Education. 85 



This Memorandum is to certifie those whom it may Concern, That the 

 Selectmen of Hingham have indented with Henry Smith as followeth ; 

 The said Henry Smith engageth that with care and dilligence he will 

 teach and instruct, until a year be expired, in Latin, Greek, & English, in 

 Writting and Arithmetick, such youths of the Inhabitants of Hingham, as 

 shall, for the fore mentioned Sciences, be sent unto their Schooll. And 

 the said Selectmen whose names are subscribed, doe on the behalfe of the 

 Towne of Hingham Promise and Ingage that the fore said Henry Smith 

 for his encouragement & pains, shall have 24 Pounds proportionally paid 

 him at the end of each Quarter of the fore said annual Term, in good mer- 

 chantable Corne at Price currant. The species are Wheat, Rye, Barley, 

 Pease, & Indian, Whereof a Third or Second is to be Indian Corn ; The 

 fore said year is to begin on the first of February 1 670 & to end on the 

 Last of January @ 1671. The said Henry Smith is to have a fortnight 

 Time a lowed him for a Jorney out of the year above said; in witness 

 whereof Both Parties have Interchangably set to our Hands This 12th of 

 January @ 1670. 



Henry Smith. 



Selectmen: Joshua Hobart, 

 John Smith, 

 John Thaxter, 

 Mathew Gushing, 

 Thomas Andrews. 



This is a true Copy of the above written agreement, 



as attest, John Smith, Clerk. 



From the beginning until 1752 only one school was kept in the 

 town, and until 1709 there appears to have been no attempt to 

 change the place of keeping it from the north part of the town. 

 The first mention of a free school is found in a vote of the town 

 in 1709, when it was voted, "that it should be a free school this 

 present year." Before that time the schoolmaster's salary was 

 often paid by those who sent their children to school. We 

 find the rate stated explicitly in a vote passed in 1687 : " And it 

 [the salary] is to be paid by those persons in the town, that send 

 their children or servants to the said school, to be taught, who are 

 to pay for every boy that learns Latin, four pence per week, and 

 such as learn English two pence per week, and such as learn to 

 write and cypher, to pay three pence per week." If the scholars 

 did not pay enough to make up the required amount, what was 

 lacking was to be made up by a town rate upon the whole number 

 of inhabitants. 



Public sentiment seemed to look with little favor upon marriage 

 as a qualification for a teacher in those early days. In 1690 it 

 was voted, " that the Selectmen of the town shall have a school- 

 master as cheap as they can get one, provided they shall hire a 

 single man, and not a man that have a family." 



With the increase and spreading out of the inhabitants it is not 

 strange that many became dissatisfied with a never-changing loca- 

 tion, and the necessity of sending their children a long distance to 



