438 HISTORY OF 



Such is the history of the Puritans of New England, the Roman 

 Catholics of Maryland, the Quakers of P ennsylvauia 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 which the children obtained, were communicated by 

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

 pled hardships. By degrees however, as the different settle- 

 ments increased in numberand strength, schools were establish-* 

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

 es of the education of the country from whence the parents 

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

 Colonists, schools, academies and colleges came to be endow- 

 ed either by individual liberality or Legislative 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 education 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 the information of the first emigrants and 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 wliich 

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

 sent to the reader, a detailed account of all matters of sufficient 

 importance and worthy of being embodied in a work of this 

 kind, it is our 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 the German Mennonites in 1709 and '10 in the neighs 

 borhood (-f Willow-street, in Lampeter and Conestoga town- 

 ships. They were — as their descendants still are— a highly 

 moral and religious people. Holding Peace-principles, and 

 taking very little if any part in the affairs of government, they 

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

 for each man to mind his own business. Practising upon this 

 maxim, they encouraged industry \)y their own examples, and 



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