134 THE PRIVY COUNCIL AND COLONIAL EDUCATION.

to exhort the people to a chearful and liberal contribution." The collection was not to be made in church. The minister and churchwardens or overseers of the poor and other well affected persons nominated by the minister were authorised after the reading of the Act "to go with all convenient speed from house to house, to every of the Inhabitants of the said Parishes and places respectively, and to take the subscription of every such person in a schedule to be presented by them for that purpose, and accordingly at the same time to collect and gather the same." A duplicate of the schedule with the money was within ten days to be paid into the hands of county treasurers, "persons of quality resident in each County," and the receipt for such payment was a sufficient discharge to the various collectors.

This voluntary rate was actually levied throughout the country, and the money received by the Society was devoted to the purchase of land in order to secure a permanent income for the carrying on of the work of the Corporation. But the collectors do not appear to have been in all cases reliable, for we find an Order of the Council of State, dated July 17th, 1655, dealing with the question of moneys collected and not paid over. The President and Society were directed by this Order to take the most effectual means for getting in the sums so collected, and to certify the reason of the delay. The Society was also required to make a return of all the money collected, how it had been disposed of, and how the growing revenues were employed'. From a petition presented to the Crown and read July 2nd, 1662, we learn that the King confirmed the existence of this Society under the name, seemingly, of "The Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England and parts adjacent of America." The petition recited that many natives had been converted and that the New Testament and a good part of the Old ("whereof the rest is making ready for the press ") had been printed in Calendar of State Papers-Colonial (1574-1660), p. 426.

MASSACHUSETTS EDUCATION ACT, 1692.

135

Petition for the education of natives,

the Indian language. It complains, however, that the produce of their land was withheld by the former owner, and that the former collections were in part withheld, and attributes to this a deficit during two years. The income was too small to enable the Society to bring actions for the recovery of the money detained, to continue the translation and printing of the Bible and the maintenance of the schools. for the Indian children. The Society therefore begged the King to grant one general collection throughout England and Wales for the purposes aforesaid, for that the benefit intended by the former collections was not fully attained, there having been divers counties in the Kingdom, and several parishes in the City of London, wherein no collections for this work had been made. This petition was read on July 2nd, 1662, at Whitehall, and an Order in Council was at once made recommending the petition to the Lord Chancellor, who was directed to give order for a brief for a general collection as asked'. It is not necessary to pursue further the educational work of this Society. Enough has been written to show that the English Parliament was prepared in those early days to make efforts on behalf of education in the colonies, and we shall see that similar efforts were not wanting in other colonies. It is necessary here to refer to the work done by the Colonial Government in New England on behalf of an organized system of education.

1662.

Legislation

setts, 1692.

Immediately after the re-grant of a Charter to the colony of Massachusetts (October 7th, 1691), the "Great and General Court or Assembly of the Province of in Massachuthe Massachusetts Bay in New-England" passed in 1692 "An Act for the Settlement and Support of Ministers and Schoolmasters." This provincial Act was sent to England for ratification, and was confirmed by the Crown on the 22nd

1 Calendar of State Papers-Colonial Series, America and West Indies (1661-1668), pp. 95-96.

136 THE MASSACHUSETTS EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

of August, 1695'. The part of the Act that relates to education runs as follows: "Be it Ordained and Enacted by the Governor, Council, and Representatives, convened in General Court or Assembly, and by the Authority of the same..... That every Town within this Province, having the Number of Fifty Housholders, or upwards, shall be constantly provided of a Schoolmaster, to teach Children and Youth to read and write. And where any Town or Towns have the Number of One hundred Families or Housholders, there shall also be a Grammar School set up in every such Town, and some discreet Person, of good Conversation, well instructed in the Tongues, procured to keep such School; every such Schoolmaster to be suitably encouraged and paid by the Inhabitants. And the Select-men and Inhabitants of such Towns respectively, shall take effectual Care, and make due Provision for the Settlement and Maintenance of such Schoolmaster and Masters. And if any Town, qualified as before expressed, shall neglect the due Observance of this Act, for the Procuring and Settling of any such Schoolmaster, as aforesaid, by the space of One Year, every such defective Town shall incur the Penalty of Ten Pounds for every Conviction of such Neglect, upon Complaint made unto Their Majesties Justices in QuarterSessions for the same County in which such defective Town lieth; which Penalty shall be toward the Support of such School or Schools within the same County, where there may be most Need, at the Discretion of the Justices in QuarterSessions; to be levied by Warrant from the said Court of Sessions in Proportion upon the Inhabitants of such defective Town, as other publick Charges, and to be paid unto the County Treasurer."

This is a truly remarkable document. It is a colonial Act that became law at a period when in England religious dissensions and the Act of Uniformity of 1662 had reduced popular education to almost its lowest level. Yet it is a 1 The Act is No. 11 of the year 1692, and was passed at Boston.

THE CONNECTICUT CODE, 1650.

137

statute of the English Crown-it is headed "Anno Regni Quarto Gulielmi & Mariae"-and contains within it a policy not only enlightened for its date, not only undictated by political motives, but one as wise and helpful as that State system of primary and secondary education which educationalists are striving to secure to-day. Yet it is nearly 210 years since the Legislature of New England determined to reproduce the grammar school system of Old England supported by a compulsory rate, and to supplement it with a compulsory primary system such as England was not destined to see even in theory until 1876. The adoption of the English county machinery and divisions is in itself remarkable and shows how at that date the possibilities of a rate-supported system of education in England had suggested themselves to Englishmen abroad.

Connecticut Education Law, 1650.

But remarkable as was this early production of an educational system in Massachusetts Bay an even earlier development took place in the colony of Connecticut. As early as October 25, 1644, the General Court granted a voluntary rate for the maintenance of poor scholars at Harvard College, and this was confirmed by the Code of Laws established by the General Court in May, 1650. This code dealt in a most remarkable manner with the whole question of education. Under the title "children" it ordered the select men of every town to see that parents by themselves or others taught their children and apprentices to read English perfectly, and to have a knowledge of all offences punishable by death "vppon penalty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein." The children had also "to learne some shorte orthodox Catechisme, without booke," and they were to be brought up to some honest calling if the parents or masters could not or would not "traine them vp in Learning to fitt them for higher imployments." If the parents or masters remained negligent of their duty it was the business of the select men, with the help of two magistrates, to take the children or apprentices from such parents or masters "and

THE RELATION OF PARENT AND CHILD.

138 place them with some masters for yeares, boyes till they come to twenty one and girles to eighteene yeares of age compleat, which will more strictly looke vnto, and force them to submitt vnto gouernment, according to the rules of this order, if by faire meanes and former instructions they will not bee drawne vnto it'.'

:

The Legislature of this colony fully realised in 1650 a fact that England has only realised since 1894, and which the executive still regards as negligeable in 1650 the Legislature of Connecticut laid down the rule of law that the rights of a parent to the custody, control, and society of his child ceased absolutely unless the parent was able to show that he was bringing up a child of school age in such a way that he was likely to be useful to the community. In England the sacred rights of a parent have ever been regarded as practically indefeasible. The right of the English parent was more comprehensive than the right of the Roman parent in the early days of the Republic. The Roman father was allowed to kill the body of his child; the English parent could, and practically can, distort the entire moral purpose of his child's existence.

3

. The framer of the Code realised that the community which makes education compulsory must supply schools, and under the title "schooles" the necessary provision is made. In order to promote the "use of tongues" and “that Learning may not bee buried in the Graue of our Forefathers, in Church and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our indeauors," the Court orders that in every township of

1 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (1635-1665), pp. 112, 520, 554 and see also pp. 139, 250.

2 Protection of Children Act, 1894 (57 & 58 Vict. c. 41).

6

3 Roger Ludlow, the first Deputy Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, was deputed on April 9th, 1646, to draft the Code which is known either as Mr Ludlow's Code,' or as The Code of 1650.' He was born in Wiltshire about 1590, was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and sailed for America about 1630. After stirring days he returned to England in 1656.