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EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE
COLONIAL PERIOD.

INTRODUCTION.

THE origin, nomenclature, and early peculiarities of the systems, institutions, and methods of instruction adopted in the original colonies, which now constitute a portion of the United States of America, will be found in the educational institutions and practices of the countries from which these colonies were settled-modified by the education, character, motives of emigration, and necessities of the settlers themselves.

and legacies were made for the endowment of this institution of learning.

In 1619, the Governor for the time being was instructed by the company to see "that each town, borough, and hundred procured by just means a certain number of their children to be brought up in the first elements of literature; that the most towardly of them should be fitted for college, in the building which they purposed to proceed as soon as any profit arose from the estate appropriated to that use; and they earnestly required their help in that pious and important work." In 1621, Rev. Mr. Copeland, chaplain of the Royal James, on The earliest effort to establish an education- her arrival from the East Indies, prevailed al institution in the English dominions in on the ship's company to subscribe £100 America, was made under the auspices of toward a "free schoole" in the colony of King James I, and by contributions of mem- Virginia, and collected other donations in bers of the Church of England from 1618 to money and books for the same purpose. 1623. In a letter addressed to the Arch-The school was located in Charles City, as bishops, he authorizes them to invite the being most central for the colony, and was members of the Church throughout the king-called the "East India School." The comdom to assist "those undertakers of that pany allotted one thousand acres of land, with Plantation [Virginia], with the erecting of five servants and an overseer, for the maintensome churches and schools for the education ance of the master and usher. The inhabitants of the children of those barbarians" [the made a contribution of £1500 to build a house, Aborigines] and of the colonists. Under for which workmen were sent out in 1622. these instructions, a sum of £1500 was col- The "college" and "free school" thus lected for the erection of a building for a col-projected and partially endowed were in the lege at Henrico-a town whose foundations, style of the "college" and "free school" and or site even, cannot now be certainly deter- the "free grammar school" of England, and mined, but which according to the best author- were intended to be of the same character as ities was situated near Varina on Cox's Island, the college afterward established at Camabout fifty miles above Jamestown. Author- bridge, and the institution for which "the ity was given by the Company to the Gov- richer inhabitants" of Boston in 1636 subernor to set apart 10,000 acres of land for scribed toward "the maintenance of a free the support of the college, and one hun- schoolmaster," and the same as, according to dred colonists were sent from England to Governor Winthrop, in his journal, was erectoccupy and cultivate the same, who were to ed in Roxbury in 1645, and other towns, and receive a moiety of the produce as the profit for which every inhabitant bound some of their labor, and to pay the other moiety house or land for a yearly allowance fortoward the maintenance of the college. In ever, and many benevolently disposed per1620, George Thorpe was sent out as super-sons left legacies in their last wills, and the intendent, and 300 acres of land was set towns made "an allowance out of the comapart for his sustenance. Other donations mon stock," or set apart a portion of land

"to be improved forever, for the mainten ance of a free schoole forever."

constant attention of the local authorities, or of the settlers themselves.

The outline and most of the essential features of the system of common schools now in operation in the New England states, and the states which have since avowedly adopted the same policy, will be found in the practice of the first settlers of the several towns which composed the original colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven. The first law on the subject did but little more than declare the motive, and make more widely obligatory the practice which already existed in the several neighborhoods and towns, which had grown up out of the cducation of these colonists at home, and the circumstances in which they were placed. They did not come here as isolated individuals, drawn together from widely separated homes, entertaining broad differences of opinion on all matters of civil and religious concernment, and kept together by the necessity of selfdefence in the eager prosecution of some tem

The same leading idea can be traced in the educational policy of the Dutch West India Company-which bound itself, in receiving its charter of colonization, "to maintain good and fit preachers, schoolmasters, and comforters of the sick." The company recognized the authority of the established Church of Holland, and the establishment of schools and the appointment of schoolmasters rested conjointly with the company and the classis (ecclesiastical authorities) of Amsterdam. When the company granted a special "Charter of Freedom and Exemptions" to the "Patroons," for the purpose of agricultural colonization, they were not only to satisfy the Indians for the lands upon which they should settle, but were to make prompt provision for the support of a minister and schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion might not grow cold, and be neglected among them. In 1633, in the enumeration of the compa-porary but profitable adventure. They came ny's officials at Manhattan, Adam Roelandsen is mentioned as the schoolmaster, and that school, it is claimed, is still in existence in connection with the Reformed Dutch Church of New York. In the projected settlement at New Amstel on the Delaware, the first settlers were encouraged to proceed by certain conditions, one of which was that the city of Amsterdam should send thither a proper person for a schoolmaster;" and we find among the colonists who embarked, "Evert Pietersen, who had been approved, after examination before the classis, as schoolmaster." In these early efforts to establish schools, we trace the educational policy of the Reformed Church of Holland as indicated by the synod of Wesel in 1568, and matured at the synod of Dort in 1618, by which the training of Christian youth was to be provided for "I. In the house, by parents. II. In the schools, by schoolmasters. III. In the churches, by ministers, elders, and the catechists especially appointed for this purpose." Owing in part to the commercial purposes entertained by the companies having charge of the colonization of New York, Virginia, and some other portions of the country, and to the educational and religious institutions of the colonists being not so much a matter of domestic as of foreign policy, these institutions never commanded the regular and

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after God had set them in families, and they brought with them the best pledges of good behavior, in the relations which father and mother, husband and wife, parents and chil dren, neighbors and friends, establish. They came with a foregone conclusion of permanence, and with all the elements of the social state combined in vigorous activity-every man expecting to find or make occupation in the way in which he had been already trained. They came with earnest religious convictions, made more earnest by the trials of persecution; and the enjoyment of these convictions was a leading motive in their emigration hither. The fundamental articles of their religious creed, that the Bible was the only authoritative expression of the divine will, and that every man was able to judge for himself in its interpretation, made schools necessary, to bring all persons "to a knowledge of the Scriptures," and an understanding "of the main grounds and principles of the Christian religion necessary to salvation." The constitution of civil government adopted by them from the outset, which declared all civil officers elective, and gave to every inhabitant who would take the oath of allegiance the right to vote and to be voted for, and which practically converted political society into a partnership, in which each member had the right to bind the whole firm, made universal education

identical with self-preservation. But aside
from these considerations, the natural and
acknowledged leaders in this enterprise-
the men who, by their religious character,
wealth, social position, and previous expe-
rience in conducting large business oper-
ations, commanded public confidence in
church and commonwealth, were educated
men-as highly and thoroughly educated
as they could be at the best endowed free
and grammar schools in England at that
period; and not a few of them had en-
joyed the advantages of her great univer-
sities. These men would naturally seek for
their own children the best opportunities
of education which could be provided; and
it is the crowning glory of these men, that,
instead of sending their own children back
to England to be educated in grammar
schools and colleges, these institutions were
established here amid the stumps of the pri-
meval forests; that, instead of setting up
family schools" and "select schools" for
the ministers' sons and magistrates' sons, the
ministers and magistrates were found, not
only in town meeting, pleading for an allow-
ance out of the common treasury for the
support of a public or common school, and
in some instances for a 66
free school," but
among the families, entreating parents of all
classes to send their children to the same
school with their own. All this was done
in advance of any legislation on the subject,
as will be seen from the following facts
gleaned from the early records of several of
the towns first planted.

TOWN ACTION IN BEHALF OF SCHOOLS.

The earliest records of most of the towns of New England are either obliterated or lost, but among the oldest entries which can now be recovered, the school is mentioned not as a new thing, but as one of the established interests of society, to be looked after and provided for as much as roads and bridges and protection from the Indians. In the first book of records of the town of Boston, under date of April 13, 1634, after providing by ordinance for the keeping of the cattle by "brother Cheesbrough," "it was then generally agreed upon that our brother Philemon Purmont shall be entreated to become schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing of children with us." This was doubtless an elementary school, for in 1636 we find a subscription entered on the records of the town "by the richer

inhabitants," "for the maintenance of a free schoolmaster, for the youth with us-) -Mr. Daniel Maude being now also chosen thereunto." Mr. Maude was a clergyman, a title at that day and in that community which was evidence of his being an educated man. This "free school" was, in the opinion of the writer, not necessarily a school of gratuitous instruction for all, but an endowed school of a higher grade, of the class of the English grammar school, in which many of the first settlers of New England had received their own education at home. Toward the maintenance of this school, the town, in 1642, in advance of any legislation by the General Court, ordered "Deer Island to be improved," and several persons made bequests in their last wills. Similar provision can be cited from the early records of Salem, Cambridge, Dorchester, and other towns of Massachusetts Bay.

The early records of the town of Hartford are obliterated, but within seven years after the first log-house was erected, thirty pounds are appropriated to the schools, and in April, 1643, it is ordered "that Mr. Andrews shall teach the children in the school one year," and "he shall have for his pains £16, and therefore the townsmen shall go and inquire who will engage themselves to send their children; and all that do so, shall pay for one quarter, at the least, and for more if they do send them, after the proportion of twenty shillings the year; and if they go any week more than one quarter, they shall pay sixpence a week; and if any would send their children and are not able to pay for their teaching, they shall give notice of it to the townsmen, and they shall pay it at the town's charge." Mention is also made of one "Goody Betts," who kept a "Dame School" after the fashion of Shenstone's "schoolmistress" at Leasower, in England. Similar entries are found in the town records of Windsor and Wethersfield in advance of any school code by the colony of Connecticut.

The records of the town of New Haven are full of evidence of the interest taken by the leading spirits of the colony, particularly by Governor Theophilus Eaton and Rev. John Davenport, in behalf of schools of every grade, and of the education of every class, from the apprentice boy to those who filled the high places in church and state. The first settlement of the colony was in 1638, and within a year a transaction is recorded, which, while it proves the existence of a school at that

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