B. EDUCATION IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC

Although the American Revolution temporarily interrupted the work of many schools and colleges, its most important effect in the long run was to encourage innovations to end cultural as well as political and economic dependency. Education was affected by this spirit. While it was difficult, as always, to translate ideas into practice, men throughout the country tried to create new patterns in education appropriate for the people of an independent and republican nation.

1. Pennsylvania schoolmasters and officers of academies and colleges required to swear allegiance to the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the War for Independence, 1777

James T. Mitchell and Henry Flanders, comps., The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, IX (n.p., 1903), 111-112, 239-240; hereafter cited as Penna. Statutes at Large

I, ……, do swear (or affirm) that I renounce and refuse all allegiance to George the Third, King of Great Britain, his heirs and successors, and that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a free and independent state, and that I will not at any time do or cause to be done any matter or thing that will be prejudicial or injurious to the freedom and independence thereof, as declared by Congress; and also that I will discover and make known to some one justice of the peace of the said state all treasons or traitorous conspiracies which I now know or hereafter shall know to be formed against this or any of the United States of America.

And be it enacted, That all trustees, provosts, rectors, professors, masters and tutors of any college or academy, and all schoolmasters and ushers. . . who shall at any time after the first day of June next, be admitted into or enter upon any of the before mentioned preferments, offices or places, or shall come into any such capacity, or shall take upon him or them any such practice, employment or business as aforesaid without having first taken and subscribed the before mentioned oath or affirmation, he or they shall be ipso facto adjudged incapable and disabled in law, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, to have, occupy or enjoy the said preferment or preferments office or offices, employment or employments or any part of them, or any matter or thing aforesaid, or any profit or advantage appertaining to them, or any of them, and every such office or place of trust shall be void and is hereby adjudged void; and any person that shall be lawfully convicted of the premises, or any of them in or upon any presentment, or indictment in any court of record in this state, shall also forfeit any sum, not exceeding five hundred pounds, which the court shall adjudge, together with costs, one-half of which said fine shall go to the use of the State, and the other half to him, her or them who shall commence and carryon such prosecution with effect.

2. The Georgia legislature penalizes young men who are educated abroad, 1785

Allen D. Candler, comp., The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, XIX, pt. 2, (Atlanta, 1911), 378; hereafter cited as Ga. Colonial Records.

If any Person or persons under the age of sixteen Years shall after the passing of this Act be sent abroad without the limits of the United States and: reside there three Years for the purpose of receiving an education under a foreign power. such person or persons after their return to this State shall for three Years be considered and treated as Aliens in so far as not to be eligable to a Seat in the Legislature or Executive authority or to hold any office civil or Military in the State for that term and so in proportion for any greater number of Years as he or they shall be absent as aforesaid, but shall not be injured or disqualified in any other respect.

3. Noah Webster (1758-1843), a leading spokesman for nationalism argues that American youth should be educated at home, 1788

The American Magazine, I (May 1788), 370-374.

Before I quit this subject, I beg leave to make some remarks on a practice which appears to be attended with important consequences; I mean that of sending boys to Europe for an education, or sending to Europe for teachers. That this was right before the revolution will not be disputed; at least so far as national attachments were concerned; but the propriety of it ceased with our political relation to Great Britain.

In the first place, our honor as an independent nation is concerned in the establishment of literary institutions, adequate to all our own purposes; without sending our youth abroad, or depending on other nations for books and instructors. It is very little to the reputation of America to have it said abroad, that after the heroic achievements of the late war, this independent people are obliged to send to Europe for men and books to teach their children

ABC.

But in another point of view, a foreign education is directly opposite to our political interests, and ought to be discountenanced, if not prohibited.

Every person of common observation will grant, that most men prefer the manners and the government of that country where they are educated. Let ten American youths be sent, each to a different European kingdom, and live there from the age of twelve to twenty, & each will give the preference to the country where he has resided.

The period from twelve to twenty is the most important in life. The impressions made before that period are commonly effaced; those that are made during that period always remain for many years, and generally thro' life.

Ninety-nine persons of a hundred, who pass that period in England or France, will prefer the people, their manners, their laws, and their government to those of their native country. Such attachments are injurious, both to the happiness of the men, and to the political interests of their own country. As to private happiness, it is universally known how much pain a man suffers by a change of habits in living. The customs of Europe are and ought to be different from ours; but when a man has been bred in one country, his attachments to its manners make them in a great measure, necessary to his happiness; on changing his residence, he must therefore break his former habits, which is always a painful sacrifice; or the discordance between the manners of his own country and his habits, must give him incessant uneasiness; or he must introduce, into a circle of his friends, the manners in which he was educated. All these consequences may follow at the same time, and the last, which is inevitable, is a public injury. The refinement of manners in every country should keep pace exactly with the increase of its wealth--and perhaps the greatest evil America now feels is, an improvement of taste and manners which its wealth cannot support.

A foreign education is the very source of this evil--it gives young gentlemen of fortune a relish for manners and amusements which are not suited to this country; which, however, when introduced by this class of people, will always become fashionable.

But a corruption of manners is not the sole objection to a foreign education: An attachment to a foreign government, or rather a want of attachment to our own, is the natural effect of a residence abroad, during the period of youth...

It may be said that foreign universities furnish much better opportunities of improvement in the sciences than the American. This may be true, and yet will not justify the practice of sending young lads from their own country. There are some branches of science which may be studied to much greater advantage in Europe than in America, particularly chemistry. When these are to be acquired, young gentlemen ought to spare no pains to attend the best professors. It may, therefore, be useful, in some cases, for students to cross the atlantic to complete a course of studies; but it is not necessary for them to go early in life, nor to continue a long time. Such instances need not be frequent even now; and the necessity for them will diminish in proportion to the future advancement of literature in America.

It is, however, much questioned whether, in the ordinary course of study, a young man can enjoy greater advantages in Europe than in America. Experience inclines me to raise a doubt, whether the danger to which a youth must be exposed among the sons of dissipation abroad, will not turn the scale in favor of our American colleges. Certain it is, that four fifths of the great literary characters in America never crossed the Atlantic.

4. Thomas Jefferson's plan for a Virginia school system, 1779

Julian P. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, II (Princeton, 1950), 526-533.

Jefferson proposed this comprehensive system of public schools to prepare the ablest youths for the professions and public service. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and chairman of its committee to revise the laws, but the legislature refused to pass the bill.

A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes; And whereas it is generally true that that people will be happiest whose laws are best, and are best administered, and that laws will be wisely formed, and honestly administered, in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance; but the indigence of the greater number disabling them from so educating, at their own expence, those of their children whom nature hath fitly formed and disposed to become useful instruments for the public, it is better that such should be sought for and educated at the common expence of all, than that the happiness of all should be confided to the weak or wicked:

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that in every county within this commonwealth, there shall be chosen annually, by the electors qualified to vote for Delegates, three of the most honest and able men of their county, to be called the Aldermen of the county.

The said Aldermen on the first Monday in October, if it be fair, and if not, then on the next fair day, excluding Sunday, shall meet at the court-house of their county, and proceed to divide their said county into hundreds, bounding the same by water courses, mountains, or limits, to be run and marked, if they think necessary, by the county surveyor, and at the county expence, regulating the size of the said hundreds, according to the best of their discretion, so as that they may contain a convenient number of children to make up a school, and be of such convenient size that all the children within each hundred may daily attend the school to be established therein, distinguishing each hundred by a particular name; which division, with the names of the several hundreds, shall be returned to the court of the county and be entered of record, and shall remain unaltered until the increase or decrease of inhabitants shall render an alteration necessary. . .

The electors aforesaid residing within every hundred shall meet on the third Monday in October after the first election of Aldermen, at such place, within their hundred, as the said Aldermen shall direct. . . The electors being so assembled shall choose the most convenient place within their hundred for building a schoolhouse. . . The said Aldermen shall forthwith proceed to have a school-house built at the said place, and shall see that the same be kept in repair, and, when necessary, that it be rebuilt; but whenever they shall think necessary that it be rebuilt, they shall give notice as before directed, to the electors of the hundred to meet at the said school-house, on such day as they shall appoint, to determine by vote, in the manner before directed, whether it shall be rebuilt at the same, or what other place in the hundred.

At every of these schools shall be taught reading, writing, and common arithmetick, and the books which shall be used therein for instructing the children to read shall be such as will at the same time make them acquainted with Grecian, Roman, English, and American history. At these schools all the free children, male and female, resident within the respective hundred, shall be intitled to receive tuition gratis, for the term of three years, and as much longer, at their private expence, as their parents, guardians or friends, shall think proper.

Over every ten of these schools (or such other number nearest thereto, as the number of hundreds in the county will admit, without fractional divisions) an overseer shall be appointed annually by the Aldermen at their first meeting, eminent for his learning, integrity, and fidelity to the commonwealth, whose business and duty it shall be, from time to time, to appoint a teacher to each school, who shall give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth, and to remove him as he shall see cause; to visit every school once in every half year at the least; to examine the schollars; see that any general plan of reading and instruction recommended by the visiters of William and Mary College shall be observed; and to superintend the conduct of the teacher in every thing relative to his school.

Every teacher shall receive a salary of by the year, which, with the expences of building and repairing the school-houses, shall be provided in such manner as other county expences are by law directed to be provided and shall also have his diet, lodging, and washing found him, to be levied in like manner. . .

And in order that grammar schools may be rendered convenient to the youth in every part of the commonwealth, Be it farther enacted, that on the first Monday in November, after the first appointment of overseers for the hundred schools. . . the said overseers…shall meet. . . and shall fix on such place in some one of the counties in their district as shall be most proper for situating a grammar school-house, endeavouring that the situation be as central as may be to the inhabitants of the said counties, that it be furnished with good water, convenient to plentiful supplies of provision and fuel, and more than all things that it be healthy.

The said overseers shall forthwith proceed to have a house of brick or stone, for the said grammar school, with necessary offices, built on the said lands, which grammar school-house shall contain a room for the school, a hall to dine in, four rooms for a master and usher, and ten or twelve lodging rooms for the scholars.

To each of the said grammar schools shall be allowed out of the public treasury, the sum of pounds, out of which shall be paid by the Treasurer, on warrant from the Auditors, to the proprietors or tenants of the lands located, the value of their several interests. . . and the balance thereof shall be delivered to the said overseers to defray the expence of the said buildings.

In these grammar schools shall be taught the Latin and Greek languages, English grammar, geography, and the higher part of numerical arithmetick, to wit, vulgar and decimal fractions, and the extraction of the square and cube roots.

A visiter from each county constituting the district shall be appointed, by the overseers, for the county, in the month of October annually, either from their own body or from their county at large, which visiters or the greater part of them, meeting together at the said grammar school on the first Monday in November. . . shall have power to choose their own Rector, who shall call and preside at future meetings, to employ from time to time a master, and if necessary, an usher, for the said school, to remove them at their will, and to settle the price of tuition to be paid by the scholars. They shall also visit the school twice in every year at the least, either together or separately at their discretion, examine the scholars, and see that any general plan of instruction recommended by the visiters of William and Mary College shall be observed. The said masters and ushers, before they enter on the execution of their office, shall give assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth.

A steward shall be employed, and removed at will by the master, on such wages as the visiters shall direct; which steward shall see to the procuring provisions, fuel, servants for cooking, waiting, house cleaning, washing, mending, and gardening on the most reasonable terms; the expence of which, together with the steward's wages, shall be divided equally among all the scholars boarding either on the public or private expence. And the part of those who are on private expence, and also the price of their tuitions due to the master or usher, shall be paid quarterly by the respective scholars, their parents, or guardians, and shall be recoverable, if withheld, together with costs, on motion in any Court of Record. . . The said steward shall also, under the direction of the visiters, see that the houses be kept in repair, and necessary enclosures be made and repaired. . .

Every overseer of the hundred schools shall, in the month of September annually, after the most diligent and impartial examination and enquiry, appoint from among the boys who shall have been two years at the least at some one of the schools under his superintendance, and whose parents are too poor to give them farther education, some one of the best and most promising genius and disposition, to proceed to the grammar school of his district; which appointment shall be made in the court-house of the county, on the court day for that month. . . in the presence of the Aldermen, or two of them at the least, assembled on the bench for that purpose, the said overseer being previously sworn by them to make such appointment, without favor or affection, according to the best of his skill and judgment, and being interrogated by the said Aldermen, either on their own motion, or on suggestions from the parents, guardians, friends, or teachers of the children, competitors for such appointment; which teachers shall attend for the information of the Aldermen. On which interregatories the said Aldermen, if they be not satisfied with the appointment proposed, shall have right to negative it; whereupon the said visitor may proceed to make a new appointment, and the said Aldermen again to interrogate and negative, and so toties quoties until an appointment be approved.

Every boy so appointed shall be authorised to proceed to the grammar school of his district, there to be educated and boarded during such time as is hereafter limited; and his quota of the expences of the house together with a compensation to the master or usher for his tuition, at the rate of twenty dollars by the year, shall be paid by the Treasurer quarterly on warrant from the Auditors.

A visitation shall be held, for the purpose of probation, annually at the said grammar school on the last Monday in September. . . at which one third of the boys sent thither by appointment of the said overseers, and who shall have been there one year only, shall be discontinued as public foundationers, being those who, on the most diligent examination and enquiry, shall be thought to be of the least promising genius and disposition; and of those who shall have been there two years, all shall be discontinued, save one only the best in genius and disposition, who shall be at liberty to continue there four years longer on the public foundation, and shall thence forward be deemed a senior.

The visiters for the districts which, or any part of which, be southward and westward of James river. . . in every other year, to wit, at the probation meetings held in the years, distinguished in the Christian computation by odd numbers, and the visiters for all the other districts at their said meetings to be held in those years, distinguished by even numbers, after diligent examination and enquiry as before directed, shall chuse one among the said seniors, of the best learning and most hopeful genius and disposition, who shall be authorised by them to proceed to William and Mary College, there to be educated, boarded, and clothed, three years; the expence of which annually shall be paid by the Treasurer on warrant from the Auditors.

5. Jefferson's explanation and defense of his plan for public education, 1783

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia (Paris, 1783), pp. 268-275.

Another object. . . is, to diffuse knowledge more generally through the mass of the people. This bill proposes to layoff every county into small districts of five or six miles square, called hundreds, and in each of them to establish a school for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. The tutor to be supported by the hundred, and every person in it entitled to send their children three years gratis, and as much longer as they please, paying for it. These schools to be under a visitor, who is annually to chuse the boy, of best genius in the school, of those whose parents are too poor to give them further education, and to send him forward to one of the grammar schools, of which twenty are proposed to be erected in different parts of the country, for teaching Greek, Latin, geography, and the higher branches of numerical arithmetic. Of the boys thus sent in any one year, trial is to be made at the grammar schools one or two years, and the best genius of the whole selected and continued six years, and the residue dismissed. By this means twenty of the best geniusses will be raked from the rubbish annually, and be instructed, at the public expence, so far as the grammar schools go. At the end of six years instruction, one half are to be discontinued (from among whom the grammar schools will probably be supplied with future masters); and the other half, who are to be chosen for the superiority of their parts and disposition, are to be sent and continued three years in the study of such sciences as they shall chuse, at William and Mary college, the plan of which is proposed to be enlarged, as will be hereafter explained, and extended to all the useful sciences. The ultimate result of the whole scheme of education would be the teaching all the children of the state reading, writing, and common arithmetic: turning out ten annually of superior genius, well taught in Greek, Latin, geography and the higher branches of arithmetic: turning out ten others annually of still superior parts, who, to those branches of learning, shall have added such of the sciences as their genius shall have led them to: the furnishing to the wealthier part of the people convenient schools, at which their children may be educated, at their own expence. The general objects of this law are to provide an education adapted to the years, to the capacity, and the condition of everyone, and directed to their freedom and happiness . . . The first stage of this education being the schools of the hundreds, wherein the great mass of the people will receive their instruction, the principal foundations of future order will be laid here. Instead therefore of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children, at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious enquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and American history. The first elements of morality too may be instilled into their minds; such as, when further developed as their judgments advance in strength, may teach them how to work out their own greatest happiness, by shewing them that it does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed them, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. Those whom either the wealth of their parents or the adoption of the state shall destine to higher degrees of learning, will go on to the grammar schools, which constitute the next stage, there to be instructed in the languages. The learning Greek and Latin, I am told, is going into disuse in Europe. I know not what their manners and occupations may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow their example in this instance. There is a certain period of life, say from eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, when the mind, like the body, is not yet firm enough for laborious and close operations. If applied to such, it falls an early victim to premature exertion; exhibiting indeed at first, in these young and tender subjects, the flattering appearance of their being men while they are yet children, but ending in reducing them to be children when they should be men. The memory is then most susceptible and tenacious of impressions; and the learning of languages being chiefly a work of memory, it seems precisely fitted to the powers of this period, which is long enough too for acquiring the most useful languages antient and modern. I do not pretend that language is science. It is only an instrument for the attainment of science. But that time is not lost which is employed in providing tools for future operation: more especially as in this case the books put into the hands of the youth for this purpose may be such as will at the same time impress their minds with useful facts and good principles. If this period be suffered to pass in idleness, the mind becomes lethargic and impotent, as would the body it inhabits if unexercised during the same time. The sympathy between body and mind during their rise, progress and decline, is too strict and obvious to endanger our being misled while we reason from the one to the other. As soon as they are of sufficient age, it is supposed they will be sent on from the grammar schools to the university, which constitutes our third and last stage, there to study those sciences which may be adapted to their views. By that part of our plan which prescribes the selection of the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the state of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated. But of all the views of this law, none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate, and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe their minds must be improved to a certain degree. This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary. An amendment of our constitution must here come in aid of the public education. The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth: and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price. . . It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier people: but it would be more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such numbers as would bid defiance to the means of corruption.

6. The plan of Dr. Benjamin Rush for a public system of education in Pennsylvania, 1786

Benjamin Rush, A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania…(Philadelphia, 1786), pp.4-10.

Rush (1745-1813), a famous physician of Philadelphia, proposed reforms in many fields of public life.

For the purpose of diffusing knowledge through every part of the state, I beg leave to propose the following simple plan.

I. Let there be one university in the state, and let this be established in the capital. Let law, physic, divinity, the law of nature and nations, economy, &c. be taught in it by public lectures in the winter season, after the manner of the European universities, and let the professors receive such salaries from the state as will enable them to deliver their lectures at a moderate price.

II. Let there be four colleges. One in Philadelphia--one at Carlisle--a third, for the benefit of our German fellow citizens, at Manheim--and a fourth, some years hence, at Pittsburgh. In these colleges, let young men be instructed in mathematics and in the higher branches of science, in the same manner that they are now taught in our American colleges. After they have taken a degree in one of these colleges, let them, if they can afford it, complete their studies by spending a season or two in attending the lectures in the university. I prefer four colleges in the state to one or two, for there is a certain size of colleges as there is of towns and armies, that is most favourable to morals and good government. Oxford and Cambridge in England are the seats of dissipation, while the more numerous, and less crouded universities and colleges in Scotland, are remarkable for the order, diligence, and decent behaviour of their students.

III. Let there be an academy established in each county, for the purpose of instructing youth in the learnd languages, and thereby preparing them to enter college.

IV. Let there be free schools established in every township, or in districts consisting of one hundred families. In these schools, let children be taught to read and write the English and German languages, and the use of figures. Such of them as have parents that can afford to send them from home, and are disposed to extend their education, may remove their children from the free school to the county academy.

By this plan, the whole state will be tied together by one system of education. The university will in time furnish masters for the colleges, and the colleges will furnish masters for the academies and free schools, while the free Schools, in their turn, will supply the academies--the colleges, and the university, with scholars--students, and pupils. The same systems of grammar, oratory and philosophy will be taught in every part of the state, and the literary features of Pennsylvania will thus designate one great, and equally enlightned family.

A question now rises, and that is, How shall this plan be carried into execution?--I answer--

The funds of the university of Pennsylvania (if the English and other schools were separated from it) are nearly equal to the purpose of supporting able professors in all the arts and sciences that are taught in the European universities.

A small addition to the funds of Dickinson college, will enable it to exist without any further aid from government.

Twenty thousand acres of good land in the late Indian purchase, will probably afford a revenue large enough to support a college at Manheim, and another on the banks of the Ohio, in the course of twenty years.

Five thousand acres of land, appropriated to each county academy, will probably afford a revenue sufficient to support them in twenty years. In the mean while let a tax from £200 to £400 a year be laid on each county for that purpose, according to the number and wealth of its inhabitants.

Let sixty thousand acres of land be set apart, to be divided, twenty years hence, among the free schools. In the mean while let a tax from £ 30 to £ 60 a year be levied upon each district of one hundred families, for the support of the schoolmaster, and to prompt him to industry in encreasing his school, let each scholar pay him from 1/6 to 2/6 every quarter.

But, how shall we bear the expence of these literary institutions under the present weight of our taxes?--I answer--These institutions are designed to lessen our taxes. They will enlighten us in the great business of finance--they will teach us to encrease the ability of the state to support government, by encreasing the profits of agriculture, and by promoting manufactures. They will teach us all the modern improvements and advantages of inland navigation. They will defend us from hasty and expensive experiments in government, by unfolding to us the experience and folly of past ages, and thus, instead of adding to our taxes and debts, they will furnish us with the true secret of lessening and discharging both of them.

But, shall the estates of orphans, batchelors and persons who have no children be taxed to pay for the support of schools from which they can derive no benefit? I answer in the affirmative, to the first part of the objection, and I deny the truth of the latter part of it. Every member of the community is interested in the propagation of virtue and knowledge in the state. But I will go further, and add, it will be true economy in individuals to support public schools. The batchelor will in time save his tax for this purpose, by being able to sleep with fewer bolts and locks to his doors, the estates of orphans will in time be benefited, by being protected from the ravages of unprincipled and idle boys, and the children of wealthy parents will be less tempted, by bad company, to extravagance. Fewer pillories and whipping posts, and smaller jails, with their usual expences and taxes, will be necessary when our youth are properly educated, than at present. I believe it could be proved, that the expences of confining, trying and executing criminals amount every year, in most of the counties, to more money than would be sufficient to maintain all the schools that would be necessary in each county. The confessions of these criminals generally show us, that their vices and punishments are the fatal consequences of the want of a proper education in early life.

7. Rush's suggestions for methods of recreation and discipline suitable for future citizens of a republic, 1790

"Thoughts upon the Amusements and Punishments which are proper for Schools. Addressed to George Clymer, Esq. by

Benjamin Rush, M.D.," The Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine, V (1790), 67-73.

Montesquieu informs us that the exercises of the last day of the life of Epaminondas, were the same as his amusements in his youth. Herein we have an epitome of the perfection of education. The amusements of Epaminondas were of a military nature; but as the profession of arms is the business of only a small part of mankind, and happily much less necessary in the United States than in ancient Greece, I would propose that the amusements of our youth, at school, should consist of such exercises as will be most subservient to their future employments in life. These are: 1. agriculture; 2. mechanical occupations; and 3. the business of the learned professions.

1. There is a variety in the employments of agriculture which may readily be suited to the genius, taste, and strength of young people. An experiment has been made of the efficacy of these employments, as amusements, in the Methodist College at Abington, in Maryland; and, I have been informed, with the happiest effects. A large lot is divided between the scholars, and premiums are adjudged to those of them who produce the most vegetables from their grounds, or who keep them in the best order.

2. As the employments of agriculture cannot afford amusement at all seasons of the year, or in cities, I would propose, that children should be allured to seek amusements in such of the mechanical arts as are suited to their strength and capacities. Where is the boy who does not delight in the use of a hammer--a chisel--or a saw? and who has not enjoyed a high degree of pleasure in his youth, in constructing a miniature house? How amusing are the machines which are employed in the manufactory of cloathing of all kinds! and how full of various entertainment are the mixtures which take place in the chemical arts! each of these might be contrived upon such a scale, as not only to amuse young people, but to afford a profit to their parents or masters. . .

If, in these amusements, an appeal should be made to that spirit of competition which is so common among young people, it would be the means of producing more pleasure to the children, and more profit to all who are connected with them. The wealth of those manufacturing towns in England, which employ the children of poor people, is a proof of what might be expected from connecting amusement and labour together, in all our schools. The product from the labour obtained in this way, from all the schools in the United States, would amount to a sum which would almost exceed calculation.

3. To train the youth who are intended for the learned professions, or for merchandize, to the duties of their future employments, by means of useful amusements, which are related to those employments, will be impracticable; but their amusements may be derived from cultivating a spot of ground; for where is the lawyer, the physician, the divine, or the merchant, who has not indulged or felt a passion, in some part of his life, for rural improvements? Indeed I conceive the seeds of knowledge in agriculture will be most productive, when they are planted in the minds of this class of scholars.

I have only to add under this head, that the common amusements of children have no connection with their future occupations. Many of them injure their clothes, some of them waste their strength, and impair their health, and all of them prove, more or less, the means of producing noise, or of exciting angry passions, both of which are calculated to beget vulgar manners. . .

Do not think me too strict if I here exclude gunning from among the amusements of young men. My objections to it are as follow:

1. It hardens the heart, by inflicting unnecessary pain and death upon animals.

2. It is unnecessary in civilized society, where animal food may be obtained from domestic animals, with greater facility.

3. It consumes a great deal of time, and thus creates habits of idleness.

4. It frequently leads young men into low, and bad company.

5. By imposing long abstinence from food, it leads to intemperance in eating, which naturally leads to intemperance in drinking.

6. It exposes to fevers, and accidents. The news-papers are occasionally filled with melancholy accounts of the latter, and every physician must have met with frequent and dangerous instances of the former, in the course of his practice.

I know the early use of a gun is recommended in our country, to teach our young men the use of fire-arms, and thereby to prepare them for war and battle. But why should I we inspire our youth, by such exercises, with hostile ideas towards their fellow creatures? Let us rather instill into their minds sentiments of universal benevolence to men of all nations and colours. Wars originate in error and vice. Let us eradicate these, by proper modes of education, and wars will cease to be necessary in our country...

I have hinted at the injury which is done to the health of young people by some of their amusements; but there is a practice common in all our schools, which does more harm to their bodies than all the amusements that can be named, and that is, obliging them to sit too long in one place, or crowding too many of them together in one room. By means of the former, the growth and shape of the body have been impaired; and by means of the latter, the seeds of fevers have often been engendered in schools. In the course of my business, I have been called to many hundred children who have been seized with indispositions in school, which evidently arose from the action of morbid effluvia, produced by the confined breath and perspiration of too great a number of children in one room. To obviate these evils, children should be permitted, after they have said their lessons, to amuse themselves in the open air, in some of the useful and agreeable exercises which have been mentioned. Their minds will be strengthened, as well as their bodies relieved by them. To oblige a sprightly boy to sit seven hours in a day, with his little arms pinioned to his sides, and his neck unnaturally bent towards his book; and for no crime!--what cruelty and folly are manifested, by such an absurd mode of instructing or governing young people!

I come next to say a few words upon the subject of Punishments which are proper in schools.

In barbarous ages every thing partook of the complexion of the times. Civil, ecclesiastical, military, and domestic punishments were all of a cruel nature. With the progress of reason and christianity, punishments of all kinds have become less severe. Solitude and labour are now substituted in many countries, with success, in the room of the whipping-post and the gallows. The innocent infirmities of human nature are no longer proscribed, and punished by the church. Discipline, consisting in the vigilance of officers, has lessened the supposed necessity of military executions; and husbands--fathers--and masters now blush at the history of the times, when wives, children, and servants, were governed only by force. But unfortunately this spirit of humanity and civilization has not reached our schools. The rod is yet the principal instrument of governing them, and a school-master remains the only despot now known in free countries. Perhaps it is because the little subjects of their arbitrary and capricious power have not been in a condition to complain. I shall endeavour therefore to plead their cause, and to prove that corporal punishments (except to children under four or five years of age) are never necessary, and always hurtful, in schools. The following arguments I hope will be sufficient to establish this proposition.

1. Children are seldom sent to school before they are capable of feeling the force of rational or moral obligation. They may therefore be deterred from committing offences, by motives less disgraceful than the fear of corporal punishments.

2. By correcting children for ignorance and negligence in school, their ideas of improper and immoral actions are confounded, and hence the moral faculty becomes weakened in after life. It would not be more cruel or absurd to inflict the punishment of the whipping-post upon a man, for not dressing fashionably or neatly, than it is to ferule a boy for blotting his copy-book, or misspelling a word.

3. If the natural affection of a parent is sometimes insufficient, to restrain the violent effects of a sudden gust of anger upon a child, how dangerous must the power of correcting children be, when lodged in the hands of a

school-master, in whose anger there is no mixture of parental affection! Perhaps those parents act most wisely, who never trust themselves to inflict corporal punishments upon their children, after they are four or five years old, but endeavour to punish, and reclaim them, by confinement, or by abridging them of some of their usual gratifications, in dress, food or amusements.

4. Injuries are sometimes done to the bodies, and sometimes to the intellects of children, by corporal punishments. I recollect, when a boy, to have lost a school-mate, who was said to have died in consequence of a severe whipping he received in school. At that time I did not believe it possible, but from what I now know of the disproportion between the violent emotions of the mind, and the strength of the body in children, I am disposed to believe, that not only sickness, but that even death may be induced, by the convulsions of a youthful mind, worked up to a high sense of shame and resentment.

The effects of thumping the head, boxing the ears, and pulling the hair, in impairing the intellects, by means of injuries done to the brain, are too obvious to be mentioned.

5. Where there is shame, says Dr. Johnson, there may be virtue. But corporal punishments, inflicted at school, have a tendency to destroy the sense of shame, and thereby to destroy all moral sensibility. The boy that has been often publicly whipped at school, is under great obligations to his maker, and his parents, if he afterwards escape the whipping-post or the gallows.

6. Corporal punishments, inflicted at school, tend to beget a spirit of violence in boys toward each other, which often follows them through life; but they more certainly beget a spirit of hatred, or revenge, towards their masters, which too often becomes a ferment of the same baneful passions towards other people . . . I think I have known several instances of this vindictive, or indignant spirit, to continue towards a cruel and tyrannical school-master, in persons who were advanced in life, and who were otherwise of gentle and forgiving dispositions.

7. Corporal punishments, inflicted at schools, beget a hatred to instruction in young people. I have sometimes suspected that the devil, who knows how great an enemy knowledge is to his kingdom, has had the address to make the world believe that feruling, pulling and boxing ears, cudgelling, horsing, &c. and, in boarding-schools, a little starving, are all absolutely necessary for the government of young people, on purpose that he might make both schools, and school-masters odious, and thereby keep our world in ignorance; for ignorance is the best means the devil ever contrived, to keep up the number of his subjects in our world.

8. Corporal punishments are not only hurtful, but altogether unnecessary, in schools. Some of the most celebrated and successful school-masters, that I have ever known, never made use of them.

9. The fear of corporal punishments, by debilitating the body, produces a corresponding debility in the mind, which contracts its capacity of acquiring knowledge. This capacity is enlarged by the tone which the mind acquires from the action of hope, love, and confidence upon it; and all these passions might easily be cherished, by a prudent and enlightened school-master.

10. As there should always be a certain ratio between the strength of a remedy, and the excitability of the body in diseases, so there should be a similar ratio between the force employed in the government of a school, and the capacities and tempers of children. A kind rebuke, like fresh air in a fainting fit, is calculated to act upon a young mind with more effect, than stimulants of the greatest power; but corporal punishments level all capacities and tempers, as quack-medicines do all constitutions and diseases. They dishonour and degrade our species; for they suppose a total absence of all moral and intellectual feeling from the mind. Have we not often seen children suddenly improve by changing their schools? The reason is obvious. The successful teacher only accomodated his manner and discipline to the capacities of his scholars.

11. I conceive corporal punishments, inflicted in an arbitrary manner, to be contrary to the spirit of liberty, and that they should not be tolerated in a free government. Why should not children be protected from violence and injuries, as well as white and black servants? Had I influence enough in our legislature to obtain only a single law, it should be to make the punishment for striking a school-boy, the same as for assaulting and beating an adult member of society.

. . . . .

If . . . prudent. . . measures should fail of preventing offences at school, then let the following modes of punishment be adopted.

1. Private admonition. By this mode of rebuking, we imitate the conduct of the divine Being towards his offending creatures, for His first punishment is always inflicted privately, by means of the still voice of conscience.

2. Confinement after school-hours are ended; but with the knowledge of the parents of children.

3. Holding a small sign of disgrace, of any kind, in the middle of the floor, in the presence of a whole school.

If these punishments fail of reclaiming a bad boy, he should be dismissed from school, to prevent his corrupting his school-mates. It is the business of parents, and not of school-masters, to use the last means for eradicating idleness and vice from their children.

The world was created in love. It is sustained by love. Nations and families that are happy, are made so only by love. Let us extend this divine principle, to those little communities which we call schools. Children are capable of loving in a high degree. They may therefore be governed by love.

The occupation of a school-master is truly dignified. He is (next to mothers) the most important member of civil society. Why then is there so little rank connected with that occupation? Why do we treat it with so much neglect, or contempt? It is because the voice of reason, in the human heart, associates with it the idea of despotism and violence. Let school-masters cease to be tyrants, and they will soon enjoy the respect and rank, which are naturally connected with their profession.

We are grosly mistaken in looking up wholly to our governments, and even to ministers of the gospel, to promote public and private order in society. Mothers and school-masters plant the seeds of nearly all the good and evil which exist in our world. Its reformation must therefore be begun in nurseries and in schools. If the habits we acquire there, were to have no influence upon our future happiness, yet the influence they have upon our governments, is a sufficient reason why we ought to introduce new modes, as well as new objects of education into our country.

8. Noah Webster's appeal for a republican mode of education, 1790

Noah Webster, A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv [1a] Writing, on Moral, Historical, Political and Literary Subjects (Boston, 1790), pp. 3-4, 14-19, 22-26.

Education is a subject which has been exhausted by the ablest writers, both among the ancients and moderns. I am not vain enough to suppose I can suggest any new ideas upon so trite a theme as Education in general; but perhaps the manner of conducting the youth in America may be capable of some improvement. Our constitutions of civil government are not yet firmly established; our national character is not yet formed; and it is an object of vast magnitude that systems of Education should be adopted and pursued, which may not only diffuse a knowlege of the sciences, but may implant, in the minds of the American youth, the principles of virtue and of liberty; and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government, and with an inviolable attachment to their own country. It now becomes every American to examin the modes of Education in Europe, to see how far they are applicable in this country, and whether it is not possible to make some valuable alterations, adapted to our local and political circumstances.

The first error that I would mention, is, a too general attention to the dead languages, with a neglect of our own…

The high estimation in which the learned languages have been held, has discouraged a due attention to our own. People find themselves able without much study to write and speak the English intelligibly, and thus have been led to think rules of no utility. This opinion has produced various and arbitrary practices, in the use of the language, even among men of the most information and accuracy; and this diversity has produced another opinion, both false and injurious to the language, that there are no rules or principles on which the pronunciation and construction can be settled.

This neglect is so general, that there is scarcely an institution to be found in the country, where the English tongue is taught regularly, from its elements to its true and elegant construction, in prose and verse. Perhaps in most schools, boys are taught the definition of the parts of speech, and a few hard names which they do not understand, and which the teacher seldom attempts to explain; this is called learning grammar. This practice of learning questions and answers without acquiring any ideas, has given rise to a common remark, that grammar is a dry study; and so is every other study which is prosecuted without improving the head or the heart. . . In general, when a study of any kind is tiresome to a person, it is a presumptive evidence that he does not make any proficiency in knowledge, and this is almost always the fault of the instructor.

Young gentlemen, designed for the mercantile line, after having learned to write and speak English correctly, might attend to French, Italian, or such other living language, as they will probably want in the course of business. These languages should be learned early in youth, while the organs are yet pliable; otherwise the pronunciation will probably be imperfect. These studies might be succeeded by some attention to chronology, and a regular application of geography, mathematics, history, the general regulations of commercial nations, principles of advance in trade, of insurance, and to the general principles of government.

It appears to me that such a course of Education, which might be completed by the age of fifteen or sixteen, would have a tendency to make better merchants than the usual practice which confines boys to Lucian, Ovid and Tully, till they are fourteen, and then turns them into a store, without an idea of their business, or one article of Education necessary for them, except perhaps a knowlege of writing and figures.

Such a system of English Education is also much preferable to a university Education, even with the usual honors; for it might be finished so early as to leave young persons time to serve a regular apprenticeship, without which no person should enter upon business. But by the time a university Education is completed, young men commonly commence gentlemen; their age and their pride will not suffer them to go thro the drudgery of a compting house, and they enter upon business without the requisite accomplishments. Indeed it appears to me that what is now called a liberal Education, disqualifies a man for business. Habits are formed in youth and by practice; and as business is, in some measure, mechanical, every person should be exercised in his employment, in an early period of life, that his habits may be formed by the time his apprenticeship expires. An Education in a university interferes with the forming of these habits; and perhaps forms opposite habits; the mind may contract a fondness for ease, for pleasure or for books, which no efforts can overcome. An academic Education, which should furnish the youth with some ideas of men and things, and leave time for an apprenticeship, before the age of twenty one years, would in my opinion, be the most eligible for young men who are designed for activ employments.

The method pursued in our colleges is better calculated to fit youth for the learned professions than for business. But perhaps the period of study, required as the condition of receiving the usual degrees, is too short. Four years, with the most assiduous application, are a short time to furnish the mind with the necessary knowlege of the languages and of the several sciences. It might perhaps have been a period sufficiently long for an infant settlement, as America was, at the time when most of our colleges were founded. But as the country becomes populous, wealthy and respectable, it may be worthy of consideration, whether the period of academic life should not be extended to six or seven years.

But the principal defect in our plan of Education in America, is, the want of good teachers in the academies and common schools. By good teachers I mean, men of unblemished reputation, and possessed of abilities, competent to their stations. That a man should be master of what he undertakes to teach, is a point that will not be disputed; and yet it is certain that abilities are often dispensed with, either thro inattention or fear of expense.

To those who employ ignorant men to instruct their children, permit me to suggest one important idea: That it is better for youth to have no Education, than to have a bad one; for it is more difficult to eradicate habits, than to impress new ideas. The tender shrub is easily bent to any figure; but the tree, which has acquired its full growth, resists all impressions.

Yet abilities are not the sole requisites. The instructors of youth ought, of all men, to be the most prudent, accomplished, agreeable and respectable. What avail a man's parts, if, while he is the "wisest and brightest," he is the "meanest of mankind?" The pernicious effects of bad: example on the minds of youth will probably be acknowledged; but with a view to improvement, it is indispensably necessary that the teachers should possess good breeding and agreeable manners. In order to give full effect to instructions, it is requisite that they should proceed from a man who is loved and respected. But a low bred clown, or morose tyrant, can command neither love nor respect; and that pupil who has no motive for application to books, but the fear of a rod, will not make a scholar.

The rod is often necessary in school; especially after the children have been accustomed to disobedience and a licentious behavior at home. All government originates in families, and if neglected there, it will hardly exist in society; but the want of it must be supplied by the rod in school, the penal laws of the state, and the terrors of divine wrath from the pulpit. The government both of families and schools should be absolute. There should, in families, be no appeal from one parent to another, with the prospect of pardon for offences. The one should always vindicate, at least apparently, the conduct of the other. In schools the master should be absolute in command; for it is utterly impossible for any man to support order and discipline among children, who are indulged with an appeal to their parents. A proper subordination in families would generally supersede the necessity of severity in schools; and a strict discipline in both is the best foundation of good order in political society.

If parents should say, "we cannot give the instructors of our children unlimited authority over them, for it may be abused and our children injured"; I would answer, they must not place them under the direction of any man, in whose temper, judgement and abilities, they do not repose perfect confidence. The teacher should be, if such can be found, as judicious and reasonable a man as the parent.

There can be little improvement in schools, without strict subordination; there can be no subordination, without principles of esteem and respect in the pupils; and the pupils cannot esteem and respect a man who is not in himself respectable, and who is not treated with respect by their parents. It may be laid down as an invariable maxim, that a person is not fit to superintend the Education of children, who has not the qualifications which will command the esteem and respect of his pupils. This maxim is founded on a truth which every person may have observed; that children always love an amiable man, and always esteem a respectable one. Men and women have their passions, which often rule their judgement and their conduct. They have their caprices, their interests and their prejudices, which at times incline them to treat the most meritorious characters with disrespect. But children, artless and unsuspecting, resign their hearts to any person whose manners are agreeable, and whose conduct is respectable. Whenever, therefore, pupils cease to respect their teacher, he should be instantly dismissed.

From a strange inversion of the order of nature, the cause of which it is not necessary to unfold, the most important business in civil society, is, in many parts of America, committed to the most worthless characters. The Education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success; this Education is sunk to a level with the most menial services. In most instances we find the higher seminaries of learning intrusted to men of good characters, and possessed of the moral virtues and social affections. But many of our inferior schools, which, so far as the heart is concerned, are as important as colleges, are kept by men of no breeding, and many of them, by men infamous for the most detestable vices. Will this be denied? will it be denied, that before the war, it was a frequent practice for gentlemen to purchase convicts, who had been transported for their crimes, and employ them as private tutors in their families?

Gracious Heavens! Must the wretches, who have forfeited their lives, and been pronounced unworthy to be inhabitants of a foreign country, be entrusted with the Education, the morals, the character of American youth?

Will it be denied that many of the instructors of youth, whose examples and precepts should form their minds for good men and useful citizens, are often found to sleep away, in school, the fumes of a debauch, and to stun the ears of their pupils with frequent blasphemy? It is idle to suppress such truths; nay more, it is wicked. The practice of employing low and vicious characters to direct the studies of youth, is, in a high degree, criminal; it is destructive of the order and peace of society; it is treason against morals, and of course, against government; it ought to be arraigned before the tribunal of reason, and condemned by all intelligent beings. The practice is so exceedingly absurd, that it is surprising it could ever have prevailed among rational people. Parents wish their children to be well bred, yet place them under the care of clowns. They wish to secure their hearts from vicious principles and habits, yet commit them to the care of men of the most profligate lives. They wish to have their children taught obedience and respect for superiors, yet give them a master that both parents and children despise. A practice so glaringly absurd and irrational has no name in any language! Parents themselves will not associate with the men, whose company they oblige their children to keep, even in that most important period, when habits are forming for life.

Another defect in our schools, which, since the revolution, is become inexcusable, is the want of proper books. The collections which are now used consist of essays that respect foreign and ancient nations. The minds of youth are perpetually led to the history of Greece and Rome or to Great Britain; boys are constantly repeating the declamations of Demosthenes and Cicero, or debates upon some political question in the British Parliment. These are excellent specimens of good sense, polished stile and perfect oratory; but they are not interesting to children. They cannot be very useful, except to young gentlemen who want them as models of reasoning and eloquence, in the pulpit or at the bar.

But every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty, and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen, who have wrought a revolution in her favor.

Two regulations are essential to the continuance of republican governments: 1. Such a distribution of lands and such principles of descent and alienation, as shall give every citizen a power of acquiring what his industry merits. 2. Such a system of education as gives every citizen an opportunity of acquiring knowlege and fitting himself for places of trust. These are fundamental articles; the sine qua non of the existence of the American republics.

Hence the absurdity of our copying the manners and adopting the institutions of Monarchies.

In several States, we find laws passed, establishing provision for colleges and academies, where people of property may educate their sons; but no provision is made for instructing the poorer rank of people, even in reading and writing. Yet in these same States, every citizen who is worth a few shillings annually, is entitled to vote for legislators. This appears to me a most glaring solecism in government. The constitutions are republican, and the laws of education are monarchical. The former extend civil rights to every honest industrious man; the latter deprive a large proportion of the citizens of a most valuable privilege.

In our American republics, where governments is in the hands of the people, knowlege should be universally diffused by means of public schools. Of such consequence is it to society, that the people who make laws, should be well informed, that I conceive no Legislature can be justified in neglecting proper establishments for this purpose.

When I speak of a diffusion of knowlege, I do not mean merely a knowlege of spelling books, and the New Testament. An acquaintance with ethics, and with the general principles of law, commerce, money and government, is necessary for the yeomanry of a republican state. This acquaintance they might obtain by means of books calculated for schools, and read by the children, during the winter months, and by the circulation of public papers.

It is said, indeed by many, that our common people are already too well informed. Strange paradox! The truth is, they have too much knowlege and spirit to resign their share in government, and are not sufficiently informed to govern themselves in all cases of difficulty.

There are some acts of the American legislatures which astonish men of information; and blunders in legislation are frequently ascribed to bad intentions. But if we examin the men who compose these legislatures, we shall find that wrong measures generally proceed from ignorance either in the men themselves, or in their constituents. They often mistake their own interest, because they do not foresee the remote consequences of a measure.

It may be true that all men cannot be legislators; but the more generally knowlege is diffused among the substantial yeomanry, the more perfect will be the laws of a republican state.

Every small district should be furnished with a school, at least four months in a year; when boys are not otherwise employed. This school should be kept by the most reputable and well informed man in the district. Here children should be taught the usual branches of learning; submission to superiors and to laws; the moral or social duties; the history and transactions of their own country; the principles of liberty and government. Here the rough manners of the wilderness should be softened, and the principles of virtue and good behaviour inculcated. The virtues of men are of more consequences to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

Such a general system of education is neither impracticable nor difficult; and excepting the formation of a federal government that shall be efficient and permanent, it demands the first attention of American patriots. Until such a system shall be adopted and pursued; until the Statesman and Divine shall unite their efforts in forming the human mind, rather than in loping its excressences, after it has been neglected; until Legislators discover that the only way to make good citizens and subjects, is to nourish them from infancy; and until parents shall be convinced that the worst of men are not the proper teachers to make the best, mankind cannot know to what a degree of perfection society and government may be carried. America affords the fairest opportunities for making the experiment, and opens the most encouraging prospect of success.

1a. Among other innovations, Webster advocated spelling reform.

9. President George Washington recommends the establishment of a national university to foster unity and train young men for public positions, 1796

Jared Sparks, ed., The Writings of George Washington…, XII (Boston, 1837), 70-71.

I have heretofore proposed to the consideration of Congress, the expediency of establishing a national university, and also a military academy. The desirableness of both these institutions has so constantly increased with every new view I have taken of the subject, that I cannot omit the opportunity of once for all recalling your attention to them. The assembly to which I address myself, is too enlightened not to be fully sensible how much a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation. True it is, that our country, much to its honor, contains many seminaries of learning highly respectable and useful; but the funds upon which they rest are too narrow to command the ablest professors, in the different departments of liberal knowledge, for the institution contemplated, though they would be excellent auxiliaries.

Amongst the motives to such an institution, the assimilation of the principles, opinions, and manners of our countrymen, by the common education of a portion of our youth from every quarter, well deserves attention. The more homogeneous our citizens can be made in these particulars, the greater will be our prospect of permanent union; and a primary object of such a national institution should be, the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important, and what duty more pressing on its legislature, than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those, who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

10. A Massachusetts farmer, William Manning, on the kind of education needed in a free republic, 1798

William Manning, The Key to Libberty, Shewing the Causes Why a Free Government Has Always Failed, and a Remidy Against it (Billerica, Mass., 1922), pp. 19-21, 35-36.

Manning (1747-1814), a Jeffersonian Republican in politics, was born, worked, and died on a farm in North Billerica, Massachusetts. His thoughts on the causes of despotism and the importance of popular education in maintaining a republic give a clue to the outlook of ordinary men. The manuscript was not published until 1922.

Solomon said, Train up a Child in the way he should go, & when he is old he will not depart from it. And it is as true that if a child is trained up in the way he should not go, when he is old he will keep to it. It is the universal custom & practis of monorcal & dispotick government to train up their subjects as much in ignorance as they can in matters of government, & to teach them to reverance & worship grate men in office, & to take for truth what ever they say without examining for themselves.

Consiquently when ever Revolutions are brought about & free governments established it is by the influence of a few leeding men, who after they have obtained their object (like other men) can neaver receiv compensation & honours anough from the people for their services, & the people being brought up from their uths to reverance & respect such men they go on old ways & neglect to search & see for themselves & take care of their own interists. Also being naturally very fond of being flattered, they redily hear to measures proposed by grate men who they are convinced have done them good services. This is the prinsaple ground on which the few work to Destroy a free government.

. . . . .

3. On Larning

Larning is of the gratest importance to the seport of a free government, & to prevent this the few are always crying up the advantages of costly collages, national acadimyes & grammer schooles, in ordir to make places for men to live without work, & so strengthen their party. But are always opposed to cheep schools & woman schools, the ondly or prinsaple means by which laming is spred amongue the Many.

4. On Knowledge

The gratest & best meens of obtaining the knowledge nesecary for a free man to have, is by the Liberty of the Press, or publick Newspapers. To counter act and destroy this priviledge the few spare no pains to make them as costly as posable & to contradict everything in them that favours the interests of the Many, puting Darkness for Light, & Light for Darkness, falsehood for truth, & truth for falsehood, &cc.

. . . . .

No person who is a frind to Libberty will be against a large expence in Larning, but it aught to be promoted in the cheepest & best manner possable, which in my oppinnion would be:--For every State to maintain as many Coledges in conveniant parts thereof as would be attended upon to give the highest Degrees of Larning, & for every County to keep as many Grammer Schools or Acadimies in conveniant parts thereof as would be attended too by both sects summer & winter, & no student or scholer to pay anything for tuition, and for the County Schooles to pay a purticuler attention to teaching the Inglish langueg & qualifying its scholors to teach & govern Common Schools for little children.

And for Every Town to be obliged to keep as Much as six weeks of wrighting school in the winter & twelve weeks of a woman school in the summer in every parte of the town. So that none should be thronged with two many schollers, nor none have too far to travel, & every person be obliged to send his children to school, for the publick are as much interested in the Larning of one child as an other.

If this method of Larning was established we should soone have a plenty of school masters & mistrises as cheep as we could hire other labour, & Labour & Larning would be conected together & lesen the number of those that live without work. Also we should have a plenty of men to fill the highest offices of State for less than halfe we now give. But insted of this mode of Larning the few are always striving to oblige us to maintain grait men with grate salleryes & to maintain Grammer Schools in every town to teach our Children a b c all which is ondly to give imploy to gentlemens sons & make places for men to live without worke. For their is no more need of a mans haveing a knowledge of all the languages to teach a Child to read write & cifer than their is for a farmer to have the marinors art to hold plow.

Nearly all state constitutions committed the state to the support of education. Most of the early education laws, however, were permissive rather than mandatory, authorizing rather than requiring local officials to maintain schools.

1. Clause on education in the North Carolina Constitution of 1776 F. N. Thorpe, ed., The Federal and State Constitutions. . . (Washington, 1909), V, 2794.

XLI. That a school or schools shall be established by the Legislature, for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices; and all useful learning shall be duly encouraged, and promoted, in one or more universities.

2. Constitution of Vermont provides for the establishment of schools, 1777 The Federal and State Constitutions, IV, 3748.

Section XL. A school or schools shall be established in each town, by the legislature, for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by each town; making proper use of school lands in each town, thereby to enable them to instruct youth at low prices. One grammar school in each county, and one university in this State, ought to be established by direction of the General Assembly.

3. The commitment to support education in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 The Federal and State Constitutions, III, 1907-1908.

CHAPTER V

Section II.--The Encouragement of Literature, etc.

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation 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 legislatures 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 at 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.

4. The Northwest Ordinance requires the government of the Northwest Territory to encourage education, 1787

The Federal and State Constitutions, II, 961.

Article III

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. . .

5. Education in the Indiana Constitution of 1816

The Federal and State Constitutions, II, 1068-1069.

ARTICLE IX

SECTION 1. 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 this end, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide, by law, for the improvement of such lands as are or hereafter may be granted by the United States to this State for the use of schools, and to apply any funds which may be raised from such lands or from any other quarter to the accomplishment of the grand object for which they are or may be intended. But no lands granted for the use of schools or seminaries of learning shall be sold by authority of this State prior to the year 1820; and the moneys which may be raised out of the sale of any such lands, or otherwise obtained for the purposes aforesaid, shall be and remain a fund for the exclusive purpose of promoting the interest of literature and the sciences, and for the support of seminaries and public schools. The General Assembly shall, from time to time, pass such laws as shall be calculated to encourage intellectual, scientifical and agricultural improvements, by allowing rewards and immunities for the promotion and improvement of arts, sciences, commerce, manufacture and natural history; and to countenance and encourage the principles of humanity, honesty, industry and morality.

SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide, by law, for a general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all.

SEC. 3. And for the promotion of such salutary end, the money which shall be paid, as an equivalent, by persons exempt from military duty, except in times of war, shall be exclusively, and in equal proportion, applied to the support of County Seminaries; also, all fines assessed for any breach of the penal laws, shall be applied to said seminaries in the County wherein they shall be assessed.

6. Education in the Alabama Constitution of 1819

The Federal and State Constitutions, I, 110-111.

EDUCATION

Schools, and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged in this State; and the general assembly shall take measures to preserve, from unnecessary waste or damage, such lands as are or hereafter may be granted by the United States for the use of schools within each township in this State, and apply the funds, which may be raised from such lands, in strict conformity to the object of such grant. The general assembly shall take like measures for the improvement of such lands as have been or may be hereafter granted by the United States to this State, for the support of a seminary of learning, and the moneys which may be raised from such lands, by rent, lease, or sale, or from any other quarter, for the purpose aforesaid, shall be and remain a fund for the exclusive support of a State university, for the promotion of the arts, literature and the sciences; and it shall be the duty of the general assembly, as early as may be, to provide effectual means for the improvement and permanent security of the funds and endowments of such institution.

Although most school expenses were met out of local taxes and fees, other devices were also used to obtain financial support for the schools. These included grants of public lands by the national government, lotteries, fines, and excise taxes. In addition to supplying limited amounts of funds, governments in the northern states tried, not always successfully, to set minimum standards and exercise a general supervision over local school practices.

1. The General Court of Massachusetts grants land for the support of a school in a new town on the frontier, 1732 The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. . . , XI (Boston, 1903), 656-657.

The New England custom of granting lands for the support of town schools provided a precedent for a similar provision in the Land Ordinance of 1785.

A petition of Joshua Lamb, Joseph Ruggles, Timothy Ruggles, and Ebenezer Pierpoint, praying that this court would please to make a grant to the petitioners and their associates for a tract of land lying on Ware River for a township, upon such conditions as the court shall judge proper.

Read and in answer to this petition:

Ordered that there be and hereby is granted unto the petitioners and their associates a tract of land of the contents of six miles square for a township at the place petitioned for to be laid out in a regular form by a surveyor and chainmen under oath, a plan thereof to be presented to this court at the next session for confirmation, the said land by them to be settled on the conditions following, viz., that they within the space of five years settle and have on ye spot sixty families (the settlers are to be none but such as are natives of New England), each settler to build a good and convenient dwelling house of one story high, and eighteen feet square at the least, and clear and bring to four acres fit for improvement and three acres more well stocked with English grass, and also layout three shares throughout the town, each share to be one sixty third part of the said town, one share for the first settled minister, one for the ministry, and the other for the school, and also build a convenient meeting house and settle a learned orthodox minister within the term aforesaid.

2. Lands set aside by the national government for the support of public schools in the Land Ordinance of 1785

John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, XXVIII (Washington, 1933), 378.

There shall be reserved for the United States out of every township, the four lots, being numbered 8, 11, 26, 29, and out of every fractional part of a township, so many lots of the same numbers as shall be found thereon, for future sale. There shall be reserved the lot N 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools, within the said township; also one third part of all gold, silver, lead and copper mines, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of as Congress shall hereafter direct.

3. Massachusetts school law, 1789

The Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1780-1800 (Boston, 1801), 1, 469-473.

This law codified practices which had developed over the previous century pertaining to town support of lower and grammar schools, the division of towns into school districts, instruction in morals, and certification of teachers.

Every town or district within this Commonwealth, containing fifty families, or house-holders, shall be provided with a School-Master or School-Masters, of good morals, to teach children to read and write, and to instruct them in the English language, as well as in arithmetic, orthography, and decent behaviour, for such term of time as shall be equivalent to six months for one school in each year. And every town or district containing one hundred families, or householders, shall be provided with such School-Master or School-Masters, for such term of time as shall be equivalent to twelve months for one school in each year. And every town or district containing one hundred and fifty families, or householders, shall be provided with such School-Master or School-Masters, for such term of time as shall be equivalent to six months in each year; and shall, in addition thereto, be provided with a School-Master or School-Masters, as above described, to instruct children in the English language, for such term of time as shall be equivalent to twelve months for one school in each year. And every town or district containing two hundred families, or householders, shall be provided with a grammar School-Master, of good morals, well instructed in the Latin, Greek and English languages; and shall, in addition thereto, be provided with a School-Master or School-Masters, as above described, to instruct children in the English language, for such term of time as shall be equivalent to twelve months for each of said schools in each year.

And whereas by means of the dispersed situation of the inhabitants of several towns and districts in this Commonwealth, the children and youth cannot be collected in anyone place for their instruction, and it has thence become expedient that the towns and districts, in the circumstances aforesaid, should be divided into separate districts for the purpose aforesaid:

…the several towns and districts in this Commonwealth, be and they are hereby authorized and empowered, in town-meetings, to be called for that purpose, to determine and define the limits of school districts within their towns and districts respectively.

And to the end that grammar School-Masters may not be prevented in their endeavours to discharge their trust in the most useful manner:

…no youth shall be sent to such grammar schools unless they shall have learned, in some other school or in some other way, to read the English language, by spelling the same; or the Selectmen of the town where such grammar school is, shall direct the grammar School-Master to receive and instruct such youth.

…It shall be and it is hereby made the duty of the President, Professors and Tutors of the University at Cambridge, Preceptors and Teachers of Academies, and all other instructors of youth, to take diligent care, and to exert their best endeavours, to impress on the a minds of children and youth committed to their care and instruction, the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity, and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation and temperance, and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society, and the basis upon which the Republican Constitution is structured. And it shall be the duty of such instructors, to endeavour to lead those under their care (as their ages and, capacities will admit) into a particular understanding of the tendency of the before mentioned virtues, to preserve and perfect a Republican Constitution, and to secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote their future happiness; and the tendency of the opposite vices to slavery and ruin.

And to the end that improper persons may not be employed in the important offices before mentioned:

. . . no person shall be employed as a School-Master as aforesaid, unless he shall have received an education at some College or University, and, before entering on the said business, shall produce satisfactory evidence thereof, or unless the person to be employed as aforesaid, shall produce a certificate from a learned minister, well skilled in the Greek and Latin languages, settled in the town or place where the school is proposed to be kept, or two other such ministers in the vicinity thereof, that they have reason to believe that he is well qualified to discharge the duties devolved upon such School-Master by this Act; and, in addition thereto, if for a grammar school, "that he is of competent skill in the Greek and Latin languages, for the said purpose." And the candidate of either of the description aforesaid, shall moreover produce a certificate from a settled minister of the town, district, parish or place, to which such candidate belongs, or from the Selectmen of such town or district, or committee of such parish or place, "That to the best of his or their knowledge, he sustains a good moral character."

Provided nevertheless, This last certificate, respecting morals, shall not be deemed necessary where the candidate for such school belongs to the place where the same is proposed to be actually kept; it shall however be the duty of such Selectmen or Committee who may be authorized to hire such School-Master, specially to attend to his morals; and no settled minister shall be deemed, held, or accepted to be a School-Master, within the intent of this Act.

. . . If any town or district having the number of fifty families, or householders, and less than one hundred, shall neglect the procuring and supporting a School-Master or School-Masters, to teach the English language as aforesaid, by the space of six months in one year, such deficient town or district shall incur the penalty of Ten Pounds, and a penalty proportionable for a less time than six months in a year, upon conviction thereof; and, upon having the number of one hundred families, or householders, and upwards, shall neglect the procuring and supporting such School-Master or School-Masters, as is herein required to be kept by such town, for the space of one year, every such deficient town or district shall incur the penalty of Twenty Pounds, and a proportionable sum for a less time than a year, upon conviction of such neglect. And every town or district having one hundred and fifty families, or householders, which shall neglect the procuring and supporting such School-Masters, and for such term of time as the schools aforesaid are herein required to be kept by such town or district, in anyone year, shall incur the penalty of Thirty Pounds, and a proportionable sum for a less time, upon conviction of such neglect. And every town or district having two hundred families, or householders, and upwards, that shall neglect the procuring and supporting such grammar School-Master, as aforesaid, for the space of one year, shall incur the penalty of Thirty Pounds, and a proportionable sum for a less time than a year, upon conviction of such neglect.

. . . It shall be the duty of the Minister or Ministers of the Gospel and the Selectmen (or such other persons as shall be specially chosen by each town or district for that purpose) of the several towns or districts, to use their influence and best endeavours, that the youth of their respective towns and districts do regularly attend the schools appointed and supported as aforesaid, for their instruction; and once in every six months at least, and as much oftener as they shall determine it necessary, to visit and inspect the several schools in their respective towns and districts, and shall inquire into the regulation and discipline thereof, and the proficiency of the scholars therein, giving reasonable notice of the time of their visitation.

. . . All plantations which shall be taxed to the support of Government, and all parishes and precincts, are hereby authorized and empowered, at their annual meeting in March or April, to vote and raise such sums of money upon the polls and rateable estates of their respective inhabitants for the support and maintenance of a School-Master to teach their children and youth to read, write and cypher, as they shall judge expedient, to be assessed by their Assessors in due proportion, and to be collected in like manner with the public taxes.

And whereas schools for the education of children in the most early stages of life, may be kept in towns, districts or plantations, which schools are not before particularly described in this Act; and that the greatest attention may be given to the early establishing just principles in the tender minds of such children, and carefully instructing them in the first principles of reading:

. . . no person shall be allowed to be a Master or Mistress of such school, or to keep the same, unless he or she shall obtain a certificate from the Selectmen of such town or district where the same may be kept, or the Committee appointed by such town, district or plantation, to visit their schools, as well as from a learned Minister settled therein, if such there be, that he or she is a person of sober life and conversation, and well qualified to keep such school. And it shall be the duty of such Master or Mistress, carefully to instruct the children, attending his or her school, in reading (and writing, if contracted for) and to instil into their minds a sense of piety and virtue, and to teach them decent behaviour. And if any person shall presume to keep such school without a certificate as aforesaid, he or she shall forfeit and pay the sum of Twenty Shillings, one moiety thereof to the informer, and the other moiety to the use of the poor of the town, district or plantation where such school may be kept.

. . . No person shall be permitted to keep, within this Commonwealth, any school described in this Act, unless, in consequence of an Act of naturalization, or otherwise, he shall be a citizen of this or some other of the United States. And if any person who is not a citizen of this or some one of the United States, shall presume to keep any such school within this State for the space of one month, he shall be subjected to pay a fine of Twenty Pounds, and a proportionable sum for a longer or shorter time; the one half of which fine shall be to the use of the person who shall sue for the same, and the other half thereof to the use of this Commonwealth.

4. Financial support of schools in Connecticut, 1796

"An Act for appointing, encouraging, and supporting Schools," Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut in America (Hartford, 1796), pp. 372-373

School monies were drawn from local taxes, a fund derived from the sale of public lands, and levies upon town residents and the parents of the children who attended school.

5. And for the Encouragement and Maintenance of…Schools and School-Masters:

…The Treasurer of this State shall annually deliver the Sum of Two Dollars upon every Thousand Dollars in the Lists of the respective Towns in this State, and proportionably for lesser Sums, out of the Rate of each Town, as the same shall be brought into the public Treasury by the several Constables, in such Money, or Bills of Public Credit, as the Rate shall be paid in; out of which the same is to be taken, unto the School-Committees…

Provided. The said School-Committees or Select-men shall deliver their Certificates, that there hath been a School kept in each of the Towns and Societies they desire to take the Money out for, in the preceding Year, according to this Act.

6. And whereas the several Towns and Societies in this State, which made and computed Lists of their Polls and rateable Estate. . . received by their Committees respectively, for that Purpose appointed, considerable Monies, or Bills of public Credit, raised by the Sale of certain Townships laid out in the western Lands, then so called, . . . to be let out, and the Interest thereof used for the support of the respective Schools aforesaid, for ever, and to no other Use. [2a]

And whereas certain Sums of Money have likewise been received by the several Towns and Societies in this State, by Virtue of an Act of this Court. . . directing the Treasurer to payout of the public Treasury to the several Towns the principal Sums paid in by them as Excise Money, together with the Interest due at the Time of Payment…appropriating the same, solely to the Use of the respective Schools.

Be it therefore enacted, That if at any Time after the Receipt of said Monies aforesaid, or if at any Time hereafter, the said Monies, or Interest thereof, hath been or shall be, by order of such Town or Society, or the Communities chosen by them, put to, or employed for any other Use than for the support of a School, as aforesaid, such sum of Money received as aforesaid, shall be returned into the State Treasury; and the Treasurer of this State, upon Refusal thereof, shall recover the same Sum or Sums of such Town or Society, for the Use of the State.

7. And such Town or Society that misapplies such Money, shall forever lose the Benefit thereof.

8. That where, in any Town or Society, there is not a sufficiency of Money or Interest provided, in the Manner aforesaid, or by charitable Donations, or Sequestrations, or any other Ways procured for the maintenance of a School as aforesaid, therein, and a suitable School- Master to keep the same,} a sufficient Maintenance shall be made up, the one Half by the Inhabitants of such Town or Society, and the other Half thereof by the Parents or Masters of the Youth or Children that go to such School; unless any Town or Society shall agree otherwise; which they are hereby empowered to do.

9. And every such Town and Society by their Vote, shall have full Power to grant Rates for the support of such School, and choose a Collector to gather and collect such Rates. And what such Town or Society shall agree upon and enact respecting the Encouragement and Support of the School aforesaid, among themselves, shall be obligatory upon the whole Town or Society, and every Member therein.

2a. The fund from the sale of lands was established by the General Court in 1733. C. J. Hoadly, ed., Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, VII (Hartford, 1873), 459.

5. The Delaware school fund, 1796

" An Act to create a fund sufficient to establish schools in this state," 1796-ch. 105, Laws of the State of Delaware (Newcastle, 1797), II, 1296-1298.

In this act the state established a fund drawn from stipulated revenues. The money that accumulated was to be used for starting new schools. No funds were actually paid out until 1817 when the money was spent for the education of poor children.

The money paid into the state treasury on account of marriage and tavern licences. . . between the passing of this act and the first day of January, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Six, shall be, and is hereby appropriated, as part of a fund hereafter to be applied, under the direction of the Legislature, for establishing schools in this state.

. . . The money so as aforesaid appropriated, and all other money and estate hereafter given or appropriated for the said purpose, shall be distinguished and known by the name of The fund for establishing schools in the state of Delaware.

. . . The Trustee of the fund. . . shall be and is hereby impowered, authorised and required, to take care of the said fund, to receive, apply for, and recover, by suit or action, in his name as Trustee of the said fund, any gift, donation, or bequest, which any person or persons, disposed to promote the establishment of seminaries of learning, may think proper to make; and for the application of every such gift, donation, or bequest, to the purpose of establishing schools as aforesaid, the public faith of this state is hereby most solemnly pledged. . .

Whenever the money in the treasury, arising from marriage and tavern licences, gifts, and bequests, shall amount to a sum equal to the purchase of a share in either the Bank of Delaware, the United States, of Pennsylvania, or of North America, the said Trustee shall be, and is hereby authorised, impowered, and required, to purchase, on the best terms to be procured, in the name of the Trustee of the fund for establishing schools in the state of Delaware, a share in one of the said banks, to demand and receive the dividend on every such share, as often as it becomes due, and to apply the same, with the other money in the treasury belonging to this fund, to the purchasing another share in one of the said banks, as often as the same may be adequate thereto.

. . . . .

The said fund shall be applied to the establishment of schools in the several hundreds, or districts, of the respective counties of this state, for the purpose of instructing the children of the inhabitants thereof in the English language, arithmetic, and such other branches of knowledge as are most useful and necessary, in completing a good English education; and that the same shall not be applied to the erecting or supporting any academy, college, or university in this state.

6. Rhode Island legislature grants the right to conduct a lottery for support of an academy, 1801

"Lottery granted to James Helme," Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island, 1800-1801 (n.p., n.d.), p. 10.

Upon the petition of James Helme and others, praying leave to raise the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars, by lottery, for the purpose of building an academy in the town of South-Kingstown, It is Voted and Resolved, That the prayer of said petition be granted, and that Messrs. Elisha R. Potter, James Helme and Samuel E. Gardnier, be appointed managers of said lottery, they giving bonds to the General-Treasurer in the sum of ten thousand dollars for the faithful execution of said trust; and that the said managers have power to raise said sum in one or more classes, and by such scheme or schemes as they may think proper, and that no expense of said lottery be charged to this State.

7. Hiring a schoolmaster in a country district Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator. . .(Hartford, 1807), pp. 158-165.

This satire exposed some of the evils of excessive local authority in school matters.

Dialogue Between a School-Master, and School-Committee.

(N.B. The Author is happy in believing, that the following Dialogue is applicable to but few towns and few teachers in this country; but, so long as there are any remaining to whom it may apply, he thinks a sufficient apology exists for its publication.)

SCENE, a Public House in the Town of_______.

Enter School-Master, with a pack on his back.

Schoolmaster. How fare you, landlord? what have you got that's good to drink?

Landlord. I have gin, West-India, genuine New-England, whiskey, and cider brandy.

Schoolm. Make us a stiff mug of sling. Put in a gill and a half of your New-England; and sweeten it well with lasses.

Land. It shall be done, sir, to your liking.

Schoolm. Do you know of any vacancy in a school in your part of the country, landlord?

Land. There is a vacancy in our district; and I expect the parson, with our three school-committee men will be at my house directly, to consult upon matters relative to the school.

Schoolm. Well, here's the lad that will serve them as cheap as any man in America; and I believe I may venture to say as well too; for I profess no small share of skill in that business. I have kept school eleven winters, and have often had matter of fifty scholars at a time. I have teach'd a child its letters in a day, and to read in the Psalter in a fortnight: and I always feel very much ashamed, if I use more than one quire of paper in larnin a boy to write as well as his master. As for government, I'll turn my back to no man. I never flog my scholars; for that monstrous doctrine of whippin children, which has been so long preached and practiced by our rigid and superstitious fore-fathers, I have long since exploded. I have a rare knack of flattering them into their duty. And this according to a celebrated Doctor at Philadelphia,[3a] whose works I have heard of, though I never read them, is the grand criterion of school government. It is landlord, it is the very philosopher's stone. I am told, likewise, that this same great Doctor does not believe that Solomon and others really meant licken, in the proper sense of the word, when they talked so much about using the rod, &c. He supposes that they meant confining them in dungeons; starving them for three or four days at a time; and then giving them a portion of tatromattucks, and such kinds of mild punishment. And, zounds, landlord, I believe he's above half right.

Land. (Giving the cup to the master.) Master What may I call your name, Sir, if I may be so bold?

Schoolm. Ignoramus, at your service, Sir.

Land. Master Ignoramus, I am glad to see you. You are the very man we wish for. Our committee won't hesitate a moment to employ you, when they become acquainted with your talents. Your sentiments on government I know will suit our people to a nicety. Our last master was a tyrant of a fellow, and very extravagant in his price. He grew so important, the latter part of his time, that he had the frontery to demand ten dollars a month and his board. And he might truly be said to rule with a rod of iron; for he kept an ironwood cudgel in his school, four feet long; and it was enough to chill one's blood to hear the shrieks of the little innocents, which were caused by his barbarity. I have heard my wife say, that Sue Gossip told her, that she has seen the marks of his lashes on the back of her neighbour Rymple's son Darling, for twelve hours after the drubbing. At least, the boy told her with his own mouth, that they might be seen, if they would only take the trouble to strip his shirt off. And, besides, Master Ignoramus, he was the most niggardly of all the human race. I don't suppose that my bar-room was one dollar the richer for him, in the course of the whole time which he tarried with us. While the young people of the town were recreating themselves, and taking a social glass, of an evening, at my house, the stupid blockhead was eternally in his chamber, poring over his musty books. But finally he did the job for himself, and I am rejoiced. The wretch had the dacity to box little Sammy Puney's ears at such an intolerable rate, that his parents fear the poor child will be an idiot all the days of his life. And all this, for nothing more, than partly by design, and partly through mere accident, he happened to spit in his master's face. The child being nephew to the 'squire, you may well suppose, that the whole neighbourhood was soon in an uproar. The indignation of the mother, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, and indeed the whole circle of acquaintance, was roused; and the poor fellow was hooted out of town in less than twenty-four hours.

Schoo1m. (Drinking of his liquor.) This is a rare dose. Believe me, landlord, I have not tasted a drop before, since six o'clock this morning. (Enter Parson and Committee Men.) Your humble sarvant, gentlemen. I understand you are in want of a school-master.

Parson. Yes Sir; that is the occasion of our present meeting. We have been so unfortunate as to lose one good man; and we should be very glad to find another.

1st Committee Man. Pray don't say unfortunate, Parson. I think we may consider ourselves as very fortunate, in having rid the town of an extravagant coxcomb, who was draining us of all the money we could earn, to fill his purse, and rig himself out with fine clothes.

2d Com. Ten dollars a month, and board, for a man whose task is so easy, is no small sum.

3d Com. I am bold to affirm, that we can procure a better man for half the money.

Schoo1m. That I believe, friend; for, though I esteem myself as good as the best; that is to say, in the common way; yet I never ax'd but five dollars a month in all my life.

Par. For my own part, whatever these gentlemen's opinion may be, I must tell you, that I am much less concerned about the wages we are to give, than I am about the character and abilities of the man with whom we intrust the education of our children. I had much rather you had said you had received forty dollars a month, than five.

1st. Com. Dear Sir, you are beside yourself. You will encourage the man to rise in his price; whereas I was in hopes he would have fallen, at least one dollar.

Par. Before we talk any further about the price, it is necessary that we examine the gentleman according to law, in order to satisfy ourselves of his capability to serve us. Friend, will you be so obliging as to inform us where you received your education, and what your pretensions are, with respect to your profession?

Schoo1m. Law, Sir! I never went to college in my life.

Par. I did not ask you whether you had been to college or not. We wish to know what education you have had; and whether your abilities are such, as that you can do yourself honor in taking the charge of a common English school.

Schoo1m. Gentlemen, I will give you a short history of my life. From seven, to fifteen years of age, I went to school perhaps as much as one year. In which time, I went through Dilworth's Spelling-Book, the Psalter, the New-Testament: and could read the newspaper without spelling more than half the words. By this time, feeling a little above the common level, I enlisted a soldier in the army, where I continued six years; and made such proficiency in the military art, that I was frequently talked of for a corporal. I had likewise learn'd to write considerably, and to cypher as fur as Division. The multiplication table I had at my tongue's end, and have not forgot it to this day. At length, receiving a severe flogging for nothing at all, I am not ashamed to own that I deserted, and went into one of the back settlements, and offered myself as a teacher. I was immediately employed in that service; and, though I am obliged to say it myself, I do assure you I soon became very famous. Since that time, which is eleven years, I have followed the business constantly; at least, every winter; for in the summer, it is not customary in the towns in general, to continue a man's school. One thing I would not forget to mention; and that is, I have travelled about the country so much, and been in the army so long (which is allowed to be the best school in the world) that I consider myself as being thoroughly acquainted with mankind. You will not be insensible, gentlemen, of what great importance this last acquisition is, to one who has the care of youth.

3d Com. I admire his conversation. I imagine, by this time, you have cyphered clear through; have you not, Sir?

Schoolm. Why, as to that, I have gone so fur that I thought I could see through. I can tell how many minutes old my great grandfather was when his first son was born; how many barley corns it would take to measure round the world; and how old the world will be at the end of six thousand years from the creation.

1st Com. It is very strange! You must have studied hard, to learn all these things, and that without a master too.

Schoolm. Indeed I have, Sir; and if I had time, I could tell you things stranger still.

Par. Can you tell in what part of the world you were born; whether in the torrid, frigid, or temperate zone?

Schoolm. I was not born in the zoon, Sir, nor in any other of the West-India Islands; but I was born in New-England, in the state of New-Jersey, and Commonwealth of the United States of America.

Par. Do you know how many parts of speech there are in the English language?

Schoolm. How many speeches! Why as many as there are "stars in the sky, leaves on the trees, or sands on the sea shore."

1st Com. Please to let me ask him a question, Parson, How many commandments are there?

Schoolm. Ten, Sir; and I knew them all before I went into the army.

2d Com. Can you tell when the moon changes, by the almanac?

Schoolm. No! but I'll warrant you, I could soon tell by cyphering.

3d Com. How many varses are there in the 119th Psalm?

Schoolm. Ah! excuse me there, if you please, Sir; I never meddle with psalmody, or metaphysics.

Par. Will you tell me, my friend, what is the difference between the circumference and the diameter of the globe?

Schoolm. There you are to hard for me again. I never larn'd the rule of circumstance nor geometry. I'll tell you what, gentlemen, I make no pretensions to minister larnin, lawyer larnin, or doctor larnin; but put me upon your clear schoolmaster larnin, and there I am even with you.

1st Com. I am satisfied with the gentleman. He has missed but one question, and that was such a metatisical one, that it would have puzzled a Jesuit himself to have answered it. Gentlemen, shall the master withdraw a few minutes, for our further consultation?

2d Com. I am much pleased with the stranger. He appears to be a man of wonderful parts; and I shall cheerfully agree to employ him.

3d Com. For my part, I don't think we shall find a cheaper master; and I move for engaging him at once.

Par. Gentlemen, how long will you be blind to your own interest? I can say with you, that I am perfectly satisfied--that the man is, in his profession, emphatically what he calls himself by name, an ignoramus; and totally incapable of instructing our children. You know not who he is, or what he is; whether he be a thief, a liar, or a drunkard. The very terms, on which he offers himself, ought to operate as a sufficient objection against him. I am sensible that my vote will now be of no avail, since you are all agreed. I have been for years striving to procure a man of abilities and morals, suitable for the employment; and such a one I had obtained; but, alas! we were unworthy of him. We aspersed his character; invented a multitude of falsehoods; magnified every trifling error in his conduct; and even converted his virtues into vices. We refused to give him that pecuniary reward which his services demanded; and he knowing his own worth, and our unworthiness, has left us forever.

1st Com. Come, come, Parson, it is easy for salary men to talk of liberality, and to vote away money which they never earned; but it won't do. The new master I dare engage, will do as well or better than the old one. Landlord, call him in for his answer.

Par. I protest against your proceedings, and withdraw myself forever from the committee. But I must tell you, your children will reap the bitter consequences of such injudicious measures. It has always been surprising to me, that people in general are more willing to pay their money for any thing else, than for "the one thing needful," that is, for the education of their children. Their tailor must be a workman, their carpenter, a workman, their hairdresser, a workman, their hostler, a workman; but the instructor of their children must--work cheap!

Re-enter School-Master.

1st Com. We have agreed to employ you, Sir; and have only to recommend to you, not to follow the steps of your predecessor. This is an "age of reason"; and we do not imagine our children so stupid, as to need the rod to quicken their ideas, or so vicious, as to require a moral lesson from the ferule. Be gentle and accommodating, and you have nothing to fear.

Land. I'll answer for him. He's as generous 5and merry a lad as I've had in my house this many a day.

3a. A reference to Dr. Benjamin Rush whose ideas on discipline the schoolmaster has appropriated and distorted. See above, The impact of independence, doc. 7.

8. State supervision and support of schools inNewYork,1812

"An Act for the Establishment of Common Schools," 1812--ch. 242, Laws of the State of New York. . . 1812 (Albany, 1812), pp. 600-606.

This law established the office of superintendent of common schools and provided for the distribution of the school fund among the schools of towns and districts. The school fund monies were to be used to pay the wages of teachers, and the expense of constructing and maintaining school buildings was to be met from local taxes. To qualify for state funds, a district had to guarantee that school was kept during at least three months of the year.

. . . There shall be constituted an officer within this state, known and distinguished as the superintendent of common schools, which superintendent shall be appointed by the council of appointment, and shall keep his office at the seat of government, and shall be allowed an annual salary of three hundred dollars, but not to be under pay until he shall give notice of the first distribution of the school money. . .

It shall be the duty of the superintendent. . . to digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the common school fund, and for the better organization of common schools; to prepare and report estimates and expenditures of the school monies, to superintend the collection thereof, to execute such services relative to the sale of the lands, which now are or hereafter may be appropriated, as a permanent fund for the support of common schools, as may be by law required of him; to give information to the legislature respecting all matters referred to him by either branch thereof, or which shall appertain to his office; and generally to perform all such services relative to the welfare of schools, as he shall be directed to perform. . .

No distribution of the interest of the school funds shall take place amongst the common schools in this state, until it shall arise to fifty thousand dollars a year, and it shall not be lawful for the superintendent. . . to distribute any more than fifty thousand dollars a year until he shall find he will be able to distribute sixty thousand, and the sum of sixty thousand until the interest shall arise to seventy thousand, and so on as often as the interest shall increase ten thousand dollars, it shall be lawful for the superintendent to add to the sum last distributed ten thousand dollars more.

. . . . .

The superintendent of common schools shall, in the month of January. . . send a notice in writing to each of the county clerks in this state, informing them that there will be a distribution of the interest of the school fund in

the month of February. . . stating the amount that will be assigned to each county. And it shall be the duty of the said county clerks, to send a like notice to the clerk of the board of supervisors, and to each town clerk in his county, stating the amount of money to be distributed, and the time when, which notice the town clerk shall read at the opening of the next town meeting, to the intent that the town meeting may direct by their vote the supervisor, to levy on said town, at the next meeting of the board aforesaid, the sum for the support of common schools, required by this act to entitle said town to its proportion of the interest of said fund to be distributed. . .

The inhabitants living within the limits of the several towns within this state, and within the cities of Hudson and Schenectady, who by law have, or may have, a right to vote in town meetings, shall on the days of their annual town meetings, choose, by ballot, three of the inhabitants of their respective towns, commissioners, to superintend and manage the concerns of the schools within said towns respectively, and to perform all such services relative to schools as they shall be directed to

perform. . .

And the inhabitants of said towns respectively shall choose, a suitable number of persons within their respective towns, not exceeding six, who, together with the commissioners aforesaid, shall be inspectors of the schools of said towns respectively; which inspectors shall examine the teachers, and approve or disapprove of the same, and also shall visit the several schools within their respective towns, quarterly, or oftener, if they deem it necessary; three or more of the said inspectors shall be competent both to examine the teachers, and the respective schools, and no person shall be employed as a teacher in any of the schools, in any of the districts of this state, who shall not have been previously examined by the inspectors aforesaid, and have received a certificate, signed by at least two of said inspectors, importing that he is duly qualified to teach a common school, and is of good moral character. . .

The commissioners. . . are hereby authorized and empowered to divide their respective towns into a suitable and convenient number of districts, for keeping their schools, and to alter and regulate the same from time to time, as there may be occasion. . .

. . . . .

Freeholders and inhabitants, or a majority of them. . . are hereby authorised and empowered to appoint a moderator for the time being, to designate a site for their school house, to vote a tax on the resident inhabitants of such district as a majority present shall deem sufficient to purchase a suitable site for their school house, and build, keep in repair, and furnish it with necessary fuel and appendages; also to choose three trustees to manage the concerns of such district, whose duty it shall be to build and keep in repair the school house, and from time to time, as occasion may require, to agree with and employ instructors, and to pay them. . . and it shall be the further duty of the trustees of each district as soon as may be after the district meeting have voted a tax, to make a rate bill or tax list, which shall raise the sum voted, with five cents on a dollar for collector's fees, on all the taxable inhabitants of said district, agreeable to the levy on which the town tax was levied the preceding year, and annex to said tax list or rate bill a warrant . . . .

. . . . .

The several towns in this state which shall conform to the provisions of this act, shall be entitled to such monies, to be distributed to them severally, according to the number of inhabitants in each town, to be ascertained by the respective census under the constitution of the United States, subject nevertheless to a distribution thereof, by said town, to the several school districts therein. . .

The several school districts within the several towns in this state which shall conform to the provisions of this act, shall be entitled to the monies deposited with the commissioners as aforesaid, to be distributed to said districts severally, according to the number of children within each district, between the ages of five and fifteen inclusive. . . Monies shall be applied and expended by said trustees in paying the wages of the teachers to be employed, and for no other purpose …After the first year, no order shall be accepted, nor shall the commissioners aforesaid deliver the monies, directed to be delivered as aforesaid, until two of the trustees of such district shall have certified in writing. . . that the school in said district hath been kept for three months at least, during the year ending on the first day of May last, by an instructor duly appointed and approved in all respects, according to law, and that all monies by us drawn from the commissioners for said year, appropriated for schools, have been faithfully applied and ex- pended in paying the wages of said instructor.

9. Clarification of the boundary between public and private education by Chief

Justice John Marshall in the Dartmouth College Case, 1819

The Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819).

This famous case originated with the attempted revocation of the 1769 charter of Dartmouth College by the New Hampshire legislature in 1816. The Supreme Court, holding that the charter was a contract within the meaning of the federal Constitution and therefore irrevocable, gave private schools and colleges a secure legal position. The decision signaled a turn toward strict separation between private and public institutions.

This is an action of trover, brought by the Trustees of Dartmouth College against William H. Woodward, in the state court of New Hampshire, for the book of records, corporate seal, and other corporate property, to which the

plaintiffs allege themselves to be entitled. . . The superior court of judicature of New Hampshire rendered a judgment upon this verdict for the defendant, which judgment has been brought before this court by writ of error. The single question now to be considered is, do the acts to which the verdict refers violate the constitution of the United States?

This court can be insensible neither to the magnitude nor delicacy of this question. The validity of a legislative act is to be examined; and the opinion of the highest law tribunal of a state is to be revised--an opinion which carries with it intrinsic evidence of the diligence, of the ability, and the integrity, with which it was formed.

. . . . .

It can require no argument to prove, that the circumstances of this case constitute a contract. An application is made to the crown for a charter to incorporate a religious and literary institution. In the application, it is stated, that large contributions have been made for the object, which will be conferred on the corporation, as soon as it shall be created. The charter is granted, and on its faith the property is conveyed. Surely, in this transaction every ingredient of a complete and legitimate contract is to be found. The points for consideration are, 1. Is this contract protected by the constitution of the United States? 2. Is it impaired by the acts under which the defendant holds?

1. On the first point, it has been argued, that the word "contract," in its broadest sense, would comprehend the political relations between the government and its citizens, would extend to offices held within a state, for state purposes, and to many of those laws concerning civil institutions, which must change with circumstances, and be modified by ordinary legislation; which deeply concern the public, and which, to preserve good government, the public judgment must control. That even marriage is a contract, and its obligations are affected by the laws respecting divorces. That the clause in the constitution, if construed in its greatest latitude, would prohibit these laws. Taken in its broad, unlimited sense, the clause would be an unprofitable and vexatious interference with the internal concerns of a state, would unnecessarily and unwisely embarrass its legislation, and render immutable those civil institutions, which are established for purposes of internal government, and which, to subserve those purposes, ought to vary with varying circumstances. That as the framers of the constitution could never have intended to insert in that instrument, a provision so unnecessary, so mischievous, and so repugnant to its general spirit, the term "contract" must be understood in a more limited sense. That it must be understood as intended to guard against a power, of at least doubtful utility, the abuse of which had been extensively felt; and to restrain the legislature in future from violating the right to property. That, anterior to the formation of the constitution, a course of legislation had prevailed in many, if not in all, of the states, which weakened the confidence of man in man, and embarrassed all transactions between individuals, by dispensing with a faithful performance of engagements. To correct this mischief, by restraining the power which produced it, the state legislatures were forbidden "to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts," that is, of contracts respecting property, under which some individuals could claim a right to something beneficial to himself; and that, since the clause in the constitution must in construction receive some limitation, it may be confined, and ought to be confined, to cases of this description; to cases within the mischief it was intended to remedy.

The general correctness of these observations cannot be controverted. That the framers of the constitution did not intend to restrain the states in the regulation of their civil institutions, adopted for internal government, and that the instrument they have given us, is not to be so construed, may be admitted. The provision of the constitution never has been understood to embrace other contracts, than those which respect property, or some object of value, and confer rights which may be asserted in a court of justice. It never has been understood to restrict the general right of the legislature to legislate on the subject of divorces . . .

The parties in this case differ less on general principles, less on the true construction of the constitution in the abstract, than on the application of those principles to this case, and on the true construction of the charter of 1769. This is the point on which the cause essentially depends. If the act of incorporation be a grant of political power, if it create a civil institution, to be employed in the administration of the government, or if the funds of the college be public property, or if the State of New Hampshire, as a government, be alone interested in its transactions, the subject is one in which the legislature of the state may act according to its own judgment, unrestrained by any limitation of its power imposed by the constitution of the United States.

But if this be a private eleemosynary institution, endowed with a capacity to take property, for objects unconnected with government, whose funds are bestowed by individuals, on the faith of the charter; if the donors have stipulated for the future disposition and management of those funds, in the manner prescribed by themselves; there may be more difficulty in the case, although neither the persons who have made these stipulations, nor those for whose benefit they were made, should be parties to the cause. Those who are no longer interested in the property, may yet retain such an interest in the preservation of their own arrangements, as to have a right to insist, that those arrangements shall be held sacred. Or, if they have themselves disappeared, it becomes a subject of serious and anxious inquiry, whether those whom they have legally empowered to represent them for ever, may not assert all the rights which they possessed, while in being; whether, if they be without personal representatives, who may feel injured by a violation of the compact, the trustees be not so completely their representatives, in the eye of the law, as to stand in their place, not only as respects the government of the college, but also as respects the maintenance of the college charter. It becomes then the duty of the court, most seriously to examine this charter, and to ascertain its true character.

. . . . .

Are the trustees and professors public officers, invested with any portion of political power, partaking in any degree in the administration of civil government, and performing duties which flow from the sovereign authority? That education is an object of national concern, and a proper subject of legislation, all admit. That there may be an institution, founded by government, and placed entirely under its immediate control, the officers of which would be public officers, amenable exclusively to government, none will deny. But is Dartmouth College such an institution? Is education altogether in the hands of government? Does every teacher of youth become a public officer, and do donations for the purpose of education necessarily become public property, so far that the will of the legislature, not the will of the donor, becomes the law of the donation? These questions are of serious moment to society, and deserve to be well considered.

. . . . .

Whence, then, can be derived the idea, that Dartmouth College has become a public institution, and its trustees public officers, exercising powers conferred by the public for public objects? Not from the source whence its funds were drawn; for its foundation is purely private and eleemosynary--not from the application of those funds; for money may be given for education, and the persons receiving it do not, by being employed in the education of youth, become members of the civil government. Is it from the act of incorporation? Let this subject be considered.

A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence. These are such as are supposed best calculated to effect the object for which it was created. Among the most important are immortality, and, if the expression may be allowed, individuality; properties, by which a perpetual succession of many persons are considered as the same, and may act as a single individual. They enable a corporation to manage its own affairs, and to hold property, without the perplexing intricacies, the hazardous and endless necessity, of perpetual conveyances for the purpose of transmitting it from hand to hand. It is chiefly for the purpose of clothing bodies of men, in succession, with these qualities and capacities, that corporations were invented, and are in use. By these means, a perpetual succession of individuals are capable of acting for the promotion of the particular object, like one immortal being.

. . . . .

From this review of the charter, it appears, that Dartmouth College is an eleemosynary institution, incorporated for the purpose of perpetuating the application of the bounty of the donors, to the specified objects of that bounty; that its trustees or governors were originally named by the founder, and invested with the power of perpetuating themselves; that they are not public officers, nor is it a civil institution, participating in the administration of government; but a charity school, or a seminary of education, incorporated for the preservation of its property, and the perpetual application of that property to the objects of its creation.

This is plainly a contract to which the donors, the trustees and the crown (to whose rights and obligations New Hampshire succeeds) were the original parties. It is a contract made on a valuable consideration. It is a contract for the security and disposition of property. It is a contract, on the faith of which, real and personal estate has been conveyed to the corporation. It is, then, a contract within the letter of the constitution, and within its spirit also, unless the fact, that the property is invested by the donors in trustees, for the promotion of religion and education, for the benefit of persons who are perpetually changing, though the objects remain the same, shall create a particular exception, taking this case out of the prohibition contained in the constitution.

It is more than possible, that the preservation of rights of this description was not particularly in the view of the framers of the constitution, when the clause under consideration was introduced into that instrument. It is probable, that interferences of more frequent occurrence, to which the temptation was stronger, and of which the mischief was more extensive, constituted the great motive for imposing this restriction on the state legislatures. But although a particular and a rare case may not, in itself, be of sufficient magnitude to induce a rule, yet it must be governed by the rule, when established, unless some plain and strong reason for excluding it can be given. It is not enough to say, that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention, when the article was framed, nor of the American people, when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further, and to say that, had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied, as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction, so obviously absurd or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument, as to justify those who expound the constitution in making it an exception.

On what safe and intelligible ground, can this exception stand? There is no expression in the constitution, no sentiment delivered by its contemporaneous expounders, which would justify us in making it . . .

Almost all eleemosynary corporations, those which are created for the promotion of religion, or charity or of education, are of the same character. The law of this case is the law of all. In every literary or charitable institution, unless the objects of the bounty be themselves incorporated, the whole legal interest is in trustees, and can be asserted only by them. The donors, or claimants of the bounty, if they can appear in court at all, can appear only to complain of the trustees. In all other situations, they are identified with, and personated by, the trustees; and their rights are to be defended and maintained by them. Religion, charity and education are, in the law of England, legatees or donees, capable of receiving bequests or donations in this form. They appear in court, and claim or defend by the corporation. Are they of so little estimation in the United States, that contracts for their benefit must be excluded from the protection of words, which in their natural import include them? Or do such contracts so necessarily require new modelling by the authority of the legislature, that the ordinary rules of construction must be disregarded, in order to leave them exposed to legislative alteration?

. . . . .

If the insignificance of the object does not require that we should exclude contracts respecting it from the protection of the constitution; neither, as we conceive, is the policy of leaving them subject to legislative alteration so apparent, as to require a forced construction of that instrument, in order to effect it. These eleemosynary institutions do not fill the place, which would otherwise be occupied by government, but that which would otherwise remain vacant. They are complete acquisitions to literature. They are donations to education; donations, which any government must be disposed rather to encourage than to discountenance. It requires no very critical examination of the human mind, to enable us to determine, that one great inducement to these gifts is the conviction felt by the giver, that the disposition he makes of them is immutable. It is probable, that no man ever was, and that no man ever will be, the founder of a college, believing at the time, that an act of incorporation constitutes no security for the institution; believing, that it is immediately to be deemed a public institution, whose funds are to be governed and applied, not by the will of the donor, but by the will of the legislature. All such gifts are made in the pleasing, perhaps, delusive hope, that the charity will flow for ever in the channel which the givers have marked out for it. If every man finds in his own bosom strong evidence of the universality of this sentiment, there can be but little reason to imagine, that the framers of our constitution were strangers to it, and that, feeling the necessity and policy of giving permanence and security to contracts, of withdrawing them from the influence of legislative bodies, whose fluctuating policy, and repeated interferences, produced the most perplexing and injurious embarrassments, they still deemed it necessary to leave these contracts subject to those interferences.

The opinion of the court, after mature deliberation, is, that this is a contract, the obligation of which cannot be impaired, without violating the constitution of the United States. This opinion appears to us to be equally supported by reason, and by the former decisions of this court.

2. We next proceed to the inquiry, whether its obligation has been impaired by those acts of the legislature of New Hampshire, to which the special verdict refers?

From the review of this charter, which has been taken, it appears that the whole power of governing the college, of appointing and removing tutors, of fixing their salaries, of directing the course of study to be pursued by the students, and of filling up vacancies created in their own body, was vested in the trustees. On the part of the crown, it was expressly stipulated, that this corporation, thus constituted, should continue for ever; and that the number of trustees should for ever consist of twelve, and no more. By this contract, the crown was bound, and could have made no violent alteration in its essential terms, without impairing its obligation.

By the revolution, the duties, as well as the powers, of government devolved on the people of New Hampshire. It is admitted, that among the latter was comprehended the transcendent power of parliament, as well as that of the executive department. It is too clear, to require the support of argument, that all contracts and rights respecting property, remained unchanged by the revolution. The obligations, then, which were created by the charter to Dartmouth College, were the same in the new, that they had been in the old government. The power of the government was also the same. A repeal of this charter, at any time prior to the adoption of the present constitution of the United States, would have been an extraordinary and unprecedented act of power, but one which could have been contested only by the restrictions upon the legislature, to be found in the constitution of the state. But the constitution of the United States has imposed this additional limitation, that the legislature of a state shall pass no act "impairing the obligation of contracts."

It has been already stated, that the act "to amend the charter, and enlarge and improve the corporation of Dartmouth College," increases the number of trustees to twenty-one, gives the appointment of the additional members to the executive of the state, and creates a board of overseers, to consist of twenty-five persons, of whom twenty-one are also appointed by the executive of New Hampshire, who have power to inspect and control the most important acts of the trustees.

On the effect of this law, two opinions cannot be entertained. Between acting directly, and acting through the agency of trustees and overseers, no essential difference is perceived. The whole power of governing the college is transferred from trustees, appointed according to the will of the founder, expressed in the charter, to the executive of New Hampshire. The management and application of the funds of this eleemosynary institution, which are placed by the donors in the hands of trustees named in the charter, and empowered to perpetuate themselves, are placed by this act under the control of the government of the state. The will of the state is substituted for the will of the donors, in every essential operation of the college. This is not an immaterial change. . . This system is totally changed. The charter of 1769 exists no longer. It is re-organized; and re-organized in such a manner, as to convert a literary institution, moulded according to the will of its founders, and placed under the control of private literary men, into a machine entirely subservient to the will of government. This may be for the advantage of this college in particular, and may be for the advantage of literature in general; but it is not according to the will of the donors, and is subversive of that contract, on the faith of which their property was given.

. . . . .

It results from this opinion, that the acts of the legislature of New Hampshire, which are stated in the special verdict found in this cause, are repugnant to the constitution of the United States; and that the judgment on this special verdict ought to have been for the plaintiffs. The judgment of the state court must, therefore, be reversed.

10. Rhode Island grants the proceeds from lotteries for the support of public schools, 1828

"An Act to Establish Public Schools," Acts and Resolves of Rhode Island 1827-1828 (Providence, 1828), pp. 9-10.

Be it enacted. . . That from and after the passing of this act, all money that shall be paid into the General Treasury, by managers of lotteries or their agents, also all money that shall be paid into said Treasury by auctioneers, for duties accruing to the State, shall be set apart and paid over to the several towns in this State in manner hereinafter mentioned, in proportion to their respective population under the age of sixteen years, as exhibited in the census provided by law to be taken from time to time, under the authority of the United States; always adopting for said ratio the census next preceding the time of paying out each annual appropriation of said money as herein provided, to be by said towns appropriated to and for the exclusive purpose of keeping public schools, and paying the expenses thereof; the sum, however, hereby appropriated, to be paid over in anyone year, not to exceed ten thousand dollars.

Although few Americans were ready to support free schools for all children out of taxation, the education of poor children had a special appeal. Government had long been held to a general responsibility for the education of children otherwise unprovided for. A fear of social chaos unless the virtues of order and discipline were inculcated in the disparate American population moved philanthropists to contribute their own funds for poor children's education and to seek government support for the cause.

1. The plan of Benjamin Rush for free schools for the poor children of Philadelphia, 1787

A letter "To the Citizens of Philadelphia, and of the District of Southwark and the Northern Liberties," in The Independent Gazetteer, March 28, 1787, in Lyman H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush (Princeton, 1951), I, 412-415.

Rush, conceding that his projected state system of public education was premature, believed that Philadelphia and its environs could sustain schools for poor children out of taxation.

The blessings of knowledge can be extended to the poor and laboring part of the community only by the means of FREE SCHOOLS.

The remote and unconnected state of the settlements in the new counties will forbid the establishment of those schools for some years to come by a general law; but there is nothing to prevent this being set on foot immediately in the city of Philadelphia and in the old and thick-settled counties of the state.

To a people enlightened in the principles of liberty and Christianity, arguments, it is to be hoped, will be unnecessary to persuade them to adopt these necessary and useful institutions. The children of poor people form a great proportion of all communities. Their ignorance and vices when neglected are not confined to themselves; they associate with and contaminate the children of persons in the higher ranks of society. Thus they assist after they arrive at manhood in choosing the rulers who govern the whole community. They give a complexion to the morals and manners of the people. In short, where the common people are ignorant and vicious, a nation, and above all a republican nation, can never be long free and happy. It becomes us, therefore, as we love our off-spring and value the freedom and prosperity of our country, immediately to provide for the education of the poor children who are so numerous in the thick-settled parts of the state.

The following plan for beginning this important business in the capital of the state is submitted to the consideration of the citizens of Philadelphia and of the districts of Southwark and the Northern Liberties.

FIRST, Let an application be made to the legislature for a law to assess 10001. upon all estates in the city and liberties of Philadelphia, to be appropriated for the maintenance of schoolmasters, for the rent of schoolhouses, and other expenses connected with this undertaking. This mode of establishing free schools has many advantages over that of trusting them to the precarious support of charitable contributions. In Scotland and New-England the free schools are maintained by law; hence education and knowledge are universal in those countries. In England the free schools are supported chiefly by charity sermons; hence education and knowledge are so partially diffused through that country, and hence too the origin of the numerous executions and inventions to punish and extirpate criminals of which we daily read such melancholy accounts in the English newspapers. Charitable contributions fall unequally upon the different members of society--a tax will be more equally borne and will be so light as scarcely to be felt by anybody. The price of a bottle of wine or of a single fashionable feather will pay the tax of an ordinary free-holder for a whole year to those schools. Besides, there will be real economy in the payment of this tax; by sowing the seeds of good morals in the schools and inspiring the youth with habits of industry, the number of the poor and of course the sum of the tax paid for their maintenance will be diminished. By lessening the quantity of vice, we shall moreover lessen the expenses of jails and of the usual forms of law which conduct people to them. Above all, we shall render an acceptable service to the Divine Being in taking care of that part of our fellow creatures who appear to be the more immediate objects of his compassion and benevolence.

SECONDLY, Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write the English and (when required by their parents) the German language. Let the girls be instructed in needlework, knitting, and spinning, as well as in the branches of literature that have been mentioned. Above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education--this will make them dutiful children, teachable scholars, and, afterwards, good apprentices, good husbands, good wives, honest mechanics, industrious farmers, peaceable sailors, and, in everything that relates to this country, good citizens. To effect this important purpose it will be necessary,

THIRDLY, That the children of parents of the same religious denominations should be educated together in order that they may be instructed with the more ease in the principles and forms of their respective churches. By these means the schools will come more immediately under the inspection of the ministers of the city, and thereby religion and learning be more intimately connected.

After the experience we have had of the advantages derived by the Friends from connecting their schools and their church together in forming the morals of their youth, nothing further need be added in favor of this part of the plan.

FOURTHLY, Let the money to be raised for the support of the schools be lodged in the hands of the city treasurer, to be appropriated in the following manner: Let a certain number of persons of each religious society be appointed trustees of the free schools of their respective churches, and let a draft signed by the president of a quorum of these trustees be a voucher to the treasurer to issue three or four pounds a year for every scholar who is educated by them. As soon as the number of scholars belonging to any religious society exceeds fifteen, let 301. a year be allowed to them for the rent of the school room and for paper, ink, pens, books, and firewood, and 601. a year when the number of scholars becomes so great as to require two schoolrooms. If any religious society should decline accepting of the bounty of the city, from having provided for the education of their poor by private contribution, let their proportion of it be thrown into the poor tax of the city if it should not be required for the poor children of the less wealthy societies. And,

LASTLY, Let the accounts and expenditures of the schools be open at all times to inspectors, to be appointed by the law, and published every year.

Citizens of Philadelphia, awaken at last to check the vice which taints the atmosphere of our city. The profane and indecent language which assaults our ears in every street can only be restrained by extending education to the children of poor people. The present is an era of public spirit--the Dispensary and the Humane Society will be lasting monuments of the humanity of the present citizens of Philadelphia. But let not the health and lives of the poor exhaust the whole stock of our benevolence. Their morals are of more consequence to society than their health or lives; and their minds must exist forever. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive upon the earth--he will not deliver him into the will of his enemies."

2. The Pennsylvania legislature authorizes the overseers of the poor to provide for the education of poor children at public expense, 1802

"An Act to provide for the education of poor children gratis," 1802--ch. 2247, Pa. Statutes at Large from 1802 to 1805, XVII (1915), 81-82.

The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790, which Benjamin Rush helped to secure, authorized the legislature to provide for the establishment of free schools for the poor. No law was passed, however, until 1802.

. . . From and after the passing of this act, the guardians and overseers of the poor of the city of Philadelphia, the district of Southwark and township of the Northern Liberties, and every township and borough within this commonwealth, shall ascertain the names of all those children whose parents or guardians they shall judge to be unable to give them necessary education, and shall give notice in writing to such parents or guardians, that provision is made by law for the education of their children or the children under their care, and that they have a full and free right to subscribe, at the usual rates, and send them to any school in their neighborhood, giving notice thereof, as soon as may be, to the guardians or overseers, of the term for which they have subscribed, the number of scholars, and the rate of tuition; and in those townships where there are no guardians or overseers of the poor, the supervisors of the highways shall perform the duties herein required to be done by the guardians or overseers of the poor.

. . . Every guardian, overseer of the poor, or supervisor of the highway, as the case may be, in any township or place where any such child or children shall be sent to school as aforesaid, shall enter in a book, the name or names, age and length of time such child or children shall have been so sent to school, together with the amount of schooling, school books and stationery, and shall levy and collect, in the same way and manner, and under the same regulations as poor taxes or road taxes are levied and collected, a sufficient sum of money from their respective townships, boroughs, wards, or districts, to discharge such expenses, together with the sum of five per centum for their trouble.

3. Schools for the poor children of Washington, D.C., 1804

"An act to establish and endow a permanent institution for the education of youth in the city of Washington," in U.S. Department of Education, Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Condition and Improvement of Public Schools in the District of Columbia. . . 1870 (Washington, 1871), pp. 50-51.

Thomas Jefferson was chosen first president of the school board established in the act.

Impressed with the inseparable connection between the education of youth and the prevalence of pure morals, with the duties of all communities to place within the reach of the poor as well as the rich the inestimable blessing of knowledge, and with the high necessity of establishing at the seat of general government proper seminaries of learning, the city council of Washington do pass the following act:

. . . The superintendence of public schools within the city of Washington shall be placed under the direction of a board of thirteen trustees; whereof seven shall be annually chosen by the joint ballots of the council from among the residents of the city; and six shall be annually chosen by individuals contributing to the promotion of schools hereinafter provided. . . They shall have power to pass all necessary by-laws not inconsistent with this act; to receive donations, and to vest and apply the funds placed under their care in such manner as they may see fit. They shall make an adequate provision, and pay at such rates as they deem reasonable and proper for the education of children residing in the city, whose parents or guardians are unable to defray the expenses of their education; they shall keep a journal of their proceedings, and shall on the second Monday in June, in each year, make a full report of them to the councils, excepting the names of those children who shall receive education without any charge being made therefor.

And be it enacted. . . That so much of the net proceeds of taxes laid, or to be laid on slaves, on dogs, on licenses for carriages and hacks, for ordinaries and taverns, for retailing of wines and spirituous liquors, for billiard tables, for theatrical and other public amusements, for hawkers and pedlars, be appropriated as the trustees may decide to be necessary for the education of the poor of the city. . . Provided, That if the said net proceeds exceed annually the sum of $1,500, the surplus shall be retained by the treasurer of the city, subject to the disposition of the council.

4. Public funds for poor children's education in Virginia, 1810-1811

"An Act to appropriate certain Escheats, Penalties, Confiscations and Forfeitures to the Encouragement of Learning," 1810--ch. 14, Acts Passed at a General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia (Richmond, 1810), p. 15. "An Act to Provide for the Education of the Poor," 1811--ch.8, Acts…of Virginia (1811), pp. 8-10.

In 1810 the legislature of Virginia established a literary fund with stipulated sources of revenue and in 1811 it directed that the proceeds of the fund should be used to support schools for the poor.

All escheats, confiscations, fines, penalties and forfeitures, and all rights in personal property accruing to the commonwealth, as derelict, and having no rightful proprietor, be, and the same are hereby appropriated to the encouragement of learning; and . . . the auditor of public accounts be, and he is hereby required to open an account to be designated The Literary Fund. To which he shall carry every payment hereafter made into the treasury on account of any escheat or confiscation, which has happened or may happen, or any fine, penalty or forfeiture which has been or may be imposed, or which may accrue: Provided always, That this act shall not apply to militia fines.

. . . . .

The fund aforesaid shall be divided and appropriated as to the next legislature shall seem best adapted to the promotion of literature: Provided always, That the aforesaid fund shall be appropriated to the sole benefit of a school or schools, to be kept in each and every county within this commonwealth, subject to such orders and regulations as the general assembly shall hereafter direct. . . . . .

[The Act of 1811] All sums of money which have accrued, or may hereafter accrue to the literary fund. . . are hereby vested in the following persons, to wit: The governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, attorney general and president of the court of appeals of this commonwealth for the time being, and they and their successors are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate under the denomination of the president and directors of the literary

fund. . .

In further aid of the said fund, the said president and directors are hereby empowered to raise annually for a term of years not exceeding seven, by lottery, any sum not exceeding thirty thousand dollars. . . It shall be lawful for the said president and directors to conduct all the operations of such lottery in person or by commissioners or agents by them appointed for that purpose, or, if it be deemed more advisable, to contract for the drawing of the said lottery, with any undertaker or undertakers for such share of the profit thereof as to them may appear reasonable, reserving to the fund which it is designed to aid, or not, at their discretion, a greater or less interest in such lottery.

. . . . .

As soon as a sufficient fund shall be provided for the purpose, it shall be the duty of the directors thereof to provide a school or schools for the education of the poor in each and every county of the commonwealth.

5. College training for one orphan boy annually in South Carolina, 1811

D. J. McCord, ed., So. Car. Statutes at Large, VII (1840), 132-133.

Whereas, from the number of orphan children from every part of this State, educated and supported by the munificence of the citizens of Charleston, in the Orphan House of that city, an ample opportunity is offered of making a judicious selection of talents and genius; in order, therefore, to further the patriotic and liberal views of the patrons of that institution, . . . from and immediately after the passing of this Act, the commissioners of the Orphan House in the city of Charleston shall be, and they are hereby, authorized and empowered to select, annually, one youth from the number educated and maintained on the bounty of that institution, for the purpose of completing his education at the South Carolina College, graduate and receive the degrees conferred at the said College.

. . . The Trustees, the President and Professors, shall be, and they are hereby, directed to receive and cause to be educated and allowed to graduate at the South Carolina College, the boys to be selected as aforesaid; subject, nevertheless, to all the rules, orders and regulations of the said South Carolina College.

. . . All expense incident to the education and maintenance of the said boys so to be selected (clothing excepted) shall be defrayed from the amount annually appropriated by the Legislature to the South Carolina College.

. . . As the youths so chosen shall graduate, or in case of the death, expulsion or removal of them, or any of them, the commissioners aforesaid are hereby authorized and impowered to fill up any vacancy occasioned thereby.

. . . The sum of one hundred and forty dollars be, and is hereby, annually appropriated for the cloathing of each of the said boys while they remain at the said College; Provided nevertheless, that they shall not continue beyond the term usually allowed to candidates for the first degree.

6. Appropriations from the Delaware school fund for the education of poor children, 1817

"An Act appropriating part of the school fund for the education of poor children," 1817--ch. 146, Laws of the State of Delaware Passed at a Session of the General Assembly (Dover, 1818), pp. 251-255.

The trustee of the fund for establishing schools. . . is hereby required. . . to place in the hands of each of the county treasurers of the several counties within this State, in four equal quarter yearly payments, the sum of one thousand dollars, from any money in his hands, belonging to the fund for establishing schools, not otherwise appropriated. . .

The county treasurers of the respective counties aforesaid, are authorised and required to pay, to the order or orders of the trustees herein before appointed, or a majority of them, in their several hundreds respectively, any moneys which may come into their hands in pursuance of this act. . .

. . . . .

The trustees, herein appointed, to superintend the education of the poor children of their several hundreds respectively, are authorised and required, to draw for, and receive, the several sums, allotted to their hundreds respectively, and the same, or any part thereof that may be found necessary, or as fast as the same may be required, to expend, in the payment of such school masters, or teachers of reading, writing and arithmetic, as may, by the trustees aforesaid, or a majority of them, within their several hundreds respectively, be intrusted with the tuition and education of poor children: Provided however, that nothing, herein contained, shall be deemed or taken, to authorise any of the trustees, herein appointed, to expend any of the money, by this act, made subject to their order, except only for the benefit of instructing, in reading, writing and arithmetic, such children as may be obviously unable to receive the rudiments of an English education from any private or other source, except as is herein be- fore provided.

. . . The trustees hereby appointed, in the several counties, and in their respective hundreds, keep a regular and distinct account, of all moneys by them received and expended, under and by virtue of this act, as well in relation to the manner of its expenditure, the names, ages, condition, and progress in learning made by the child or children, for whose benefit the same has been expended; as to the number, character and situation of the different schools and school houses, in their respective neighbourhoods, also the exact number, name and ages of all the poor white children within their respective hundreds, and their opinions as to the amount of money required to pay for their tuition, together with such other particulars as they may deem necessary, to enable the general assembly, at their next session, to determine the competency, of the nett proceeds of the fund for establishing schools, to defray the expense, which might be incurred by the tuition of all the poor children within the state. . .

This society was founded to provide schools for those poor children of the city who did not attend the charity schools maintained by religious denominations. Backed by a group of prominent and wealthy residents, the Society secured funds from government and contributions from individuals.

1. A petition to the New York legislature for a charter for the Public School Society of New York City, 1805

William O. Bourne, History of the Public School Society of New York (New York, 1870), pp. 3-4.

Your memorialists have viewed with painful anxiety the multiplied evils which have accrued, and are daily accruing, to this city, from the neglected education of the children of the poor. They allude more particularly to that description of children who do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society; and who, therefore, do not partake of the advantages arising from the different Charity Schools established by the various religious societies in this city. The condition of this class is deplorable indeed; reared up by parents who, from a variety of concurring circumstances are become either indifferent to the best interests of their offspring, or, through intemperate lives, are rendered unable to defray the expense of their instruction, these miserable and almost friendless objects are ushered upon the stage of life, inheriting those vices which idleness and the bad example of their parents naturally produce. The consequences of this neglect of education are ignorance and vice, and all those manifold evils resulting from every species of immorality, by which public hospitals and almshouses are filled with objects of disease and poverty, and society burthened with taxes for their support. In addition to these melancholy facts, it is to be feared that the laboring class in the community is becoming less industrious, less moral, and less careful to lay up the fruit of their earnings. What can this alarming declension have arisen from, but the existence of an error which has ever been found to produce a similar effect--a want of a virtuous education, especially at that early period of life when the impressions that are made generally stamp the future character?

The rich having ample means of educating their offspring, it must be apparent that the laboring poor--a class of citizens so evidently useful--have a superior claim to public support.

The enlightened and excellent Government under which we live is favorable to the general diffusion of knowledge; but the blessings of such a Government can be expected to be enjoyed no longer than while its citizens continue virtuous, and while the majority of the people, through the advantage of a proper early education, possess sufficient knowledge to enable them to understand and pursue their best interests…

Trusting that the necessity of providing suitable means for the prevention of the evils they have enumerated will be apparent to your honorable Body, your memorialists respectfuly request the patronage and assistance of the Legislature in establishing a free school, or schools, in this city, for the benevolent purpose of affording education to those unfortunate children who have no other mode of obtaining it.

The personal attention to be bestowed on these children for the improvement of their morals, and to assist their parents in procuring situations for them, where industry will be inculcated and good habits formed, as well as to give them the learning requisite for the proper discharge of the duties of life, it is confidently hoped will produce the most beneficial and lasting effects.

The more effectually to accomplish so desirable an object, your memorialists have agreed to form an association under the name of "The Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York." They therefore respectfully solicit the Legislature to sanction their undertaking by an Act of Incorporation, and to grant them such pecuniary aid or endowment as, in your wisdom, may be deemed proper for the promotion of the benevolent object of your memorialists.

2. The act incorporating the Public School Society, April 9, 1805

"An Act to incorporate the society instituted in the city of New York, for the establishment of a free school for the education of poor children. . . ," 1805--ch. 108, Laws of the State of New York. . . 28 Sess. (1805), pp.515-522.

Whereas De Witt Clinton and others, have associated themselves for the laudable purpose of establishing a free school in the city of New York, for the education of the children of persons in indigent circumstances. . . And whereas the said persons have presented a petition to the legislature, setting forth the benefits which would result to society from the education of such children, by implanting in their minds the principles of religion and morality, and by assisting their parents in providing suitable situations for them, where habits of industry and virtue may be acquired, and that it would enable them more effectually to accomplish the benevolent objects of their institution, if their association were incorporated: Therefore,

Be it enacted [that] . . . all such. . . persons as now are and shall hereafter become members of the said society, shall be and are hereby ordained, constituted and declared to be a body corporate and politic, in fact and in name. . . and they. . . shall be forever hereafter capable in law to purchase, take, receive, hold and enjoy any estate real or personal whatsoever, of whatever nature or quality soever, to the use of them and their successors: Provided always, That the yearly income of the real and personal estate and hereditaments held by the said corporation, doth not nor shall at any time exceed the sum of ten thousand dollars . . .

There shall be forever hereafter thirteen trustees of the said corporation, who shall conduct and manage all the affairs of the said corporation, and. . . the said trustees shall be members of the said corporation, and actually residing in the city of New York; and the first trustees of the said corporation shall be De Witt Clinton, Samuel Osgood, Brockholst Livingston, John Murray, junior, Samuel Miller, Joseph Constant, Thomas Eddy, Thomas Pearsall, Thomas Franklin, Matthew Clarkson, Leonard Bleecker, Samuel Russell and William Edgar, who shall hold their offices until the first day of May next; and the trustees. . . for the time being, shall have power to establish two or more free schools in the city of New-York.

. . . . .

The mayor, recorder, aldermen and assistants of the city of New York, shall and may be, ex officio, members of the said corporation, and. . . any person who shall subscribe and contribute to the benefit of the said society the sum of eight dollars, shall, by virtue of such contribution, be a member of the said corporation . . .

3. Address of De Witt Clinton, first president of the Public School Society, 1805

Bourne, The Public School Society of New York, pp. 6-8.

Clinton issued this appeal for support to the people of New York, providing further explanation of the Society's purpose.

While the various religious and benevolent societies in this city, with a spirit of charity and zeal which the precepts and example of the Divine Author of our religion could alone inspire, amply provide for the education of such poor children as belong to their respective associations, there still remains a large number living in total neglect of religious and moral instruction, and unacquainted with the common rudiments of learning, essentially requisite for the due management of the ordinary business of life. This neglect may be imputed either to the extreme indigence of the parents of such children, their intemperance and vice; or to a blind indifference to the best interests of their offspring. The consequences must be obvious to the most careless observer. Children thus brought up in ignorance, and amidst the contagion of bad example, are in imminent danger of ruin; and too many of them, it is to be feared, instead of being useful members of the community, will become the burden and pests of society. Early instruction and fixed habits of industry, decency, and order, are the surest safeguards of virtuous conduct; and when parents are either unable or unwilling to bestow the necessary attention on the education of their children, it becomes the duty of the public, and of individuals, who have the power, to assist them in the discharge of this important obligation. It is in vain that laws are made for the punishment of crimes, or that good men attempt to stem the torrent of irreligion and vice, if the evil is not checked at its source; and the means of prevention, by the salutary discipline of early education, seasonably applied. It is certainly in the power of the opulent and charitable, by a timely and judicious interposition of their influence and aid, if not wholly to prevent, at least to diminish, the pernicious effects resulting from the neglected education of the children of the poor.

. . . . .

The particular plan of the school, and the rules for its discipline and management, will be made known previous to its commencement. Care will be exercised in the selection of teachers, and, besides the elements of learning usually taught in schools, strict attention will be bestowed on the morals of the children, and all suitable means be used to counteract the disadvantages resulting from the situation of their parents. It is proposed, also, to establish, on the first day of the week, a school, called a Sunday School, more particularly for such children as, from peculiar circumstances, are unable to attend on the other days of the week. In this, as in the Common School, it will be a primary object, without observing the peculiar forms of any religious Society, to inculcate the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures.

This Society. . . interferes with no existing institution, since children already provided with the means of education, or attached to any other Society, will not come under its care. Humble gleaners in the wide field of benevolence, the members of this Association seek such objects only as are left by those who have gone before, or are fellow-laborers with them in the great work of charity. They, therefore, look with confidence for the encouragement and support of the affluent and charitable of every denomination of Christians; and when they consider that in no community is to be found a greater spirit of liberal and active benevolence than among the citizens of New York, they feel assured that adequate means for the prosecution of their plan will be easily obtained.

4. The Lancastrian system of instruction in the schools of the Public School Society, 1809

Address of De Witt Clinton to benefactors and friends of the Society, in William Campbell, DeWitt Clinton (New York, 1849), pp.317-319.

This method, propagated by Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), an English author and teacher, made use of the more advanced pupils under the supervision of a teacher to instruct the beginners. Its chief recommendation was its cheapness.

It comprehends reading, writing, arithmetic, and the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. It arrives at its object with the least possible trouble and at the least possible expense. Its distinguishing characters are economy, facility, and expedition, and its peculiar improvements are cheapness, activity, order, and emulation

. . . Reading in all its processes, from the alphabet upwards, is taught at the same time with writing, commencing with sand, proceeding to the slate, and from thence to the copy-book. . . Solitary study does not exist in the establishment. The children are taught in companies. Constant habits of attention and vigilance are formed, and an ardent spirit of emulation kept continually alive. Instruction is performed through the instrumentality of the scholars. The school is divided into classes of ten, and a chief, denominated a Monitor, is appointed over each class, who exercises a didactic and supervisional authority. The discipline of the school is enforced by shame, rather than by the infliction of pain. The punishments are varied with circumstances; and a judicious distribution of rewards, calculated to engage the infant mind in the discharge of its duty, forms the keystone which binds together the whole edifice.

When I perceive that many boys in our school have been taught to read and write in two months, who did not before know the Alphabet, and that even one has accomplished it in three weeks--when I view all the bearings and tendencies of this system--when I contemplate the habits of order which it forms, the spirit of emulation which it excites--the rapid improvement which it produces--the purity of morals which it inculcates--when I behold the extraordinary union of celerity in instruction, and economy of expense--and when I perceive one great assembly of a thousand children, under the eye of a single teacher, marching with unexampled rapidity, and with perfect discipline, to the goal of knowledge, I confess that I recognize in Lancaster, the benefactor of the human race.

5. The Public School Society requires children at its schools to attend worship, 1819

From the ninth annual report of the Society, in Bourne, The Public School Society of New York, p. 638.

In furtherance of the. . . object." the children have been required to assemble at their respective schools on the morning of every Sabbath, and proceed, under the care of a monitor, to such place of public worship as was designated by their parents or guardians. This requisition has been regularly attended to by many, but the want of suitable clothing has prevented others from complying with it. In cases where an attendance at school previous to going to church is particularly inconvenient, liberty has been given for the children to attend public worship in company with their parents or guardians.

6. The Public School Society's attitude toward the parents of poor children, 1819

An Address to the Parents and Guardians of the Children Belonging to the Schools under the care of the New-York Free-School Society, by the Trustees of the Institution (New York, 1819), pp. 4-8.

This Institution holds out much encouragement, and you are bound by every moral obligation, to avail yourselves of the advantages which your children may derive from a steady attendance at school, where they may acquire, not only school learning to qualify them for business, but be improved in their morals, and manners.

Many of you have not been favoured with the privileges your children now enjoy, that of a gratuitous education. Every parent who is solicitous for the welfare of his offspring, but whose circumstances may be such, as not to be able to pay the expense, is invited to come forward, and place them where they may be instructed in literature, in the paths of virtue, and in the road to happiness.

The Trustees may venture to say, that this Institution may be productive of great good to you, and to your children, especially, if on your part there is a disposition to promote it. We wish your children may be furnished with a good education, and early acquire good habits. As they grow in years, they should be impressed with the importance of INDUSTRY, and FRUGALITY; these are virtues necessary to form useful characters.

You know that many evils grow out of Idleness, and many more out of the improper use of Spirituous Liquors; that they are ruinous and destructive to morals, and debase the human character below the lowest of all created beings: we therefore, earnestly desire, you may be watchful, and careful in this respect, otherwise in vain may we labour to promote the welfare of your children.

In domestic life, there are many virtues which are requisite, in order to promote the comfort, and welfare of families. TEMPERANCE and ECONOMY, are indispensable, but without CLEANLINESS, your enjoyments as well as your reputation, will be impaired; it is promotive of HEAL TH, and ought not to be neglected. Parents can perhaps scarcely give a greater proof of their care for their children, than by keeping them clean, and decent, especially when they are sent to school, where it is expected they will appear with their hands, faces, and heads perfectly clean, and their clothing clean and in good order: the appearance of children exhibits to every observing mind, the character of the mother.

Among other moral, and religious duties, that of a due observance of the First Day of the week, commonly called SUNDAY, we consider of importance to yourselves, and to your children. PUBLIC WORSHIP, is a duty we owe to our CREATOR, it is of universal obligation; and you ought to be good examples therein, encouraging your families to the due observance thereof, and believing, as we do, that the establishment of what is called SUNDAY SCHOOLS, has been a blessing to many, and may prove so to many more, we are desirous you may unite in the support of a plan, so well calculated to promote the religious duties of that day, which ought to be appropriated to public worship, retirement, and other duties connected with the improvement of the mind.

Seeing, next to your own souls, your children, and those placed under your care, are, or ought to be, the immediate objects of your constant attention; and diligent concern, you ought to omit no opportunity to instruct them early in the principles of the Christian Religion, in order to bring them in their youth to a sense of the unspeakable love, and infinite wisdom and power of their Almighty Creator.

7. Religious exercises in the schools of the Public School Society, 1830

From a teacher's "Manual" prepared for use in the primary grades and published by the trustees of the Society, in Bourne, The Public School Society of New York, pp. 643-644.

Although the Society was nondenominational, it included religious instruction and exercises of a Protestant character in its course of study. This caused Catholic parents to refuse to allow their children to attend the Society's schools.

Teacher. My dear children, the intention of this school is to teach you to be good and useful in this world, that you may be happy in the world to come. What is the intention of this school?

T. We therefore first teach you to "remember your Creator in the days of your youth." What do we first teach you?

T. It is our duty to teach you this, because we find it written in the Holy Bible. Why is it our duty to teach you this?

T. The Holy Bible directs us to "train you up in the way you should go." What good book directs us to train you up in the way you should go?

T. Therefore, my children, you must obey your parents.

Scholar. I must obey my parents.

T. You must obey your teachers.

S. I must obey my teachers.

T. You must never tell a lie.

S. I must never tell a lie.

T. You must never steal the smallest thing.

S. I must never steal the smallest thing.

T. You must never swear.

S. I must never swear.

T. God will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

S. God will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

T. God always sees you. (Slowly, and in a soft tone.)

S. God always sees me.

T. God hears all you say.

S. God hears all I say.

T. God knows all you do.

S. God knows all I do.

T. You should fear to offend Him, for He is most holy.

S. I should fear to offend Him, for He is most holy.

T. You should depart from evil, and learn to do well.

S. I should depart from evil, and learn to do well.

T. May all you, dear children, learn, while attending this school, to be good and useful in this world.

S. May we all, while attending this school, learn to be good and useful in this world.

T. And, with God's blessing, may you be happy in the world to come.

S. And, with God's blessing, may we be happy in the world to come.

8. Compulsory attendance of poor children in New York City schools, 1832

Alarmed by the amount of truancy, the Public School Society asked for authority to compel children's attendance regardless of the wishes of parents.

Truantship in [Boston] is deemed a criminal offence in children, and those who cannot be reclaimed, are taken from their parents by the Police, and placed in an Institution called the "School of Reformation," corresponding in many respects with our House of Refuge--from which they are bound out by the competent authority, without again returning to their parents. As a necessary consequence, the percentage of absentees, or the difference between the number of children on register and the actual attendance, is less in the Boston Public Schools than those of New-York. This subject has during the past, as in former years, received the attention of the Trustees, and will probably be brought before the next Board, in connection with the general subject of non-attendance at any school, which exists to such an alarming extent in this city. Efforts have been made by the present Board to obtain in some way, the active co-operation of the city government in applying a remedy to this extensive evil. Every political compact supposes a surrender of some individual rights for the general good. In a government like ours, "founded on the principle that the only true sovereignty is the will of the people," universal education is acknowledged by all, to be, not only of the first importance, but necessary to the permanency of our free institutions. If then persons are found so reckless of the best interests of their children, and so indifferent to the public good, as to withhold from them that instruction, without which they cannot beneficially discharge those civil and political duties which devolve on them in after life, it becomes a serious and important question, whether so much of the natural right of controlling their children may not be alienated, as is necessary to qualify them for usefulness, and render them safe and consistent members of the political body. The expediency of such a measure would be confined pretty much, perhaps entirely, to large seaport towns, and in its practical operation would be found to affect but few native citizens. The number of families arriving in this city almost daily from Europe, is so great as to require some measure of the kind--for the means heretofore used to induce the attendance of their children at the Public Schools have proved insufficient. The objectionable manner in which these children are employed on their arrival here, needs no description--it cannot have escaped the notice of any observing citizen.

9. The New York City Board of Aldermen threatens to withhold public charity from parents who fail to send their children to school, 1832

Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen [of New York City] from December 16, 1831 to May 8,1832 (New York, 1835), II, 380-382.

Your Committee have had an interview with the said Trustees of Public Schools, and are fully sensible of the lamentable truth, that owing to the indifference of careless, intemperate and unworthy parents, thousands of children in this city, where instruction is, literally speaking, brought to their doors, are bred up by their parents wholly destitute of even the necessary information to enable the young and tender mind to discriminate between right and wrong; instead of being educated and fitted for useful members of society, such children are permitted to waste the morning of their youth in the streets and places of resort for idle and dissolute persons, subjected to the influence of vice and temptation.

Your Committee are. . . of opinion that a large proportion of the improvident parents, here referred to, are of the class of persons who are in the habit of resorting to the Commissioners of the Alms House for support.

Your Committee would therefore recommend, as far as the influence of our public charities can consistently be brought to bear, in the behalf of such unfortunate children, that the Common Council grant the prayer of the laudable petition made by the Trustees of the Public School Society; in the hope that it may induce parents, who are now indifferent about the education of their offspring, from a regard at least of their own welfare, to be sensible of one of the most important duties which they owe to their young and tender offspring.

It must, however, be obvious, that any regulation of this nature in order to be efficacious, must receive the cordial cooperation and support of the Commissioners of the Alms House. Your Committee have, therefore, consulted those gentlemen, and are authorized to state, that in addition to their now arduous duties, the Commissioners will also lend their aid and exertions to carry the proposed experiment into effect. Your Committee respectfully submit the following resolutions:

Resolved. That the Trustees of the Public School Society and the Commissioners of the Alms House, be requested to make it known to parents, and all persons, whether emigrants or otherwise, having children in charge capable to receive instruction, and being between the ages of five and twelve years, that unless such parents and persons do or shall send such children to some public or other daily school, for such time in the year as the Trustees of the Public School Society may from time to time designate, that all such persons must consider themselves without the pale of public charities, and not entitled, in case of misfortune, to receive public favor.