April 22.-Mill buildings, Sophia Street, between Edward and Van Horn, occupied by Isaac Casson & Co., machinists, Joseph Weiss, and Roher & Noell, furniture-manufacturers, destroyed by fire; loss, $30,000. April 22.-Chemical and fertilizing works of Baugh & Sons, Delaware River, below Tasker Street; loss, $60,000. April 25.-Drug and spice mills of McIlvaine & Bro., southwest corner of Fifteenth and Hamilton Streets; loss, $30,000. May 21.-Shoddy-mill of Albert Lees & Bros., Terrace Street, near Dawson, Manayunk; loss, $50,000. June 2.-United States Chair and Furniture Company's factory, northeast corner of Sixth and Oxford Streets, occupied by J. I. Hill, J. Pfy, turner, B. F. Richardson, and others; loss, $30,000. June 2.-Fire at 309 Race Street; extended to an adjoining building, occupied by Wickersham & Co., oils; G. D. Ellis, trusses and tools; E. M. Holmes, railroad- and ship-lanterns, etc.; loss, $13,000. July 1.-Auction-house of M. Thomas & Son, Nos. 139 and 141 South Fourth Street; loss, $250,000. July 8.-Malt-house of Bergner & Engle's brewery, Thirty-second and Thompson Streets; loss, $20,000. July 14.-Factory of M. L. Shoemaker & Co., fertilizers, Delaware Avenue and Venango Street; loss, $20,000. July 17.-Lampblack-works of Luther Martin & Co., Twenty-ninth and Oxford Streets; loss, $30,000. July 23.-Fire east side of Front Street, above Brown, and upon Brown and Beach Streets, which burned a store-house, dwellings, storehouse of the Carpenter Ice Company, and the lumber-yard of H. C. Rushton and W. M. Fox & Brother; less, $50,000. July 26.-Cotton dye-house and other buildings of Greenwood & Bauer, Oxford and Worth Streets, Frankford; loss, $20,000. August 17.-Fire at Nos. 8 and 10 Strawberry Street, occupied by C. R. Jones & Co., parasols and umbrellas, Philadelphia Bag Manufacturing Company, Gross & Voight, toys, George H. Byrd, yarns and woolens, with damage to some adjoining buildings; less, $75,000. August 26.-Planing-mill and manufactory, southwest corner of Girard Avenue and Vienna Street, destroyed by fire, occupied by F. S. Quay, planing; R. S. Officer, boxes; Swain & Co., bath-tubs; Goldberg & Brother, trunks; loss, $16,500. September 8.-China and glass establishment of Fisher, Son & Co., 519 Market Street; damages, $31,000. September 25.-Franklin Sugar Refinery of Harrison, Havemeyer & Co., on Delaware Avenue, extending from Bainbridge to Almond Street. Three buildings, respectively three, nine, and eleven stories high, destroyed; loss, $500,000; one workman was killed. September 28.-Candy manufactory of Philip Wenderle, New Market Street, above Pegg; loss, $40,000. October 16.-Freight- and passenger-station of Philadelphia and Atlantic City (narrow-gauge) Railroad at Pier 8, South Wharves, destroyed by fire; also steam-tug "Major," belonging to the company; steam-tug 64 Argus," with some adjoining shipping, considerably injured; loss estimated at $40,000. November 23.-Arrott's Ontario Mill, Second Street, near Columbia Avenue, burned. Occupied by Clark & Keen, woolen-goods manufacturers; Priestly & Bro., dress goods; Madely & Titlow, woolen carders; loss, $200,000. November 25.-Barge "Potomac" and cargo, at Catherine Street wharf; loss, $40,000. December 5.-Arrott's mill, northwest corner of Coral and Taylor Streets, occupied by Joseph Greer, cotton and woolen manufacturer; Jaggard & Jones, Henry Grant, Stead Bros., and Robert Beatty, yarnspinners, burned; loss, $115,000. December 5.-Rebmann & Ruhland's iron-foundry, Twenty-second and Master Streets; loss, $25,000. December 12.-Enterprise Mills, Main Street, near Ridge Avenue, Manayunk, occupied by Joseph M. Adams, Kelly & Wilhere, Lord & Connor, and John Wilde & Bro., cotton and woolen yarn-spinners; one girl injured by jumping from the upper windows; one died from burns; sixteen persons injured; loss, $65,000. December 12.-Goldsmith's Hall, Library Street, east of Fifth, totally destroyed by fire. Occupants, E. G. Haehnlen & Co., dealers in chamois skins; E. C. Markley & Sons, printers; A. C. Farley & Co., manufacturing stationers; Lehman & Bolton, lithographers; custom-house and note-brokers, lawyers, etc.; loss, $350,000. December 28.- Buildings and works of Schuylkill Paraffine Oil Company, corner Maiden and Gray's Ferry roads, operated by Samuel Bryan; loss, $30,000. 1883, January 3.-Dry-goods store of Hood, Bonbright & Co., on the Filbert Street front, west of Eighth Street; loss, $72,000. January 12.-Canton Cotton- and Woolen-Mills of Fitzpatrick & Holt, Leverington Avenue, Manayunk; loss, $20,000. January 30.-Fire at 250-256 North Broad Street, occupied by Levi Knowles & Co., J. Allen & Co., E. H. Graham & Co., flour and grain merchants; Edmund Hill & Co., machinists; and E. W. Siegman & Co., dealers in agricultural implements. Loss, $100,000. February 5.-Furniture manufactory of Julian Kraan, No. 942 North Ninth Street; loss, $20,000. March 8.-Loiseau Fuel Company's works, corner Linden and Bath Streets, Twenty-fifth Ward; loss, $50,000. March 19.-Cotton- and woolen-mill of C. J. Milne; loss, $50,000. April 14.-C. A. Blessing's plumbers' metal-works, Montgomery, below Sixth Street; loss, $70,000. April 22.-Woolen-mill of Daniel Jones & Son, Fifty-fifth Street and Hunter's Lane; loss, $30,000. April 26.-Fire at the Arch Street Opera-House, by which the interior was burned out; loss, $18,000. May 3.-Fire at southeast corner Germantown Avenue and Master Street, occupied by D. F. Rawle, flour-dealer; John Richardson, furniture manufacturer; Montague & White, hosiery; John Patterson, hosiery; Walton Ritter, cotton goods. Loss, $23,000. Fayer, cigar May 13.-Fire at 1512-1516 Spring Garden Street, occupied by North American Smelting-Works, Pennsylvania Brass-Works, D. W. Bing, foundry and machine-shops; D. B. Birch, miller; moulder; and James Kerr, manufacturer; loss, $35,000. May 22. Saw- and planing-mill and steam packing-box factory, Marshall Street, above Girard Avenue, occupied by W. H. Howard, Williware & Yiest, and William Stone; loss, $115,000. June 5.-Furniture manufacturing establishment of John Ebert, Edward Street, west of Hancock; also occupied by D. R. Dover, bobbinturner; and William W. Altemus & Son, manufacturers of kuittingmachines; adjoining properties damaged; loss, $85,000. August 7.-Stable and ice-houses of Knickerbocker Ice Company, Willow Street wharf; thirty horses and four mules burned to death; loss, $35,000; Reading freight depot, adjoining, damaged. August 11.-Picker-room of woolen-mill of Robert Wilde & Son, Leverington Avenue, near Hamilton Street, Manayunk; loss, $15,000. August 29.-Woolen-mill, northwest corner Cumberland and Third Streets, occupied by Gilmour & Morris, finishers; Lee & Bowers, woolens; Robert Laycock, woolens; Garner & Co., worsted; Joseph P. Murphy. shawls, etc.; loss, $50,000. September 7.-Stables of Chestnut and Walnut Streets Passenger Railway Company, extending on Sansom Street from Forty-first to Forty-second; loss, $50,000. September 7.-Ice-house and stable and plaster-mill of T. B. Wright, Sutherland Avenue, between Catharine and Christian Streets; loss, $50,000. September 19.-Saw- and planing-mill, Norris and Richmond Streets, occupied by Jesse W. Taylor & Sons and Henry Bradshaw, hardwood goods, burned, and adjoining property injured; loss, $30,000. September 19.-Fire broke out in the lumber-yard of James Gill, 1168 North Third Street, which spread and destroyed nearly the whole block of buildings bounded by Third Street, Canal Street, Charlotte Street, and Girard Avenue, occupied by Gill's lumber-yard, Eagle Iron-Works of Hoff & Fontaine, and from fifteen to twenty dwelling-houses, shops, and other buildings; loss, estimated at $75,000. September 29.-Saw- and planing-mill, Willow, between Eleventh and Twelfth Streets, property of the assignees of William B. Thomas, and occupied by J. J. Crout & Son, sash, blind, and door manufacturers, and Henry A. Hunsicker, planing-mill, burned; loss, $20,000. October 28.-Mansion of E. N. Benson, Chestnut Hill; loss, $80,000. November 17.-Sheds of the American Line Steamship Company, at Christian Street wharf. Cotton and other merchandise intended for shipment burned; also the tugboat "Pallas," some hoisting-floats, lighters, and other vessels; loss, estimated at $112,000. November 17.-Handle-factory of Henry Disston & Sons' saw-works, Tacony; loss, $50,000. November 17.-F. G. Luersson's dwelling and cigar-store, 2501 Germantown Avenue; Charles Mallon, an inmate, burned to death. November 19.-Stables of Christopher Hare, Washington Avenue, below Seventh Street; twenty-six horses and two mules burned to death. 1884, January 26.-Perseverance wood-works of Mahlon Fulton, Ninth Street, above Oxford; loss, $75,000. February 16.-Flour warehouse and depot of E. Lathbury & Co., Vine Street, above Broad; loss, $60 000. The western wall fell February 17th, crushing in adjacent buildings on Vine Street and Leeds Avenue. One citizen and one fireman killed. February 28.- Powers & Weightman, manufacturers of chemicals Pennsylvania. There had been schools during the asand drugs; nineteen out of twenty-six buildings, bounded by Knox, cendency of the Swedes and the Dutch. The Swedes Brown, Kessler, and Parrish Streets, were destroyed; loss, $1,500,000. March 6.-Oil-cloth works of George W. Blaybon & Co., Nicetown (coating, grinding, and printing buildings); loss, $150,000. March 15.-Spice manufactory of A. Colburn & Co, Broad Street, above Arch; loss, $75,000. CHAPTER XLVII. EDUCATION. The Public Schools of Philadelphia.-The same earnest solicitude for public education which made itself manifest in the settlement of the New England colonies to an unusual degree does not run through the early history of Pennsylvania; yet, outside of the Puritan settlements, there was no other colony which paid so much attention as Pennsylvania to the mental training of its youth. During the seventeenth century, the general character of the colony, as regards the intelligence of its people, stood deservedly high. The school-house, with its inevitable concomitant, the printing-press, never at any time ceased to exert its wholesome influence in training up a population which, as regards sobriety, thrift, and all the substantial qualities that flow from instruction, has never been surpassed by any other great community. William Penn, who was one of the most accomplished scholars of his time, never wearied in pointing out to the colony the advantages of public education. The constitution which he proposed for the infant commonwealth contains the direction that virtue and wisdom must be propagated by educating the youth, and that after-ages would have the benefit of the care and prudence of the founders in this respect. It was one of the provisions of the "great law of April 25, 1683, that "schools should be established for the education of the young," and the authorities of the new government did not delay in carrying it into practical effect. On the 26th of December, 1683, at a meeting of the Provincial Council, held in this city, the subject of providing for the education of the children of the colony came up for discussion, and it was agreed that there existed a great necessity for a schoolmaster. Accordingly an agreement was entered into with Enoch Flower, who promised that, in conducting such an establishment as was needed, he would charge only four shillings for teaching English each quarter, six shillings for reading and writing, and eight shillings for reading, writing, and casting accounts. A scholar who boarded with him would receive his tuition, as well as lodging, meals, and washing, for ten pounds a year. These charges seem to have been fixed by Flower and the Council with the idea of making education as cheap and as popular as possible. This was the first regular English school in are known to have maintained schools at Chester and Tinicum as early as 1642, and the Dutch records show that in 1657 Evert Pieterson came over from Holland, and in the capacity of "schoolmaster, comforter of the sick, and setter of Psalms," taught twenty-five pupils. These schools were of the most primitive character, but they served the purpose of the simple-minded little communities of herdsmen and farmers, who thought more of the wagon than they did of books. In the year 1689 Penn's ideas about a public school, as he had communicated them to Thomas Lloyd, were put into practice by engaging George Keith at a salary of fifty pounds a year, the use of a house, and the profits of the school for one year, to open a grammar school. Keith accepted the offer, and the institution which he founded was known for many years afterward as a well-managed school. Here the children of the poor were instructed free of charge, the school-house being located on Fourth Street, below Chestnut, and being conducted under a charter which had been procured by Edward Shippen, David Lloyd, John Jones, Samuel Carpenter, Anthony Morris, James Fox, William Southby, and others. Keith was the Scotch Quaker who afterward embroiled the province in controversy by his refusal to subscribe to the doctrines of the Friends in all their original orthodoxy, and who subsequently became a minister of the Church of England. He was assisted by Thomas Makin, a Latin scholar, who is known to antiquarians by a poem in that language, descriptive of Pennsylvania in 1729. After the new school had been in existence for about a year, Makin became its principal, and remained such for many years afterward. The Friends held this school in high estimation, and the character of some of the men who officiated in it as instructorsRobert Proud, D. J. Dove, William Wanney, Charles Thomson, and Jeremiah Todd-shows that it was managed with no mean order of ability. It is curious to note that this institution was not at first regarded with entire favor by some of the leading men of the colony, and that Deputy Governor Thomas Lloyd, wishing his daughters to "finish their education," sent them to Lewiston, Delaware. During the sixty years following the establishment of Keith's school there was no attempt made to start schools that would be free to all and not marked by the distinction between rich and poor children. This democratic principle was not clearly formulated and advanced until it was taken up by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, when he distributed gratis a pamphlet which he had written on the question, and which soon became productive of important results in the establishment of the future University of Pennsylvania. Prior to that time most of the schools in the province were conducted either under strictly private auspices or under the patronage of religious denom inations. Thus a very distinguished seminary of learning in its time, humble though it was, was the "Log College," which the Rev. William Tennent, an Irish clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, had established about the year 1726 in Bucks County, near the forks of the Neshaminy Creek, and in which such eminent Presbyterians of the colony in the eighteenth century as Beatty, Robinson, Rowland, Campbell, Lawrence, and Blair obtained their education. Mr. Tennent's school was much encouraged by Thomas Lyon, who not only granted it land, but on some occasions would send its founder provisions in his lonely retreat. A little later on some notable Philadelphians, such as George Read, Charles Thomson, and Thomas McKean, received their first instruction from Rev. Francis Allison, who, in 1741, opened a school at New London, in Chester County, where he taught the languages, and who subsequently removed to Thunder Hill, in Maryland. During the early part of the seventeenth century the Swedes had schools of their own, in which they attempted to resist the educational usages of the English, and to keep up the study of the Swedish language. The Lutherans also paid much attention to the education of their youth, and established German schools before the year 1750. course of a female Friend and a prayer," by William Darrach, a schoolmaster. The Revolutionary war left the people but little opportunity or inclination to consider educational interests. Some of the pedagogues went into the American army, and many of the schools were closed up, particularly during the British occupation of the city. The Germantown Academy, for instance, remained unopened during the greater part of the six years after 1778. When peace was declared there was a revival of interest in school affairs. One of the first acts of the Legislature was to make grants of land to the Germantown Academy, and teachers soon began to be numerous. At this time there were at least one hundred persons, the majority of whom were women, that gained their living in the various schools of the city, and fifteen years later the number had doubled. The books that were commonly used during this period were Bennet's Primer, Dilworth's Speller, Rose's Assistant (arithmetic), Fuller's Catechism, and Esop's Fables. It was not difficult, however, for persons of moderate means to obtain an education for their children in the classics and the higher branches of learning. The Friends' Academy, as well as the Academy which was united with the College of Philadelphia, gave the city a large reputation among the colonies as a seat of learning, and supplied an excellent order of instruction. Just before the Revolution there had been an attempt made to found an institution designed more particularly for Germans who wished to obtain some knowledge of the higher sciences, English law, medicine, and theology. It was under the control of the So Knowledge among the Germans in America, which was composed of twenty-four members, who had each contributed ten pounds. The Rev. H. M. Muhlenberg was the chief director of the enterprise, but, like many other undertakings of a similar character, it was abandoned during the Revolutionary struggle. When a school languished, or was in need of funds, it was not then uncommon to raise money by a lottery. Thus, in 1769, the projectors of the Germantown Academy never thought of entertaining scruples about starting a lottery by which they could secure twelve hundred pounds. The agitation of the subject of starting the Philadelphia Academy and charity schools in 1749-50 (see University of Pennsylvania) had a beneficial effect upon the community, not alone as regards the founding of this particular institution, but in the general interest which was stimulated in educational matters. The number of private schools began to increase, and in 1751 a night school was opened by William Milne, who taught reading, writing, arith-ciety for the Promotion of Christianity and all Useful metic, spelling, navigation, mensuration, and geometry. In 1756, the Baptist Association, which was composed of ministers of that denomination, took measures toward raising money for a Latin grammar school, which soon afterward was placed under the charge of Isaac Eaton, and which was supported by the churches. Three years later there was a meeting held at Germantown, at which it was resolved to erect a commodious building for an "English and High Dutch or German school." In 1761 it was opened under the name of the Germantown Union SchoolHouse, with sixty-one English and seventy German pupils, who studied such branches as Greek, Latin, and mathematics. It was erected on Bensell's Lane, which afterward came to be known as School-House Lane. Under the title of the Germantown Academy it had a long and honorable career. About the same time there also existed a Moravian school, and in 1763 Episcopalian scholars were instructed under the auspices of the authorities of Christ Church. The progress of the population in the gentler and refined arts of life is attested by the existence of a "ladies' boarding-school" in 1767. That stenography was practiced to some degree is evident from an announcement of a report in short hand of the dis Nor was the education of the very humblest classes of the city's population entirely neglected during the last century. The Society of Friends, whose philanthropy was always practiced so quietly, and yet so effectively, opened, in 1770, a free school for the blacks, and a bequest of the Rev. Thomas Bray, an Episcopalian clergyman, who had come over to the colony before the close of the seventeenth century, and who, in his will, had made provisions for missionary work, was diverted in 1774 to the purpose of educating colored youths. Before the year 1790 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society had started a similar school. It was about this time that Sunday-schools began to be popular. They were not exactly what we of the present day understand by that term. Their essential object was not, as it now is, religious instruction. The members of the society for the support of the schools opened them on Sunday, because on that day many young persons had better opportunities than at any other time to learn how to read, write, and cipher. Three of these schools were kept in operation, and it is estimated that they had an average attendance of about two hundred and fifty pupils. One of the most fashionable institutions of these days was Poor's Academy for Young Ladies, which was started on Cherry Street, about 1787, by John Poor. It was incorporated in 1792, and for some time, under the presidency of the Rev. Samuel Magaw, its reputation stood deservedly high. Its curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, with the use of the maps and globes, and vocal music. As many as one hundred and fifty pupils a year attended the academy, and for a young lady to be a graduate from it was considered as an evidence that she possessed much more than the ordinary accomplishments. The annual commencement days in the churches, and the street parades, were occasions of much interest in the town. The vocal studies of the fair pupils were in particular noteworthy. Pianos were then beginning to be introduced, and were superseding the spinet, the harpsichord, and the guitar. The study of the modern languages seems to have been almost entirely a matter of individual engagement with private tutors. Just after the Revolution teachers of French, Spanish, and Italian, who were not then in the habit of dubbing themselves "professors," were frequently to be met with, and owing to the intimate relation which existed between this country and France particular stress was laid upon the value of a knowledge of the French tongue. The schools were generally conducted with simplicity and severity. The closest application was required of the pupils. Very little that was only ornamental was permitted in their management. Until 1795 such titles as "seminaries," "institutes," and "lyceums" were hardly known. The rod and the strap were applied regularly to offenders and delinquents of both sexes, and often in the presence of both. Indeed, with the exception of the young ladies at the academy and one or two other schools of that kind, the boys and girls were mostly taught together in the same classes. The schoolmasters administered the punishment of flogging with the greatest apparent delight in the exercise. This was accounted for by reference to the fact that many of them were Englishmen or Irishmen, who had contracted these rigorous notions of discipline in their home-training. "They conceived, and conceived truly," says Watson, in his "Annals," "that their business was to make their scholars good writers, good readers, good arithmeticians, and intelli gent grammarians;" and then they justly inferred that they were qualified by their own separate exertions to improve themselves at home, if they would," in all manner of intellectual attainments, such as history, philosophy, belles-lettres," etc. If these pedagogues, who were generally quiet, unaspiring men, managed (by teaching their scholars at ten shillings a quarter) to acquire a home in the course of their lifetime they were content. They were slow to welcome innovations, but applied themselves to their duties with a zeal which was as unostentatious as it was intense in its single-minded devotion. Nor were the schoolhouses in which they held forth elaborate edifices. Little of that busy ingenuity with which the educators of to-day endeavor to make school life comfortable and attractive was then bestowed on the class-room. In 1770 there was a private academy at the upper end of the city, near the river front, and not far above what is now Vine Street. It was a long stone building, three stories high on Water Street and two stories on Front Street, and was thought to be very attractive on account of its beautiful situation. was. A fair picture of the school life of the time is given by Watson in his description of the old "Friends' Academy," on Fourth Street, below Chestnut. "The principal was of middle size, round, and strongly built, habited as a clergyman, in parson's gray suit, cocked hat, and full-bottomed powdered wig." There were four different masters. "The west room down-stairs was occupied by Robert Proud, Latin master; the one above him by William Waring, teacher of astronomy and mathematics; the east room, up-stairs, by Jeremiah Paul; and the one below, last, but not least in our remembrance, by J. Todd, severe as he The State-House clock being at the time visible from the school pavement, gave to the eye full notice when to break off marble and plug-top hastily, collect the 'stakes' and bundle in pell-mell to the school-room, where, until the arrival of the 'master of scholars,' John, they were busily employed every one in finding his place under the control of a short Irishman usher, named Jimmy McCue." Forty years ago this writer looked back upon those as halcyon times, and his own as somewhat degenerate. Education seemed to him then to be more perplexing, wearisome, and annoying than it was in the time of his early recollection, and the teachers, too, much affected in their imitations of colleges, and in their desire to teach the ornamental branches of learning. And now in turn we have the same complaints of our schools, in 1884, with many an endearing allusion to the simplicity of the schools of forty years ago. It was not until the beginning of the present century that the idea of educating children generally at the expense of the State or the taxpayers began to find a lodgment in the public mind. In January, 1792, the society which had carried on the three Sunday-schools had asked the Legislature to make effective that part of the Constitution of 1790 which enjoined the Legislature to provide for schools throughout the State in such a manner that the poor might be taught gratis. Plans for setting up a school in each county that had three representatives were formulated by a legislative committee, but nothing came of them for three years, when Governor Mifflin impressed the Houses with the importance of the subject. Finally, in 1796, the Assembly took up a bill which had for its object the gratuitous tuition of the poor, one-fifth of the expense to be borne by the State, and four-fifths by county taxes. It was met with remonstrances from many quarters, principally from the Friends and the Lutherans, who argued that they supported their own schools, that they never received any assistance from the State, and that a general school tax would not be consistent with equal justice. The bill managed to pass the House, but its progress was stopped in the more conservative Senate. Governor Mifflin repeatedly called the attention of the Assembly to the need of such a law, and at nearly every session up to the year 1802 the feasibility of public schools was discussed by the representatives of the people. In that year, however, was planted the first germ of our public-school system in an act which applied only to the city and county of Philadelphia, and by the terms of which the children of persons who were too poor to pay for their education were provided for and distributed among the private schools, and the cost of their tuition was paid out of the county treasury. This was not done without much opposition from the conservative element of the city, which could not relish an innovation, and especially one which, as they considered it, made a deep and unjust inroad upon their pockets for the sake of people in whom they felt no interest. Far from being animated by this spirit was a little gathering of young men, who in the winter of 1799 were in the habit of talking over the need of popular education, and who, although they were only apprentices, clerks, and newly-started business men, were enterprising enough to form an association, called "The Philadelphia Society for the Free Instruction of Indigent Boys." They opened a night-school, did much good, and soon became of sufficient importance to ask for an act of incorporation. Just at this time a wealthy German citizen, Christopher Ludwick, who had meditated the establishment of a charity school, died, leaving eight thousand dollars to the association which should be first incorporated for the purpose of teaching gratis poor children in Philadelphia, without any regard to the nativity or religion of their parents or their friends. The trustees of the University of Pennsylvania were also anxious to obtain this handsome fund, and they and the young men of the new society struggled earnestly for priority in securing a charter. Governor McKean, in order that no favors might be shown, delivered to the agents of the rivals at the same moment their articles of incorporation. Before these documents became legal it was necessary to have them recorded in the rolls office at Lancaster. The bearers of the papers sat out from this city in a hot race to reach that town first. The messenger for the University, who was on horseback, and Temple Bennett Eves, for the society, who was drawn in a sulky, drove their animals furiously; but Eves soon distanced his competitor, and arrived in Lancaster, sixty-six miles distant, in seven hours. He succeeded in completing the incorporation of the society before the University trustees could do so for themselves, and thus ultimately established its claim to Ludwick's legacy, a fund which proved to be of much benefit to the poor children of the city. The Ludwick School, conducted by this society, was first opened in a room of the Third Presbyterian Church, at Third and Arch Streets, and afterward in a building on the north side of Walnut Street, above Sixth. The names of Paul Beck and John Keble are also honorably identified with the schools which were founded by this society, through their philanthropy. The colored people of the city did not depend entirely upon the charity of white citizens for the education of poor children. In the year 1804 was formed a Society of Free People of Color for promoting the instruction and school education of children of African descent. Among the projectors of this enterprise were Richard Allen, William Brown, and Joseph Albert. No religious distinctions were permitted, and it was agreed that the Pennsylvania Abolition Society should have the privilege of inspecting the schools, inquiring into the accounts and funds, and suggesting regulations of government. In the same year a school was opened by the society in Carter's Alley, under the charge of John Trumbull as teacher. The congregation of St. Thomas' African Church also adopted measures at the same time for establishing a school which should be more directly under the influence of their religious teachings. At this period there were three or four other schools for the free instruction of colored boys and girls, and there were as many more in which tuition was furnished at fifteen shillings a quarter. In the early part of this century, and probably before the close of the last, there was a school near Darby, taught by Alexander Wilson, afterward celebrated as an ornithologist. He was a Scotchman, who came over to this country about the year 1794, and while living near Darby was on intimate terms with the famous botanist, William Bartram. The building in which he kept school was situated on the Darby road, a short distance west of its intersection with Gray's Ferry road. Wilson, who was of a roving disposition and who had not yet written the book which gave him renown, abandoned the school in 1804, about which time he contributed to the Literary Magazine a long poem of upwards of two hundred lines, recounting the experience of "The Solitary Tutor." Its opening verse was,— |