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sore of all nations. The response was overwhelming. But all kinds, the best and the worst, came together. With the honest man, seeking the rights of conscience and the opportunity of improvement, which were denied him in the Old World, came the adventurer and the scapegrace. We have always held the greatest port of entry in the country, and the overwhelming and oft-polluted tide of immigration has always surged into or across our territory. The accumulation of many people in great communities always presents many and difficult social and industrial problems. Yet who shall say that the 6,000,000 of people of the Empire State are, all classes together, less generally informed, less keenly and alertly intelligent, than any other 6,000,000 of people on the globe? Again, who shall say that these 6,000,000 of people are not better housed, better fed, better clothed, more generally educated, more active in affairs, better equipped for self-government, than any other entire people numbering 6,000,000, unless it be other citizens of our own country, surrounded by the same circumstances and conditions? This is the result of intellectual force and of mental strength widely spread and generally diffused. The fact that it reaches all classes is its chief glory. It extends not only to the manager of a railway, but to the man who runs the train or walks the track. Commonly both have enjoyed equal opportunities, and stand in different grades of the service only because of qualities which inhere in different individuals and which no policy of the State can regulate. As often as otherwise the man at the top suffered the greatest hardships, labored against the greatest disadvantages, and had the poorest chance. But both are alert within their sphere. Each is industrious and aggressive. Each reads the papers, discusses the tariff, and goes to the legislature. Each owns a home, supports a church, and mingles in affairs. Each constitutes the right kind of material out of which to erect a free State. If there is to be discrimination at all, it must be in favor of the masses fairly developed rather than of the few exceptionally intellectual or unusually prominent.

COMMON SCHOOLS PROMOTE GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

What is the prominent and conspicuous influence which has led to this general enlightenment of the people? It is not leadership, except as leadership planned wisely in the beginning. It is not due to favoring circumstances; it is in spite of unfavorable ones. It is not due to the development of physical and material resources. That would be misplacing cause and effect. It is not the work of the university, unless it be indirectly and remotely. The common history of New York unmistakably shows that this widespread intelligence among her people was not manifest until the State placed common schools within easy distance of every home, and that from the time when this policy was well established her career has been practically unparalleled in the history of States.

QUALITIES OF FIRST DUTCH IMMIGRANTS.

Let us then spend an hour in investigating the rise and tracing the progress of the State public school system.

When America was first settled Europe was just emerging from the gloom of the "Middle Ages." The prerogatives of kings were being called in question, and the walled castle and the mailed knight were surely doomed. Commercial enterprise was beginning to show itself, industry was becoming honorable, learning was claiming some attention. Society, which had been prostrate for centuries before the feudal lord, was getting upon its feet again. Nowhere else was this so marked as in the Low Countries. Holland was the chief commercial and industrial nation of the world at the opening of the seventeenth century. It was doing more for education and had a fuller conception of the value of civil liberty than

any other. Mr. Motley, in his history of the Dutch Republic, says, "the children of the wealthier classes enjoyed great facilities for education in all the great capitals," and that "intellectual cultivation was not confined to the higher orders, but, on the contrary, it was diffused to a remarkable degree among the hardworking citizens and handicraftsmen." This people had sprung from sturdy Teutonic and Celtic tribes, and inherited a thrifty disposition and a manly and independent bearing. They had but just followed the lead of the finest orator, the most sagacious statesman, and the greatest soldier of the sixteenth century, in a revolt against arbitrary power, and had fought most heroically and suffered incomparably in the world's first and most memorable contest for liberty. Without democratic theories they had been spending their treasure and blood in resisting tyranny, until by force of circumstances their governmental organization became a republic. To such a people the company of Puritans, with Pastor John Robinson at its head, fled from England for shelter before drifting upon Plymouth Rock. From this people came the first settlers in a village which, for obvious reasons, they called New Amsterdam, in a territory they called New Netherland. It would be strange, indeed, if they had not proved to be an industrious and thrifty people, as it would be equally strange if they had not brought with them a love for liberty and an instinct for self-government. Sturdy in body and mind, quaint in figure, tolerant in spirit, given to trade and to the accumulation of property, they cut the forest, tilled the ground, built huts, opened shops, trafficked with the Indians, while they organized society, established public worship, opened schools, and erected all the institutions of a civil state. In the most forbidding circumstances and contending with the strongest odds, they impressed their ways and their beliefs upon the future history of the country.

THE DUTCH ESTABLISH FREE SCHOOLS.

Our colonial records clearly show that in the midst of the most overwhelming difficulties they were not indifferent to the importance of schools, for even in their most important documents the affairs of the schools receive frequent mention. Their primitive and crude ideas, their difficulties in raising money and regulating teachers, the way in which they made great contentions out of insignificant matters, would be ludicrous if not so common in the closing years of the nineteenth century.

In 1621 the States-general of Holland enjoined the colony "to find speedy means to maintain a clergyman and a schoolmaster," and it was required that "each householder and inhabitant should bear such tax and public charge as should be considered proper for their maintenance." Four years later the expenses of the schoolmaster are shown to have been 360 florins, just one-fourth those of the minister. You observe that some pernicious ideas relate back to very early precedent. In 1633 Adam Roelandson, a professional schoolmaster, was brought over to take charge of the school. He remained in charge for nine years, and is believed to have been the first professional schoolmaster in the country. Unfortunately the proof is abundant that he was of a quarrelsome nature and no credit to the profession.

Before 1650 New Amsterdam had a population of 800. Jan Cornelisen, Jan Stevenson, and Aryaen Janson are mentioned as teachers who kept schools "in hired houses." The excise moneys seem to have been set apart to pay teachers, and they were in part at least paid out of the public treasury. One of the reports of the board of accounts of New Netherland estimates that the expense for the next year of the "schoolmaster, precentor, and sexton" will be 30 florins, or about $12.30 per month. The estimate appears to have been conceived in too imprudent a spirit, and was reduced to 18 guilders or $7.56 per month. On one occasion the governor of the colony parleyed with the Indian chiefs and urged them to send

their sons down to New Amsterdam to school. After taking a week to consider, they diplomatically answered that they were powerless to accept the invitation, for the boys were altogether under the control of their mothers. I am sure that William Vestens, a teacher of ancient days, will not only challenge your admiration, but gain your sympathy, for he is shown to have led a bold but apparently an ineffectual movement for "an increase of salary."

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The churches frequently maintained or supervised schools, and not uncommonly the functions of the minister and teacher were economically combined in the same person. Indeed, it more than once happened that the poor teacher had also to act as sexton, precentor, choirmaster or psalmsetter, and a "comforter of the sick," as the person who supplied the minister's place was commonly called. "Clergymen, comforters of the sick, and schoolmasters" were designated as necessary officers" in the articles adopted by the economical States-general in 1638, concerning the colonization of New Netherland. One of the dignified early reports upon the condition of the colony speaks of the plate having been passed around a long time to raise money to build a schoolhouse, which has as yet been built only with words," and asserts that the school "is kept very irregularly by this one or that according to his fancy, as long as he thinks proper." If this was not for the purpose, it certainly should have had the effect of loosening the purse-strings of the home government.

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The extension of the population into the interior is shown by the official direction to provide ministers and teachers to be sent to "Rensselaer's Colonie" and other distant places." In one instance the people are plainly told by the director for the colony that "if they are such patriots as they appear to be, they will be leaders in generous contributions for laudable objects, and will not complain when the directors request a collection toward the erection of a church and a school." That learning was making progress is shown by the fact that in 1655 Aegidius Luyck is spoken of "as late principal of the Latin school in New Amsterdam.” In several instances the governor and council of the colony received complaints that the inhabitants of certain villages refused to pay for the support of schools, and, after notifying the delinquents to appear and answer, ordered them "to promptly pay their share for the support aforesaid, on pain of proceeding against them with immediate execution." How much pain would ensue in that painful event, I am certainly unable to say.

COMMON SCHOOLS IMPARTED FROM HOLLAND.

Reminiscences like these might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Enough have been recited to show that while learning was in its incipient stages, as was everything else, yet the common-school idea was among this people in the correct form, and that it was developing. Indeed, it occurs to me that enough has been shown to establish the proposition that we are indebted to the Republic in the Netherlands, rather than the Kingdom of Great Britain, for the first and essential principles of the free-school system, and that the first importation came by way of the narrows at Sandy Hook, rather than over Cape Cod.

LATIN SCHOOLS AT NEW AMSTERDAM.

In 1658 the people Petitioned Peter Stuyvesant, the director, for a person to teach a Latin school, assuring him that it would be well attended, and would lead to the formation of an academy, "whereby this place to great splendor will have attained." The petition was granted, and a classical school was opened. Dr. Alexander Carolus, a professional teacher, was principal. He received $187.50 annually from the public treasury, was provided with a house and garden, received six guilders from each student, and was allowed to practice medicine in addition.

ENGLISH GOVERNMENT OPPOSED TO COMMON SCHOOLS.

It is said by eminent authority that when the Dutch were obliged to surrender to the English in 1664, the educational spirit was so common throughout the colony that almost every settlement had a regular school taught by more or less permanent teachers, and that there was a decided setback given to this movement upon the advent of the English in consequence of the apprehension on the part of the nobility that common schools would nourish and strengthen a spirit of independence which had, even then, made some considerable headway. It is true that the official instructions sent by the Government to the successive governors of the province uniformly provided that no person should be permitted to come from England to teach a school without the license of the archbishop of Canterbury, and that no person here should do so without the license of the governor, but it seems clear that this was not so much for the purpose of excluding incompetent instructors as it was to control appointments and determine the course of the schools.

Substantially the only legislative act relating to free schools passed within the colony during the English rule is that entitled “An act for encouragement of a grammar free school in the city of New York," bearing date of November 22, 1702. It provided that there should be "Elected, Chosen, Authorized and appointed, one able, skilfull and Orthodox person to be Schoolmaster, for the education and instruction of youth and Male Children of such parents as are of French and Dutch extraction as well as of the English," and that there should each year for seven years be levied and collected the sum of £50 for the support of such schoolmaster. This would seem to impair the statement that the English did not aid the organization of schools. But an examination of the records confirms the fact beyond question.

The bill was first passed by the general assembly in which the Dutch were strong if not predominant. The governor and council refused to approve it and returned it to the assembly. The assembly adhered to its position. A committee of conference was appointed, and, after days of controversy, a compromise was finally agreed upon by which the bill was amended so as to require that the teacher should be licensed and approved by the bishop of London or the governor or commander in chief of the province. The bill was enacted by the Dutch. It was approved by the English governor, but not until amended so as to enable him to control the school in the interests of the established church and the Crown. When, by its own terms, the provisions of this measure expired, seven years later, nothing was done to renew or continue them.

Indeed, all the English schools in the province from 1700 down to the time of the Declaration of Independence were maintained by a great religious society organized under the auspices of the Church of England, and, of course, with the favor of the Government, called "The society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts." The law governing this society provided that no teacher should be employed until he had proved "his affection to the present government," and his conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England." Schools maintained under such auspices and influences were in no sense free schools.

Indeed, as humiliating as it is, no student of history can fail to discern the fact that the Government of Great Britain, during its supremacy in this territory, did nothing to facilitate the extension or promote the efficiency of free elementary schools among the people.

I observe with interest, in this connection, that Mr. Edward Eggleston, in a most readable article concerning the early English colony in Virginia, which appears in the July number of the Century Magazine, states that the policy of the English Government touching schools in that colony was precisely what we have found it to be in New York. In all the colonies it was what we might have

expected to find. The nobility reasoned that poor men and ignorant men could be governed, and that learning brought disobedience and heresy into the world, and kings and princes, lords and earls and dukes acted in accord with their beliefs. If the English nobility did nothing to extend elementary schools, the Dutch were largely indifferent to advanced schools. Their leading men were merchants whose sons went from the elementary schools into the affairs of trade.

It was precisely the same considerations which led the English to treat the elementary schools with indifference that also led to the organization and shaped the policy of the first college in the State. Its business was to educate leaders to the tenets of the State church, so far as religion might go, and who would sympathize and agree with the English aristocracy, so far as politics were concerned. Twenty years after the organization of this college its officers requested a royal charter granting special privileges. In a letter transmitting this request, and urging that it be granted, Cadwallader Colden, the lieutenant-governor of the province, concludes as follows: "It therefore seems highly requisite that a seminary on the principles of the Church of England be distinguished in America by particular privileges, not only on account of religion, but of good policy, to prevent the growth of republican principles, which already too much prevail in the colonies.” My limits will not allow me to spend more time in referring to the educational facts bearing upon the colonial period. We must be content, for the present, with the statement, which is abundantly supported by the facts, that under the mistaken policy of the English rule the schools languished, and during the progress of the war for independence, which raged with great fierceness over our territory, they were nearly or quite obliterated. The fury of war had closed the doors or entirely extinguished the single college and, practically, all of the academies and schools.

REVIVAL OF LEARNING AT CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION.

With independence and free statehood came a renewed interest in education and a strong impulse toward the advancement in learning. The foremost statesmen deemed the subject worthy their closest attention. Immediately upon the advent of peace Governor George Clinton said to the legislature of 1784: "There is scarce anything more worthy your attention than the revival and encouragement of seminaries of learning." In a communication to the same legislature, asking for a revision of their charter, the few remaining governors of Kings College stated that the greater part of their number "had died out or departed from the State,” and that many parts of their charter "are inconsistent with that liberality and that civil and religious freedom which our present happy constitution points out."

In answer. came an act changing the name from "Kings" to "Columbia," under which the old institution played a most important part in the formative period of the Commonwealth and the Republic. In time she accumulated means and gathered honors about her, and now, under the presidency of a young, accomplished, and vigorous man, whom we heard with so much satisfaction last evening, seems to be entering upon a career of unwonted brilliancy and still more widely extended usefulness.

The act in May, 1784, reorganizing this college, created the State board of regents. In theory and intent the regents were constituted a board of trustees of the existing college, with authority to organize additional colleges and "seminaries," and exercise similar authority over such as should be organized. In fact, the board only transacted the business of the single college for three years, and in that time experienced innumerable obstacles and difficulties.

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