of the Law of Moses; and every kind of recreation on that day was forbidden, as well as every kind of labor. Regular week-day lectures were preached in some principal places, and the Thursday forenoon lecture at Boston, instituted by Cotton, has, with one or two short interruptions, been kept up to the present day. The periodical fast-days and feast-days, sanctified by the ancient reverence of the Church, were scrupulously disregarded and discountenanced in New England.1 But, for special occasions, fasts and thanksgivings were frequently observed by the whole community, or by single churches, and after a time, in the place of Good Friday and of Christmas, a Fast-Day was regularly kept at the season of annual planting, and a feast-day (Thanksgiving) at the time of the ingathering of the harvest. A kindred scrupulosity led to an avoidance of the word Saint even in connection with the names of Apostles and Evangelists, and to a designation of the months, and the days of the week, by numbers. It was early a question whether the Sabbath should be held to begin at sunset, or at midnight, of Saturday. The former computation was favored in Connecticut. The latter was approved by Massachusetts law.3 March by the names of the first, sec- (Lechford, 21.) Winthrop Mass. Rec., III. 317. Learning, after religion and social order, was the object nearest to the hearts of the New-England fathers. Rather, it should be said, they were persuaded that social order and a religious character could not subsist in the absence of mental culture. --- 1639. In Among a people, a large portion of whom were well informed, several were learned, and some were rich, there could not have been a dearth of books. Brew- Provisions ster left a library of two hundred and seventy- for learning. five substantial volumes; Harvard, of three hundred and twenty. Hooker's was appraised at three hundred pounds; Davenport's, at two hundred and thirty-three pounds; Stone's, at one hundred and twenty-seven pounds. the ninth year of the charter government, a printing-press was established at Cambridge, the first set up in British America. Joseph Glover gave to the College a "font of printing-letters," and "some gentlemen of Amsterdam" gave "forty-nine pounds and something more towards furnishing of a printing-press with letters." 1 Glover died on his voyage to Massachusetts, and the College placed their press under the management of Stephen Daye, who superintended it for ten years. "The first thing which was printed was the Freeman's Oath; the next was an Almanac made for New England by Mr. William Pierce, Mariner; the next was the Psalms newly turned into metre." 2 It may be presumed that in the earliest time there was little instruction of children except what was imparted in private families. In the third year after the debarkation at Plymouth, the colonists were informed of its having been asserted in London, that their "children were not catechized nor taught to read." - ― 1623. Feb. 25. 1 Records of Harvard College, as hundred years, or at Liverpool till a quoted in Quincy's History, I. 187. In England, there was no printingpress at Exeter till thirty years after this time, at Manchester till nearly a hundred and ten years. (Trübner, They replied: "This is not true, in neither part thereof; for divers take pains with their own, as they can. Indeed, we have no common school for want of a fit person, or, hitherto, means to maintain one, though we desire to 1635. begin." Twelve years after this, the widow of Dr. Fuller received an apprentice under an engagement "to keep him at school two years." But it was many years before public schools were established in Plymouth Colony by law. Feb. 11. 1641. 1642. In Massachusetts, the first step taken by the central government in respect to education was a reJune 2. quest, "that the elders would make a catechism for the instruction of youth in the grounds of religion.' Soon after, in consideration of "the great neglect of many parents and masters in training up their children. in learning, and labor, and other employments which might be profitable to the commonwealth," the selectmen of towns were invested with authority to June 14. "take account, from time to time, of all parents and masters, and of their children, concerning their calling and employment of their children, especially of their ability to read and understand the principles of religion* and the capital laws of the country." Selectmen were further empowered, "with consent of any Court or the Magistrate, to put forth apprentices the children of such as they should find not to be able and fit to employ and bring them up," and were to be presented by the Grand Jurors if they neglected this duty. Boston had a school, Ibid., 9. The following order, * It is likely that every family had a passed in Dedham in obedience to this with some sort of public encouragement, in its fifth year. The inhabitants passed a vote, "that our Schools. 1635. brother Philemon Pormont be entreated to become schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing of youth among us."1 Pormont attached April 13. himself to the Antinomians, and went off to Exeter with Wheelwright. The Reverend Daniel Maude was 1636. appointed his successor; and for his maintenance Aug. 12. a contribution of fifty pounds was made, of which sum Winthrop, Vane, and Bellingham gave each ten pounds. Five years later, the income from Deer Island, in Boston harbor, was appropriated to the support of a school.2 1641. In New Haven, a provision for the eaucation of the young was one of the earliest objects of attention. It was "ordered that a free school should be set 1642. up," and that Mr. Davenport and the Magistrates Feb. 25. should "consider what yearly allowance was meet to be given to it out of the common stock of the town, and also what rules and orders were meet to be observed in and about the same." 3 The famous Ezekiel Cheever, afterwards of Boston, was the first schoolmaster of that place. In Hartford, John Higginson, afterwards minister successively of Saybrook, Guilford, and Salem, taught law, shows that the governors of that 1 Snow, History of Boston, 348. N. H. Rec., I. 62; comp. 210. 1640. a school as early as the second or third year after the Pequot war.1 Collins, the son-in-law of Mrs. Hutchinson, succeeded him.2 Next, the school received a permanent endowment of thirty pounds, and the stipend of William Andrews as schoolmaster was fixed at sixteen pounds a year, the town voting at the same time to "pay for the schooling of the 1642. 1643. poor and for all deficiencies." 3 Newport was no less prompt in making provision for the instruction of the 1640. Aug. 20. young. Mr. Robert Lenthal was "called to keep a public school for the learning of youth, and for his encouragement there was granted to him and his heirs one hundred acres of land, and four more for a house-lot ;" and it was "voted that one hundred acres should be laid forth and appropriated for a school, for encouragement of the poorer sort, to train up their youth in learning." But Lenthal soon went away, and the policy of a public provision for education did not obtain permanent favor in Rhode Island. Harvard 1642. 4 In the summer before the confederation of the Colonies, the first Commencement of Harvard College was held. Nine young men, having been four years under its instruction, were then admitted to the first academical degree, and "performed their acts so as gave good proof of their proficiency in the Tongues. and Arts." The course of study, adopted from the contemporaneous practice of the English Universities, consisted of Latin and Greek (in which some proficiency was required for admission); of logic, arithmetic, geometry, and physics; and of Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and divinity, the forming of a learned ministry being a |