197. In the early eighteenth century the reaction against the witchcraft delusion, the general decline of Puritanism, and the influx of dissenting Baptists and Episcopalians into New England greatly lowered the old influence of the Puritan clergy in society and in politics. There began, too, here and there, a division within Puritan churches, foreshadowing the later Unitarian movement. This loss of religious unity brought with it for a time some loosening of morals, and part of the people ceased to have any close relation to the church, though all were still compelled to go to service each Sunday.

198. Education. Of the original immigrants below the gentry class, a large proportion could not write their names; and for many years, in most colonies except Massachusetts and Connecticut, there were few schools. Parents were sometimes exhorted by law to teach their children themselves; but all lacked time, and many lacked knowledge. The closing years of the seventeenth century were a period of deplorable ignorance,the lowest point in book education ever reached in America.2 With the dawn of the eighteenth century, and its greater prosperity, conditions began to improve. In Pennsylvania, parents were required, under penalty of heavy fine, to see that their children could read, and several free elementary schools were established. In Maryland the statute book provided that each county should maintain a school, with a teacher belonging to the established Episcopalian Church; but, since most of the inhabitants were Catholics or Protestant dissenters, the law was ineffective. In Virginia, in 1671, Governor Berkeley had boasted, "I thank God there are no free schools here nor printing," and had hoped that for a hundred years the province might remain unvexed by those causes of "disobedience and heresy." Half a century later another governor of

1 See the "marks" for signatures to a Rhode Island document of 1636 (Source Book, No. 89). There is much evidence of this sort. Mary Williams, wife of Roger Williams, signed by her "mark." So, too, did Priscilla Alden in Plymouth.

2 For instance, the Watertown Records in the Source Book, No. 83, show a gross and increasing illiteracy after the middle of the century.

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Virginia complained bitterly that chairmen of committees in the Assembly could not write legibly or spell intelligibly. But by 1724, twelve free schools had been established by endowments of wealthy planters, and some twenty more private schools were flourishing.

South of that colony there was no system of schools whatever. Here and there, however, the churches did something toward teaching children; and of course the wealthy planters of South Carolina, like those of Virginia and Maryland, had private tutors in their families, and sent their sons to colleges in their own or neighboring colonies or to the English universities. In New York, the Dutch churches had begun free schools; but at a later time, because of the connection with the church, these almost disappeared. Massachusetts and Connecticut from the beginning had a remarkable system of public education (§ 199); and the other New England colonies gradually followed in their footsteps.

By 1760, though the actual years of schooling for a child were usually few, an astonishingly large part of the population could read, many times as large, probably, as in any other country of the world at that time; but there was still dolefully little culture of a much higher quality. Between 1700 and 1770 several small colleges were established,' in addition to the older Harvard (§ 199); but none of these institutions equaled a good high school of to-day in curriculum, or equipment, or faculty.

With a few notable exceptions, the only private libraries of consequence were the theological collections of the clergy. In 1698 the South Carolina Assembly founded at Charleston the first public library in America, and about the middle of the eighteenth century Franklin started a subscription library at Philadelphia. In 1700 there was no American newspaper. The Boston News Letter appeared in 1704, and, by 1725, eight or nine weeklies were being published, pretty well distributed through the colonies. Ten years later, Boston alone had five weeklies.

1 William and Mary, in Virginia, 1696; Yale, 1701; Princeton, in New Jersey, 746; King's, in New York (now Columbia), 1754; the University of Pennsylvania (through the efforts of Franklin), 1755; and Brown, in Rhode Island, 1764. South of Virginia there was no educational institution of rank.

It should be noted clearly that in New England such education as there was, was open to all on fairly equal terms; while south of Maryland, education, high or low, was practically only for the few. No other one fact explains so much of the difference between the masses of the people, north and south, in following years. On the other hand, the great planters of the south were by all odds the best educated men in America, acquainted with literature, history, politics, and law, and with such science as the age had, and more or less in touch with European culture and habits of thought.

199. The schools of early Massachusetts and Connecticut demand a longer treatment. Here was the splendor of Puritanism,— a glory that easily makes us forget the shame of the Quaker and witchcraft persecutions. The public school system of America to-day, in its essential features, is the gift of the Puri

tans.

In Massachusetts, private schools were found in some villages from the building of the first rude cabins. In 1635, five years after Winthrop's landing, a Boston town meeting adopted one of these private schools as a town school, appointing a schoolmaster and voting from the poor town treasury collection of the Pennsylvania Histor- fifty pounds (some twelve ical Society. hundred dollars to-day) for its support. So Salem in 1637, and Cambridge in 1642.1

FRANKLIN'S PRINTING PRESS. In the

1 In 1645 Dorchester - still a rude village-adopted a code of school laws of comprehensive nature, well illustrating educational ideals of the town.

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Such schools were a new growth in this New World, suggested, no doubt, by the parish schools of England, but more generously planned for the whole public, by public authority.

So far, the movement and control had been local. Next the commonwealth stepped in to adopt these town schools and weld them into a state system. This step, too, was taken by the men

Court passed a Compulsory Education Act of the most stringent character. This law even authorized town authorities to take children from their parents, if needful, to secure their schooling.1

This Act assumed

A PAGE FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN EDITION OF THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER, the first New England textbook not made up wholly of extracts from the Bible. The first edition appeared about 1680, and the book held its place until long after the Revolution.

that schools were accessible in each town. Five years later, See extensive extracts in Source Book, No. 81. Note that these schools were free in the sense of being open to all. Commonly they were supported in part by taxation, but tuition was charged also to help cover the cost.

1 The Puritan purpose was good citizenship, as well as religious training. The preamble of the similar Connecticut Act of 1644 runs: "For as much as

the commonwealth required each village to maintain at least. a primary school, and each town of a hundred houses to keep up a grammar school (Latin school). This great law of 1647 (written with solemn eloquence, as if, in some dim way, the pioneers felt the grandeur of their deed) remains one of the mighty factors that have influenced the destiny of the world."

In doing good.

Awake, arife, behold thou haft,

Thy life, a leaf, thy breath, a blast;

At night lie down prepar'd to have

Thy fleep, thy death, thy bed, thy grave.

A PAGE FROM THE PAISLEY EDITION OF THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER, 1781. The evening prayer appeared first in print in the second edition of the Primer, almost a hundred years earlier.

James Russell Lowell, after a delightful reminiscence of the New England crossroads schoolhouse, continues:

"Now this little building, and others like it, were an original kind of fortification invented by the founders of New England. These are the martello-towers that protect our coast. This was the great discovery of our Puritan forefathers. They were the first lawgivers who saw clearly, and enforced practically, the simple moral and political truth, that knowlthe good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any Commonwealth," etc. (Each Massachusetts educational statute was copied within two or three years in New Haven and Connecticut.)

1 See Source Book, No. 82, for this Act in full, and for extracts from other school laws of the time. See, also, extracts in No. 83 as to town schools.