202 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



to the next session of court, "that the town of Hingham 

 may have an opportunity to accommodate the matter 

 among themselves." 



No further compulsion seems to have been necessary ; 

 for on the following May 6, 1728, the town voted to allow 

 Cohasset to draw out of the treasury their proportion of 

 the ^80 ($400) which was appropriated for schools, "pro- 

 vided they employ the same for and towards the support 

 of a school among themselves, and for no other use." 



The Cohasset people very gladly "employed" that 

 money "for no other use," and that very winter following 

 their school was kept somewhere in the precinct, upon 

 their fair proportion of school taxes.* 



Their hopes and their long struggle for school rights 

 had now come to a finish. For many subsequent years 

 they received their proportion of the town's school tax 

 and hired their own " master." They had no public 

 schoolhouse as they had meeting-house, so that the teach 

 ing had to be done each winter in such buildings as the 

 successive school committees might choose. However, 

 the autonomy of a precinct was essentially complete. 

 They controlled their own parish and school affairs with- 

 out any outside authority. They levied their own taxes 

 for church expenses, and at least appropriated their own 

 taxes for school purposes. 



Since these were the two most important public func- 

 tions for them, they were the first to be acquired. The 

 next function to be gained in self-government was the 

 choice of their own representative in the general govern- 

 ment of the province, and the natural accompaniment of 

 that — town rights. 



In a subsequent chapter their valiant political battle to 

 wrench themselves from the grasp of the mother town, 

 to become a town of themselves, will be followed. 



*The first school committee chosen to do this business were John Jacob, 

 Joshua Bates, and John Orcutl. 



