334 Nations lately become Literary. 



learning as may enable them to read perfectly the 

 English language, to forfeit twenty shillings; and 

 the selectmen of every town are required to know 

 the state of the families, &c." Not long afterwards 

 a law was made, that when any town increased to 

 the number of one hundred families, they should set 

 up a grammar school, the master thereof being 

 able to instruct youth so far as that they may be 

 fitted for the University, under certain penalties. 

 To these schools, after a few years, academies were 

 added; thus forming a system of general educa- 

 tion, which has been from time to time improved, 

 and which in the eighteenth century became one 

 of the distinguished honours of New-England. 



It was not till towards the close of the seven- 

 teenth century that a seminary of respectable cha- 

 racter, for general instruction in literature and 

 science, was established in Virginia. The origi- 

 nal settlers of that colony were, in several respects, 

 of a very different description from their country- 

 men who settled in New-England. But a small 

 portion of them could boast of any considerable 

 requirements or taste in literature. Actuated 

 chiefly by the love of gain in coming to a rude 

 and uncultivated country, they directed their prin- 

 cipal attention to this object, and neglected most 

 other concerns. Besides, not being so much un- 

 der the influence of religious principles as their 

 eastern brethren/ nor feeling in so high a degree 

 the necessity of literary institutions for the pro- 

 motion of ecclesiastical as well as civil prosperity, 

 they might naturally have been expected to be 

 more indifferent about their establishment. And 



j The author does not mean to intimate that the first settlers in Virgi- 

 nia were destitute of Religion; hut merely, (what he takes for granted 

 every one will readily admit,) that Religion seems to have been a less pro- 

 minent object, and to have entered less into their motives and plans in 

 forming the settlement, than in New-England. 



