88 History of Hingham. 



No further change seems to have been made m this arrange- 

 ment until 1781, although the records make it somewhat doubtful 

 whether any money was raised for the support of schools for the 

 single year of 1779. It should also be borne in mind at this 

 point that Cohasset was set off and incorporated as a separate 

 town in 1770, at which time of course she dropped out of our 

 school system. 



It may also be noted that in 1767 appears the first mention 

 on the records of a school for girls. In that year the town voted 

 to build a schoolhouse " on their land near the North School- 

 house, to be used for keeping a female school." There is no 

 authentic evidence that such a schoolhouse was built at that 

 time, although the school itself may have been established in 

 some room hired for the purpose. Female teachers are mentioned 

 in the Second Precinct records in 1768 and 1769. 



1781 marks another point in the history of our public schools. 

 Apparently there was not entire satisfaction with the existing 

 arrangement. At the March meeting a committee was appointed 

 to " strike out a plan for the regulation of the town schools the 

 year ensuing, to report next May meeting." The committee's 

 report, which was accepted, was as follows : — 



" That the town raise a sufficient sum of money to keep three schools 

 the year through, to teach Reading, Writing, and Arithmetick. — One 

 school to be kept in the center of the North Parish the year through ; 

 the west end of the North Parish to have six months schooling, and the 

 Plain to have six months schooling ; the South Parish to have a school 

 the year through, and to [be] shifted so us to accommodate the Parish, 

 with liberty for the Inhabitants to send their children to either of the 

 schools as shall best accommodate them." 



The grammar school, for which an appropriation was refused 

 in 1779 appears not to have been maintained as such from that 

 time until 1782, when it was again provided for. 



In 1786 it was voted to keep four schools the year through, — 

 one grammar, and three for reading, writing, and arithmetic. 



In 1787 Samuel Norton, Caleb Thaxter, Col. Charles Cushing, 

 and Jacob Leavitt were chosen a committee to assist the Select- 

 men in taking care of and providing for the schools. This was 

 the first move towards the election of a School Committee, but 

 it does not appear to have been followed up annually thereafter 

 until 1794. From and after that date, however, the town con- 

 tinued annually to elect a School Committee to assist the Select- 

 men, until the passage of the law in March 1827 (Acts of 1826, 

 chap. 143), by which towns were first required to elect a School 

 Committee with new powers. The records of the School Commit- 

 tee of Hingham begin in 1794, and are unbroken down to the 

 present time. 



No further change occurred in the general arrangement until 

 1794, except that in 1791, 1792, and 1793, the grammar school was 



