438 HISTORY OF 



Such is tlic history of the Turitans of New England, the Roman 

 Catholics of Maryland, the Quakers of P ennsylvai:ia and the 

 Huguenots of the Carolinas, True, their first efforts in this 

 respect were feeble. The country was new, and surrounded 

 as the inhabitants were by savage foes, the first elements of 

 education wliich the children obtained, were communicated by 

 the parents themselves, in the midst of dangers and unexam- 

 pled hardships. Ey degrees however, as the difierent settle- 

 ments increased in number and strength, schoolswcre establish- 

 ed fur the instruction of the children, in the ordinary branch- 

 es of the education of tlic country from whence the parents 

 had emigrated; and as in time, wealth began to flow in upon the 

 Colonists, schools, academies and cullcges came to Le endow- 

 ed either by individual liberality or Logisldtivo munificence. — 

 Truly the good seed sown thus early by the settlers, has yielded 

 abundantly, "some thirty, some sixty and some an hundred 

 fold." 



In general terms and fewer words, we have thus described 

 the progressive history of the educatiun of almost every com- 

 munity in the United States. In some parts we admit, the ad- 

 vance has been accelerated more perhaps by the comparative 

 extent of t!io information of tlio first emigrants an 1 the dimin- 

 ished number of obstacles encountered by them in subduing 

 the country, than from any other cause. Under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, this might therefore suffice for the object to which 

 the present chapter is devoted; but as it is intended to pre- 

 sent to t!:c reader, a detailed account (fall matters of sufficient 

 importance and worthy of being embodied in a woik of this 

 kind, it is uiir duty as a faithful historian, to enter into details. 



As has been already shewn in a former part of this work,* 

 the first settlement of any extent in Lancaster county, was 

 made by tlie German Slcnnoniles in I'^OO and "10 in tlic neigh- 

 borhood of Willow-street, in Lampeter and Conestoga town- 

 .ships. Tiicy v.ere — as their descendants still are — a highly 

 moral and religious people. Holding rcace-princijilcs, and 

 taking very little if any jjart in the alVairs of government, they 

 taught tlieir young men, that the first great duty of life, was 

 for var\i iwjw If) mind his own husinei:s. Practising upon this 

 maxim, they encouraged indu>jtry by their own examples, and 



•J'age 71 aiitca. 



