strictly veritable, having been derived from sources worthy of all credence. Care has been taken to confirm tradition by record, so that an amusing story might be made a valuable contribution to the annals of this county. Unfortunately he was unable to procure carriages for these guns, and as there was pressing and immediate need for them, they were rudely mounted upon cart or wagon wheels, and did good service on the ever memorable 10th of August, 1813, when the British made their long expected attack on St. Michaels, and were so gallantly repelled. On this occasion they were severally commanded by John Thompson and Wrightson Jones, who continued to fire them as long as the enemy was within range. Subsequently these guns were properly and handsomely mounted upon carriages. For many years, for want of an armory, they were placed in the unused market house of St. Michaels, which stood in the middle of St. Mary's square, in the centre of the town, and were only brought to fire an occasional salute upon the fourth of July, or in honor of some political victory of either party. When the market-house was converted into a school-house, the gifts of Jacob Gibson were transferred to the armory at Easton, where they remained until our great civil war. On Sunday, June 9, 1861, by order of His Excellency Thomas Hollyday Hicks, Governor of the State, William T. Roberts, Esq., Armorer at Easton, delivered to Col. Abel Smith, of the New York volunteers, acting under Gen. Banks, all the arms belonging to the State in the Armory, and among these were the two six-pounders presented by Mr. Gibson to the people of St. Michaels. These cannon were taken by Col. Smith to Fort McHenry, where they probably are to this day, as their antiquated pattern, it is likely, prevented their employment in our late contest. Thus it has come about that on the grand moving drama of our national history the amusing comedy of Jacob Gibson frightening the people of Bayside with his red handkerchief, and empty barrel, connects itself with the bloody tragedy of our civil war.

THE SCHOOLS OF TALBOT

Early Schools And School Masters

I

The preparation of a complete history of education in Maryland is a task as yet imperfectly performed. Indeed, it can hardly be said to have been seriously attempted; the few sketches of the subject that have been made having no pretentions to thoroughness. A sense of disqualification for the work, more, perhaps, than a perception of its arduous nature, has deterred every one from the undertaking; for a rare combination of qualities are requisite for its due accomplishment. That labor must be done by some one who unites in himself the industry of the antiquarian, the insight of the philosopher, and the ardor of the enthusiast. In the vast mass of irrelevant matter which would have to be subjected to analysis, the historic chemist would often have to be contented with the discovery of mere traces of that for which he sought. These would consist mostly of obscure hints, or minute notices, scattered here and there in public records of one kind or another—in church registers, legislative proceedings, books of law, family memoranda, and files of news papers. These sources of information would have to be searched with the patient, but sharp, eye of the archaeologist, who gropes in rubbish for remains of antiquity, and not with the simply curios glance of the dilettante, seeking objects of virtu. And, when all the materials for a history have been collected, the greater labor remains to weave them into one connected and veritable story, that shall relate the rise, the progress and the condition of the schools of Maryland, and that shall describe those influences which have affected them from time to time and in different sections of the province and State, and which has made them what they were or what they are.

As in the greater or more comprehensive panorama of Maryland history, those of her citizens who have taken a prominent part in the conduct of her civil and political affairs, or have made an impression upon her social structure should be delineated for the instruction or the veneration of those coming after, so upon the narrower canvas of this story of her schools, there should be no failure to portray the careers and

characters of her more distinguished teachers, school officers and promoters of her educational interests; for there have been those belonging to each of these classes of educationists in Maryland who are as deserving of historic commemoration as are her statesmen, her jurists, her clergy or her physicians. Who more worthy of honor than he who makes popular government possible, who enlightens the law makers, who prevents religion from lapsing into superstition, and who promotes the moral and intellectual health of the community? But even the diligence of the collector of these materials for a history of schools, coupled, as it may be, with analytic power and constructive ability, will not suffice to make the competent historian unless he be inspired with a love for all that is expressed by the term education—for the objects, the methods, the agencies and the agents. That a historian thus endowed will appear in the future may be confidently expected, for besides continuing to be a matter of the greatest possible individual or personal concern, education has become almost within the recollection of a living generation a State affair of the weightiest moment, having its administrative staff, its code, its rules and precedents, its courts of original and appellate jurisdiction, and its independent fisc or treasury. More than this, the teachers, from being the most humble of public servitors, without social standing or official recognition, have, as a body, acquired that greater consideration and consequence which are due to wider attainments in letters and science, to improved moral worth and to a more extended usefulness, and which are generally conceded to those holding direct relations to the government of the State. A great interest, public and private, like this of education, and one managed or served by a large influential and distinctive class of citizens, men and women—a class, not only of present, but increasing prospective importance and weight cannot long be without a fit historian. In anticipation of his coming, and with a view of aiding him in some small measure, it is now proposed to give an account of the earliest schools and schoolmasters of this county, of which and whom any record or memory remains. This paper will be confined to the time preceding the revolution, and the meagreness of the resources from which it must be compiled will give to it the merit of brevity and the fault of inadequacy.

The illiterateness of the earliest settlers of this State, this county included, has afforded a subject of much small wit to those who would ridicule that family pride, which many of our most respectable citizens have felt and sometimes perhaps too plainly exhibited, in their ancestry.

Those who have nothing to boast of, and others who have something to be ashamed of, in their paternal predecessors, have found some compensation, or it may be some revenge, when they could point out, to those among us who a little ostentatiously display their coats of arms, certain rude signs or symbols not recognized either by heraldry or caligraphy, attached to wills and other instruments of writing of their forefathers, in the place where their names should have been subscribed; or, when a neighbor, with a pardonable vanity, displays relics of what he fondly dreams was the former grandeur of his family, in the form of old battered household plate, or faded silk gowns of ancient pattern, the petty malice of those who possess no such memorials of the wealth and fashion of their ancestors is vastly gratified when it can present samples of defective orthography or other evidences of deficient scholarship in the script of those who first drank from the silver goblets or urns, or who wore the silken robes. There is probably as much of spite as of truth in the allegation of. prevalent ignorance among those who were the permanent and substantial settlers of this province. While there is some ground for the charge, unquestionably there has been much exaggeration of the illiterateness of those who coming to Maryland first gave tone to society as it was in formation, and who, from the first, were her representatives in whatever distinguished her in manners, morals or intelligence. There was a class of emigrants who might be called ignorant. This was that of the indentured servants. But even among the people of this class there were many who enjoyed the advantages of a good elementary education. This is shown by the fact, hereafter to be more fully noticed, that many of the early school teachers were drawn from this very class. But the substantial men who settled the province, who took out patents for lands, or bought them from second hands, and lived upon them, founding families, and attaching themselves to the soil—the real planters, the traders, the professional men, and even the thrifty mechanics—were in general sufficiently well educated to be relieved from the imputation of illiterateness, though, most probably, there were exceedingly few who could lay just claim to what might be called high culture. They were certainly well enough educated to know the value of a little learning in the struggle for life, even when that struggle was rather with uncultivated nature, as is the case in all new countries, than with man, as it is in the settled States. They did not allow the pressing exigencies of the formation of new homes in the wilderness to prevent them from securing to their children, even upon the secluded plantation, such an

equipment for the contest as is afforded by the possession of the elements of letters and the rudiments of science. As wealth accumulated the education imparted or provided was of a better character. More capable instructors were employed at home, or the sons were sent to the great schools and universities of England. Thus, William Harper, of this county, in his will, dated 1739, makes particular provision, and gives specific directions, for the education of his son, Samuel Clayland Harper, requiring that his teachers be paid double for his instruction; and that he be trained up to one of the professions. Mr. Harper appears to have been a man of some fondness for literature, and a friend of schools, for he directed by his will that if his son should die before he should arrive at the age of twenty-one, his library and onehalf of his estate should pass to the Talbot County Free School. Michael Howard, Esquire, a prominent lawyer at the bar of this county, who died in 1737, provided for the education of his nephew, Michael William Howard, at the Westminster School and at King's College, Cambridge, England. It may be proper to add that the professional education of many of the lawyers and physicians was received in the old country, before the revolution.

The first schools that were formed in this county and province must have been of an elementary character to correspond with the simple life-wants of the settler. From the circumstances of the planters, it is inferable that they were of a private or domestic kind. The farms were large and widely separated, the population exceedingly sparse, and there were no considerable towns or villages. Consequently neighborhood schools, which grew up when these conditions changed, could not be formed. By the more wealthy settlers private tutors were employed, and it is not unlikely the master of the plantation, in many cases, permitted the children of his dependents, or of any poor freemen living near him, to enjoy the privileges of instruction by such tutors, for the sake of the advantages that would accrue to his own children by being associated with others while under instruction. The first schools, therefore, in this county, were what may be designated as plantation or home schools, made up of the children of the proprietors, and such others as they might see fit to admit to participate in their benefits. These schools were, of course, of small size, and the instruction imparted elementary in character.

This system of plantation or home schools continued to be followed for not many years; indeed, it can be said to have entirely disappeared at the present, for private tutors are still employed by those living remote