ment, by the states, of the school lands it had granted. The states, in their turn, incorporated and subsidized private educational undertakings, and made but little claim to supervision over the institutions they had aided. Local and individual initiative, generously encouraged by governments which asked few questions and imposed few conditions such was the prevalent type of educational administration in this country in the earlier history of our national independence.

The academy movement, under this system of loose control, became as powerful in Massachusetts, in the face of the tradition and legislation which held up the town grammar schools, as in the newer states, where it had a clear field from the start. The high standard of education under public control, which had been set by the early colonists, was gradually lowered in the school law of this state. In 1789, if the old law had been strictly complied with, two hundred and thirty of the Massachusetts towns, out of a total of two hundred and sixty-five, would have been obliged to support grammar schools. In that year a general school law was passed, in which the old requirement of a grammar school in each town of one hundred families was changed to a requirement of one in each town of two hundred families. By this change one hundred and twenty of these two hundred and thirty towns were released from the obligation to maintain such schools.1

In 1824 another change was made, relieving all towns of less than five thousand inhabitants from the obligation to support a school of secondary grade.2 There were at that time only seven towns in the state having the required population of five thousand. The letting down of the requirements with reference to grammar schools may have been partly due in 1789, and was doubtless due in large measure in 1824, to the upgrowth of the new academies, and of the ideas which they represented.

1 MARTIN, Massachusetts public school system, p. 85.

2 Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, ch. 3, sec. 1. Approved February 18, 1824.

After endowing seven1 individual academies with grants of public lands, Massachusetts adopted in 1797 a general policy with reference to such grants. This policy was embodied in the following declaration :

"First, that no academy, (at least not already erected) ought to be encouraged by government, unless it have a neighborhood to support it of at least thirty or forty thousand inhabitants, not accommodated in any manner by any other academies, by any college or school answering the purpose of an academy; secondly, that every such portion of the commonwealth ought to be considered as equally entitled to grants of State lands to these institutions, in aid of private donations; and thirdly, that no State lands ought to be granted to any academy, but in aid of permanent funds, secured by towns and individual donors; and therefore, previous to any such grant of State lands, evidence ought to be produced that such funds are legally secured, at least adequate to erect and repair the necessary buildings, to support the corporation, to procure and preserve such apparatus and books as may be necessary, and to pay a part of the salaries of the preceptors."

The eight academies then in existence which had received no state endowment, and the four or five more that were necessary to make one for every 25,000 of the population, were then to receive each one-half township of unappropriated lands in "the district of Maine." 2 With characteristic devotion to local self-government, Massachusetts proposed no further public control of those schools which she had thus liberally endowed. By 1840 there were more than fifty incorporated academies in the state.

The history of fifteen of the county grammar schools of Maryland has been traced.3 These schools having degenerated as the revolutionary time approached, their funds were variously employed. "Of the fifteen foundations for secon

1 Four of these were in Maine, namely, those of Hallowell, Berwick, Fryeburg, and Machias.

2 Am. Journ. Ed., XXX., pp. 58-59.

By MR. SOLLERS. See STEINER, History of education in Maryland,

dary education in colonial times, seven went to institutions of the same grade, four to institutions for higher education, one to an institution for elementary education, and two to the support of the poor." 1 Two of these county schools were united in Washington College in 1782;2 and St. John's College absorbed King William's School in 1785.3 St. John's College had been incorporated in 1784, and by the same act the legislature had established the University of Maryland, consisting of the two colleges, Washington on the Eastern Shore and St. John's on the Western Shore.1 These colleges received substantial state aid, which was to have been perpetual.

But here, as in New York, the colleges and academies were regarded as having opposing interests. In 17985 a part of the state moneys was withdrawn from the annual grant to Washington College, and devoted to the support of five academies. This was the beginning of a policy of state aid to secondary schools in the counties, which has been continued in Maryland down to the present time. In 1805 the donations to the colleges were wholly discontinued. By 1812 the ideal of one academy to each county was practically realized. At a later time, 1825 and thereafter, the interests of the primary schools were in turn pitted against those of the academies. The effort to break down the state support of the academies was however unsuccessful.6

Pennsylvania, having extended her financial aid in an irregular way for many years, in 1838 adopted a general system of state support for colleges and academies. When this liberal policy was discontinued, in 1843, there were nine colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania, sixtyfour academies, and thirty-seven female seminaries which were receiving such assistance. The total annual expen

1 Op. cit., p. 42.

2 Laws of Maryland, April, 1782, ch. 8.

8 Id., November, 1785, ch. 39.

4 Id., November, 1784, ch. 37.

6 Id., November, 1798, ch. 107. (The act was passed January 20, 1799.)

6 STEINER, op. cit., passim.

diture for this purpose rose from $7,990 in 1838 to $48,298.31 in 1843.1

Some of the new states of the south and west have already been mentioned in this account. In the rest of these rising commonwealths, academic institutions came into being at an early day, under the impulse of private enterprise variously encouraged by state and territorial governments. No complete inventory of these undertakings will be attempted here. A few notable examples will give some indication of the public spirit which followed hard after the westward movement of our frontier, and show how educational statesmanship made use of various means to conquer the hard conditions of that life.

Tennessee, while yet a part of North Carolina, saw the establishment of Davidson Academy 2 at Nashville (incorporated in 1785), which grew at length into the University of Nashville. This academy was endowed with a grant of 240 acres of land in its immediate vicinity. In 1806 Congress granted certain lands to the state of Tennessee for the encouragement of education. This grant included one hundred thousand acres for the use of two colleges, one hundred thousand acres for the use of academies, one in each county, and six hundred and forty acres in every district six miles. square for the use of schools. The legislature of Tennessee took prompt measures to secure to the state the benefits of this bounty. One of the bills passed for this purpose is astonishing in its comprehensiveness, incorporating, by a single act, twenty-seven boards of trustees for as many academies in the several counties.4

Kentucky, too, began establishing academies before its admission into the Union, and in the matter of omnibus

1 WICKERSHAM, A history of education in Pennsylvania, p. 369.

2 Martin Academy in Washington County seems to have been incorporated at the same time. Am. Journ. Ed., XXIV., p. 320. The act does not appear in Scott's edition of the Laws of Tennessee.

8 BLACKMAR, op. cit., pp. 262-263.

Tennessee, pp. 20-21.

MERRIAM, Higher education in

Laws of the state of Tennessee, 1806, ch. 8.

measures for the incorporation of institutions of learning it was even in advance of Tennessee. Early in the year 1798, the legislature of the state incorporated six academies and seminaries by a single act, and endowed each of these schools with a grant of six thousand acres of land. Later in the same year nineteen more academies were similarly chartered and endowed. By the year 1820, forty-seven county academies had been established in the state, and each of them had received a grant of from six thousand to twelve thousand acres of land. By that time the movement had run its course, the county academies were coming into disfavor, and public educational measures were turning aside into other channels.1

The constitution of the state of Indiana adopted in 1816 contained the far-sighted provision that "it shall be the duty of the general assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide by law for a general system of education, ascending in regular gradation from township schools to a State University wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all." In 1818 the governor of the state was empowered by law to appoint a "seminary trustee " for each county. In 1820 a "state seminary" was chartered at Bloomington. Out of this state seminary has grown the present State University of Indiana. No county seminary was established until 1825, when one was opened at Liberty in Union County. A general law of the year 1831 provided for the establishment of a seminary in each county. In all, twenty-four of these county seminaries were incorporated, between the years 1825 and 1843. Dr. Woodburn says of them:

"These old seminaries gradually disappeared after the passage of the first school law under the new Constitution. The free public high schools have succeeded to their places. In their day they served an excellent, we may even say indispensable, purpose.

1 LEWIS, Higher education in Kentucky, ch. 2. BLACKMAR, op. cit., p.