COLONIAL EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION.

And now our little world of Maryland is all astir. We have had our little revolution, we have sent our Catholic rulers adrift, and made ourselves a royal colony; we have established the Protestant religion and laid out our parishes, removed our capital to a more central position, done away with many old laws and made many new and wholesome ones in their place; Francis Nicholson, esq., late governor of Virginia, instrumental in establishing William and Mary College, for whose support we pay one penny per hogshead on tobacco exported, has arrived, and proceeds to open the general assembly. Clearly we must take steps to render secure the fruits of our labors.

Governor Nicholson, among the first acts of his administration, sent a message to the assembly in which he proposed "that a way be found out for building of a free school, and the maintenance for a schoolmaster and usher and writing master that can cast accounts. The which if it can be agreed," his excellency proposed to give £50 towards the building of the said school and £25 sterling a year towards the maintenance of the master. Sir Thomas Lawrence, secretary of the province, subscribed 5,000 pounds of tobacco for the building and 2,000 pounds per annum, and the members of the council various sums, ranging from 2,000 to 1,000 pounds of tobacco. The assembly convened September 21, 1694. The governor's message was received September 23, and October 3 the assembly replied, thanking the governor for his large contributions, and offering 45,000 pounds of tobacco subscribed by the members present, and " doubt not that every well-minded person within this province will contribute towards the same;" and after some debate concerning the building of one free school on the Western and another on the Eastern Shore, nominated Oxford and Severn for the two places. October 18 the laws of the session were passed, and chapter 1 was entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning and the advancement of the natives of this province." Chapter 19 was an act for the imposition of 4 pence per gallon on liquors imported into this province for "building and repairing court-houses, free schools, bridewells, or such public services." Chapter 23 laid an imposition on furs, beef, bacon, etc., for the maintenance of free schools, and chapter 31 was a supplicatory act to their sacred majesties for erecting of free schools. The same day, October 18, 1694, the governor, the secretary in behalf of the council, and the speaker of the house, addressed a letter "To the Right Rev. Father in God, Henry, Lord Bishop of London," under whose charge was the church in America, in which they say:

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Under so glorious a reign wherein by God's providence His true religion has been so miraculously preserved, should we not endeavor to promote it, we should hardly deserve the name of good Protestants or good subjects, especially considering how noble an example is set before us by their majesties royal foundation now vigorously carried on in Virginia. We have therefore in assembly attempted to make learning

'Bishop Henry Compton.

a handmaid to devotion and founded free schools in Maryland, to attend their college in that colony. We are confident you will favor our like pious designs in this province, wherein in instructing our youth in the orthodox religion, preserving them from the infection of heterodox tenets and fitting them for the service of the church and State, in this uncultivated part of the world, are our cheerful end and aim.

Many messages and communications pass on the subject of educa tion, from the upper to the lower house, and vice versa, to the King, to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In fact from the number of times free schools' are mentioned in the records, it would appear that no subject engrossed so much of the attention of government at this period as the proposed schools. In October, 1695, the upper house proposed that what money is already received by the duty upon furs, etc., be laid out towards the building of a small school house and maintaining a schoolmaster; in reply to which the lower house resolved that the money raised by the act for an imposition upon furs be kept in bank. In May, 1696, the upper house repeated the proposal, but in vain. September 18, of the same year, the upper house proposed that the sheriffs collect this year the gifts of the free schools, to which the lower house replied:

The tobacco that is subscribed is thought to be in good and secure hands and when the work is begun and the workmen are agreed with by the trustees of the said free schools then the subscribers will be ready to pay their several subscriptions.

September 25 the upper house states to the lower house that the Lord Bishop of London has sent over a schoolmaster and it is therefore thought necessary that the school building go forward, which can not be done without the tobacco be collected or part thereof, and it is therefore proposed that one-half, if not the whole, be collected this year. September 29 the lower house resolved that the trustees of the free school or the major part of them do with all convenient speed meet together and treat with the workmen and agree upon the building proportionable to the tobacco and money that is subscribed which is to be collected as fast as need shall require by order of the said trustees.

'Much confusion has arisen from confounding the term "free-school" of colonial times with the same words as used in the present century. See "free education" before quoted. I am inclined to believe that "free-school" in this country was used as a compound name indicating a certain grade of instruction, such as we would call "liberal," without assigning to the adjective any descriptive force whatever. The term was imported as a whole. Doubtless "free" was originally descriptive, but what quality it described is not so evident. It may have been a translation of "libera schola;" school for liberal studies; or it may have been analogous to free chapel (libera capella) which Giles Jacob's New Law Dictionary, 1750, defines as a chapel, so called, because it is exempt from the jurisdiction of the Diocesan. Those chapels are properly free chapels which are of the King's foundation and by him exempted from the ordinary's visitations." In the latter view to which I am inclined, "free schools" would stand contrasted with the schools attached to monasteries. To clear up the subject a critical study of the early use of the words in England is necessary; it is certain, however, that "free" as applied to schools in this country was not synonymous with gratuitous, though it is not denied that some free schools may have given gratuitous instruction.

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"As to the schoolmaster the house desire his excellency will make him reader of some parish, and that he have half the 40 pounds per poil if the same exceed not 10,000 pounds of tobacco." October 1 the council proposed that something be given out of the money raised upon the act for furs, etc., unto the schoolmaster, "he being sent in by my Lord Bishop of London." October 2 the house replied "as to giving something to the schoolmaster," it is thought that sufficient encouragement is already given him by the late resolves of this house. So the governor, October 7, made Mr. Andrew Geddes, schoolmaster, reader of All Saints parish, with a salary of 10,000 pounds of tobacco per annum "until further order." The further order was given June 3, 1697, when a rector having been appointed to All Saints, Mr. Geddes was "placed out as undermaster to the college school in Virginia to save a present charge and to gain himself the more experience against the school here is built."

It appears evident from the above transactions that there was some friction between the upper and lower house upon the subject of the free school. The act of 1694 was for the encouragement of learning and the "advancement of the natives." This act did not go into effect, but the first object aimed at was provided for by the act of 1696, under which King William's School was finally established. Many messages and counter messages passed between the two houses about the collection of the subscriptions which were finally sold by the trustees at a discount, about the delays of contractors, etc., until, in 1701, the building for the school was completed. Whether Mr. Geddes returned from Virginia with his experience, or whether he had not had sufficient experience of the law's delay in Maryland, we are not informed. Not until 1704 was the second aim of the act of 1694 provided for in an act for the advancement of the natives and residents of this province, which declared that no person or persons whatever who have not made this province their seat of residence for the full space and term of three years shall have or enjoy any place or office of trust or profit within the same, either by himself or deputy, except such person shall have immediate commission from Her Majesty; that all Her Majesty's principal officers having to dispose of any place or office may be obliged to make choice of such person or persons as they shall think most worthy and capable of executing such place or office out of the inhabitants of this province who have resided therein three years; and that all officers whatever shall actually inhabit within this province and exercise the same in their own proper persons, and not by any deputy or deputies without particular leave from Her Majesty. This act remained in force until the Revolution. It may be considered one of the earliest steps in the path toward the goal of independence. The union of the two subjects, "encouragement of learning" and "advancement of natives," in the act of 1694, was not accidental. The first was a necessary preparation for the second. The object aimed at in encouraging

learning, viz, fitting the youth of this province for the service of church. or state, is clearly stated by the assembly in their letter to the Bishop of London, and though all direct mention of this object is suppressed in the act of 1696, it is emphatically reiterated in the act of 1723 in the following words:

Whereas the preceding assemblies for some years past have had much at heart the absolute necessity they have lain under in regard both to duty and interest, to make the best provision in their power for the liberal and pious education of the youth of this province, and improving their natural abilities and acuteness (which seems not to be inferior to any) so as to be fitted for the discharge of their duties in the several stations and employments they may be called to, and employed in, either in church or state, etc.

I have spoken of this object in detail because it is mentioned again and again in all subsequent legislation for the encouragement of liberal education, the only education encouraged in colonial times, as the motive of state aid, because it was and is sufficient justification for such aid, and because the absence of any provision for the "advancement of the natives" in the act of 1696 serves in part to explain the lukewarmness of the lower house. Another cause of lack of interest may be found in the growth of the local feeling which demanded an equal chance for each county at once.

The act of 1696 created a corporation of not exceeding 20 persons by the name of the rectors, governors, trustees, and visitors of the free schools of Maryland, with the usual powers to sue and be sued, etc.;' to have a common seal; to receive gifts and bequests to the value of £1,500 per year; to make laws and rules for the government of the schools, not contrary to royal prerogative, to the laws of England or Maryland, or to the canons and constitutions of the Church of England; to elect annually a rector from their own body; to fill vacancies caused by death or removal from the province by election of "one or more of the principal or better sort of the inhabitants of the said province, into the place or places of the said visitors and governors so dead or removed," who shall take an oath "well and faithfully to execute the said office;" to hold a convocation upon the call of the rector, with the advice of three or more of the visitors, to inquire into and punish any disorders, breaches, misdemeanors, or offenses of any master, usher, or scholar against any of their orders, laws, or decrees; and if they find cause, to alter, displace, and turn out any master, usher, or scribe, and

'Dr. Bray, commissary of Maryland, writes in 1700:

"And that a perpetual succession of Protestant divines of the Church of England may be provided for the propagation of the true Christian religion in the said colony, his excellency hath, by the consent of the council and burgesses in assembly, promoted a law vesting a power in certain trustees for erecting one free school in each county, one of which is already begun at Annapolis, and is to be endowed with £100 sterling per annum for the maintenance of 1 master and 2 ushers, for instructing the youth of the said province in arithmetic, navigation, and all useful learning, but chiefly for the fitting such as are disposed to study divinity, to be further educated at His Majesty's College Royal in Virginia, in order upon their return to be ordained by the Bishop of London's suffragan residing in this province."

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put others in their places. This self-perpetuating body, into whose hands the entire control of the schools was placed, consisted of Francis Nicholson, esq., governor; the honorable Sir Thomas Lawrence, baronet; 3 colonels of the honorable council, 2 reverend divines, and 12 gentlemen. "The Most Reverend Father in God, Thomas,' by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, primate and metropolitan. of all England," was chancellor. The schools were for the "propagation of the gospel and the education of the youth of this province in good letters and manners." They were for the study of Latin, Greek, writing, and the like, and were to consist of 1 master, 1 usher, and 1 writing-master to a school, and 100 scholars, more or less, and were placed under the royal patronage. The first school was directed to be erected at Annapolis and called King William's School, and when the buildings should be completed, and a revenue of £120 sterling should be obtained for the salary and maintenance of the master, usher, and scribe, and the repair of buildings of the first free school, then, with the balance left in their hands of gifts, etc., the visitors should erect and endow with £120 per annum a second school at Oxford, in Talbot County, and as the funds increased, one after another, each county was to have a school erected and endowed with a revenue of like amount for its support.3

Great efforts were made to secure contributions for the maintenance of these schools, and besides what has already been mentioned, an agent was appointed to secure subscriptions in England, and the collectors and naval officers of the various ports in the province were directed to interest merchants and traders in contributing. In 1697 the place of crier in the provincial court was given to John Stanley in consideration of his promise to give the proceeds of the office for the first two years to the free school. He was especially induced, he says, to make the offer through the advantage he himself hath received by a charitable education. We have seen that certain import and export duties had also been appropriated to the support of these contemplated schools, yet but one, that of King William, was ever erected under this act, and that does not appear to have been adequately endowed, since the Rev. Edward Butler, who died in 1713, is mentioned as rector of St. Anne's and master of the free school, Annapolis. Indeed, in 1704, upon a representation that funds were needed beyond what had been provided, the legislature placed an export duty of from 9 pence to 3 farthings per skin upon the skins of bears, beavers, otters, wildcats,

'Archbishop Thomas Tenison.

In 1697, Col. David Browne, a Presbyterian, of Somerset County, left the first legacy to a British university from an American colonist. His will reads: "I give and bequeath unto the Colledge of Glasgow, as a memoriall, and support of any of my relatives to be educated therein, to be paid in cash or secured by good exchange to the visitours, the full soume of 100 pound sterling current money of England, with all convenient speed after my decease.-"Neill's English Colonization in America," p. 336.