schools, the colleges, and the agricultural and technical schools owe their very existence to the generosity of the central government in appropriating lands for their foundation. The Massachusetts law of 1659 had consequences more far-reaching than the uttermost stretch of the imagination of the time could have comprehended. At the time, too, these early central appropriations must have come as welcome benefactions to the struggling little towns whose treasuries were being drawn upon for so many other needs. It is not, however, until 16791 that the Boston records make mention of any specific tax being levied by the town upon the town's inhabitants for school purposes, though it is possible such tax was raised at a considerably earlier date.

In the meantime in other portions of Massachusetts Bay Colony other grammar schools were being established. Within the short period of sixteen years after the first extensive settlements in Massachusetts in 1629 eight Latin schools were founded. These were: Boston, in 1635; Charlestown, in 1636; Ipswich, in 1636; Salem, in 1637; Dorchester, in 1639; Newbury, in 1639; Cambridge, in 1643; and Roxbury, in 1645.2 Each of these was a school of secondary education, and the aims, scope, and instruction given in all were almost precisely the same as those of the Boston school.

On the other hand, the organization, administration, and support of these schools varied slightly with each town in accordance and harmony with the good old Anglo-Saxon doctrine of local self-government. Indeed, throughout the whole history of Massachusetts, even to the present day, the custom has prevailed of allowing local or individual initiative at the outset to take its own

1 Dexter, op. cit., p. 26.

2 Brown, op. cit., pp. 34-42.

course in the administration and execution of political or civic functions. Then, after this "cut and try" method has produced a fairly acceptable procedure, and other towns and communities, likewise experimenting, have (developed a kindred method or standard, the state has stepped in and legitimatized the practices by incorporating into a permissive law the common and salient features of all the local regulations. The provisions of this act have later been extended, optionally, to other towns of similar rank and, finally, when the great majority of the towns have adopted the permissive legislation, the state has closed the gaps by making the law mandatory on all alike. This has been the general course of the history of education throughout Massachusetts; and, since many of the other states of the Union have copied their school systems and legislation from this Commonwealth, it is the common practice in vogue throughout a large portion of the United States.1 In fact, the procedure may not unjustly be regarded as the distinctive feature of Anglo-Saxon governmental practice.

So at the outset of our colonial history each town regulated its school matters as it saw fit, without regard to what other towns were doing-save that in particular matters there was a more or less conscious imitation of the practices thought to be working well in other communities. Sometimes the peculiar local conditions or temporary needs led to the employment of new and hitherto untried methods. In the earliest days school matters, as well as all other town affairs, were discussed and provided for by the whole body of enfranchised citizens of the town, gathered together in town meeting. Then when the town's growth made the town meeting

1 For a complete elaboration of the view set forth above-especially as the practice has affected educational history in Massachusetts-see that most readable little book, Martin's Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System.

unwieldy and inconvenient, and the town's affairs were largely turned over to selectmen, school functions were in most places left to this new body. Executive duties, such as employing the teacher and overseeing the school's needs and the school's work, led soon to the appointment, from among the selectmen, of temporary committees charged with these specified functions. Inasmuch, however, as these or similar duties recurred annually or oftener, the situation gave rise to permanent school committees. Ordinarily, it seems, these were chosen from among the selectmen themselves, but sometimes they were selected from the non-office-holding class. Particularly was this the case in respect to school visitation and inspection-this function, until early in the nineteenth century, being performed either solely by the Christian ministers of the community or conjointly by them and one or more of the selectmen or the school committee.

In some few towns at an early date special officers other than the selectmen or committee of the selectmen were chosen to take complete charge of the schools. Dorchester, Massachusetts, probably enjoys the distinction of being the first town in this country to provide such a body. In 1645 this town voted in town meeting "that three able and sufficient men of the Plantation shall be chosen to be wardens or overseers of the school, who shall have the charge, oversight, and ordering thereof and of all things concerning the same." Dorchester also claims the honor (with how much justice documentary evidence is not able to decide) of being the first municipality in the world to support a public school "by direct taxation or assessment on the inhabitants of the town."2

1 Town records. See Brown, op. cit., p. 39.

2 Brown, ibid., quotes this from the "Dorchester celebration," then adds: A competent public commission appointed some years ago in Massachusetts to set at rest the question where the first free public school came into being, was unable to arrive at any final answer, for lack of clear documentary evidence."

No

At best, the accuracy or inaccuracy of the boast is of little value or importance, save as a source of satisfaction to local pride. The important point to note is that from the very first settlement of towns in New England, attention was given to founding and maintaining schoolsmany of them of secondary grade and all of them directly or indirectly supported by the town or the "better part" thereof.

As above indicated, no two of these schools were organized, administered, or supported in precisely the same way. In some towns, even as late as the eighteenth century, school questions were decided in town meetings by the qualified voters of the town. In others the selectmen, collectively, controlled. In still others we find committees of the selectmen or, as in Dorchester, special school committees who had complete supervision of all school matters.

Likewise, too, in respect to the means of maintaining the schools, there was a variety of sources of revenue. Tuition fees from all who attended, save from the very poorest children, were common in every town. Rentals from public properties and payments for public monopolies were also not infrequent or insignificant sources of school funds. Among these were revenues from lands, weirs, fisheries, and markets — all specifically dedicated to the support of education. In addition, many gifts, bequests, and endowments helped often to swell the funds, and after 1659 occasional grants from the colonial treasury were made.

It is thus seen that from the earliest days the Puritan settlers fostered a spirit and interest in education which have been of vital importance in the history of our country. Strange as it may seem, this interest was not directed primarily to public elementary schools and

education so much as it was to public secondary schools. It was the Latin school that was first founded in Boston in 1635. It was the Latin school that first arose in Charlestown, Dorchester, Roxbury, and the other New England towns. Nor are the explanations of this fact difficult to find. They are discoverable partly in the general traditions of education and educational institutions; partly in the customs immediately current in England at the time of the migrations to America; and partly in the character of the settlers themselves.

In all times and among all peoples, education and literary instruction have been very closely bound up with religious and ecclesiastical matters.1 Among primitive men the shaman, or familiar, acted not only as priest of the tribe but as the teacher of the youth. He it was who, knowing the mysteries of life, was able to transmit them to the adolescent boys. So, too, among the Orientals, the Greeks, and the Romans, education took its rise as a function of the priesthood. With the development of Christianity and the spread of churches, the cathedral and the monastic schools throughout Christendom came to be dominated almost solely by the ecclesiastical authorities. Schools were, therefore, erected and maintained almost completely to the end that religion might be perpetuated, the powers of the Church enhanced, and pious and godly men and women reared. The guide to the religious life, it was conceived, was the Scriptures, and since these for a thousand years had been locked up in the Latin language, the study of the Latin language and literature became paramount. Following the enthusiastic revival of study in the Renaissance and Humanistic movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth

1 This statement and the following are based on the more common views of the various histories of education, such as Brown's, Monroe's, Davidson's, and Laurie's.