Gives genius a better discerning.”
Occasionally a certain schoolmaster would be specified in a school-circular as a sober man; proving by the mentioning the infrequency of the qualification.
As the colony grew, other teachers were needed. Governor Stuyvesant sent to the Classis of Amsterdam for “a pious, well-qualified, and diligent schoolmaster.” William Vestens crossed the ocean in answer to this appeal, and taught for five years in one room in New York; while Jan de la Montagne, with an annual salary of two hundred florins, taught at the Harberg—later the Stadt-Huys—and occupied the position of the first public-school teacher.
For years a project of building a schoolhouse was afloat. A spot had been fixed upon, and some money subscribed. In 1649 the Commonalty represented to the West India Company that “the plate was a long time passed around for a common school which has been built with words, for as yet the first stone is not laid.” In response to this appeal, a schoolhouse was at last erected. Still another school was opened by Master Hoboocken, who taught in the Governors’ bowery, where Dutch-American children were already beginning to throng the green lanes and by-ways. He was succeeded by Evert Pietersen, who was engaged as “Consoler of the Sick, Chorister and Schoolmaster;” and all persons without distinction were ordered not to molest, disturb, or ridicule him in either of these offices, but to “deliver him from every painful sensation.” Many of the other schoolmasters had filled similar offices in the church and community.
This public school, maintained with such difficulty and so many rebuffs through these early days, was successfully continued by the Collegiate Dutch Church after the English possession of New York; and it still exists and flourishes, as does the church. This should be a matter of civic pride to every New Yorker. The history of that school has been carefully written, and is most interesting to read.
Many other teachers were licensed to give private lessons, but these public and private schools did not satisfy ambitious New Yorkers. A strong longing was felt in New Amsterdam for a Latin School. A characteristic petition was sent by the burgomasters and schepens to the West India Company:
“It is represented that the youth of this place and the neighborhood are increasing in number gradually, and that most of them can read and write, but that some of the citizens and inhabitants would like to send their children to a school the principal of which understands Latin, but are not able to do so without sending them to New England; furthermore, they have not the means to hire a Latin schoolmaster expressly for themselves from New England, and therefore they ask that the West India Company will send out a fit person as Latin schoolmaster, not doubting that the number of persons who will send their children to such a teacher will from year to year increase until an academy shall be formed whereby this place to great splendour will have attained, for which, next to God, the Honorable Company which shall have sent such teacher here shall have laud and praises. For our own part we shall endeavor to find a fit place in which the schoolmaster shall hold his school.”
The desired “gerund-grinder”—to use Tristram Shandy’s word—was soon despatched. The fit place was found,—a good house with a garden. He was promised an annual salary of five hundred guilders. Each scholar also was to pay six guilders per quarter. But Dr. Curtius’s lines fell in difficult places; he could keep no order among his Latin-school pupils, those bad young New Amsterdamites, who “beat each other and tore the clothes from each other’s backs,” and he complained he was restrained by the orders of parents from properly punishing them. (I may say here that I have not found that New York schoolmasters were ever as cruel as were those of New England.) A graver matter to honest colonists was his charging a whole beaver-skin too much per quarter to some scholars, and soon he was packed back to Holland. His successor, a young man of twenty-two, who had been tutor to Stuyvesant’s sons, had better luck, better control, and a better academy; and New Amsterdam to “great splendour was attained,” having pupils from other towns and colonies, even from so far away as Virginia.
The relations between church, school, and state were equally close throughout all New Netherland. Thus, in 1661, Governor Stuyvesant recommended Charles De Bevoise as schoolmaster for Brooklyn; and when Domine Henricus Selyns left the Brooklyn church, Schoolmaster De Bevoise was ordered to read prayers and sermons, “to read a postille” every Sabbath until another minister was obtained. He was also a krankebesoecker, or comforter of the sick. Even after the establishment of English rule in the colony, the connection of Dutch church and school was equally close. When Johannis Van Eckellen was engaged by the Consistory of the Dutch church in Flatbush in October, 1682, as a schoolmaster for the town, it was under this extremely interesting and minute contract, which, translated, reads thus:—
Articles of Agreement made with Johannis Van Eckellen, schoolmaster and clerk of the church at Flatbush.