IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 



207 



of twenty shillings for each neglect therein." This 

 act contained the rudiments of a law rendering ed- 

 ucation compulsory. Five years later every town- 

 ship containing fifty householders was required 

 by another act to appoint a teacher " to teach all 

 such children as shall resort to him to write and 

 read ; " and every township containing a hundred 

 families or householders was required to "set 

 up a grammar-school" whose master should be 

 " able to instruct youth so far as they may be 

 fitted for the university." Heavy penalties, in- 

 creased from time to time with the increasing 

 wealth of the community, were inflicted on town- 

 ships which neglected to make the legal provi- 

 sion for education. 



These laws were sustained by the force of 

 public opinion, and as the population moved far- 

 ther and farther inland, or occupied one rocky 

 bay after another on the coast, schools were 

 erected all over the country. The result has been 

 described by a pleasant American writer : 



" If in a New England town there chances to be 

 a native who cannot read and write, he is regarded 

 as a curiosity, and is pointed out to strangers as 

 one of the objects of interest in the place. There is 

 one such man near Stockbridge, in Massachusetts, 

 ■who was pointed out to me last summer as the 

 only native of New England, in all that region, 

 who could neither read nor write. The people 

 appeared to be rather proud of him than otherwise, 

 as though he had given no slight proof of an in- 

 genious mind in having escaped so many boy-traps 

 and man-traps baited with spelling-books as they 

 have in New England." * 



The Dutch settlers on the Hudson were also 

 zealous friends of popular education. The char- 

 ter of the West India Company of the Nether- 

 lands, which began the work of colonization, re- 

 quired the company to maintain " good and fit 

 preachers, schoolmasters, and comforters of the 

 sick." In the proposed articles for the coloniza- 

 tion and trade of the New Netherlands in 1638, 

 it is agreed that " each householder and inhabi- 

 tant shall bear such tax and public charge as shall 

 hereafter be considered proper for the mainte- 

 nance of schoolmasters." 2 The municipal or- 

 ganization of New Amsterdam (1653) — now New 

 York — and of the Dutch towns on Long Island 

 distinctly provided for the establishment of com- 



1 " Topics of the Times," by James Parton, p. 34. 



2 "Report of the Commissioner of Education for 

 the Year 1875" (Washington), p. xv. In the brief 

 sketch of the early history of popular education in 

 America I have made a free use of the materials con- 

 tained in the " Historical Retrospect" prefixed to this 

 report. 



mon schools. In 1659 the colonists sent home 

 for a "Latin schoolmaster." When he came out 

 he was paid a salary from the city treasury, and 

 was allowed the use of a house and garden. Pu- 

 pils attending the Latin school had to pay the 

 master six guilders a quarter ; the elementary 

 schools were free. The Dutch colony was con- 

 quered in 1664 by the English, and from that 

 time popular education made no progress. The 

 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in For- 

 eign Parts sent out a number of schoolmasters, 

 and a high-school was established ; but the colo- 

 nial authorities were unfavorable to the Dutch 

 policy of sustaining free common schools by 

 public taxation. The Roman Catholic and Epis- 

 copalian founders of Maryland and Virginia ap- 

 pear to have left the provision of elementary 

 schools altogether to private enterprise and be- 

 neficence. In the early days of these colonies the 

 authorities were by no means zealous in the en- 

 couragement of even private zeal for education. 

 Sir William Berkeley, who was appointed Gov- 

 ernor of Virginia by Charles I., gives what he re- 

 gards as a very cheerful description of the condi- 

 tion of the colony after he had governed it for thir- 

 ty years : " I thank God there are no free schools 

 nor printing, and I hope we shall not have, these 

 hundred years ; for learning has brought disobe- 

 dience and heresies and sects into the world, and 

 printing has divulged them and libels against the 

 best government. God keep us from both ! " ' 

 For a long time after his death the prayer received 

 a fulfillment which the old Cavalier would have 

 regarded with a large measure of satisfaction. 

 The founder of Pennsylvania was a man of a dif- 

 ferent spirit. William Penn reminded his people 

 that " that which makes a good constitution must 

 keep it, namely, men of wisdom and virtue, quali- 

 ties that, because they descend not with worldly 

 inheritance, must be carefully propagated by vir- 

 tuous education of youth, for which spare no cost ; 

 for by such parsimony all that is saved is lost." 

 But even William Penn did not follow the prece- 

 dent which had been set by the Puritan and 

 Dutch settlers, of imposing the duty of establish- 

 ing and maintaining elementary schools on the 

 municipalities and the colonial government. 



In 1717 the people of Maryland attempted to 

 establish a school in every county. Taxes were 

 to be levied on furs, tobacco, and liquors, and 

 " for every Irish papist servant and every negro 

 imported into the province " a duty of twenty 

 shillings had to be paid, and the proceeds went 



1 Hildreth's "History of the United States," vol.L, 

 p. 526. 



