LETTER II.

Laws relative to Schools and the Qualifications of Schoolmasters; concerning the Maintenance of Ministers and the Establishment of Public Worship. Early Laws for the Support of Harvard College. Crimes punished by Death. Militia.

DEAR SIR;

THE system of Massachusetts concerning schools is the following:

Every town or district in the state, containing fifty householders, is required to provide a schoolmaster to teach children to read and write, and to instruct them in the English language and arithmetic, six months in each year. If a town or district contain one hundred householders, twelve months; if one hundred and fifty, one school six months for writing, arithmetic, and orthography, and for the English language one school twelve months. If two hundred householders, a grammar school-master, well instructed in the Latin, Greek, and English languages, and an English school-master, each twelve months.

The towns establish the school districts. The select-men determine on the qualifications, which fit the children to enter into the grammar schools.

All instructors of the university, colleges, academies, and schools, and all private instructors, are required to take diligent care and exert their best endeavours to impress on the minds of children and youth committed to their care the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love to their country, humanity and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation, and temperance, and all other virtues; and to show them the tendency of these virtues to secure the blessings of liberty, and the tendency of

the opposite vices to slavery and ruin. School-masters of grammar schools must have received an education at some college or university; must produce a certificate from a learned minister, well skilled in the Greek and Latin languages, or from two such ministers in the vicinity, that they have reason to believe him well qualified to discharge the duties of his office; and a certificate from the minister of the place where he belongs, or from the select-men of the town, or from the committee of the parish, that to the best of his or their knowledge he sustains a good moral character. This certificate is unnecessary to a person who is to keep school in his native place; but the select-men or committee are in this case required specially to attend to his morals.

If a town or district of fifty householders neglect this duty, they are fined £10; if of one hundred householders, £20; if of one hundred and fifty householders, £30; if of two hundred, for neglect of grammar school, £30; and for partial neglects proportional fines are inflicted. These penalties are to be appropriated by the court of sessions for the county to which the deficient town or district belongs, according to their discretion.

The ministers and select-men, or other persons specially chosen for the purpose in the towns or districts, are required to use their best endeavours, that the children regularly attend the schools, and to visit them once in every six months at least.

With respect to other schools, not contemplated in these provisions, it is enacted, that no person shall be a master or mistress of any school, and keep the same, without obtaining a certificate as above, under a penalty of twenty shillings. The duty of every such master or mistress is also made the same in substance as above.

If a person, who is not a citizen, shall keep a school in the commonwealth for one month, he shall be subjected to a fine of £20.

Grand jurors are diligently to inquire and presentment make of all breaches and neglects of this law.

This is in the main an excellent law. It is questionable, however, whether the number of grammar schools provided for is not greater than necessity or even convenience requires

It would also have been better if no person beside a native American had been permitted to keep a school. Such shoals of foreigners have, since the enaction of this law, been naturalized, that the present exclusion is little more than a dead letter.

Schools are as universally kept in this state as in Connecticut. The number of academies is much greater; and, as a body, they are better endowed. Indeed, the efforts of this state to promote useful knowledge are not exceeded on this side of the Atlantic. The benefit of these efforts is realized in every corner of the state.

The spirit and views of those, who formed the constitution of Massachusetts, are fully as well as solemnly disclosed in the second and third articles of the Declaration of Rights. These I will here recite.

"II. It is the right, as well as the duty, of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the Universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship.

"III. As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion, and morality: therefore, to promote their happiness, and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision at their own expense for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.

"And the people of this commonwealth have also a right

to, and do, invest their legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the subjects an attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can conscientiously and conveniently attend.

"Provided notwithstanding, that the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance.

"And all monies paid by the subject to the support of the public worship and of the public teachers aforesaid, shall, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any whose instructions he attends; otherwise it may be paid towards the support of the teacher or teachers of the parish or precinct in which the said monies are raised.

"And every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law."

The laws respecting the settlement and support of ministers, and the building of churches, for the observation of the sabbath, and the preservation of good order in the public worship, are in substance the same with those in Connecticut.

The same observation is generally true concerning the great body of regulations adopted in this state for its internal government.

Generally, the inhabitants are highly respectable for their intelligence, manners, morals, and religion; and will suffer little by a comparison with most communities in the world. They are ardent also in their love of liberty, and yet prompt in obeying and supporting government.

These characteristics of Massachusetts, like those of Connecticut, commenced with its settlement. A law for the support of schools, the substance of which is found in that recited above, was enacted by the legislature of Massachusetts'-Bay in

1654; another, to preevent breaches of the sabbath, in 1652; and a second in 1653. In 1641 a law was passed, which may be considered as a declaration of ecclesiastical rights; in 1646 another, prohibiting open opposition or contempt of ministers and their preaching in any congregation, disturbance of the order and peace of churches, and unnecessary absence from public worship. In 1654 another law was passed, requiring the inhabitants of every town to provide houses and maintenance for their ministers.

I have already mentioned the founding of Harvard college. The first law passed with respect to it was enacted in the year 1636, the second in 1640, the third in 1642. These established the government of it substantially as it is now established, and recognize a gift of £400 from the legislature, and the appropriation of the revenue of the ferry between Charlestown and Boston for its support. In 1659 another law was passed by the general court, granting £100 a year to be paid to the college out of the public treasury. As a reason for this gift, the general court allege their fear lest they should show themselves ungrateful to God, and unfaithful to posterity, if so good a seminary of knowledge and virtue should fall to the ground through any neglect of theirs.

In 1642 a law was passed, requiring the select-men of every town not to suffer so much barbarism in any family as that the parents and masters should not endeavour to teach, by themselves or others, their children and servants to read the English tongue, and to know the capital laws. The penalty for every such neglect was twenty shillings.

The select-men were also required by this law to see that all masters of families catechised their children and servants, once a week at least, in the grounds and principles of religion; or, if unable to do it themselves, that they should procure it to be done; and that they bring up their children and apprentices in some honest, lawful calling, profitable for themselves and the commonwealth, whenever they were unable to train them up in learning to fit them for higher employments. If masters of families, after suitable admonition, refused or neglected to perform these duties, then the select-men, with the help of two magistrates or the next county court, were re