132 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



and masters and of their children, especially of their ability to 

 read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws 

 of this country, and to impose flues upon such as shall refuse to 

 render such account to them when they shall he required ; and 

 they shall have power, with the consent of any court, or the mag- 

 istrate, to put forth apprentices, the children of such as they shall 

 find not able and fit to employ and bring them up. They are also 

 to provide that a sufficient quantity of materials, as hemp, flax, 

 etc., may be raised in their several towns, and tools and imple- 

 ments provided for working out the same. 



The selectmen of every town were further required "to 

 have a vigilant eye over their brethren and neighbors to see 

 that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of 

 their families as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or 

 others, their children and apprentices, so much learning as 

 may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue and 

 (obtain) a knowledge of the capital laws, u[)on penalty of 

 twenty shillings for each neglect therein." 



" If, after admonition, parents were still neglectful of their 

 duty in these particulars " children might be taken from their 

 parents, and servants from the custody of their masters, and 

 be bound to such masters as the selectmen might deem 

 worthy to supply the place of "the unnatural parent" — 

 boys until the age of twenty-one and girls until that of 

 eighteen. 



Referring to the act and to the primitive Boston idea of 

 barbarism, Mr. Horace Mann, for so many years secretary 

 of the Board of Education, said in 1869, "Tried l)y this 

 standard, many a man who now glories in the name and 

 prerogatives of a repu])lican citizen would, according to the 

 better ideas of the Pilgrim Fathers, be known as the bar- 

 barian father of barliarian children." 



"Training up their children in learning and labor and 

 other employments which may be profitable to the Common- 

 wealth." Mark the words : " training," implying direction, 

 guidance, restraint; "in learning and labor," not learning 

 alone ; " and other employments which may be profitable to 

 the Commonwealth," profitable not simply to the individual, 

 but to the State ; labor, not in the spirit of selfishness, but 

 of patriotism, not for the good of one but for the good of 



