supplementary attention to fee-paying pupils, or he might teach them separately, and outside the official time which the conditions of his appointment required. The other possibility was, that some other priest might come to the neighbourhood to set up school, and recompense himself by taking fee-paying pupils, leaving to the official schoolmaster only those pupils who were unable or unwilling to make payment for the instruction they received. An elementary knowledge of human nature readily leads to the conclusion that the second alternative was not one to which the official schoolmaster would quietly consent. He would look upon the new-comer as an intruder, and would take such steps as were possible to prevent interference with what he claimed to be his monopoly of keeping school in his own district.