engagements for me at my baptism (as I verily believe), bestowed an A. B. C. upon me; a gift in itself exceeding small and contemptible, but, in respect of the design and the event, worth more than its weight in gold. For till that time I was all for childish play, and never thought of learning. But then I was frequently importunate with my mother that had laid it up (thinking I would only pull it in pieces) to give it into mine own hands, which, being so small a trifle, she accordingly did; and I, by the help of my brethren and sisters that could read, and a young man that came to court my sister, had quickly learned it and the primer also after it. Then of mine own accord I fell to reading the Bible, etc. (10: 181.)

Puritan elementary schools in Massachusetts. English institutions carried to New England.- Between 1628 and 1640 about twenty thousand English Puritans migrated from England to New England. They settled in towns and in a short time established conditions of living similar in many respects to those in England. There was continuity and similarity in social life except where difference in conditions demanded change.

Naturally, some functions which had been prominent at home were reduced to insignificance in the colonies; some which had been almost forgotten or had remained quite undeveloped in England gained unwonted importance in America. Almost every local official or body which existed in England reappeared in some part or other of the English colonies, although often with much altered powers and duties. . . . The choice was in the main restricted to familiar English institutions, for in the great variety of systems in different parts of the colonies there was scarcely an official or body which did not have its prototype in England. (15: 314.)

This continuity of social tradition was characteristic of the provisions made for education and schooling. Just as in England the maintenance of schools was largely a matter of parental, local, and ecclesiastical responsibility, so it was at first in Massachusetts.

Communal villages organized like English towns.— The Puritan emigrants were a very homogeneous group consisting largely of country squires and yeomen. They had been thrifty and prosperous at home, constituting the sturdiest part of the

English nation. Most of their leaders had been educated at Cambridge University. There was practically no shiftless or incompetent element. The numerous towns which they settled around Massachusetts Bay were organized as communal villages. These corresponded very closely to the organization of the towns, townships, or parishes, which were the units of local political government in England. This organization was particularly suited to the needs of New England and Puritan life. The land was owned by the town; part of it was distributed to individuals; part of it was retained for community purposes such as the common pasture, the common forest for wood or for pigs, etc. One town had a large flock of town sheep; Salem had a town horse; some towns disposed of mill sites and trading privileges, granted a blacksmith's monopoly, etc. An individual was not allowed to sell his land without the town's consent. This town organization corresponded to the congregational organization of the Puritan Church, that is, government by local self-governing congregations as distinguished from the government by the Pope and cardinals in the Catholic Church, or by the bishops in the English Episcopal Church.

Some English towns had provided local schools. — In England the towns or parishes, among other matters, had occasionally made local provisions for schools. These were usually Latin grammar schools. In the case of the larger incorporated towns there are numerous records. The following is an example of a town assisting in establishing a school, from the records of the Corporation of Sandwich in England, about 1563.

21st May, 5th Elizabeth.

It was moved by the maior what a godly acte and worthie of memorye yt shuld be to make and found a free schoole within the towne for the godly educacion of children in the knowledge and feare of God, and that God therefore would blesse the towne the better; and required therefore, that every inhabitant within this towne would consider so good an acte and to knowe what every man wold willingly give thereto; and that he and his

brethren as they did judge that a very godly work so thei wold lardgely give of their porcions that the same might be established; which said motion liked well all men. And so with one consent they offeryd to give every man for the same worke according to their abillytye as followythe, viz. : (12: 13.)

These town schools were supported in various ways; sometimes by the income from lands set apart for that purpose; from the proceeds of mills at which the town inhabitants had to grind their corn; from the money paid for licenses to keep wine taverns; in some cases from tuition fees; from the common stock of the town corporation; and, finally, by voluntary contributions," as in the case described above.

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Similarly, New England towns established schools. Down to 1647 the establishment of schools in New England followed the above practice which had existed in England. Individual towns, when moved by their leaders or by the feeling of common need, in town meeting assembled, voted to establish a school or to secure a schoolmaster and to devote certain funds for support. A general record of such actions is found in Winthrop's "History of New England," written in 1645. It reads as follows:

Divers free schools were created as at Roxbury — and at Boston (where they made an order to allow fifty pounds to the master and an house and thirty pounds to an usher, who should also teach to read and write and cipher, and Indians children were to be taught freely, and the charge to be yearly by contribution, either by voluntary allowance, or by rate of such as refused, etc., and this order was confirmed by the General Court.... Other towns did the like providing maintenance by several means. (15: 175.)

There are reports of such actions in the town records of Boston for 1635; Dorchester, 1639; Newbury, 1639; Salem, 1639; Dedham, 1643, and other towns at later dates. These provisions made for schooling by a few of the towns before 1647 were purely voluntary and patterned after the methods in some English towns.

Calvinistic, Genevan ideals also influential. But other European influences and models besides those of England affected the development of Massachusetts schools. As was noted above, the English Puritans were dominated by the theories of Calvin, as were the Protestants of Holland and the Presbyterians of Scotland. The ideal state that furnished the pattern for the government of early Massachusetts was the religious republic of Geneva. In that city, as we have noted, under the dictatorship of Calvin, the religious and political governments went hand in hand, although the political was more or less subordinated to the religious. Eggleston says:

Likewise Puritan theory made the state secondary and subordinate to the Church. Cartwright, the great Puritan of Elizabeth's reign, had embodied this in the maxim, " No man fashioneth his house to his hangings, but his hangings to his house"; and Hooker, the founder of Connecticut, was fond of repeating the proverb. When he shaped the Constitution of that colony in 1638 he made the government an humble auxiliary of the churches. Cotton found in the Scriptures a complete and infallible platform of politics. . . . That a court of law should have a clerk seems clear enough without a proof text, but Cotton must needs bolster this obvious expedient of common sense by citing the fact that there was a scribe's chamber in the court of the king's house in the time of the prophet Jeremiah. (14:147.)

The Puritan religious state ordered provision for education. - As we have seen, from the sixth century in Europe it had been considered the privilege and duty of the Church to control and maintain schools. With this tradition, when the State became the handmaid of the Church, and especially of a Church in which reading and learning were necessary for vigorous life, it was natural that the Church should use the authority of its servant, the State, to require that parents and local authorities provide adequate means of education.

Voluntary actions of towns supplemented by state requirement. - This was what occurred in Massachusetts in 1642 and 1647. Although a few of the towns had provided schools, these voluntary efforts were not sufficiently general to assure

the universal education required by Puritan theory. As a consequence, the General Court (the central representative legislative authority, meeting at Boston) passed the famous law of 1642, which reads in part as follows:

Taking into consideration the great neglect in many parents and masters in training up their children in learning and labor and other employments which may be profitable to the Commonwealth, [we] do hereupon order and decree that in every town the chosen men appointed for managing the prudential affairs of the same shall henceforth stand charged with the care of the redress of this evil, so as they shall be liable to be punished or fined for the neglect thereof upon any presentment of the grand jurors or other information or complaint in any plantations in this jurisdiction; and for this end they, or the greater part of them, shall have power to take account from time to time of their parents and masters and of their children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of the country, and to impose fines on all those who refuse to render such accounts to them when required. (20:58.)

This law is significant as an expression of the interest of the central government in matters educational and its intention to control such matters. But though it set up certain educational standards, it did not assure that these requirements would be met.

Neglect of education necessitated further action in 1647.— The law of 1642 definitely asserted that many of the people were neglectful in training their children for useful lives. But the law did not improve matters sufficiently. In 1646 the General Court commented on the "fewness of persons accomplished to such employments," as required education. As a result of the more favorable conditions prevailing in England after the convening of the Puritan Parliament in 1640, many of the more capable young men of the colonies returned to England. Partly to meet this situation the General Court passed the famous law of 1647 by which "the Puritan government of Massachusetts rendered probably its greatest service to the future."