economy; by improving the mind, cultivating the heart, and elevating the character, we are equally bound to discourage those institutions which furnish the ailment of mendacity, by removing the incentive to labor, and administering to the blandishments of sensuality."

PHILANTHROPY

This leads to the larger question of charity or philanthropy which, as the next section and the thesis proper show, had important bearings on education. The prevailing conception of charity is well illustrated in the free ("free" was, at this time, synonymous with "charity") schools. These were maintained by churches, exclusively, and were restricted to the poor of the denomination—until, in some cases, it was financially profitable to admit others.10 At best it was a recognition of a group obligation toward the unfortunate members of the group-and the group was usually a religicus denomination. In fact, charity (and education was a phase of charitable endeavor) was regarded as a primary duty of the church, and it was the church which administered the system of public relief. Unquestionably this was the course of the main current, but below there was a strong undercurrent. The movement toward secularization was its most general expression, and is discussed later. Its concrete embodiment in this connection is found in the poor-relief law of 1784,11 and the organization of the Association for the Sick Poor in 1795. By the law of 1784, the offices of the church-warden and the vestryman in the city of New York and in Queens, Richmond and Westchester counties were abolished, and the relief of the poor was made a public function, to be administered not as heretofore by church officers, but by public officers. This is a significant indication of the direction in which things were moving. The name of the "Association for the Relief of the Sick Poor," is not exactly descriptive of its function, for it was educational as well as humanitarian in the general sense. Its constitution restricted its membership to the Society of Friends, but provided that "no relief be afforded to the people

"Messages from the Governors (1818), v. 2, pp. 914-5.

10Cf. Documents in School Controversy as published in Bourne's History of Public School Society, pp. 61-63.

called Quakers." When the society opened a school in 1801, it was intended for those whose parents belonged to no religious society, and who, from some cause or other, could not be admitted to the charity schools of the city.12

As a private matter, philanthropy was sustained by religious sanctions as now, but much more universally then-the personal reward of the charitable in a future life. Or as Cummings rather aptly puts it: "The system of poor relief was founded upon a liberal interpretation of the doctrine that it is more blessed to give than to receive, which mainly regarded the poor and needy merely as a means of grace given by divine wisdom to the end that the elect may have proper exercise for their virtues."13

But that misery or indigence was frequently of social origin and no matter what its origin, had important social effects, and that the remedy, charity, or whatever you choose to call it, was a vital social problem-a view which Clinton was about to impress upon his generation in a masterly way-had hardly been conceived by the community itself or by any large group in the community-except possibly the Quakers. The proposal that the community was the only power to deal with the problem in a large and comprehensive way, was against the individualistic bent of the people; it was "undemocratic." And yet it is easily demonstrable, were this the place, that such community action is the only possible reconcilation between charity and democracy.

As remarked above, the poor relief law of 1784 was an indication of the direction in which things were moving, i. e., the movement from a religious to a secular view of human affairs. The Free School Society itself offers further indications of this movement. It announced as a "primary object" that in Sunday School as in the Common School, “it will be a primary object, without observing the peculiar forms of any religious society, to inculcate the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures." As usual the religious motive is asserted. This of itself is not noteworthy. But the publications of the society during its first year (1805) are prophetic of the new tendency.

From the address "to the public" we learn that its purpose was not merely moral and religious instruction, but "the common rudiments of learning, essentially requisite for the due management of the ordinary business of life." In its memorial to the Legislature, this new note was sounded more clearly: "The consequences of this neglect of education are ignorance and vice, and all those manifold evils resulting from every species of immorality, by which public hospitals and alm-houses are filled with objects of disease and poverty, and society burthened with taxes for their support." And again: "The rich having ample means for the education of their offspring, it must be apparent that the laboring poor-a class of citizens so evidently useful-have a superior claim to public support."

THE GENERAL MOVEMENT TOWARD SECULARIZATION

But the movement toward secularization was broader than this, and had been gaining impetus steadily during the eighteenth century. It is impossible here to indicate its progress in Europe since the Reformation, nor its course in New York State during the colonial period. Its momentum can be judged by two facts of post-Revolutionary history.

The first, of wider significance, is found in the Constitution of the United States. Section three of article six requires that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," and the first clause of the first amendment is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The other is the Regents legislation. By the Act of May, 1784, the church was permitted no ex officio regents and instead there was to be an elective clerical representative who might be a member of any sect. Further, any denomination might establish a professorship in divinity. And, finally, there was to be no religious tests for professors. This applied only to Columbia College, and any prospective colleges organized by the Regents. The legislation of 1787 went even further by providing that there was to be no clerical representation as such on the Board of Regents or the trustees of any college or academy. It was provided with reference to Columbia, for example, that the old charter be "absolutely

sons shall be trustees of the same in virtue of any offices, characters, or description whatever, excepting also such clauses as require the taking of oaths and subscribing the declaration therein mentioned, and which render a person ineligible to the office of President on account of his religious tenets; and prescribe a form of public prayer to be used in the said college." Practically the same provisions were made for the academies.

CHAPTER II

EDUCATIONAL CONDITIONS

INTRODUCTORY

Educationally, things were at a low ebb at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Naturally the upheaval caused by the Revolution was evident in every phase of human activity. Governor George Clinton in his message of January 21, 1784, says: "Neglect of education is among the evils consequent on war— perhaps there is scarce anything more worthy your attention than the revival and encouragement of seminaries of learning; and nothing by which we can satisfactorily express our gratitude to the Supreme Being for his past favors, since piety and virtue are generally the offspring of an enlightened understanding."

Education was very inadequately provided for at the beginning of the century; elementary education more so than either secondary or advanced. There were no public elementary schools, few academies, and only two colleges. There were a few professional schools, but attendance at these was not a necessary passport to the practise of the profession.

The elementary schools so far as they existed were ungraded and housed most unsuitably. More often the elementary school was the living room of some old woman of the neighborhoodthe "dame school." Teachers were untrained and were in many cases illiterate. Expert supervision of instruction was probably not dreamed of. Text-books were few and poor. Compulsory school attendance and all the machinery of the present-day educa

1There is no mention of education in the first constitution of the State. 2Cf. the following divisions of this chapter "Higher Education," and "Private Schools within New York City." Cf. especially Gov. George Clinton's statement in 1795 given later.