had not been as successful as that established in Talbot. Accordingly it is found that after the Revolution in a number of cases adjoining counties united their funds and established union schools, or academies, and these for years were among the best in the State. In other cases the free school property was handed over to boards of trustees who had no relation to the State or county governments, and they founded excellent schools. In yet other cases, the school property passed into the hands of the trustees of the poor, and thus was diverted entirely from its original use and purpose. The school property of Talbot had a different destiny.

In the year 1782 by an Act of Assembly the visitors of Kent county school which was then exceedingly prosperous, having one hundred and forty pupils, were authorized and empowered "to erect the said school into a college or seminary of universal learning." One of the provisions of this act was that "if the visitors of any county school on the Eastern shore, for the more effectual advancement of useful knowledge and the better promoting the good purposes for which such county schools were originally founded shall be desirous to engraft and consolidate the funds and estate of such county school, or any parts of the same, with the funds and estate of the said intended college" they should be allowed to do so, and be entitled to appoint one member of the board of visitors of the college "for every five hundred pounds which any such county schools shall contribute towards founding and supporting the said college;" or they might have "any other privileges and advantages in respect to the education of the youth of such county in the college" as might be fixed and agreed upon, in consideration of this sum of five hundred pounds "or any sum or estate of greater or less value which they might contribute." The college then and thus organized was what became and is known as Washington college, at Chestertown. For the support of this school, beside State endowments and donations, the fines and forfeitures which formerly went to the county schools, were set apart. In the year 1784 a similar Act of Assembly authorized the conversion of King William's school in Annapolis into a college, which was and is known as St. John's College, and these two institutions, the one for the Eastern and the other for the Western Shore, constituted the University of Maryland. Of these schools it is unnecessary to say more in this connection.

In the year of the organization of Washington college, namely 1782, an Act entitled "an Act to enable the Visitors of Talbot county school" was passed, of which the following is the preamble:

Whereas, it has been represented to this General Assembly by the Visitors of Talbot county school, that the school house belonging thereto hath, by unavoidable accident, been burnt down and consumed by fire, whereby the said county is deprived of any public school or seminary of learning; and the said Visitors being desirous of promoting useful knowledge and fulfilling the good purposes for which the county schools were originally founded, are willing to engraft and consolidate the estate of Talbot county school aforesaid with the funds and estate of Washington College, after paying the debts that are justly bona fide due and owing from the said school, therefore be it enacted, &c.

This law authorizes the visitors to sell the property at public sale to the highest bidder, and to pay off all debts against the school, according to the tenor of the petition presented: but there is no provision made for the disposition of the remainder of the money received from the sale. This seems to have been left to the discretion of the board of Visitors. This board was composed of these gentlemen, all of whom were residents of St. Michaels parish:

The Rev. Mr. John Gordon,

Mr. John Bracco,

Mr. William Hayward,

Mr. William Hindman,

Mr. William Perry,

Mr. Rob't Goldsborough.

Having on the 12th of February, 1783, made due advertisement of the intended sale of the property it was, on the 1st of April of that year offered at public vendue, and the hundred acres of land were purchased by Mr. John Stevens for the sum of four hundred and eighty-five pounds "current real money." On the first of October a deed was executed by the Visitors to him, he having paid or secured the payment, of the sum mentioned. A few days after Mr. Stevens resold the property to Mr. James Lloyd Chamberlaine for the same that he had given. Among the records of this county there is note of the disposition of the money received from the sale of the school property; but a report was presented to the General Assembly of the State by the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the first President of Washington College of the subscriptions and donations that had been made for its endowment. In this report the names of several citizens of Talbot are given as benefactors of the school, and the amounts bestowed. In addition to these it is noted that the Visitors and Governors had received from the Visitors of Talbot County Free School the sum of four hundred pounds. The subscriptions thus made entitled Talbot, according to the act of incor

poration, to a representation in the board of Visitors and Governors of the college, and accordingly Mr. Robt. Goldsborough and Mr. William Perry were appointed as members from this county. From that time to the present, the visitors and governors have continued to elect some gentleman known for his friendliness to public education from Talbot to a seat whenever a vacancy has occurred in their body. It is to be regretted that the honor of representing the county in the oldest college of the State, and the only one upon the Eastern Shore, has not been sufficiently appreciated—so little so, indeed, that few in the county know that it enjoys the privilege of such representation. This respectable position is now held by Hon. Samuel Hambleton. The rights which the county enjoys of sending two pupils to Washington college free of all charge are not founded upon the benefactions of private citizens and of the Visitors of the Talbot Free School, above noticed, but upon endowments and appropriations by the State.

The Board of Visitors having therefore conformed in all particulars to the law—sold the property, paid off all debts binding upon it, and transferred the remainder of the proceeds of the sale to the institution designated as the residuary recipient—became functus officio, and thus the Talbot Free School closed forever its organic, as it had years before ended its functional existence.

The people of this county have long cherished their public schools as their most valued privilege and right. They have shown themselves, from time to time, ready to adopt any system of administering them which promised to promote their greater efficiency, however and by whomsoever framed. They have ever been jealous of any attempt to impair or restrict their usefulness. No public burden have they so cheerfully borne as that imposed for the maintenance of public instruction; and there is no private sacrifice they so willingly make as that by which an education, for the common uses of life at least, is secured to their children. How far the growth of these most creditable sentiments is attributable to that school which for more than half a century flourished in their midst, and of which an account has just been given, it would be impossible to determine: but that it had much to do with preparing the popular mind for the adoption of those systems of education which forty or fifty years later were received by Talbot with so much glad earnestness, when other counties which had no such preparation rejected them, and for the reception of that wiser and more comprehensive system which at the epoch of universal freedom inaugurated the era of general education in every portion and among all classes of the people, no one can doubt.

THE CHARITY WORKING SCHOOL OF PARSON BACON.

In a paper published in the Baston Star of December last, on the "Poor House," it was stated that a portion of the building now used for this public charity was erected for a manual labor school for poor boys. It is now proposed to give as full an account of this school as the imperfect records now extant will permit. A proper introduction to this account would be a survey of the life of the very able and useful man who was the founder and chief patron of the school, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bacon. But this pleasant task will be for the time deferred, it being sufficient for the present purposes to say that this pious and learned man came to this county, from the Isle of Man, in or about the year 1745, and settling at Oxford, first became curate to the Rev. Daniel Manadier, then far advanced in years, and after the death of that worthy clergyman in 1746, the rector of St. Peter's parish, within whose bounds the school of which an account is now about to be given was, by his labors, erected.

The schools which Mr. Bacon found in Talbot, with one exception presently to be noticed, were of the most primitive character, being but little above the Hedge schools of Ireland, or the Dame schools of England in the slenderness of the instruction they imparted, and below these simple institutions in the character of the teachers, who were, in too many cases, indentured servants, or even transported convicts. But these schools, such as they were, were closed to the poor, for they were supported by subscription among the planters, who, if they admitted the children of their less fortunate neighbors to share in their meagre and perhaps doubtful benefits, it was done as an act of grace which the pride of poverty was not always ready to accept. There were no parochial schools in the county, and if any of the clergy consented to teach, it was an extra duty, for which he had to be compensated by tuition fees. But there was at the time of his settlement here, one school in the county which was technically a free school, though there is ground for the belief that it was free only in name, a small number of poor children being admitted without charge, but the greatest part of the pupils being required to pay a tuition fee. This school had been founded under the law of 1723 providing for the establishment of a free school in each of the counties in the province. Under a previous law, which, however, never became operative, Oxford had been designated as a suitable place for one of the two schools to be established, the other to be at Annapolis. But the law of 1723 providing for the establishment of free schools in all the counties required them to be placed as near the

centre of the several counties as possible; so the one for Talbot was placed on a tract of one hundred acres of land, part of what was called in the original patent "Tilghman's Fortune," taken up before the organization of the county by Capt. Samuel Tilghman, of the "Golden Fortune." This hundred acres lay about three miles from Easton, on or near the Bay Side road, at a place where the waters of Third Haven and St. Michaels rivers approximate, and upon Betty's Cove. This school house lot makes a part of the farm now owned by Mr. Joseph R. Price. Occasion will be taken, hereafter, to give an account of this school. When Mr. Bacon came into Talbot this Talbot charity school was in operation, but it was so remote from his section of the county as to be practically useless to the poor of the greater part of his parish. To provide means of instructing the poor, he soon after his induction formed a plan for a school, which should be supported by the private bounty of his parishioners, and others whom he hoped to interest in his project. Any assistance from the public funds was out of the question, for all moneys that might be appropriated by the province were expected to go to the support of the county free school, above mentioned.

In the year 1750 having sufficiently matured his plans, he set himself earnestly at work for their accomplishment. He caused to be circulated throughout the province, indeed beyond its limits, the following papers asking the assistance of the charitable in the furtherance of his humane scheme. They were also published in the only newspaper of the Province, from the files of which in the State library at Annapolis they have been obtained:

THE SUBSCRIPTION ROLL

Maryland, 14th July, 1750

Whereas, profaneness and debauchery, idleness and immorality, are greatly owing to a gross ignorance of the Christian religion, especially among the poorer sort, in this Province; and whereas nothing is more likely to promote the practice of Christianity and virtue than an early and pious education of youth; and whereas many poor people are very desirous of having their children taught, but are not able to afford them a Christian and useful education: We whose names are underwritten do hereby promise and agree to pay yearly (during pleasure) the several sums of money or tobacco, over against our names respectively subscribed, for the setting up a Charity School in the parish of Saint Peter, in Talbot county, for maintaining and teaching poor children to read write and account, and instructing them in the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion, as professed and