which was of incalculable value to the higher life of the southern colonies.

It appears, then, that in spite of plantation life, so generally unfavorable to the building up of schools, there were lovers of learning in our oldest colony, and the seeds of literary culture were planted there. Yet Mr. Eggleston is justified in his shrewd comment on the Virginia situation: "The College of William and Mary did not get under way until the last years of the seventeenth century; there was no bishop on this side of the sea to induct men into holy orders; the primitive statecraft of the colony needed no other tongue than the vernacular, aided occasionally by Indian interpreters, so that the free Latin school of early Virginia was a short ladder with nothing but empty space at the top of it. Latin was studied merely as a gentleman's accomplishment."1

The West India Company, as early as 1629, issued a decree requiring the patroons and colonists of New Netherland to "endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may supply a minister and schoolmaster." The establishment of schools and the appointment of schoolmasters seem to have depended on joint action of the Company and the Classis (Presbytery) of Amsterdam. An elementary school was established in 1633 in connection with the church at New Amsterdam.2 In 1658 we find an effort making to secure a school of higher grade. The West India Company first suggested such a step to the Director General of the colony. Then the burgomasters and schepens sent back a petition, in which, after some reference to "the great augmentation of the youth in the Province," it is represented

1 Op. cit., p. 222. Cf. MR. FISKE's account of early education in Virginia in Old Virginia and her neighbors, II., pp. 245-253, and the articles in the William and Mary College Quarterly already referred to. The statutory history of the schools is to be found in the volumes of HENING'S Statutes, and in the reprints given by MISS CLEWS.

This school is still flourishing and is probably entitled to the designation "The oldest school in America." In recent years, it has added classes of secondary grade, so that it now prepares boys for college.

that "the burghers and inhabitants are . inclined to have their children instructed in the most useful languages, the chief of which is the Latin tongue; and as there are no means to do so here, the nearest being at Boston, in New England, a great distance from here, . . . we . . . humbly request your Honors would be pleased to send us a suitable person for master of a Latin school, .

not doubting but neighboring places

were such a person here, many of the would send their children hither to be instructed in that tongue; hoping that, increasing from year to year, it may finally attain to an Academy, whereby this place arriving at great splendor, your Honors shall have the reward and praise, next to God the Lord who will grant his blessing to it."

The petition was granted, and Alexander Carolus Curtius, a Lithuanian schoolmaster, was engaged for the new school, at a salary of five hundred florins a year. Curtius appeared before the burgomasters July 4, 1659. The city promptly added two hundred florins a year to his salary, and after some haggling about further additions, the school was begun. But all did not go smoothly. The new rector, for so he was called, got into a lawsuit, which turned on the question whether he was to pay five beavers or only two beavers and two blankets for a hog that he had bought. The burgomasters reprimanded him for taking one beaver per quarter from the boys, instead of the six guilders they had authorized. The parents complained that there was no proper discipline in his school. The boys "beat each other and tore the clothes from each others' backs." The rector was able to retort that "his hands were tied, as some of the parents forbade him punishing their children." But at last, in 1661, he was dismissed, and the Rev. Ægidius Luyck was installed in his place.

The new master was a man of a different sort. He soon brought the attendance in the school up to twenty, two of that number coming from Virginia and two from Fort Orange (Albany). After the capture of the city by the

English, this school is said to have been continued for about eight years. There was no public Latin school on Manhattan Island thereafter, and probably none in the colony of New York, until the following century.1

During the governorship of Thomas Dongan, however, the Jesuit Fathers Harvey and Harrison opened an institution known as the New York Latin School, which probably flourished for several years. It came to an end with the fall of King James and of the Roman Catholic governor, in 1688; and no other Catholic school appears in New York till after the Revolutionary War.2

We find reference to a private school of this grade, kept by Mr. David Jamison, who had been liberally educated in Scotland. He appeared in New York as a "redemptioner," probably some time in the sixteen-eighties. His services were secured by some of the chief men of the place, who "set him to teach a lattin school, which he attended for some time with great industry and success.” 3 Jamison later rose to colonial distinction, becoming Secretary of the Province, and Chief Justice of New Jersey.

"3

Plymouth Colony did not make its beginning till 1670, when the general court set apart the income from the Cape Cod fisheries- mackerel, bass, and herring-for the support of a free school. In accordance with this provision, a school was established at Plymouth.*

The strange medley of nationalities and religions in Pennsylvania gave promise of interesting educational developments. This promise was fulfilled in later days, but the beginnings were made painfully. The proprietary government proposed at the outset to "erect and order all public schools." But this advanced position was soon abandoned.

1 PRATT, Annals of public education, in the Report of the Regents of the State of New York for 1869, pp. 833, 834, 852-857, 862-865, 886.

2 CONSIDINE, Catholic educational institutions in the Archdiocese of New York, pp. 7-8.

• Governor Hunter to the Lords of Trade. Quoted by PRATT, Annals of public education, Eighty-third report of the Regents, p. 670.

Even before the grant to William Penn, there were Quakers in the territory which was to become Pennsylvania, and some of these were taking thought for education beyond that of elementary grade. George Fox, as early as 1667, advised the setting up of a school for boys at Waltham Abbey, in Essex County. Here three years later, Christopher Taylor, a Friend, who is said to have been a profound scholar, opened a classical school. He was, however, soon brought before a magistrate on the charge of teaching without a certificate from the Bishop of London, after which he returned to England. At a later date we find him receiving a grant of five thousand acres of land from the Proprietary, and setting up a school on "Tinicum, alias College Island," where he died in 1686. Mr. Wickersham says of this Tinicum Island school, established in 1684, that it "was without doubt the first school of high grade in Pennsylvania.” 1

It is said that William Penn, in 1689, directed the President of the Council of Pennsylvania to set up a public grammar school in Philadelphia, promising to incorporate it at some later time. A school was established in that year by leading Friends, which was open to children of all denominations. George Keith was called from Freehold, New Jersey, to be the master. He was a Friend, a learned man, who had had experience as a schoolmaster in the mother country. Later he turned against the Quakers and became the first American agent of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. His salary as master in Philadelphia was fifty pounds a year, together with all the profits of the school, and a house was provided for his family. He was to receive a much higher salary the second year; but he met with indifferent success, and was succeeded at the end of the first year by his usher, Thomas Makin. Something like forty years after his first appearance in the school, we find Thomas Makin writing a Latin poem descriptive of Philadelphia. In 1733, then an old man and very poor, he

1 WICKERSHAM, Education in Pennsylvania, pp. 26–28, 81, 463.

fell from a wharf into the Delaware River, and was drowned before he could be rescued.

The school seems to have been managed for some years by a few citizens, without incorporation. A charter was granted by Governor Markham, in 1697, which cannot now be found. The institution was rechartered by William Penn in 1701, in 1708, and again in 1711. It was designated as "The Public School founded by Charter in the town and county of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania." This name is commonly untangled by calling it the "William Penn Charter School." The overseers were given large powers for the establishment of branch schools of lower grade, and through several generations they conducted such schools for the benefit of the poor of Philadelphia.1

While Sir Francis Nicholson was governor of Virginia, he not only encouraged and furthered the establishment of William and Mary College, but gave certain lots and houses of his own for the endowment of another free school in that colony. When that active official became governor of Maryland, he displayed in his new field a like zeal for religion and education. At his recommendation an act was passed by the colonial assembly providing for the support of clergymen of the Church of England, and so virtually extending the English Establishment to the colony. This step was soon followed by the passage of an act, also recommended by the governor, "for the erecting of free schools."

This act was first passed in 1694, but was not approved until passed in amended form in 1696. In its final shape, it provided "that for the propagation of the gospel, and the education of the youth of this province in good letters and manners, that a certain place or places, for a free school or schools, or place of study of Latin, Greek, writing, and the like, consisting of one master, one usher, and one writing master or scribe, to a school, and one hundred scholars, more or less, according to the ability of the said free school, may

1 WICKERSHAM, op. cit., pp. 41-50.