hoping withal that the example of ourselves (which have been accounted no people) will provoke the rest of the country to jealousy.

For this "pious and liberal gift" the governor, in the name of the whole court, returned thanks to the people of Portsmouth.

Portsmouth was then the richest town in the colony. To the abovenamed fund Dover added £32 and Exeter £10.

When New Hampshire resumed its independent character as a province, the act of 1647 was copied upon its statute books, and constituted the statute law, with slight changes, for one hundred years. It is not probable that the law of 1647 was generally enforced. The grades of school established by this act were at first supported in part by tuition. The execution of the law was in the hands of the selectmen of the towns. The amount of money raised for the support of the schools was at the discretion of the towns. The first act of the government of New Hampshire in regard to schools, after it became a separate province in 1680, was passed in 1693, at the very time when the people were suffering the extremes of poverty and enduring the horrid barbarities of King William's war. This law required the selectmen in their respective towns to raise money by "an equal rate and assessment" on the inhabitants for building and repairing meetinghouses, ministers' houses, and schoolhouses, and for providing for a schoolmaster for each town in the province, under a penalty of £10 in case of failure. Other laws respecting the maintenance of common and grammar schools, with penalties attached, were enacted in 1714, 1719, and 1721, which remained in force until the adoption of the State constitution in 1783. The law of 1719 was almost an exact copy of the law of 1647, the only modification being an increase of the penalty from £5 to £20. It contained a clause authorizing towns thinking themselves unable to comply with its terms to seek relief from the court of general sessions. "In 1721 the derelict selectmen, who are in the preamble of the act affirmed 'to often neglect their duty,' are made liable upon their personal estates for the penalty affixed upon the towns."

About this time (1719) the Scotch-Irish made their first settlement in the southern part of the State at a place which they named Londonderry. They soon spread over several townships and, being intelligent and deeply religious, soon acquired no small influence in the affairs of the province. It was undoubtedly due in part to them that the school laws were enforced and that such stringent provisions were enacted as that in the law of 1721, where it reads:

If any town or parish is destitute of a grammar school for the space of one month, the selectmen shall forfeit and pay out of their own estate the sum of £20, to be applied toward the defraying the charges of the province.

"Reading and writing were in those early days the only branches of instruction in our common schools. The Bible and Psalter or the New England Primer were the only reading books; and those who

aspired to the more liberal art of chirography, instead of white paper, very generally made use of white birch bark. The first spelling book generally used (that of Thomas Dilworth, published in England in 1740) was not introduced till 1770, and, though very humble in its merits when compared with those of the present day, was considered even then a perfect epitome of all that was essential to a common education.'

"What we believe is, that the system projected by the first settlers, if it had been fully realized and sustained with the same interest with which it was first adopted, would have been fully adequate to the wants of succeeding generations. They had not advanced far enough from the house of bondage to forget that liberty and prosperity rested upon intelligence and moral integrity and that these were to be maintained by a sleepless vigilance.

"Nor did they lay upon others burdens which they were not willing themselves to bear. These laws had to be executed in perilous times, under the administration of such men as Cranfield and Andros, during the horrors of the French and Indian wars, amid the controversies with the heirs of Allen and Mason, while the bitter feuds of unsettled boundaries were raging, and through the seven years' war for independence. Nevertheless grand jurors were sworn whose special duty it was to present all breaches of the school laws. Perhaps we should not be authorized, by history, to assert that these laws were in all cases strictly obeyed. It is certain that frontier towns on direct petition were exempted from the support of. a grammar school on condition that they should keep a school for reading, writing, and arithmetic."2

Between 1680 and 1783 grants of lands were made in most of the incorporated towns for the support of schools. It seems probable that in all the grants made by the Masonian proprietors, by the Massachusetts Colony, and by John Wentworth, second, one lot or share was reserved in each town for a school. But the same can not be said of all the numerous grants made by our "trusty and wellbeloved Benning Wentworth, esq.," governor and commander in chief of the province of New Hampshire. He even refused to charter a college on the petition of a convention of ministers, presented in 1758, who desired to "serve the government and religion by laying a foundation for the best instruction of youth." But in 1769, under the administration of Governor John Wentworth, the charter was secured, the college founded, and a grant of 44,000 acres of land made to it.

From the beginning of the eighteenth century until near its close there was great apathy in the matter of maintaining schools, the law

'Barstow's History of New Hampshire, pp. 285, 286, published in 1842.

2 Hon. J. W. Patterson in the thirteenth annual report upon the common schools of New Hampshire, June, 1859. To this report we are indebted for a number of the extracts which follow.

respecting education being but partially enforced. Mr. Jeremy Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire, says that "when the leading men in a town were themselves persons of knowledge and wisdom they would provide the means of instruction for children; but when the case was otherwise methods were found to evade the law * * *. It was the interest," he says, "of ignorant and unprincipled men to discourage literature, because it would detract from their importance and expose them to contempt." Furthermore, the neglect of schools "was one among many evidences of a most unhappy prostration of morals during that period. It afforded a melancholy prospect to the friends of science and of virtue and excited some generous and philanthropic persons to devise other methods of education." Among those who at this time came forward to awaken interest in the cause of education was the Hon. John Phillips, of Exeter. As an earnest of his intense convictions on this subject he founded and endowed a seminary of learning which in 1781 "was by an act of assembly incorporated by the name of Phillips Exeter Academy." Other towns soon followed the example set by Exeter and opened either private schools or academies, and the beginning was laid for that academic history in New Hampshire which is believed to have no parallel in the history of the other States of the Union.

As a further evidence of the new impulse given to education, social libraries were established in several towns of the State and a medical society was incorporated (1791) by an act of assembly.

*

By an article of the constitution of the State, legislators and magistrates were required "to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences * * ; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people."

The policy of the State has been to leave in the hands of the family and neighborhood the main share of the work in educating the child. This doctrine was in harmony with the active and liberty-loving principles of our ancestors.

The Revolution had greatly impoverished the people, and at its close the grammar schools for training boys for "ye University" existed scarcely elsewhere save in the phraseology of the statute. Such was their condition in 1789 that the legislature repealed all former acts on the subject. The amount of money for schooling was now definitely fixed by statute at £5 for every £1 of the proportion of public taxes to the individual town, which would give an amount equal to £5,000 for the whole State. This was to be expended in keeping an “English grammar school." This act also provided for the examination of teachers, requiring them to furnish certificates, from competent authorities, of character and qualification; established "English grammar schools" for teaching "reading, writing, and

arithmetic," and, in shire and half-shire towns, grammar schools for teaching Latin and Greek in addition to the branches required in the English grammar school, English grammar not being required in either grade. It moreover made the selectmen responsible for the full sum which they should fail “in assessing, seasonably collecting, and duly appropriating" for the purposes aforesaid.

The law of 1791 raised the assessment to be made on every 20 shillings of the proportion to £7 10s., making the whole amount £7,500. Otherwise it did not differ from the preceding law. The present constitution was approved by the people and established in convention September 5, 1792. In this organic compact we find the following enunciated as the basis and motive of all future legislation on the subject of education:

Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government, and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country being highly conducive to promote this end, it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates in all future periods of the government to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools; to encourage public and private institutions, rewards and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country.

Pursuant of this fundamental principle an act was passed December 13, 1804, "for the better regulation of schools within this State, and for the repealing all laws now in force respecting the same." This law did not differ from that of 1789, except that it laid a tax upon the improved and unimproved lands and buildings of nonresidents, who in the previous law had been exempted. The new currency having gone into use it was required that the inhabitants should be assessed in a sum to be computed at the rate of $45 for every dollar of their proportion for public taxes. An act of 1805 empowered towns to divide into school districts, and gave to each district a right to raise money by tax for the purposes of erecting, repairing, or purchasing a schoolhouse, and for securing all necessary utensils for the same. All qualified town voters were authorized to vote in district affairs. This was a bold step in the right direction, but has since been abused by multiplying districts to too great an extent. At the time it was necessary and greatly enlarged the facilities for education by increasing the number of schools and leading to the erection of new and more convenient schoolhouses. Previous to this the school was not unfrequently an itinerant institution, finding a "local habitation" as best it could; sometimes in a private residence, at others in a workshop, and occasionally in a barn. In 1807, the assessment was raised to $70 on every dollar of the proportion, and the grammar schools for Latin and Greek, in shire and half-shire towns, were abolished. Academies had been established and rendered them unnecessary. In 1808 an act was passed which somewhat enlarged the range of studies in the schools. It required that the tax raised for schools should be expended in

teaching not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also the various sounds and powers of the letters in the English language, English grammar, geography, and such other branches as it may be necessary to teach in an English school. Schoolmistresses were allowed, however, to dispense with arithmetic and geography, and to teach such other branches of female education as may be deemed necessary to be taught in schools under their tuition. It also required of teachers, in addition to the usual certificate of intellectual qualification, a certificate of good moral character from the selectmen or minister of the place where they resided. It empowered districts to purchase and hold in fee simple so much land as may be necessary for erecting a schoolhouse and such other buildings, and also such yard as may be necessary for the accommodation of said schools. The third section of the act made it the duty of the towns to appoint a committee of three or more persons, whose duty it should be to visit and inspect the schools annually in their respective towns and parishes, in “a manner which they might judge most conducive to the progress of literature, morality, and religion." This was a new feature in our school legislation, and may have suggested the idea of a superintending committee to those who framed the law of 1827. An excellent law was passed in 1817 for the "support and regulation of primary schools." In the following year the assessment for schools was increased to $90 for every dollar of apportionment of public taxes, for the sole purpose of supporting English schools within the towns for teaching "reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, geography, and other necessary branches of education," and the purchase of "wood or fuel." This gave the amount of $90,000 for the entire State.

The law of 1805, empowering towns to divide into school districts, was repealed in 1885.

In tracing the action of the State in respect to schools we are brought, in 1821, June 29, to the establishment of the literary fund. The fund was established for the sole use and purpose of endowing or supporting a college for instruction in the higher branches of science and literature, and to be appropriated to this purpose as the legislature should appoint. It was to be raised as follows: That no banking corporation should issue or put in circulation, after the 1st day of July, 1822, any bills, notes, or obligations, unless they had been stamped by the treasurer of State with some appropriate stamp and approved by the governor; and said corporations were to pay at or after the rate of $50 for every $1,000 in bills, notes, or obligations thus stamped, on the delivery of the same. It was provided, however, that the several and respective banking corporations might be relieved from this tax upon stamped papers, by paying, on the second Wednesday of June, annually, to the treasurer of the State, one-half of 1 per cent on the amount which shall at that time constitute the actual capital stock of said bank. The proviso subsequently became the law, and the fund