THE GROWTH OF EDUCATION IN CONNECTICUT.

139

fifty householders the township shall appoint one within the town "to teach all such children as shall resorte to him, to write and read, whose wages shall bee paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the Inhabitants in generall by way of supplye, as the maior parte of those who order the prudentialls of the Towne shall appointe; provided that those who send theire children bee not oppressed by more than they can haue them taught for in other Townes. And it is further ordered, that where any Towne shall increase to the number of one hundred families or housholders, they shall sett vp a Grammer Schoole, the masters thereof being able to instruct youths so farr as they may bee fitted for the University'. And if any Towne neglect the performance hereof aboue one yeare, then euery such Towne shall pay fiue pounds per Annum, to the next such Schoole, till they shall performe this order." This Act is even more explicit than the Act of Massachusetts Bay of 1592. The New England Act, which was possibly founded upon Ludlow's Code, is only more remarkable in the fact that it was an Act of the English Crown. Both these Acts show a determination to establish in the new colonies an effective system of education.

Some further brief reference must be made to the educational movement in Connecticut. On May 13, 1678, the General Court amended the title "schooles" in the Code to the effect that when a township numbered thirty, instead of fifty families, it should maintain a school. In October, 1684, it was ordered that houses and lands given for the support of any school should be exempt from taxation. By an order of January 1686-7 it was provided that certain surplus money in

1 This probably conveyed to Ludlow, an Oxford man, a more definite meaning than it did to the majority of the settlers.

2 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (May, 1678—June, 1689), p. 9.

3 Ibid. p. 158.

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THE EARLY AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL POLICY.

the colonial treasury should be applied to the improvement of the grammar schools in each county town, and in default of these to other schools'. On October 10, 1690, the General Court ordered the foundation of two free schools, at Hartford and Newhaven, for the teaching of reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin and Greek2. In the year 1700 the General Court dealt with the question of schools from the point of view of classification. It ordered that there should be four grammar schools at the four county towns-Hartford, Newhaven, New London and Fairfield-that all other towns should with seventy families and upwards have a reading and writing school open all the year; but that all towns with less than seventy families need only have a school open for one-half the year. A specific rate was levied throughout the colony for the maintenance of all the schools. By an Act of May 14, 1702, the rate when raised was paid over to the committees for the school" in the larger towns, and the select men in smaller towns, for the purposes of maintenance1. These committees were, it seems, appointed by the General Court.

Much might be added on the subject of early Stateaided education in these first colonies, but this wide subject cannot be treated at large in these pages. We have seen with how broad an outlook legislators in those early days treated the whole question of education. They realised the simple and obvious fact that the youth of a nation are the custodians of its destiny, and strove to rear them with a sense of that awful responsibility. How different would all things have been had the advisers of the Crown in England in the seventeenth century

1 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (May, 1678— June, 1689), pp. 224, 225.

2 Ibid. August, 1689-May, 1706, p. 31.

3 Ibid. p. 331. The rate was forty shillings upon every thousand pounds in the respective lists of estates in each town.

4 Ibid. p. 375.

5 In 1657 in the colony of Newhaven schools were ordered to be founded in every plantation. Other instances might be enumerated.

ADDISON AND NATIONAL EDUCATION.

141

Imminence

of compulsory England in

education in

1650.

adopted the suggestion contained in the legislation of the New England states, and introduced a compulsory and universal system. The event was imminent in 1650; by 1670 its possibility was postponed for two centuries. Such a system indeed would have rendered needless those devoted voluntary efforts that created the charity schools of the eighteenth century and laid the foundation of the voluntary system. The historian of altruism would grudge the loss of such a chapter. Joseph Addison regarded these charity schools as the glory of his age1, and no one who has closely traced the history of the voluntary system can withhold deep admiration for the unwearied efforts of those who made it possible; but when we remember that in 1870 there were still one million children in England without the elements of knowledge, it is impossible not to regret that the State should, at a date when compulsion was natural and desirable, have left to the individual to perform imperfectly the thing that it itself could have done so well.

State education in South Carolina.

26. From New England we turn to the Province of South Carolina. In this colony an Act for founding a Free School was passed on April 8th, 1710. This was followed on June 7th, 1712, by "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning." Both these Acts were repealed by an Act ratified on December 12th, 1712. The Act recited that "it is necessary that a Free-School be erected for the Instruction of the Youth of this Province in Grammar, and other Arts and Sciences and useful Learning, and also in the Principles of Christian Religion," and recites further that money had been left for this purpose by various persons and then proceeds: "Be it therefore Enacted by the most noble Prince Henry, Duke of Beauford, Palatine, and the rest of the

1 The Guardian, No. 105. Saturday, July 11, 1713. Works, 1811, vol. v. p. 229.

2 Nos. 296, 316 and 330 in Trott's Laws of the Province of South Carolina.

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THE PALATINATE OF CAROLINA.

true and absolute Lords and Proprietors of this Province, by and with the Advice and Consent of the rest of the Members of the General Assembly, now met at Charles-Town for the South-West Part of this Province, and by the Authority of the same" that certain persons be appointed Commissioners for the erecting of a school for the use of the inhabitants of South Carolina. In addition to this central school a general scheme of education was devised, and the residue of the duties upon "Skins and Furrs" was devoted (after payments to the ministers of religion and to the provincial library at Charlestown') to the payment of the salaries of masters in the various schools to be established under sections 21 and 22 of the Act. Section 21 runs as follows:- "And as a further and more general Encouragement for the Instructing of the Youth of this Province in useful and necessary Learning; Be it Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That as soon as a School-Master is settled in any other, or all the rest of the Parishes of this Province, and approved by the Vestry of such Parish or Parishes, such School-Master so approved, from Time to Time, shall receive the Sum of Ten Pounds per annum, out of the Publick Treasury, by Quarterly Payments, and the Publick Receiver is hereby required to pay the same." Section 22 is equally important: "And be it further Enacted, That the Vestry of each Parish in this Province, shall have Power, and they are hereby impowered to appoint a Place where the Parish-School shall be built, and shall draw upon the publick Receiver toward Building the same, the Sum of Twelve Pounds current Money, and the publick Receiver is hereby required to pay the same accordingly.”

This Act of 1712 is most interesting from many points of view. We get in it a glimpse of an Upper and Lower Chamber and of a Prince Palatine2 that are little known to the general

1 Cf. the statute of 1708 (7 Anne, c. 14) founding parochial libraries in England.

2 The history of the County Palatine of the Province of Carolina

EDUCATION IN NEWFOUNDLAND.

143

readers of history, while the Act itself is a piece of enlightened policy that would have done infinite credit to later days. The attempt both in New England and in South Carolina to create a State system of secondary and primary education necessarily takes an important place in the history of colonial education. 27. The recent volumes of special reports issued by the Board of Education on the educational systems of the British Empire contain some important education and details as to the beginning of colonial education. We e may draw from these reports some of the interesting information there gathered together.

Colonial

the StateNewfoundland.

Despite the early discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot in 1497 it was not until the nineteenth century that the English Government chose to recognise it in the light of a colony or settlement. Stern measures were indeed taken to prevent immigration, and as late as 1783 Governor Elliott asked the British Ministry to prohibit the residence of women on the island. As recently as 1811 it was still regarded as merely a fishing-ground, and dwelling-houses could not be erected without a special license. But it is a hard thing to lock out British subjects from any land, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century there was an English-speaking, scattered, coast population of 25,000. The Government had never done anything for these people, who were living under barbarous and degrading conditions; but, as early as 1726, voluntary effort was at work. In that year the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts founded a school at Bona Vista. Another was started at St John's in 1744; a third in

begins with the Charter of Charles II. granted on March 24th, 1663. This Charter delimited the province and made certain peers and knights the true and absolute lords of Carolina. By a further Charter of June 30, 1665, the powers of the proprietors and the area of the province were enlarged. Though the province and the inhabitants were subject to the King, the power of the lords was absolute, and included the powers of life and death, the power of creating dignities, and of creating a constitution. It was under a constitution so created that this Act was passed.