86 History of Hingham. 



attend school. We find in 1708 a vote " that the grammar school 

 should be removed from that place where it have been of late 

 kept," but as it was left with the Selectmen "to appoint the places 

 in said Hingham where the said school shall be kept and how long 

 the said school shall be kept at a place," it is not certain that 

 they adopted any change of location, for in 1709 it was voted 

 " that the said school shall be kept at the usiall place the presant 

 year." 



It was not until 1721 that a change appears to have been 

 brought about. With the building of a new schoolhouse on the 

 plain " near to Peter Ripley's," it was voted, " that the school 

 should be kept by Peter Ripley six months in one year." 



The inhabitants of the Second Precinct, [Cohasset], now began 

 to assert themselves, and in this same year, 1721, they had their 

 proportion of a tax of £40, the amount appropriated for the 

 school, allowed them. Whether they set up a school of their 

 own at this time is not certain, as may appear from later votes, 

 but they were beginning to show a feeling of restlessness which, 

 from this and other causes, culminated in the setting off 

 of Cohasset, some fifty years later, as a. separate town. The 

 following vote in the precinct records is of interest in this 

 connection : — 



'"March 31, 1721, John Farrow, Obediah Lincoln, and Joseph Bate are 

 chosen to take care concerning the school, and to take the money from 

 the town of Hingham and to dispose of it as followeth : one third part 

 of it to be paid to a school dame for teaching the children to read, and 

 two thirds of the money to he disposed of to teach the children to write 

 and to cipher." 



For several years after 1721 the school seems to have been 

 kept, one half the time at the schoolhouse in " the town," as the 

 north part was called in distinction from other parts, and one 

 half the time in the schoolhouse near Peter Ripley's on " the 

 plain." March 31, 1724, the Second Precinct voted that "the 

 money that came from the town which is in the hands of John 

 Farrow, Obediah Lincoln and Joseph Bate, should be disposed of 

 to learn the children to read and write in this precinct." 



In 1726 the town refused to have the school kept any part of 

 the year in Cohasset ; and again, in 1727, the petition of Cohasset 

 to have the school one third of the year, or the proportion of 

 money its inhabitants paid for the school, was refused. In 1728, 

 however, the just demands of the outlying districts seem to have 

 been recognized, and another step in the growth of the system 

 was taken. Cohasset and Great Plain were allowed to draw out 

 of the town treasury their proportion of what they paid towards 

 the .£80 raised for the support of schools, provided they " imploy 

 the same for and towards the support of a school among them- 

 selves and for no other use;" and Great Plain was permitted to 



