The third type of schools in colonial times was that formed by governmental action in the New England colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In these colonies there was no such class distinctions as in Virginia, and, unlike Pennsylvania, there was but one nationality and one religion, and, unlike the Dutch of New Netherlands, they had cut themselves away from the ruling classes of their native land, and thus they were free to develop along their own ideas. Their religious belief and training called for the education of each of the members of the colony, as the Bible was held to be the infallible rule of faith and practice, and so every one should at least have enough schooling to enable him to read the Bible for himself. Hence schools arose in a short time after settlement. In 1644 Salem taxed all who had children and were able to pay and procured in this way means for paying for the schooling of children whose parents were too poor to pay for them. In 1647 Massachusetts passed a law that in every town of fifty families a school for the teaching of reading and writing should be provided and that in a town of one hundred families a grammar school should be provided. Connecticut in 1659 provided for its children in the same way. But all such schools were not free as we term free schools now, and it was not till near the time of the Revolution that general taxes were levied for school purposes and free schools were thereby established.
The early schoolhouses in Pennsylvania and New York were made of logs and the top covered with bark. Holes were cut in the sides for windows, which sometimes were covered with greased paper that let in a dim light. Some had a rough puncheon floor and others a dirt floor. A distance up from the floor around the walls pegs were placed between the logs and boards laid on them for desks and by them were boards set on stakes for seats for the older children, while the younger children sat on blocks or benches of logs. At one end or in the middle was a catted chimney. At least some of the schoolhouses in New England were better furnished, as is shown by the following entry in the town records of Roxbury in 1652:
"The feoffes agreed with Daniel Welde that he provide convenient benches with forms, with tables for the scholars, and a conveniente seate for the scholmaster, a Deske to put the Dictionary on and shelves to lay up bookes."[386]
This schoolhouse was not kept in proper repairs, as the teacher in Roxbury in 1681 wrote:
"Of inconveniences (in the schoolhouse) I shall mention no other but the confused and shattered and nastie posture that it is in, not fitting for to reside in, the glass broke, and thereupon very raw and cold; the floor very much broken and torn up to kindle fires, the hearth spoiled, the seats some burned and others out of kilter, that one had as well-nigh as goods keep school in a hog stie as in it."[387]
Supplies for school purposes were quite scarce in colonial times. There were no blackboards nor maps. Paper was quite scarce and very carefully used. Birch bark was used to cipher on. Slates also were used and those of the earlier times had no frames and had a hole in one side in which a string could be tied for holding a pencil or for hanging around the neck. If lead pencils were used at all during colonial times it was in the latest part of the period. Instead of lead pencils they used plummets made of lead melted and cast into wooden molds and cut into shape by a jack-knife. Pens were cut from goose-quills and it required quite a little skill to make good pens and keep them in order. Ink was made by dissolving ink-powder, each child furnishing his own ink-bottle or ink-horn and ink. Sometimes the ink was wholly home-made: "In remote districts of Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts, home-made ink, feeble and pale, was made by steeping the bark of the swamp-maple in water, boiling the decoction till thick, and diluting it with copperas."[388]
There were not a great number or variety of books for use in these early schools. The two most noted books were the Hornbook and the New England Primer. The hornbook was the first book used by the child. This consisted of a thin piece of wood about five inches long and two inches wide. A sheet of paper was placed upon this. At the top of this paper came the alphabet in small letters; then the alphabet in capital letters followed; then the vowels; then syllables, as, ab, eb, ib, etc.; next "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen;" and last came the Lord's prayer. Over this paper went a sheet of horn, through which the printed matter could be read. The paper and the horn were fastened to the wood by strips of brass or other metal, going around the sides and ends, and all held fast by tacks driven through the metal strips. At the lower end of the hornbook was usually a handle, which sometimes had a hole through it for a string to carry it by or to hang it around the neck.
"The New England Primer is a poorly printed little book about five inches long and three wide, of about eighty pages. It contains the alphabet, and a short table of easy syllables, such as a-b, ab, e-b, eb, and words up to those of six syllables. This was called a syllabarium. There were twelve five-syllable words; of these five were abomination, edification, humiliation, mortification, and purification. There were a morning and evening prayer for children, and a grace to be said before meat. Then followed a set of little rhymes which have become known everywhere, and are frequently quoted. Each letter of the alphabet is illustrated with a blurred little picture. Of these, two-thirds represent Biblical incidents. They begin:
'In Adam's fall