Nations lately become Lltera?y. 333 



fashionable in their native country when they left 

 it.* Accordingly they were generally well, and 

 some of them profoundly, read in the Latin, 

 Greek, and Hebrew languages, in theology, an- 

 cient history, metaphysics, and some parts of 

 mathematical and astronomical science. There is 

 good reason to believe that the clergy and other 

 scholars of New- England, for near an hundred 

 years after their first settlement, that is, till after 

 the commencement of the eighteenth century, 

 were more eminent for classical and theological 

 erudition than men of the same profession at 

 this day/ They were, in particular, much bet- 

 ter acquainted with the Latin and Greek writers 

 than their descendants can now boast of being; 

 and many of them were masters of the Hebrew 

 language, which at present is almost entirely 

 neglected.' 



Besides the establishment of a college in Mas- 

 sachusetts, the inhabitants of that colony directed 

 early and particular attention to the erection of sub- 

 ordinate schools in every part of the country. In 

 1641 the following law was enacted. " If any do 

 not teach their children and apprentices so much 



g The University of Cambridge, in Massachusetts, was formed, as far 

 as circumstances would admit, on the same plan with the Universities in 

 England, and the same course of study was, in substance, pursued. The 

 study of biblical literature and theological science was encouraged by the 

 peculiar spirit of the times, and of the emigrants. And the direction once 

 given was continued by the force of example and habit long afterwards. 



h This appears not only from the Magnolia Americana, of the cele- 

 brated Cotton Mather, but also from the few publications made by 

 the clergy and others of that day ; from an inspection of the books found 

 in their libraries, and from the quality of early donations in books made 

 to Harvard and Yale Colleges. 



i Many of the distinguished divines of Massachusetts and Connecticut, 

 in the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, were cele- 

 brated for their knowledge of the Hebrew language. It is said that the 

 Rev. John Daven port, the second clergyman of that name, and who died 

 minister of the church at Stamford, in Connecticut, about the year 1731, 

 carried into his pulpit a Hebrew Bible only, and made use of no other. 



