The opinions and practices prevalent in regard to education in England up to the time of English immigration to these shores are obscure or ill-defined. There was no general acknowledgment of the duty of universal education.

Oxford and Cambridge were chartered early in the thirteenth century. Eton was founded by Henry VI in 1440. During his reign and that of Elizabeth, many grammar schools were established; Rugby, by Lawrence, sheriff, in 1567, and Harrow, by John Lyon, in 1571. Nearly 2,000 parochial charity schools are said to have been founded, by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, from 1698 to 1741. There was action, first, by the church; second, by the state; third, by the family; fourth, in large personal benefactions to education. The result is, first, family training here excellent, there indifferent, and again entirely wanting; second, church or parochial instruction; and, third, the magnificent work of the great foundations of various grades already mentioned, from which has come the perpetual flow of cultured minds that have given skill to English industry, scope to English commerce, learning to English statesmanship, and eminence to her literature and science. But with all this there was a noted limitation of culture to the few, no knowledge of even letters among the great masses, and no general belief in the idea of the obligation of the state to assume the universal education of its subjects. Taking the English colonists out of this condition of things at home and visiting them in Virginia, New England, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, we find their home ideas and practices undergoing certain modifications, and no two colonies, though coming from the same source, starting out on the work of education on exactly the same methods or precisely the same principles. There is more general accord in the characteristics exhibited in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, at least so far as acknowledging in terms the importance of educating the young, and the action by the church and family, but in which there is wanting a comprehensive scheme, put in force by the civil power, embracing every child.

The earliest historical fragments relating to the settlement of Virginia at Jamestown indicate interest in education. Fifteen thousand acres were appropriated at the instance of Sir Edwin Sandys, president of the company, toward the endowment of a college at Henrico for the colonists and Indians. In 1619 collections in the churches of England amounted to £1,500 sterling. In 1621, persons homeward bound on the Royal James, from East India, gave over £70 toward founding a free school in Virginia, to be called the East India School.

Other benefactions followed, and Mr. George Thorpe came over as superintendent of the college, or East India School, which was situated at Charlotte. In 1621, carpenters were sent to erect buildings, and Rev. Patrick Copeland was placed at its head. But in March, 1622, the massacre followed, when Thorpe and nearly 350 men, women, and children were barbarously slain, and the efforts for the school terminated. The next movement of a general and public character was that of Rev. James Blair, D. D., which resulted in the establishment of the College of William and Mary.

In the Maryland settlement there were earnest friends of education, but they struggled against circumstances which rendered the full realization of the fruits of their efforts impossible. In April, 1671, thirty-seven years after the arrival of Lord Baltimore, the upper house of the assembly passed an act for the establishment of a school ar college. This act was returned from the lower house with an amendment to the effect that the tutors or schoolmasters may be qualified according to the Reformed Church of England, or that there be two schoolmasters, one for Catholic and the other for the Protestant children, which was so unsatisfactory that twenty-three years elapsed before any further attempt at legislation was made.

In 1694 an effort was commenced which in seven years resulted in the establishment of a school near the site of the State House. It will be seen that the people began to rely almost entirely upon the private tuition of their children.

William Penn found the Swedes and their school already on the Delaware. His ideas were well expressed in his declaration, "That which makes a good constitution must keep it, viz, men of wisdom and virtue, qualities that, because they descend not

with worldly inheritance, must be carefully propagated by virtuous education of youth, for which spare no cost; for by such parsimony all that is saved is lost."

The reliance of the Quaker upon the inner light for guidance in life necessarily made the training of the young to act in accordance with that light of paramount importauce. Education was confined chiefly to the family and the pay school; but history with hardly a dissenting voice accords to the English colonists of New England the credit of having developed those forms of action in reference to the education of children containing more distinct features to be adopted in the systems of the country than any others.

In Luther's robust treatment of the issues of his day, he placed great stress upon home government, the duty of the family, the duty of the church to children, criticizing the mistakes of the period as he understood them; and in his address to magistrates he brings up with conspicuous force the duty of the state to guarantee the care of the young. He observed: "Beloved rulers, if we find it necessary to expend such large sums as we do yearly upon artillery, roads, bridges, dikes, and a thousand other things of the sort in order that a city may be assured of continued order, peace, and tranquillity, ought we not to expend on the poor suffering youth therein at least enough to provide them with a schoolmaster?" We have seen how these remarkable words of Luther were wrought into the family, the church, and the state in Holland. Here the Pilgrims met them. They had left their homes for conscience' sake; for the sake of certain beliefs in which they differed from their neighbors. These opinions bore upon the destiny of the human soul. They were most concerned about God and mankind. Man created in the image of his God received for his descendants equal privileges. Each human soul was of infinite value, and all were guaranteed in their very nature equality of privileges. The state, the church, the family, the order of Providence, existed in their judgment to give to each soul an opportunity of eternal blessedness. Their Bible was the divine guide to that end. Nothing was more natural, there fore, than that they should seek the best way for the training of their children. They were themselves to a remarkable degree educated. They all were especially taught in the divine word and the idea of correct conduct, and an unusual proportion of their men were educated in the schools and universities of England. They were willing to find new things. It cannot be doubted that they got important suggestions in matters of education from Holland, but they did not imitate blindly. They adapted their action to their circumstances.

Sixteen years after the settlement of Boston, the colony of Massachusetts Bay appropriated £400 for the establishment of Harvard College, in which also the element of private benefactions appeared. In 1642 it was ordered "that the officers of every town should have a vigilant eye over their brethren that none of them should suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to endeavor to teach by themselves or others their children and apprentices perfectly to read the English tongue and knowledge of the capital laws." Here is civil action to secure universal education. Soon after they enacted, "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our fathers, that every township increased to the number of fifty householders should bind one to teach the children;" and soon further, "that any town increased to one hundred families shall set up a grammar school, where youths can be fitted for the university." In case of neglect the penalty was affixed. Here is a philosophical recognition of the subdivision of instruction into elementary, secondary, and superior. The whole State or colony through its legislative power provides the method and makes the duty obligatory upon the town to sustain elementary and secondary instruction, while the State itself makes appropriation and requiros proper aid for the university. The whole prop erty is taxed for all the children in the different grades. It is not amiss here to note the wide effect of this action.

Maine, as is well known, was a part of Massachusetts until it became a State. The methods of the colonies of Connecticut were closely in harmony with those of the Bay; and Roger Williams, though escaping to Rhode Island, did not leave behind

the excellencies of the institutions already founded; so that it is simply a statement of the truth to affirm that this action of Massachusetts colony substantially shaped the educational institutions of New England.

CONDITION OF EDUCATION AT THE TIME OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Previously American institutions had been affected by (1) foreign legislation, (2) by continued immigration, and (3) general interchange of communication. Hereafter the power of direct legislation ceases. The effect of the Old World upon the New is to be that of one nation upon another, or of several upon each other: first, by immigration; second, by intercommunication.

What influence may have come from the Spanish peninsula at this period is suffieiently indicated by the following extract from a report made to the King by the minister of state, Marquis de Asinada. He affirms, "In the whole kingdom there is not a professorship of law, of natural sciences, of anatomy, and of botany. We have no good map of Spain and its provinces, and no man who could draw such a map, and we are obliged to use the very imperfect maps of Spain which we receive from the Netherlands and other provinces; so that we, to our great disgrace, do not know the right location and true distances of our cities."

Though Sweden had contributed such valuable ideas to the settlements on the Delaware, they had not fulfilled the expectations of progress.

In England, methods and administration had made little progress, and had certainly in no way kept pace with her literature and commerce. The sun of the Dutch republic was to set in darkness as that of the American republic arose.

The Huguenots, or French Pilgrims, escaping from persecution at home, brought most valuable contributions; so also the Scotch, who came bringing ideas, customs, and schools, so deeply impressed by the influence of John Knox.

Reviewing the period which elapsed between the time the colonists left their old for their new homes, to the date of the opening of the war with the mother country, and looking into the details of the condition of intelligence and the instrumentalities for education, it would be interesting to bring out fully the fragmentary records which remain. A careful study will, I think, leave the impression that, though the religious sentiments of the people made the interests of the Church prominent in education; though the interest in civil affairs encouraged the study of politics and statesmanship, so that at an early date it was declared in England that more copies of Blackstone were sold in the colonies than at home; though generally in the colonies there was felt a deep sense of the parental obligation to train up the child in the way he should go, and the home was made specially active to this end, and though there was a large number, comparatively speaking, eminent for their cultured minds, yet I think the most careful survey will leave the impression that the progress of educational improvement did not on the average keep pace with the increase of population, and that the intelligence of the generation at the opening of the War of Independence, so far as dependent upon books and schools, would not average so high as the intelligence of the first colonists. It should be remembered that church and state were substantially united in colonial action south of the Hudson.

The struggle for separation being the most severe in Virginia, and not ended until some time after the period of Independence, this union of church and state had no small effect upon the ideas and customs that prevailed in regard to training the young. The changes in what remained of the Spanish colonies require no note. In Virginia, the successful establishment of William and Mary College exercised a most salutary influence in training the sons of the higher classes. The first building was planned by the great architect, Christopher Wren. The first commencement, in 1700, was a noted event. Several planters came in their coaches, others in sloops, from New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Even Indians had the curiosity to visit Williamsburg. The College of William and Mary sent forth, together with many others prominent in the revolutionary movement, Peyton Randolph, Edmund Randolph, John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler, governor of Virginia.

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was specially active in furnishing teachers in Virginia as elsewhere. The ignorance of the lowest classes was as extreme as in England. This was specially true of the several colonies in which the institutions more exactly accorded with those at home. In Maryland a statement signed by twentyone clergymen in 1714 affirms that the case of schools is very bad. In 1717, there was an effort made to establish a school in every county. Taxes were to be levied chiefly upon furs, tobacco, and liquors; and in one law the following sources were specified: "For every Irish papist servant and every negro imported into the provinces, there were required to be paid 20 shillings each," in addition to what was paid before, to go to the establishment of such schools. Most meritorious efforts were made by individuals to found schools. Large benefactions were bestowed in lands and otherwise. In 1750, a charity work school was founded near Easton, in Talbot County, the first manual labor school in the State. In 1754, an order of the council requiring an oath of schoolmasters brought out some curious facts. For instance, in Prince George's County there were 13 teachers, one the rector of the parish, one register of wills, four convicted servants, and three indented servants. In 1763, a project to establish the college was revived without success, and among the items of revenue was to be a tax from 3 shillings to 20 shillings on bachelors. Amid these difficulties instruction was widely conducted by tutors in private families, or for the children of adjacent families. Sometimes the teachers were men of eminence and graduates of the best European universities. There was no absolute security against their ignorance, their incompetency or immorality, as is seen by an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette, of February 28, 1771:

"Ran away: a servant man from Dorchester County, who had followed the occupation of a schoolmaster; much given to drink and gambling."

And again in the same paper in February 17, 1774:

"To be sold, a schoolmaster and indented servant who has got two years to serve. Signed John Hammond, near Annapolis."

To which the following N. B. was added: "He is sold for no fault any more than we are done with him. He can learn bookkeeping, and is an excellent good scholar."

As an illustration of the pains and difficulties those encountered who sought culture for their children, I wish to instance the community at Dorchester, S. C. An act of the assembly was secured in 1724 for the establishment of a free school in the parish of St. George; and this act was transmitted to Great Britain for royal assent, some of the leading men of the colonies affirming that "the chief source of irreligion and immorality here is the want of schools; and we may justly be apprehensive that if our children continue longer to be deprived of being instructed, Christianity will of course decay insensibly, and we shall have a generation of our own as ignorant as the native Indians."

In 1776 there were 11 colleges that are still in existence. Harvard College, founded in 1638, had graduated 2,567 students. The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693, had graduated 496 students. Yale College, whose foundation dates back to 1701, had graduated, in 1776, 1,405 students. The College of New Jersey, founded in 1746, numbered its graduates up to the time of the Revolution at 567. Washington and Lee College, founded in 1749, had graduated 30; Columbia College, founded in 1754, had graduated 124; Brown University, founded in 1764, had sent out 54 graduates; Dartmouth College, founded in 1769, had graduated 43, and Rutgers, founded in 1770, numbered 13 graduates. The University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1747. Hampden Sidney College was founded in 1775.

Of the academies existing at that time there are at present nine: The Latin Grammar School, Boston, founded in 1635; the Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, founded in 1660; Germantown Academy, 1760; Durham Academy, Byfield, Mass., 1763; Columbia Grammar School, New York, 1763; University Grammar School, Providence, 1764; Rutgers College Grammar School, 1770; Charlotte Hall School, Maryland, 1774; and Kingston Academy, 1774.

Before 1800 a dozen more colleges were founded that are still in existence, and also 28 academies.

The existence of 29 libraries in 1776 has been traced, containing 3,682 volumes. In January, 1776, there were published the following newspapers in the thirteen colonies: In Massachusetts, 7; New Hampshire, 1; Rhode Island, 2; Connecticut, 4; New York, 4; Pennsylvania, 9-of these 2 were German and one German and English-Maryland, 2; Virginia, 2; North Carolina, 2; South Carolina, 3; Georgia, 1. There were no daily newspapers. In 1800 it is believed that 150 newspapers were published in the United States. In 1704 the Boston News-Letter, the first newspaper in the colony, was published by John Campbell, bookseller and postmaster.*

With reference to the development of principles and methods among ourselves, we must confess that the century has not been one of uninterrupted and universal progress. Unnatural parents, indifferent citizens and rulers, incompetent teachers, selfishness, vice, and crime, have here and there at times done effective work.

We cannot read the declaration of Washington, of Adams, of Jefferson, of Hamilton, and of others, their eminent compeers, without a profound impression of their thorough appreciation of the duty of education, and their conviction that the perpetuity of the blessings they sought for their country depended upon its success. We can never forget Washington's admonition to promote as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. "In proportion as the structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." Jefferson sought for Virginia a system of education that should embrace, first, elementary schools; second, colleges; third, an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences in their highest degree. Though failing in part, he succeeded in the establishment of a university, which he cherished as one of the greatest honors to his name; while Hamilton, in addition to his emphatic words, was one of the first to participate in the organization of the board of regents for the State of New York, as a part of a scheme for the universal education of the people of New York.

The first great national educational act that we shall meet in the beginning of the century now closing, and the one that overshadows all others, is found in the ordinances of the Confederate Congress of 1785 to 1787. Liberty was decreed for that vast territory north of the Ohio River, the duty of education was enforced, and from the public domain sections were given for elementary and superior instruction, thus, in some measare, providing the means for the end proposed. On these acts, we may say, the history of the country turns as on a hinge. Had slavery gone into this territory and education been excluded, this last experiment in the interest of man as such, irrespective of all distinctions, free from all adventitious circumstances, would perhaps have proved a failure. The War of Independence had dealt harshly with education. The young men had been called to the field, as well as the old. The seven years of conflict had deprived many of those who survived of all other culture save that of the march, the camp, and the battle in defence of their country. The most marked efforts observable in the early years of the century were put forth in the form and in the direction of existing instrumentalities. Before the close of the eighteenth century 23 colleges were founded, 37 academies were established, and 49 libraries, containing between 75,000 and 80,000 volumes. Slavery, which had generally existed in the country, in the more Northern States never succeeded *It was continued by different publishers until 1776, or 72 years. It was the only paper published in Boston during the siege. In 1719 the Boston Gazette was published, and 1721 the New England Courant, by James Franklin.

IG. W. Nesmith, LL. D., an aged and eminent lawyer and friend of education, of Franklin, N. H., the well known confidential friend of Daniel Webster, furnishes the following interesting items in regard to a schoolmaster who served in the war of Independence: Daniel Parkinson, born in Ireland in 1741, landed in New York, graduated from Princeton College in 1765, went to New Hampshire and became a teacher; in 1765 enlisted in Colonel Stark's regiment and was promoted to quartermaster. His meritorious services were well known. After the war he resumed teaching, and died in Canterbury in 1820, a short time before his death preparing his own epitaph, which may still be seen on a slate head-stone and reads as follows:

**Hibernia me genuit. America nutrivit. Nassau Hall educavit. Docui, militavi, atque manibus laboravi. Sie cursum meum finivi. Nunc terra me occupavit, et quieto in pulvere dormio, quasi in gremio materno meo. Huc ades, amice mi! Aspice, et memento, ut moriendum quoquo certe sit tibi. Ergo vale et cave.”