TAMMANY HALL AS IT WAS.

machinery of a school. The New York trustees determined to adopt this system in the new school. A suitable teacher was engaged as principal, and a school opened in May, 1806, in a hired apartment in Bancker, now Madison, Street. The attendance in a few days was forty-two. This was the first public free school in the city and the first employment in the United States of the Lancasterian system, which subsequently became much in vogue. It was really a charity school, providing, when needed, food and raiment, as well as instruction, for its indigent pupils.

The plan worked well, and was appreciated by the Legislature, which, in 1807, granted $4,000 for the erection of a school-building, with an annual gift of $1,000 to the Society. The City Corporation granted an old building, known

as the Arsenal, in the northeastern angle of the Park, adjacent to the Alms-house, for the accommodation of the school. It was fitted up at considerable expense, and opened in December, 1809, with an able address by De Witt Clinton.

By the terms of the Corporation grant, the children of the Almshouse were to

be gratuitously instructed. An arrangement was also made with the Fire Department for the admission of fifty pupils. At the end of the year the school had 550 pupils. This public school, No. 1, remained on its first site, at the corner of Tryon Row and Chatham Street, till 1837, when the building was taken down for the opening of Centre Street. It then occupied a new building in William Street, near Duane, which retains the designation No. 1 under the new system of Ward Schools.

A second school was opened in 1811 on ground in Henry Street, presented by Colonel Henry Rutgers. Others followed at various intervals, planted where most needed, in different parts of the city, till the number in 1840 reached eighteen. There were also two colored schools and some fifty primary schools, mostly in hired rooms, under the management of the Society, which up to 1842 had the entire control of the funds provided for the commonschool education of the city. In that year there was a serious encroachment on its powers and efficiency by the Act of the Legislature constituting a Board of Education for the City of New York, composed of Commissioners, to be annually elected by the people, intrusted with the organization of schools in the districts where they might be required, at the request of a body of Ward trustees, created for their local management in the several Wards. This left the Public School Society a voluntary association, with limited resources to cope with the organized resources of the State.

The new Board was not only more popular in its representative character than the old private corporation, but it had the advantage of a regular system of taxation in meeting its requirements. It was undoubt edly more liberal and expansive in its character in raising the standard of education in its classes, the old system being limited by its plan and resources. The latter soon found itself restricted and embarrassed at every turn. The result was that, after eleven years of prolonged existence, parallel with the new system of Ward schools, it yielded to the latter, and resigning its privileges, in ac

FITCH'S STEAMBOAT ON THE COLLECT.

An elaborate history of the School Society has been written by William Oland Bourne, which exhibits with minuteness the working of the old system, and offers many points for profitable consideration in the study of the general subject of popular education for the future. In the records of education in the city and country, the disinterested labors of its trustees must ever be remembered with honor. The long period of faithful service, involving no little care and anxiety, of a large number of the trustees, is something remarkable. Thirty served for

an average of nearly twentyfive years. From 1805 to 1853, the whole period of the Society, there were six presidents: De Witt Clinton, Henry Rutgers, Peter A. Jay, Robert C. Cornell, Lindley Murray, and George T. Trimble. Their work was eminently practical, and, a quality not always to be found in philanthropical exertions, it was carried on with a just regard

to

where there was, at first, some opposition to the revival of stage plays on the part of the magistrates, who refused as an unhallowed gift a donation from the company of a hundred dollars to the poor of the Almshouse. Conscious of the popular prejudice, Hallam began his entertainments as a course of lectures, with an infusion of farce and pantomime, succeeded by the performance of a few regular plays, which somewhat taxed the strength of his limited company. Having thus obtained a footing in the Summer months, in November, having associated with him in the management John Henry, an Irish actor, and reinforced the company, he opened the theatre for a regular season with "The Gamester," and "Love à la Mode." Among the new performers was Wignell, a cousin of the elder Hallam, who had come to America to

join the company at New York on the eve of its dispersiou by the resolution of the Continental Congress. He now appeared to establish himself firmly with the pub

lic as an accomplished comedian, and su bsequently as the successful manager of the theatre at Philadelphia. Henry, who also took an active part in the perform

ances, was

something of a humorist off the stage. Dunlap tells us he was the only actor in America who kept a coach, a very small one, however, "just sufficient to carry himself and wife to the theatre, drawn by one horse and driven by a black boy." Being subject to attacks of the gout, he justified the extravagance to the public by the representation on the panels of two crutches crossed, with the motto, "This or These."

FULTON'S STEAMBOAT

THE CLERMONT.'

eph Lancaster, after much ill-rewarded exertion in his own country, came to America in 1818. He frequently visited the schools in New York, whose records contain many kindly expressions of his approval. It was on leaving one of the schools, in Chrystie Street, where he had attended an examination of the pupils, that, in crossing Grand Street, he was thrown down by a horse, and received such injuries, that two days after, on the 24th of October, 1838, he expired. He had just completed his sixtieth year. His remains were placed in the burying-ground of the Society of Friends, in Houston Street.

The players of the old American Company had, at first, but a cold reception when they returned from the West Indies, after the Revolution. The younger Hallam, who had succeeded Douglass in the management, opened a theatre in Philadelphia, in March, 1785, and after a short

The theatre was opened for successive seasons, with representations of the "standard drama" which then occupied the stage, varied in April, 1787, with the performance, for the first time on the boards of an American theatre, of an original play, a comedy in five acts, entitled, "The Contrast," the production of a man of brilliant wit, Royal Tyler, of Massachusetts, subsequently Chief Justice of Vermont, and author also of the first American novel, "The Algerine Captive." "The Contrast " was of genuine native growth and subject, introducing to the public in the part of Jonathan, acted by Wignell, the

possession of the stage. The next month saw the production of another native American play by Tyler, written for Wignell, entitled, "May Day in Town; Or, New York in an Uproar," a practical topic for farce of venerable standing, even then antiquated, the humors of which are not yet exhausted in our city life, if, as we presume, the "moving accidents" of the day furnished the theme. Tyler's success in home authorship was soon followed by Dunlap's first acted play, "The Father," the precursor of a host of others, which entitle the author to be classed with the most prolific and successful in the somewhat scanty ranks of American dramatic authorship. It is pleasant to note the favorable reception of this writer, to whose literary productions, inadequately remunerated in their own day, the history of our city now owes so much in various departments, dramatic, artistic, social, and political. William Dunlap was, indeed, a man of mark, to be ranked with West, Trumbull, Leslie, Charles Brockden Brown, Fulton, and others, original developments of the new mental activities sown by the Revolution. The son of a British soldier who had fought with Wolfe at Quebec, on the arrival of the English Army in 1776, he was carried by his father from his home at Perth Amboy within the lines at New York, where he passed the years of his boyhood during the war, emerging at the age of seventeen with faculties invigorated by the stirring life he had witnessed-a youth of lively powers of imagination, marked for a life of artistic culture. Bent upon the study of the arts of design, and flattered by the opportunity of painting the portrait of Washington, he was sent to seek the friendly assistance, never asked in vain by his young countrymen, of Benjamin West, in London. In England he developed a decided disposition for the drama, fostered by his opportunity of witnessing the performances of the consummate school of actors of the day, including Henderson, Kemble, Miss Siddons, Miss Farren, Mrs. Jordan, the Bannisters, Quick, and a host of minor notables some of whom he was to see transferred to the stage in America. On his return to New York, he became, naturally, a frequenter of the old John Street theatre, where he had witnessed his "first play," "Farquhar's Beaux' Strategem," performed by the British officers in the days of the Revolution. His success as a dramatic author on its boards, with his familiar acquaintance with the actors, led to his taking part with Hodgkinson, one of the most accomplished of them, as manager in the organization of a new company, for which a new building was provided. This was the building which concentrates in the memory of New Yorkers so many pleasant recollections, the old Park Theatre.

| ends of theatrical architecture, perfect sight and hearing, was due to him, then assuredly the two generations which witnessed the performances on its boards were indebted to Brunel for an opportunity of appreciating the acted drama which has never been surpassed, if quite equaled, in any of the more showily-decorated theatres since erected in the city. The old Park was perfect in these respects, the compact, manageable stage area, with the inclosed pit and boxes, allowing the actors to be heard in their natural tones. Among the notices printed in the first playbill occur a few paragraphs, curious as illustrations of the manners of New York ninety years ago, To assure the public of the loyalty of the old company to the new state of affairs, the playbill closed with a strongly-printed "Vivat Respublica." The old direction was renewed: "Ladies and gentlemen are requested to be particular in sending servants early to keep boxes." Another has a strange sound, coming from the vaunted era of politeness of these "good old times ": "The offensive practice to ladies, and dangerous to the house, of smoking cigars during the performance, it is hoped every gentleman will consent to an absolute prohibition of. It is to be "hoped" that the audience took the hint. Certainly the oldest playgoer whose reminiscences of the old Park we have listened to, never had any complaint of the infringement of the regulation.

With the exception of that blot on the old theatre management, English and American-the immoralities of the third tier-from which, we believe, the public was first relieved by the exertions of Mr. Macready, at Covent Garden, there was nothing in the manners of the Park particularly worthy of censure. About fifty-five years ago, to be sure, Mrs. Trollope, in her censorship of the Americans, with the aid of the clever French artist who accompanied her, left an amusing picture in her book of an undress box company at the Chatham Theatre, the central figure a hatted, coatless gentleman, sitting on the front, presenting a broad back to the audience. The sketch was remembered; and for a long time after, at the Park, whenever any one in the boxes appeared in a similar attitude to the company, as sometimes happened in the intervals of the acts, the offender was instantly recalled to a sense of propriety by a cry from pit and gallery, “Trollope! Trollope!"

It would occupy more space than the present work can afford barely to enumerate the chief of the plays and actors, for more than half a century the charm of the old Park Theatre to the most cultivated and appreciative of audiences. There were, at the very start, the versatile Hodgkinson and the accomplished lady, his wife, who had been transplanted with him from the famous theatre at Bath, and Joseph Jefferson, long a favorite comedian on the old boards, the son of an admired English actor, the father and grandfather of others of the same name. eminent on the American stage, the present approved representative of Rip Van Winkle, being his direct descendant. The month after the opening the company was reinforced by the arrival, from Philadelphia, of Thomas Abthorp Cooper, in the height of his early fame, for he was at this time but twenty-two, when he won the admiration of the New York public by his graceful and spirited impersonation of leading Shakespearean characters, appearing successively in Hamlet, King John and Romeo. The son of an Irish gentleman, a surgeon in the

of that parent in India, been placed by his mother under the guardianship of the celebrated novelist and political reformer, William Godwin, by whom he had been

qualities and solid attainments won his way to high rank as a Shakespearean actor. He was several times in this country, and was always welcomed, none the less in his last engagements in 1845 and 1865 for the support which he had from Mrs. Kean, who had previously received the heartiest admiration on the American stage as Miss Ellen Tree in her gentle personations of Viola, Beatrice, and a host of other refined characters of the higher drama, not forgetting her memorable representation of Tulfourd's Son.

ROMAYNE'S MONUMENT TO THE VICTIMS OF THE PRISON-SHIPS.

Of the distinguished comedians who have visited America, Charles Mathews was, in point of time, as in excellence, the foremost. He first came in 1822, opening at the Park in Goldfinch, and played his famous round of parts in comedy and farce, with the exquisite mimicry and characterization of his entertainment, so strongly marked by his individuality, "Mathews at Home." He revisited the country in 1834, delighting a new generation of playgoers with the old humors; but his health was then failing, and he survived his tour to this country but a few months. His son Charles, who had previously married Ma

Kemble, the following evening playing Bianca in "Fazio"; and the next, Juliet to her father's Romeo. Tyrone Power, the best actor of Irish parts, played his first engagement at the Park, in 1833, and his last in 1841, leaving for home in the steamer President on her fatal voyage.

Edwin Forrest, the most distinguished, in his long career, of American tragedians, a native of Philadelphia, had been several years on the stage when he made his first appearance at the Park, in June, 1826, in the character of Othello. The decided impression which he made