scene of many Indian depredations during the French and Indian Wars and during the Revolution. The early members suffered greatly, and some were ruthlessly murdered. There was no meeting-house for the congregation until 1798, when Price's Church was erected."70

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HEN the German emi

grants began to arrive in this country, and more particularly in Pennsylvania, in large numbers and it became apparent that unless the influx was checked the German settlers would soon outnumber the English, the latter in no uncertain terms voiced their objection to allowing the Germans to come in unlimited numbers, and

found all sorts of reasons for this objection. One of the chief reasons advanced on all sides was the statement that the Germans were a rude, ignorant and uneducated class of people. This objection was frequently urged, and from that day to this it has been the custom for those who should know better to speak of the Pennsylvania-German settlers as illiterate and uneducated. No doubt this was, in some degree, due to the fact that the settlers did not, as a rule, learn to speak the English language, but ad

hered to the use of their own language as well as to their manners and customs. But in point of education, as that term is generally understood, it is very probable that among the German settlers there was as large a percentage of educated people as among those speaking the English language, if, indeed, the percentage was not greater.

At the period when the colony of Maryland was founded it was not considered necessary for everyone to be educated and a very large proportion of the population, even among the well-to-do, were not able to write. This is plainly shown by the number of people who were compelled to make their marks in signing legal papers. Among the "gentlemen adventurers" who came over in Lord Baltimore's first colony were many who came within this category, and it was no unusual thing to find that some of the servants brought over had considerably more of an education than their principals. Indeed, it was quite customary to bring over among the servants some who were able to act as scrivener and letter-writer. The matter of securing an education was considered of minor importance, and if it was thought necessary with some of the younger generation, they were sent back to England for the purpose of securing it; but what they considered an education to be obtained in this way, was not so much a knowledge of the liberal arts as it was of the manners and customs of polite society, to be gained through visiting in the families of their English relatives.

This being the case, there was little interest taken in the matter of establishing schools, and it was many years before there were any schools. There were a number of causes which militated against the establishment of schools, but outside of the lack of interest and the absence of a feeling of necessity for an education, the chief cause was the

scattered condition of the population. The raising of tobacco was the chief occupation, and of necessity the settlers were scattered over a wide extent of territory. There was, in the early history of the colony, little to fear from the Indians, owing to the founder's pacific treatment of them, so that there was no occasion for the settlers to gather together in groups for protection, and towns and villages were unknown. So much so was this the case that, as one writer has pointed out, if Maryland had had a law similar to the Massachusetts law of 1647, which provided that every township of fifty householders should appoint some one "to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read," it would not have required the establishment of a single school, as there was no portion of the province thickly enough settled to have fifty householders in an area equal to a New England township.

71

The earliest effort to establish an educational institution was made in 1671, but the bill was amended by the lower house of the assembly, which had a Protestant majority, in such a manner as to render it distasteful to the Roman Catholic upper house, and further consideration of it was dropped. At frequent intervals other attempts were made to found a system of schools, but they were generally unsuccessful. There were a number of reasons for this lack of success. In the first place, the country was so sparsely settled that there was no locality in which a central point could be selected for a school which would be convenient of access for the children of the settlers. Then, too, as a rule, the schools, if they were established, would be chiefly for the children of the poorer class of settlers, for those of means usually had their children taught by private teachers, although it must be said that there was not much inter71 Sollers, "History of Education in Maryland," p. 16.

est taken in the matter of education and very many of the wealthier class of settlers had very little education, even some of the judges being unable to write their names. But the chief difficulty in the matter of providing schools was the impossibility of finding suitable teachers. As a rule the men who were secured as teachers were dissolute and intemperate individuals who were unable or unwilling to attempt to make a living in any other occupation. Large landowners who brought over servants frequently secured one who was competent to act as teacher for the younger members of the family. In this way the questions of education and servitude are, in a measure, related to each other. Sometimes a ne'er-do-well son of a wealthy English family was sent to the colony to get rid of him, rather than with an expectation of his bettering himself, and such an one frequently acted as teacher. There were instances, too, where convicts who had been transported to the colony were employed as teachers. In 1745 the officers of the school in Talbot county offered a reward of £5 currency for the capture of their Irish schoolmaster, who had run away with two geldings and a negro slave.

In 1696 a law was passed providing for the erection of a school in each county, but by 1717 but one had been erected, at Annapolis. Every few years a new law was passed providing for the erection of schools, but from one cause or another they proved abortive, and as late as March 21, 1754, a writer in the Maryland Gazette complained of the amount of money that was every year being sent to the neighboring province of Pennsylvania for educational purposes. "On inquiry,' "On inquiry," he says, "it has been found that there are at least 100 Marylanders in the academy at Philadelphia, and it is experimentally known that the annual charges for clothes, schooling, board, etc.,