schools as early as 1641, Cambridge the year following, and Roxbury in 1645.*

In the year 1642, in an attempt to make the privileges of the few towns general, the Colonial Court enjoined upon all towns the duty of seeing to it in their localities. The order is comprised in the following extract from the Massachusetts law of 1642:†

"This court," so the record runs, "taking into serious consideration the great neglect of many parents and masters, in training up their children in learning and labor, and other employments, which may be profitable to the commonwealth, do hereby order and decree, that in every town, the chosen men appointed to manage the prudential affairs of the same, shall henceforth stand charged with the care of the redress of this evil; so as they shall be sufficiently punished by fines, for the neglect thereof, upon presentment of grand jury, or other information of complaint in any court in this jurisdiction: and for this end, they or the greater number of them shall have power to take account, from time to time, of all parents and masters, and of their children, especially of their ability to read and understand the princi●ples of religion and the capital laws of this country, and to impose fines upon such as shall refuse to render such account to them when they shall be required; and they shall have power, with the consent of any court, or the magistrate, to put forth apprentices, the children of such as they shall find not able and fit to employ and bring them up. They are also to provide that a sufficient quantity of materials, as hemp, flax, etc., may be raised in their several towns, and tools and implements provided for working out the same." ‡

*For a history of this school, with much additional contemporary matter of interest, see C. K. Dillaway's "History of the School in Roxbury."

Taken from the "Records of the Massachusetts Colony," vol. ii, p. 6. From almost the beginning of New England settlements it seems to have been common to transact the current public business in a meeting of the people assembled. By such body Mr. Purmont was called o be Boston's first teacher; Mr. Cheever, in New Haven; and Mr. Lenthrall, in Provi

What grave educational and social questions were then sprung by the Boston fathers, that subsequent generations have had to answer! Parental responsibility, the general viciousness of indolence, the educative office of labor, the state's relation to individual need, compulsory employment and schooling, the function of courts, and the state ownership of child-life, were all suggested by the act quoted. The town-society in its organized capacity-was commissioned to secure to the child its rights, and to the community protection.

The selectmen of every town were further required "to have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors, to see that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families, as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others, their children and apprentices, so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and [obtain] a knowledge of the capital laws; upon penalty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein."*

"If, after admonition, parents were still neglectful of their duty in these particulars," children might be taken from their parents, and servants from the custody of their masters, and bound to such masters as the selectmen might deem worthy to supply the place of “the unnatural parent -boys until the age of twenty-one, and girls until that of eighteen.

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dence. In these meetings all were freemen, and all equal in privileges. The voice of each was individual and stood for one only. As early as 1632, however, twelve men of Dorchester were selected to meet statedly, and hold in consideration public interests. Two years later, Boston chose a like number, and Charlestown the year following; Watertown, Newton, and others soon did the like. And Mr. Palfrey says ("History of New England," vol. i, p. 372) that, "at the fifth General Court of Massachusetts, twenty-four persons appeared delegated by eight towns." It was such a representative body of freemen, fit type of the later administrative republicanism, that passed the school act of 1642, from which the extracts are taken.

*See Horace Mann's comments upon this in "Tenth Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education," 1849.

Commenting upon this act and the primitive Boston idea of barbarism, Horace Mann was led to say that, “tried by this standard, many a man who now glories in the name and prerogatives of a republican citizen would, according to the better ideas of the Pilgrim Fathers, be known only as the barbarian father of barbarian children."*

It would seem that the first school in Connecticut was at New Haven, during the year 1638.+ Prof. G. B. Emerson says Ezekiel Cheever left Boston with those who founded the settlement, and "began his services as schoolmaster in that year; the pastor, Mr. Davenport, together with the magistrates," according to the records, being invited to consider what yearly allowance was "meet to be given him out of the common stock of the town." Two years later a second and higher grade school was established, and Mr. Cheever, then a young man of twenty-seven, was made its principal. This also was supported, in part, out of the

66 common stock."

Besides Mr. Cheever's, there were other schools in New Haven. Care was even then taken that every child should have its just deserts. In a year from the date of settlement, one Thomas Fugill appears on the public records, charged by the court to keep Charles Higinson, an indentured servant or apprentice, "at school one year; or else to advantage him as much in his education as a year's learning would come to. This was the fut elem

With the exception of Mr. Cheever's school, instruction, was chiefly elementary, comprising only reading and ciphering. The former was called a grammar-school, in which were taught, besides the common higher branches, Latin, rhetoric, grammar, etc., corresponding nearly to the modern high-school, but with relatively more of the classics.

The first school appearing on the town records of Hart

*"Lowell Institute Lectures," 1869, p. 351. Also "American Journal of Education," vol. i, p. 297.

+ Report for 1846.

1

ford was a somewhat famous one in that day, in operation as early as 1641, and kept by a not less widely known teacher, Mr. William Andrews. He was employed to teach the school for one year (twelve months) for fifteen pounds; each patron to pay at the rate of twenty shillings per year, the poor being paid for at the town's charge.

In Rhode Island, Newport had a public school in 1640, and Providence one, twenty years later.

Throughout the colonies, schools were endowed; first with lands, very early with bequests, rents, and donations, and supplemented by taxation. They were not free. Tuition was paid for all. The abuse of the principle is an interesting historical study.

Bibliography.

Consult "The School of the Reformed Dutch Church" of New York, by H. W. Dunshee, which contains also pertinent information of other schools and colonies; Documents of the Colonial History of New York," in eleven volumes; and manuscripts of the New York Historical Society; the “Virginia Company of London," "Virginia Carolorum,” and “Virginia Vetusta," three volumes, by E. D. Neill, comprising original documents and records; the " History of Education in Rhode Island," edited by T. B. Stockwell; the "Roxbury Grammar-School," by C. K. Dillaway; the "Massachusetts Historical Collections," and the official "Colonial Records" of Plymouth, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Providence Colonies. A series of articles also by G. G. Bush in the "Yale Review" for 1885, affords a general view of "Early Education in New England." In the "Atlantic Monthly" for January, 1885, is a description of the "Dame School,” such as the early English colonies had a few curious examples of.

CHAPTER II.

COLONIAL COLLEGES.

1. Harvard.

In the autumn of the sixth year of the settlement of Boston, the General Court * of the colony, with a far-seeing liberality, and a wisdom of sacrifice such as shall be for years to come a monument to it and its people, voted † the sum of four hundred pounds "toward a school or college; whereof two hundred pounds shall be paid the next year, and two hundred pounds when the work is finished, and the next Court to appoint where and what building."

The following year twelve of the most trusted men of the whole colony, previously appointed, magistrates and ministers, of political foresight and abundant learning, were set to execute the official mandate, "to take order for a College at New Towne." Among these early educational leaders were such men as the Rev. Thomas Shepard, John Cotton, and John Wilson, Jr.; all clergymen and all college-bred; ‡ Stoughton; Dudley, the Deputy-Governor, and above all "Winthrop, the Governor, the guide and the good genius of the colony."# Such were the men and the sources of greatness of the infant colony, and pledge of the college. Here were learning and character; world-wisdom and refinements of the heart; breadth and wholeness of culture, such as could alone justify the boldness of their attempt. "It is questionable," says

* This Massachusetts Assembly, over which Henry Vane presided, has been said to be "the first body in which the people, by their representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education." (Quoted by Palfrey, vol. i, p. 247.)

+ September 8, 1636.

Mr. Savage estimates that in 1638 there were in Massachusetts and Connecticut not fewer than forty men who had been more or less educated at Cambridge, England.

# "History of Harvard University," Josiah Quincy, vol. i, p. 9.