[19] This is an especially honourable distinction, for William T. Harris has said that “The history of education since the time of Horace Mann is very largely an account of the successive modifications introduced into elementary schools through the direct or indirect influence of the normal school.”
[20] In 1869 the personalty valuation was 60% that of realty; but it steadily fell thereafter, amounting in 1893 to 32%. From 1874-1882 the assessment of realty increased nearly twelve times as much as personalty. In the intervening period the assessed valuation of realty in Boston increased more than 100%, while that of personalty slightly diminished (the corresponding figures for the entire United States from 1860 to 1890 being 172% and 12%), yet the most competent business and expert opinions regarded the true value of personalty as at least equal to and most likely twice as great as that of realty.
[21] In this document, whose democracy is characteristic of differences between the Plymouth Colony and that of Massachusetts Bay, the signatories “solemnly and mutually ... covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame—[laws]—unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.” This was signed 11/21 of November 1620 by 41 persons.
[22] Slavery had existed as a social fact from the earliest years, and legally after 1641; but it was never profitable, and was virtually abolished long before the War of American Independence; still it was never abolished explicitly by Massachusetts, though the slave trade was prohibited in 1788, and though a number of negroes were declared free after the adoption of the constitution of 1780 on the strength of the sweeping declaration of human rights in that instrument.
[23] According to the final report of the U.S. Adjutant-General in 1885, the enlistments were 146,730 men, of whom 13,942 died in war. These figures are probably less accurate than those of the state.
[24] Endecott, by commission dated the 30th of April 1629, was made “governor of London’s plantation in the Massachusetts Bay.” Matthew Cradock, first governor of the Company, from the 4th of March 1629 to the 20th of October 1629, was succeeded on the latter date by John Winthrop, who, on reaching Salem on the 12th of June 1630 with the charter, superseded Endecott.
[25] During three periods, 1701-1702, in February 1715, and from April to August 1757 the affairs of the colony were administered by the Executive Council.
[26] General Gage was military governor, Hutchinson remaining nominally civil governor.
MASSACRE, a wholesale indiscriminate killing of persons, and also, in a transferred sense, of animals. The word is adopted from the French; but its origin is obscure. The meaning and the old form macecle seem to point to it being a corruption of the Lat. macellum, butcher’s shop or shambles, hence meat market; this is probably from the root mac-, seen in μάχεσθαι, to fight, μάχαιρα, sword, and Lat. mactare, to sacrifice. Another derivation connects with the Old Low Ger. matsken, to cut in pieces; cf. mod. Ger. metzeln, to massacre.