1630 1640 1650 1660
New Netherlands………….. 500 1000 3000 6000
Massachusetts……………. 1300 14000 18000 25000
Virginia…………………. 3000 8000 17000 33000
[4] The name and the form came alike from old England, where an irregular area known as a "town" or a "township," constituted the unit of representation in the shiremoats and the membership of the church parish. Almost every town and parish officer known in England was created by the new towns in New England, with practically the same functions as in the old home.
[5] "The settlers were in the first freshness of their Utopian enthusiasm, and their church establishment was the very heart of their enterprise. It became therefore a matter of primary importance to educate preachers. For ages preparation for the ministry had consisted mainly in acquiring a knowledge of Latin, the sacred tongue of western Christendom. Though the Latin service was no longer used by Protestants, and the Vulgate Bible had been dethroned by the original text, and though the main stream of English theology was by this time flowing in the channel of the mother tongue, the notion that all ministers should know Latin had still some centuries of tough life in it." (Eggleston, E., The Transit of Civilization, p. 225.)
[6] For example, the town of Boston, in 1641, devoted the income from Deere Island to the support of schools, and Plymouth, in 1670, appropriated the income from the Cape Cod fishing industry to the support of grammar schools (R. 194 c).
These are among the earliest of the permanent endowments for education in
America.
[7] See The Development of School Support in Colonial Massachusetts, by George L. Jackson, for a careful study of the different early methods of school support.
[8] The Puritan emigrants to New England represented a sturdy and well- educated class of English country squires and yeomen. They came of thrifty and well-to-do stock, the shiftless and incompetent not being represented. All had had good educational advantages, and many were graduates of Cambridge University. It has been asserted that probably never since has the proportion of college men in the community been so large.
[9] Martin, Geo. H., The Evolution of the Massachusetts Public-School System, pp. 14-16.
[10] The charging of a tuition fee to those who could afford to pay was a common European practice of the time, nevertheless the public authorities —at that time a mixture of civil and church officials—provided the school, employed and licensed the teacher, determined the textbooks to be used, and laid down the conditions under which the school should be conducted. The schoolmaster assisted the church by participating in the Sunday services. The elementary school of the Dutch, which was copied in the New Netherland, was thus a combination of a public and parochial, and a free and pay school.
[11] This was, of course, much more true of New York City and Island than of the outlying Dutch villages. In these latter a public school was for long maintained.