Barring Out

Barring Out, a practice once common in schools, which consisted in the scholars fastening the doors against the master. The usual time for it was immediately prior to the vacations; and it seems to have been an understood rule that if the scholars could sustain a three days' siege, they were entitled to dictate terms regarding the number of holidays, hours of recreation, &c. for the ensuing year. The masters, in most cases, appear to have acquiesced good-humouredly in the custom; but some chafed at it and exerted their ingenuity and force to storm or surprise the garrison. Addison, according to Johnson, was the leader of a barring out at Lichfield about the year 1686. One remarkable and fatal case of barring out occurred at the High School, Edinburgh, in 1595. The town council refused to grant more than three of the eight holidays which the boys demanded as their privilege. They accordingly took advantage of the master's temporary absence to lay in a store of provisions, and having done so, barricaded the doors. The magistrates, the patrons of the school, in vain sought admission, the boys saying they would treat with their master only; and after a day and night had passed, it was resolved to force an entrance. The result was that one of them, Bailie Macmoran, was shot dead on the spot by a scholar named Sinclair. The statutes of Witton School, Cheshire, founded by Sir John Deane in 1558, ordained that 'a week before Christmas and Easter, according to the old custom, the scholars bar and keep forth the school the schoolmaster, in such sort as other scholars do in great schools.' A barring out forms the theme of one of Miss Edgeworth's stories.