volume 1, pages 188-207.

{724}

EDUCATION: Sweden.

"Sweden has two ancient and famous universities--Upsala and Lund. That of Lund is in the south part of the kingdom, and when founded was on Danish territory. The income from its estates is about 176,000 rix-dollars ($46,315) per annum. It also receives yearly aid from the state. In 1867 it had 75 professors and tutors, and 400 students. Upsala is the larger university, located at the old town of that name--the ancient capital of Sweden--an hour and a half by rail north of Stockholm. It has 100 professors and tutors, and 1,449 students, an increase of 131 over the year 1869. ... This university had its beginning as an institution of learning as far back as 1250. In 1438 it had one academic professorship, and was dedicated as an university in 1477. Its principal endowment was by Gustavus Adolphus in 1624, when he donated to it all of the estate in lands that he possessed, amounting in all to 300 farms."

_C. C. Andrews, Report on the Educational System of Sweden (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, July, 1871)._

EDUCATION: Switzerland.

"The influence of the Reformation, and, in the following age, of the Jesuit reaction, gave to Switzerland, as to Germany, its original and fundamental means and agencies of national education, and impressed also upon the population a habit of dutiful regard for schools and learning. It was not, however, till forty years ago that the modern education of Switzerland was organized. 'The great development of public education in Switzerland,' to quote Mr. Kay, 'dates from 1832, after the overthrow of the old oligarchical forms of cantonal government and the establishment of the present democratic forms.' Zürich, Lausanne, and Geneva take the lead in Switzerland as centres of educational influence. The canton in which the work of educational reform began was Zürich. ... The instrument of the reform, rather the revolution, was Scherr, a trained school-teacher from Würtemberg, a teacher, in particular, of deaf mutes to speak articulately. This man initiated in Zürich the new scheme and work of education, and founded the first Training College. He was looked upon by the oligarchs, partly feudalists, and partly manufacturers, as a dangerous revolutionist, and was exiled from Zürich. But now a monument to his memory adorns the city. The work which he began could not be suppressed or arrested. Zürich has ever since taken the lead in education among the cantons of Switzerland. Derived originally from Germany, the system is substantially identical with that of Germany. ... The principles and methods are substantially alike throughout. There are, first, the communal schools--these of course in largest number--one to every village, even for every small hamlet, provided and maintained, wholly or chiefly, by the commune; there are burgher schools in towns, including elementary, real, and superior schools, supported by the towns; there are cantonal schools--gymnasia and industrial or technical schools--supported by the State, that is, by the canton. There is often a Cantonal University. There is of course a Cantonal Training School or College, and there are institutes of various kinds. The Cantonal Universities, however, are on a small and economical scale; as yet there is no Federal University. School life in Switzerland is very long, from six to fourteen or fifteen, and for all who are to follow a profession, from fifteen to twenty-two."

_J. H. Rigg, National Education, chapter 4._

EDUCATION: Modern: Asiatic Countries. China.

"Every step in the process of teaching is fixed by unalterable usage. So much is this the case, that in describing one school I describe all, and in tracing the steps of one student I point out the course of all; for in China there are no new methods or short roads. In other countries, a teacher, even in the primary course, finds room for tact and originality. In those who dislike study, a love of it is to be inspired by making 'knowledge pleasant to the taste'; and the dull apprehension is to be awakened by striking and apt illustrations. ... In China there is nothing of this. The land of uniformity, all processes in arts and letters are as much fixed by universal custom as is the cut of their garments or the mode of wearing their hair. The pupils all tread the path trodden by their ancestors of a thousand years ago, nor has it grown smoother by the attrition of so many feet. The undergraduate course may be divided into three stages, in each of which there are two leading studies: In the first the occupations of the student are committing to memory (not reading) the canonical books and writing an infinitude of diversely formed characters, as a manual exercise. In the second, they are the translation of his text books (i. e., reading), and lessons in composition. In the third, they are belles lettres and the composition of essays. Nothing could be more dreary than the labors of the first stage. ... Even the stimulus of companionship in study is usually denied, the advantages resulting from the formation of classes being as little appreciated as those of other labor saving machinery. Each pupil reads and writes alone, the penalty for failure being so many blows with the ferule or kneeling for so many minutes on the rough brick pavement which serves for a floor. At this period fear is the strongest motive addressed to the mind of the scholar. ... This arctic winter of monotonous toil once passed, a more auspicious season dawns on the youthful understanding. The key of the cabala which he has been so long and so blindly acquiring is put into his hands. He is initiated in the translation and exposition of those sacred books which he had previously stored away in his memory. ... The light however is let in but sparingly, as it were, through chinks and rifts in the long dark passage. A simple character here and there is explained, and then, it may be after the lapse of a year or two, the teacher proceeds to the explication of entire sentences. Now for the first time the mind of the student begins to take in the thoughts of those he has been taught to regard as the oracles of wisdom. ... The value of this exercise can hardly be overestimated. When judiciously employed it does for the Chinese what translation into and out of the dead languages of the west does for us. It calls into play memory, judgment, taste, and gives him a command of his own vernacular which, it is safe to assert, he would never acquire in any other way. ... The first step in composition is the yoking together of double characters. {725} The second is the reduplication of these binary compounds and the construction of parallels--an idea which runs so completely through the whole of Chinese literature that the mind of the student requires to be imbued with it at the very outset. This is the way he begins: The teacher writes, 'wind blows,' the pupil adds, 'rain falls'; the teacher writes, 'rivers are long,' the pupil adds, 'seas are deep,' or 'mountains are high,' &c. From the simple subject and predicate, which in their rude grammar they describe as 'dead' and' living' characters, the teacher conducts his pupil to more complex forms, in which qualifying words and phrases are introduced. He gives as a model some such phrase as 'The Emperor's grace is vast as heaven and earth,' and the lad matches it by 'The Sovereign's favor is profound as lake and sea.' These couplets often contain two propositions in each member, accompanied by all the usual modifying terms; and so exact is the symmetry required by the rules of the art that not only must noun, verb, adjective, and particle respond to each other with scrupulous exactness, but the very tones of the characters are adjusted to each other with the precision of music. Begun with the first strokes of his untaught pencil, the student, whatever his proficiency, never gets beyond the construction of parallels. When he becomes a member of the institute or a minister of the imperial cabinet, at classic festivals and social entertainments, the composition of impromptu couplets, formed on the old model, constitutes a favorite pastime. Reflecting a poetic image from every syllable, or concealing the keen point of a cutting epigram, they afford a fine vehicle for sallies of wit; and poetical contests such as that of Melibœus and Menalcas are in China matters of daily occurrence. If a present is to be given, on the occasion of a marriage, a birth-day, or any other remarkable occasion, nothing is deemed so elegant or acceptable as a pair of scrolls inscribed with a complimentary distich. When the novice is sufficiently exercised in the 'parallels' for the idea of symmetry to have become an instinct, he is permitted to advance to other species of composition which afford freer scope for his faculties. Such are the 'shotiah,' in which a single thought is expanded in simple language, the 'lun,' the formal discussion of a subject more or less extended, and epistles addressed to imaginary persons and adapted to all conceivable circumstances. In these last, the forms of the 'complete letter writer' are copied with too much servility; but in the other two, substance being deemed of more consequence than form, the new fledged thought is permitted to essay its powers and to expatiate with but little restraint. In the third stage, composition is the leading object, reading being wholly subsidiary. It takes for the most part the artificial form of verse, and of a kind of prose called 'wen-chang,' which is, if possible, still more artificial. The reading required embraces mainly rhetorical models and sundry anthologies. History is studied, but only that of China, and that only in compends; not for its lessons of wisdom, but for the sake of the allusions with which it enables a writer to embellish classic essays. The same may be said of other studies; knowledge and mental discipline are at a discount and style at a premium. The goal of the long course, the flower and fruit of the whole system, is the 'wen-chang '; for this alone can insure success in the pubic examinations for the civil service, in which students begin to adventure soon after entering on the third stage of their preparatory course. ... We hear it asserted that 'education is universal in China; even coolies are taught to read and write.' In one sense this is true, but not as we understand the terms 'reading and writing.' In the alphabetical vernaculars of the west, the ability to read and write implies the ability to express one's thoughts by the pen and to grasp the thoughts of others when so expressed. In Chinese, and especially in the classical or book language, it implies nothing of the sort. A shopkeeper may be able to write the numbers and keep accounts without being able to write anything else; and a lad who has attended school for several years will pronounce the characters of an ordinary book with faultless precision, yet not comprehend the meaning of a single sentence. Of those who can read understandingly (and nothing else ought to be called reading), the proportion is greater in towns than in rural districts. But striking an average, it does not, according to my observation, exceed one in twenty for the male sex and one in ten thousand for the female." The literary examinations, "coming down from the past, with the accretions of many centuries, ... have expanded into a system whose machinery is as complex as its proportions are enormous. Its ramifications extend to every district of the empire; and it commands the services of district magistrates, prefects, and other civil functionaries up to governors and viceroys. These are all auxiliary to the regular officers of the literary corporation. In each district there are two resident examiners, with the title of professor, whose duty it is to keep a register of all competing students and to exercise them from time to time in order to stimulate their efforts and keep them in preparation for the higher examinations in which degrees are conferred. In each province there is one chancellor or superintendent of instruction, who holds office for three years, and is required to visit every district and hold the customary examinations within that time, conferring the first degree on a certain percentage of the candidates. There are, moreover, two special examiners for each province, generally members of the Hanlin, deputed from the capital to conduct the great triennial examination and confer the second degree. The regular degrees are three: 1st. 'Siu-tsai' or 'Budding talent.' 2d. 'Ku-jin' or 'Deserving of promotion.' 3d. 'Tsin-shi' or 'Fit for office.' To which may be added, as a fourth degree, the Hanlin, or member of the 'Forest of Pencils.' ... The first degree only is conferred by the provincial chancellor, and the happy recipients, fifteen or twenty in each department, or 1 per cent. of the candidates, are decorated with the insignia of rank and admitted to the ground floor of the nine storied pagoda. The trial for the second degree is held in the capital of each province, by special commissioners, once in three years. It consists of three sessions of three days each, making nine days of almost continuous exertion--a strain to the mental and physical powers, to which the infirm and aged frequently succumb. In addition to composition in prose and verse, the candidate is required to show his acquaintance with history, (the history of China;) philosophy, criticism, and various branches of archæology. Again 1 per cent. is decorated; but it is not until the more fortunate among them succeed in passing the metropolitan triennial that the meed of civil office is certainly bestowed. {726} They are not, however, assigned to their respective offices until they have gone through two special examinations within the palace and in the presence of the emperor. On this occasion the highest on the list is honored with the title of 'chuang yuen' or 'laureate,' a distinction so great that in the last reign it was not thought unbefitting the daughter of a 'chuang yuen' to be raised to the position of consort of the Son of Heaven. A score of the best are admitted to membership in the Academy, two or three score are attached to it as pupils or probationers, and the rest drafted off to official posts in the capital or in the provinces, the humblest of which is supposed to compensate the occupant for a life of penury and toil."

_Reverend W. A. P. Martin, Report on the System of Public Instruction in China (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, 1877, no. 1)._

ALSO IN: _W. A. P. Martin, The Chinese: their Education, &C._

EDUCATION: Japan.

From the fourth to the eighth centuries of the Christian era, "after the conquest of Corea by the Japanese emperor Jigo Kogo, came letters, writing, books, literature, religion, ethics, politics, medicine, arts, science, agriculture, manufactures, and the varied appliances of civilization; and with these entered thousands of immigrants from Corea and China. Under the intellectual influence of Buddhism--the powerful and aggressive faith that had already led captive the half of Asia--of the Confucian ethics and philosophy, and Chinese literature, the horizon of the Japanese mind was immensely broadened. ... In the time of the European 'dark ages' the Japanese were enjoying what, in comparison, was a high state of civilization. ... Under the old regime of the Sho-guns, all foreign ideas and influences were systematically excluded, and the isolation of Japan from the rest of the world was made the supreme policy of the government. Profound peace lasted from the beginning of the seventeenth century to 1868. During this time, schools and colleges, literature and learning, flourished. It was the period of scholastic, not of creative, intellectual activity. The basis of education was Chinese. What we consider the means of education, reading and writing, were to them the ends. Of classified science there was little or none. Mathematics was considered as fit only for merchants and shop-keepers. No foreign languages were studied, and their acquisition was forbidden. ... There was no department of education, though universities were established at Kioto and Yedo, large schools in the daimio's capitals, and innumerable private schools all over the country. Nine-tenths of the people could read and write. Books were very numerous and cheap. Circulating libraries existed in every city and town. Literary clubs and associations for mutual improvement were common even in country villages. Nevertheless, in comparison with the ideal systems and practice of the progressive men of New Japan, the old style was as different from the present as the training of an English youth in mediæval times is from that of a London or Oxford student of the present day. Although an attempt to meet some of the educational necessities arising from the altered conditions of the national life were made under the Sho-gun's regime, yet the first attempt at systematic work in the large cities was made under the Mikado's government, and the idea of a new national plan of education is theirs only. In 1871 the Mom Bu Sho, or department of education, was formed, of which the high counselor Oki, a man of indomitable vigor and perseverance, was made head. ... According to the scheme of national education promulgated in 1872, the empire is divided into eight Dai Gaku Ku, (Daigakku,) or great educational divisions. In each of' these there is to be a university, normal school, schools of foreign languages, high schools, and primary schools. The total number of schools will number, it is expected, over 55,000. Only in the higher schools is a foreign language to be taught. In the lower schools the Japanese learning and elementary science translated or adopted from European or American text-books are to be taught. The general system of instruction, methods, discipline, school-aids, furniture, architecture, are to be largely adopted from foreign models, and are now to a great extent in vogue throughout the country."

_W. E. Griffis, Education in Japan (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, 1875, no. 2)._

EDUCATION: Modern: America. A. D. 1619-1819. Virginia. College of William and Mary.

"In 1619--one year before the Pilgrim Fathers came to the land named New England by Captain John Smith--Sir Edwin Sandys, president of the Virginia Company in old England, moved the grant of ten thousand acres of land for the establishment of a university at Henrico. The proposed grant, which was duly made, included one thousand acres for an Indian college; the remainder was to be 'the foundation of a seminary of learning for the English.' The very same year the bishops of England, at the suggestion of the King, raised the sum of fifteen hundred pounds for the encouragement of Indian Education. ... Tenants were sent over to occupy the university lands, and Mr. George Thorpe, a gentleman of His Majesty's Privy Chamber, came over to be the superintendent of the university itself. This first beginning of philanthropy toward the Indians and of educational foundations for the Indians in America was suspended by reason of the Indian massacre, in the spring of 1622, when Mr. Thorpe and three hundred and forty settlers, including tenants of the university, were cut off by an insurrection of savages. It was only two years after this terrible catastrophe that the idea of a university in Virginia was revived. Experience with treacherous Indians suggested that the institution should be erected upon a secluded sheltered site--an island in the Susquehanna River. ... The plan was broken off by the death of its chief advocate and promoter, Mr. Edward Palmer. But the idea of a university for Virginia was not lost. ... In 1660, the colonial Assembly of Virginia took into their own hands the project of founding educational institutions within their borders. The motive of the Virginians was precisely the same as that of the great and general Court of Massachusetts, when it established Harvard College, and grammar schools to fit youth 'for ye university.' The Virginians voted 'that for the advance of learning, education of youth, supply of the ministry, and promotion of piety, there be land taken upon purchases for a college and free schoole, and that there be, with as much speede as may be convenient, housing erected thereon for entertainment of students and schollers.' {727} It was also voted in 1660 that the various commissioners of county courts take subscriptions on court days for the benefit of the college, and that the commissioners send orders throughout their respective counties to the vestrymen of all the parishes for the purpose of raising money from such inhabitants as 'have not already subscribed.' It appears from the record of this legislation in Hening's Statutes of Virginia that already in 1660, 'His Majestie's Governour, Council of State, and Burgesses of the present grand Assembly have severally subscribed severall considerable sumes of money and quantityes of tobacco,' to be paid upon demand after a place had been provided and built upon for educational purposes. A petition was also recommended to Sir William Berkeley, then governor of Virginia, that the King be petitioned for letters patent authorizing collections from 'well disposed people in England for the erecting of colledges and schooles in this countrye.' This action of the Virginians in 1660 ought to be taken as much better evidence of an early regard for education in that colony than the well-known saying of Governor Berkeley would seem to indicate. In reply to an inquiry by the lords commissioners of trades and plantations respecting the progress of learning in the colony of Virginia, Berkeley said, 'I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years.' This answer by a crusty old governor has been quoted perhaps too often as an index of the real sentiments of colonial Virginia toward the cause of education. Not only is the tone of popular legislation entirely opposed to the current view, but Berkeley's own acts should modify our judgment of his words. He actually subscribed, with other gentlemen of the colony, for 'a Colledge of students of the liberal arts and sciences.' Undoubtedly Sir William did not believe in popular education as it is now understood. If he had done so, he would have been much in advance of his time. ... Some writers would have us believe that the college was actually planted as early as 1661, but this is highly improbable. Early educational enactments in Virginia were like many of those early towns--on paper only. And yet the Virginians really meant to have both towns and a college. In 1688-'89, twenty-five hundred pounds were subscribed by a few wealthy gentlemen in the colony and by their merchant friends in England toward the endowment of the higher education. In 1691 the colonial Assembly sent the Reverend James Blair, the commissary or representative of the Bishop of London, back to England to secure a charter for the proposed college. Virginia's agent went straight to Queen Mary and explained the educational ambition of her colony in America. The Queen favored the idea of a college, and William wisely concurred. The royal pair agreed to allow two thousand pounds out of the quit-rents of Virginia toward building the college. ... The English Government concluded to give not only £2,000 in money, but also 20,000 acres of land, with a tax of one penny on every pound of tobacco exported from Maryland and Virginia, together with all fees and profits arising from the office of surveyor-general, which were to be controlled by the president and faculty of the college. They were authorized to appoint special surveyors for the counties whenever the governor and his council thought it necessary. These privileges, granted by charter in 1693, were of great significance in the economic history of Virginia. They brought the entire land system of the colony into the hands of a collegiate land office. Even after the Revolution, one-sixth of the fees to all public surveyors continued to be paid into the college treasury down to the year 1819, when this custom was abolished."

_H. B. Adams, The College of William and Mary (Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education, 1887, no. 1)._

EDUCATION: Modern: America: A. D. 1635. Massachusetts. Boston Latin School.

"The Public Latin School of Boston enjoys the distinction of being the oldest existing school within the bounds of the United States. It was founded in the spring of 1635, thus ante-dating Harvard College, and has been in continuous existence ever since, with the interruption of a few months, during the siege of Boston, 1775-1776." The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the school was celebrated April 23, 1885, on which occasion the Reverend Phillips Brooks, D. D., delivered an address from which the following passages are taken: "The colony under Winthrop arrived in the Arabella and founded Boston in 1630. On the 4th of September, 1633, the Griffin brought John Cotton from the Lincolnshire Boston, full of pious spirit and wise plans for the new colony with which he had cast in his lot. It has been suggested that possibly we owe to John Cotton the first suggestion of the first town-school. ... However this may be, here is the town record of the 13th of the second month, 1635. It is forever memorable, for it is the first chapter of our Book of Genesis, the very cradle of all our race: 'At a general meeting upon publique notice ... it was then generally agreed upon that our brother Philemon Pormort shall be entreated to become scholemaster, for the teaching and nourtering of children among us.' It was two hundred and fifty years ago to-day [April 23, 1885] just nineteen years after the day when William Shakespeare died, just seventy-one years after the day when he was born. How simple that short record is, and how unconscious that short view is of the future which is wrapped up in it! Fifty-nine thousand children who crowd the Boston public schools to-day--and who can count what thousands yet unborn?--are to be heard crying out for life in the dry, quaint words of that old vote. By it the first educational institution, which was to have continuous existence in America, and in it the public school system of the land, came into being. Philemon Pormort, the first teacher of the Latin School, is hardly more than a mere shadow of a name. It is not even clear that he ever actually taught the school at all. A few years later, with Mr. Wheelwright, after the Hutchinson excitement, he disappears into the northern woods, and is one of the founders of Exeter, in New Hampshire. There are rumors that he came back to Boston and died here, but it is all very uncertain. ... The name 'free school' in those days seems to have been used to characterize an institution which should not be restricted to any class of children, and which should not be dependent on the fluctuating attendance of scholars for its support. It looked forward to ultimate endowment, like the schools of England. The town set apart the rent of Deer Island, and some of the other islands in the harbor, for its help. {728} All the great citizens, Governor Winthrop, Governor Vane, Mr. Bellingham, and the rest, made generous contributions to it. But it called, also, for support from those who sent their children to it, and who were able to pay something; and it was only of the Indian children that it was distinctly provided that they should be 'taught gratis.' It was older than any of the schools which, in a few years, grew up thick around it. The same power which made it spring out of the soil was in all the rich ground on which these colonists, unlike any other colonists which the world has ever seen, had set their feet. Roxbury had its school under the Apostle Eliot in 1645. Cambridge was already provided before 1643. Charlestown did not wait later than 1636. Salem and Ipswich were, both of them, ready in 1637. Plymouth did not begin its system of public instruction till 1663. It was in 1647 that the General Court enacted that resolve which is the great charter of free education in our Commonwealth, in whose preamble and ordinance stand the immortal words: 'That learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers, in church and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, it is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read.' There can be no doubt, then, of our priority. But mere priority is no great thing. The real interest of the beginning of the school is the large idea and scale on which it started. It taught the children, little Indians and all, to read and write. But there seems every reason to suppose that it taught also the Latin tongue, and all that then was deemed the higher knowledge. It was the town's only school till 1682."

_The Oldest School in America, pages 5-24._

EDUCATION: A. D. 1636. Massachusetts. Harvard College.

"The first settlers in New England, recognizing the importance of a higher education than could be given in the common schools, began at once the founding of a university. The avowed object of this university was the training of young men for the ministry. Nothing could show clearer the spirit of these early colonists. Though less than four thousand in number, and scattered along the shores of Massachusetts Bay in sixteen hamlets, they were, nevertheless, able to engage in such an enterprise before adequate provision had been made for food, raiment, shelter, a civil government, or divine worship; at a time when soil and climate had disappointed them, and their affairs were in a most critical condition; for, not only were they called to face famine, disease, and death, but the mother country and the surrounding savage tribes were threatening them with war. ... It was near the close of 1636, a little more than six years after the landing of the Puritans, when this first step was taken by the General Court of the Massachusetts Colony. At this assembly, presided over by Sir Henry Vane, governor of the colony, the General Court agreed to give £400 (a munificent sum for the time) towards the founding of a school or college, but left the question of its location and building to be determined by the Court that was to sit in September of the following year. This, it is said, was the first assembly 'in which the people by their representatives ever gave their own money to found a place of education.' At the next Court it was decided to locate the college at Newtown, or 'the New Towne,' and twelve of the principal magistrates and ministers were chosen to carry out this design. A few months later, they changed the name of the town to Cambridge, not only to tell their posterity whence they came, but also, as Quincy aptly says, to indicate 'the high destiny to which they intended the institution should aspire.' Another year, however, passed before the College was organized. The impulse given to it then was due to aid which came from so unexpected a quarter that it must have seemed to the devout men of New England as a clear indication of the divine favor. The Reverend John Harvard, a Non-conformist minister, was graduated, in 1635, from the Puritan college of Emmanuel, at Cambridge, England, and came, two years later, to America and settled in Charlestown, where he immediately took a prominent part in town affairs. His contemporaries gave him the title of reverend, and he is said to have officiated occasionally in Charlestown as 'minister of God's word.' One has recently said of him that he was 'beloved and honored, a well-trained and accomplished scholar of the type then esteemed,' and that in the brief period of his life in America --scarcely more than a year--he cemented more closely friendships that had been begun in earlier years. The project of a college was then engrossing the thought of these early friends and doubtless he also became greatly interested in it. Thus it happened that, when his health failed, through his own love of learning and through sympathy with the project of his daily associates, he determined to bequeath one-half of his estate, probably about £800, besides his excellent library of three hundred and twenty volumes, towards the endowment of the college. This bequest rendered possible the immediate organization of the college, which went into operation 'on the footing of the ancient institutions of Europe,' and, out of gratitude to Harvard, the General Court voted that the new institution should bear his name."

_G. G. Bush, Harvard, pages 12-15._

ALSO IN: _J. Quincy, History of Harvard University._

_S. A. Eliot, Sketch of the History of Harvard College._

EDUCATION: A. D. 1642-1732. New England and New York. Early Common Schools.

"New England early adopted, and has, with a single exception, constantly maintained the principle that the public should provide for the instruction of all the youth. That which elsewhere, as will be found, was left to local provision, as in New York; or to charity, as in Pennsylvania; or to parental interest, as in Virginia, was in most parts of New England early secured by law. ... The act of 1642 in Massachusetts, whose provisions were adopted in most of the adjacent colonies, was admirable as a first legislative school law. It was watchful of the neglect of parents, and looked well after the ignorant and the indigent. But it neither made schooling free, nor imposed a penalty for its neglect. ... Schools were largely maintained by rates, were free only to the necessitous, and in not a few of the less populous districts closed altogether or never opened. This led, five years later, to more stringent legislation. ... As suggesting the general scope and tenor of the law, the following extract is made. ... {729} 'It is therefore ordered by this Court and authority thereof that every township within this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to write and read; whose wages shall be paid, either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those who order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided that those who send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in the adjoining towns. And it is further ordered that where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or house-holders, they shall set up a grammar-school, the master thereof being able to instruct youths so far as they may be fitted for the university; and if any town neglect the performance hereof, above one year, then every such town shall pay five pounds per annum to the next such school, till they shall perform this order.' ... Three years after the law just cited Connecticut passed a very similar one. ... In Rhode Island there was no attempt at a school system prior to the efforts of John Howland about 1790. There were schools in both Providence and Newport; but the colony was small (with a population of less than ten thousand in 1700), broken into feeble settlements, and offering little opportunity for organization. ... It is claimed that, at the surrender of the Dutch in New York (1664), so general was the educational spirit, almost every town in the colony had its regular school and more or less permanent teachers. After the occupation of the province by the English, little attention was given to education. ... Thirteen years after the surrender, a Latin school was opened in the city; but the first serious attempt to provide regular schooling was in the work of the 'Society for the Propagation of the Gospel' (1704) in the founding of Trinity School. The society kept up an efficient organization, for many years, and at the opening of the Revolution had established and chiefly supported more than twenty schools in the colony. About 1732, also, there was established in New York city a school after the plan of the Boston Latin School, free as that was free, and which became, according to eminent authority, the germ of the later King's (now Columbia) College."

_R. G. Boone, Education in the United States, chapter 3._

EDUCATION: A. D. 1683-1779. Pennsylvania. Origin of the University of Pennsylvania.

"Education had not been over-looked in the policy of Penn. In his Frame of Government we read: 'The governor and provincial council shall erect and order all public schools, and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions, in the said province. ... And ... a committee of manners, education and arts, that all wicked and scandalous living may be prevented, and that youth may be successively trained up in virtue and useful knowledge and arts.' The first movement to establish an educational institution of a high grade was in the action of the Executive Council which proposed, November 17, 1683, 'That Care be Taken about the Learning and Instruction of Youth, to wit: A School of Arts and Sciences.' It was not until 1689, however, that the 'Public Grammar School' was set up in Philadelphia. This institution, founded upon the English idea of a 'free' school,' was formally chartered in 1697 as the 'William Penn Charter School.' It was intended as the head of a system of schools for all, rather than a single school for a select few, an idea which the founders of the Charitable School, fifty years later, had also in mind--an idea which was never carried out in the history of either institution. The failure of Penn's scheme of government, and the turmoil during the early part of the eighteenth century arising from the conflicts between different political parties, for a time influenced very decidedly educational zeal in the province. The government, which at the outset had taken such high ground on the subject, ceased to exert itself in behalf of education, and the several religious denominations and the people themselves in neighborhood organizations took up the burden and planted schools as best they could throughout the growing colony. ... Feeling the importance for some provision to supplement the education then given in the established schools, Benjamin Franklin as early as 1743 drew up a proposal for establishing an academy. ... He secured the assistance of a number of friends, many of them members of the famous Junto, and then published his pamphlet entitled 'Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania.' ... On all sides the paper met with great favor and generous support. The result was the organization of a board of trustees, consisting of 24 of those who had subscribed to the scheme of the Academy, with Franklin as president. This body immediately set about to realize the object of the pamphlet, and nourished by subscriptions, lotteries, and gifts the Academy was placed in a flourishing condition. ... The Academy comprised three schools, the Latin, the English, and the mathematical, over each of which was placed a master, one of whom was the rector of the institution. ... The English School was neglected. The other schools were favored, especially the Latin School. In the eyes of Franklin and many of the supporters of the Academy, the English School was the one of chief importance. What we would call a 'starving out' process was begun by which the English School was kept in a weak condition, most of the funds going to the Latin School. ... The success of the Academy was so gratifying to all interested in it that it was determined to apply for a charter. This was granted to the trustees by Thomas and Richard Penn, the proprietors, on July 13, 1753. Desirous at the same time of enlarging the course of instruction, the trustees elected Mr. William Smith teacher of logic, rhetoric, natural and moral philosophy. Mr. Smith accepted the position and entered upon his duties at the Academy in May, 1754. The history of the institution from this date, whether known as the Academy or the College, to 1779 is the history of the life of William Smith."

_J. L. Stewart, Historical Sketch of the University of Pennsylvania (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1892, no. 2: Benjamin Franklin and the University., chapter 4)._

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EDUCATION: A. D. 1701-1717. Connecticut. Yale College.

"For sixty years the only school for higher education in New England had been Harvard College, at Cambridge. The people, and especially the clergy, of Connecticut naturally desired the benefit of a similar establishment nearer home. The three ministers of New Haven, Milford, and Branford first moved in the enterprise. Ten ministers, nine of them being graduates of Harvard College, met at Branford [1701] and made a contribution from their libraries of about forty volumes in folio 'for the founding of a college.' Other donations presently came in. An Act of Incorporation was granted by the General Court. It created a body of trustees, not to be more than eleven in number nor fewer than seven, all to be clergymen and at least forty years of age. The Court endowed the College with an annual grant, subject to be discontinued at pleasure, of one hundred and twenty pounds in 'country pay,'--equivalent to sixty pounds sterling. The College might hold property 'not exceeding the value of five hundred pounds per annum'; its students were exempted from the payment of taxes and from military service; and the Governor and his Council gave a formal approval of its application to the citizens for pecuniary id. ... The first President was Abraham Pierson, minister of Killingworth, at which place he continued to reside, though the designated seat of the College was at Saybrook. Eight students were admitted, and arranged in classes. At each of the first two annual commencements one person, at the third three persons, received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. President Pierson was succeeded, at his death, by Mr. Andrew, minister at Milford, to which place the elder pupils were accordingly transferred, while the rest went to Saybrook, where two tutors had been provided to assist their studies. ... For nearly twenty years the College of Connecticut ... continued to be an unsatisfactory experiment. While the rector taught some youth at Milford, and two tutors had other pupils at Saybrook, and the few scores of books which had been obtained for a library were divided between the two places, there was small prospect of the results for which institutions of learning are created. Notwithstanding the general agreement that whatever facilities for the higher education could be commanded should be brought together and combined, the choice of the place was embarrassed by various considerations. ... Saybrook, Wethersfield, Hartford, and New Haven competed with each other for the preference, offering such contributions as they were able towards the erection of a college building. The offer from New Haven, larger than that of any other town, was seven hundred pounds sterling. The plan of fixing the College there, promoted by the great influence of Governor Saltonstall, was adopted by the trustees; and with money obtained by private gifts, and two hundred and fifty pounds accruing from a sale of land given by the General Assembly, a building was begun [1717], which finally cost a thousand pounds sterling. ... The Assembly gave the College a hundred pounds. Jeremiah Dummer sent from England a substantial present of books. Governor Saltonstall contributed fifty pounds sterling, and the same sum was presented by Jahleel Brenton, of Newport, in Rhode Island. But the chief patronage came from Elihu Yale,--a native of New Haven, but long resident in the East Indies, where he had been Governor of Fort St. George. He was now a citizen of London, and Governor of the East India Company. His contributions, continued through seven years, amounted to some four hundred pounds sterling; and he was understood to have made arrangements for a further bounty of five hundred pounds, which, however, through unfortunate accidents, never came to its destination. The province made a grant of forty pounds annually for seven years."

_J. G. Palfrey, History of New England,