450 HISTORY OF 



Upon the result of this vote being made known, the Board of 

 Directors was organized, and through their indefatigable exer- 

 tions, schools have been established so numerous and so well 

 graded, that every child in the city can be educated "without 

 money and without price," to an extent which but fifty years 

 ago was seldom attained even by the children of wealthy 

 parents. 



While upon this subject, it may as well be observed, that a 

 deep and growing interest in the cause of education is mani- 

 festing itself daily, in the rural districts, for out of thirty-three 

 school districts in the county, eighteen in 1842, had accepted 

 the provisions of the Common School law.* 



It must not be supposed while these efforts were making to 

 instruct the great mass of the children of Lancaster county in 

 the elementary branches of an English education, the inhab- 

 itants were unmindful of the higher and more difficult ones. — 

 We shall speak of these hereafter. Thus have the exertions of 

 the friends ot education been crowned with eminent success, 

 in the establishment and support of Common Schools, as well 

 in many parts of the county as in the city of Lancaster. 



While these movements were making for the extension of 

 learning to and among the children of the town and county, a 

 number of Master Mechanics of the city, perceiving that their 

 apprentices were destitute of the means of mental improve- 

 ment, and taught by their own experience, that idleness is the 

 prolific source of vice — a rock upon which has stranded the 

 highest hopes and fondest expectations of parents and friends — 

 with a commendable determination to project some plan, by 

 which the leisure hours of their apprentices might be rationally 

 employed, convened a public meeting for consultation and 

 advice upon this subject, on the evening of July 8, A. D. 1829. 

 At this meeting Hugh Maxwell, Esq. presided; and out of it 

 soon grew "The Mechanics Society." A constiration was 

 soon after formed, agreed upon and submitted to the Supreme 

 Court, by which a charter was decreed, May 26, A. D. 1831. — 

 Having thus procured a legal existence, the socici;}' soon went 

 into active operation. By voluntary contributions, a Library 

 was commenced and has gone on increasing in sizeaud value, 



*9th annual Report of the Superintendent of Comnir n Schoclr. 



