The earliest notice in schools in the records of the Colony of New Plymouth, is under date of 1663, as follows:

'It is proposed by the Court unto the several townships of this jurisdiction, as a thing that they ought to take into their serious consideration, that some course may be taken that in every town there may be a schoolmaster set up to train up children to reading and writing.'

At a General Court held March 4, 1670, a grant was made of 'all such proffetts as might or should annually accrew or grow dew to this collonie from time to time, for fishing with netts or saines att Cape Cod for mackerell, basse, or herrings, to be imployed and improved for and towards a free school in some town in this jurisdiction, for the training up of youth in littrature, for the good and benefitt of posteritie, provided a beginning were made within one year; ' and committed the 'ordering and managing of said affaire to the Governor and assistants, or any four of them.' In 1667, at the General Court held at Plymouth, the following order was passed:

Forasmuch as the maintainance of good literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and flourishing estate of societies and republicks,

This Court doth therefore order: That in whatsoever township in this government, consisting of fifty families or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a Grammar School, such township shall allow at least twelve pounds in current merchantable pay to be raised by rate on all the inhabitants of such town; and those that have the more immediate benefit thereof, by their children's going to school, with what others may voluntarily give to promote so good a work and general good, shall make up the residue necessary to maintain the same; and the profits arising of the Cape Cod fishing, heretofore ordered to maintain a Grammar School in this colony, be distributed to such towns as have such Grammar Schools, for the maintainance thereof, not exceeding five pounds per annum to any such town, unless the Court Treasurer, or other appointed to manage that affair, see good cause to add thereunto to any respective town, not exceeding five pounds more per annum. And further this Court orders: That every such town as consists of seventy families or upwards, and hath not a Grammar School therein, shall allow and pay unto the next town, which hath such Grammar School kept up amongst them, the sum of five pounds per annum in current merchantable pay, to be levied on the inhabitants of such defective towns by rate, and gathered and delivered by the constables of such towns, as by warrant from any magistrate of this jurisdiction shall be required.

The provincial charter granted by William and Mary in October, 1691, which united the two colonies of New Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, went into effect by the organization of the government in June, 1692. The first business of the legislature was the re-enactment of the principal colonial laws in a revised and amended form, to suit the altered circumstances of the time. Among the earliest acts, was one for the 'Settlement and Support of Ministers and Schoolmasters.' The third section of the act read as follows:

And

'And be it further enacted, &c. That every town within this province, hav ing the number of fifty householders or upwards, shall be constantly provided of a schoolmaster to teach children and youth to read and write. where any town or towns have the number of one hundred families or householders, 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 selectmen 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 Quarter Sessions for the same county in which such defective town lieth; which penalty shall be towards the support of such school or schools within the same county, where there may be the most need, at the discretion of the Justices in Quarter Sessions; to be levied by warrant from the said court of sessions, in proportion upon the inhabitants of such defective town, as other public charges, and to be paid unto the county treasurer.'

In 1701 an act was passed, which, after setting forth the previous act in a preamble, and saying 'That the observance of which wholesome and necessary law is shamefully neglected by divers towns, and the penalty thereof not required, tending greatly to the nourishment of ignorance and irreligion, whereof grievous complaint is made. For the redress of the same' declared 'That the penalty or forfeiture for the non-observance of the said law shall henceforth be twenty pounds per annum.' The following new provisions were added: 1st. That every grammar schoolmaster be approved by the minister of the town and the ministers of the two next adjacent towns, or any two of them, by certificate under their hands.'

2d. 'That no minister of any town shall be deemed, held or accepted to be the schoolmaster of such town within the intent of law.'

3d. And the justices of the peace in each respective county are hereby directed to take effectual care that the laws respecting schools and schoolmasters be duly observed and put in execution. And all grand jurors within their respective counties, shall diligently inquire and make presentment of all breaches and neglect of the said laws, so that due prosecution may be made against the offenders.'

In 1768, an act relating to schools was passed, which authorized the division of the towns into school districts.

'Whereas it may happen that when towns and districts consist of several precincts, some of such precincts may be disposed to expend more for the instruction of children and youth in useful learning, within their own bounds, than as parts of such towns or districts they are by law held to do; and no provision has hitherto been made to enable precincts to raise money for that purpose. And whereas the encouragement of learning tends to the promotion of religion and good morals, and the establishment of liberty, civil and religious:'

Be it therefore enacted, &c. That when and so often as the major part of the inhabitants of any precinct, at their annual meeting legally warned, shall agree on the building, finishing or repairing any school-house, or the defraying any other charge for the support of schools and schoolmasters, and shall also agree on any sum or sums of money for such purpose or purposes, the assessors of such precinct are hereby empowered and required to assess the same on the polls and estates within the said precinct, and all such rates and assessments shall be paid to the constable or collector, to whom the same shall be committed, with a warrant from said assessors, in form as by law is prescribed for collecting town assessments.'

To prevent misconception it may be proper to state that the term district used in the foregoing preamble, was the legal designation of an incorporated community, precisely similar to a town in respect to territory, and to all rights duties, privileges, and powers, except of being represented in the general court.

The term precinct was used to denote a settlement in a township, remote from the centre, and for that reason clothed by the general court with the power of selecting a minister and supporting public worship by taxation, in the same manner that the town might do. In a word, a precinct was a parish, or, more properly, an incipient town, having power in ecclesiastical matters only. To this power was now added that of supporting schools. Many existing towns have been created out of these ancient precincts.

In 1647, when a few scattered and feeble settlements, almost ouried in the depths of the forest, were all that constituted the Colony of Massachusetts; when the entire population consisted of twenty-one thousand souls; when the external means of the people were small, their dwellings humble, and their raiment and subsistence scanty and homely; when the whole valuation of all the colonial estates, both public and private, would hardly equal the inventory of many a private individual at the present day; when the fierce eye of the savage was nightly seen glaring from the edge of the surrounding wilderness, and no defense or succor was at hand; was then, amid all these privations and dangers, that the Pilgrim Fathers conceived the magnificent idea of a Free* and Universal Education for the People; and, amid all their poverty, they stinted themselves to a still scantier pittance; amid all their toils they imposed upon themselves still more burdensome labors; amid all their perils they braved still greater dangers, that they might find the time and the means to reduce their grand conception to practice. Two divine ideas filled their great hearts-their duty to God and to posterity. For the one they built the church; for the other they opened the school. Religion and Knowledge!-two attrbutes of the same glorious and eternal truth-and that truth the only one on which immortal or mortal happiness can be securely founded.

As an innovation upon all preëxisting policy and usages, the establishment of Free Schools was the boldest ever promulgated since the commencement of the Christian era. As a theory, it could. have been refuted and silenced by a more formidable array of argument and experience than was ever marshaled against any other opinion of human origin. But time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries now proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, as beneficent as it was disinterested. It was one of those grand mental and moral experiments whose effects can not be determined in a single generation. But now, according to the manner in which human life is computed, we are the sixth generation from its founders, and have we not reason to be grateful both to God and man for its unnumbered blessings? The sincerity of our gratitude must be tested by our efforts to perpetuate and improve what they established. The gratitude of the lips only is an unholy offering. HORACE MANN. Tenth Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

*Was the Public School of Massachusetts at first free? Was Massachusetts the first to estab ish such a system as is ordained in the law of 1647 ?—Ed. of Amer. Jour. of Education.

The three following propositions describe the broad and everduring foundation on which the Common School system of Massachusetts reposes:

The successive generations of men, taken collectively, constitute one great Commonwealth.

The property of this Commonwealth is pledged for the education of all its youth up to such a point as will save them from poverty and vice, and prepare them for the adequate performance of their social and civil duties.

The successive holders of this property are trustees, bound to the faithful execution of their trust by the most sacred obligations; because embezzlement and pillage from children and descendants are as criminal as the same offenses when perpetrated against contemporaries.

Recognizing these eternal principles of natural ethics, the Constitution of Massachusetts-the fundamental law of the State-after declaring, (among other things,) in the preamble to the first section of the fifth chapter, that "the encouragement of arts and sciences and all good literature tends to the honor of GoD, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America," proceeds, in the second section of the same chapter, to set forth the duties of all future Legislators and Magistrates, in the following noble and impressive language:

"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused general among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservatio of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this Commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the University of Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor, and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people." HORACE MANN. Tenth Report of the Secretary of the Massachu setts Board of Education.

THE BOSTON LATIN GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

THE FREE, LATIN, OR LATIN GRAMMAR, SCHOOL of Boston, is one of the few historical schools in this country, its foundation having been laid either in a vote of the "townsmen" of Boston on the thirteenth day of April, 1635,* "entreating Mr. Philemon Permont to become schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing of children," or in the subscription started "at a general meeting of the richer inhabitants," on "the 22d of the sixth month (Aug.) 1636,” at which about 50%. " was given toward the maintenance of a free schoolmaster for the youth with us-Mr. Daniel Maud being now also chosen thereunto." In either case the school was in all probability what was then known as a Grammar School. Both Mr. Permont and Mr. Maud were men of education, as their subsequent connection with the ministry indicates, and it is not impossible that there was but one school, which was designated a free or endowed school, and that Mr. Maud was the first teacher, for the records are entirely silent as to Mr. Permont's yielding to the "entreaties of his fellowtownsmen;" and the early records of New Hampshire testify to presence and labors as a clergyman in the settlements on the Piscataqua only a few years subsequent to the urgent call beforementioned an early example of the too common practice of men of the right education to become pastors, giving up the feeding of the lambs, for the less onerous charge of attending the full-grown sheep, whose fleeces probably pay better than the frolicsome and mischievous pranks of the younger portion of the flock.

his

Whatever may be the date of its establishment, or whoever may have been its first teacher, the first "Free Schoole," or "Grammar School," or "Latin Grammar School," of Boston, was the lineal descendant of the old Free Schoole or Grammar School, or Latin

*This was not the earliest movement in this country towards the establishment of a school-even a free school-Rev. Mr. Copeland having raised by subscription a larger sum than was raised in Boston, to establish a Free School in Charles City, in Virginia, as early as 1621; and among the officials of the Dutch West India Company, at Manhattan, in 1633, was Adam Roelaudsen," the schoolmaster," and the school which be taught, it is claimed by the Historians of New York, is still in existence in connection with the Dutch Reformed Church.