The diary told also of some interesting experiences at the mansion on the Schuylkill. In 1807 "a newly invented iron grate calculated for coal" was installed at Sweetbrier. After less than three weeks' trial Mr. Breck wrote, "By my experiment in coal fuel I find that one fireplace will burn from three to three and a half bushels per week in hard weather and about two and a half in moderate weather. This averages three bushels for twenty-five weeks, the period of burning fire in parlors." The coal cost forty-five cents a bushel, and Mr. Breck decided that wood was a cheaper fuel.
Even in those early days city families had their troubles with servants. "This is a crying evil, which most families feel very sensibly at present," was Mr. Breck's sorrowful statement. Fifteen years after this entry was written, a bitter complaint was made:
"In my family, consisting of nine or ten persons, the greatest abundance is provided; commonly seventy pounds of fresh butcher's meat, poultry and fish a week, and when I have company nearly twice as much; the best and kindest treatment is given to the servants; they are seldom visited by Mrs. Breck, and then always in a spirit of courtesy; their wages are the highest going, and uniformly paid to them when asked for; yet during the last twelve months we have had seven different cooks and five different waiters.... I pay, for instance, to my cook one dollar and fifty cents, and chambermaid one dollar and twenty-five cents per week; to my gardener eleven dollars per month; to the waiter ten dollars; to the farm servant ten dollars, etc., etc. Now, if they remain steady (with meat three times a day) for three or four years, they can lay by enough to purchase two or three hundred acres of new land."
On one occasion, learning that the ship John had arrived from Amsterdam, Mr. Breck visited it in search of men and women. He wrote:
"I saw the remains of a very fine cargo, consisting of healthy, good-looking men, women and children, and I purchased one German Swiss for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself.... I gave for the woman seventy-six dollars, which is her passage money, with a promise of twenty dollars at the end of three years, if she serves me faithfully, clothing and maintenance of course. The boy had paid twenty-six guilders towards his passage money, which I have agreed to give him at the end of three years; in addition to which I paid fifty-three dollars and sixty cents for his passage, and for two years he is to have six weeks' schooling each year."
It was like Mr. Breck to make the provision for schooling. He was an ardent friend of education in an age when too many were indifferent. In 1834, when the fortunes of a proposal for free schools in Pennsylvania were in doubt, he consented to become a member of the State Senate. There he bent every effort to secure the passage of a generous provision for common schools. On the first day of the session he moved successfully for the appointment of a Joint Committee on Education of the two Houses, "for the purpose of digesting a general system of education." Of this committee he was made chairman.
After seven weeks of unremitting labor the bill incorporating the committee's report, a bill drafted by Mr. Breck, was introduced. In six weeks more it became a law, four votes only having been cast against it. Wickersham, in his "History of Education in Pennsylvania," says that the passage of the bill was "the most important event connected with education in Pennsylvania—the first great victory for free schools."
At the close of the session the author of the bill retired to Sweetbrier, in accordance with his intention to decline any further public honors. He felt that his work for the State and the Nation was done.
