favor of a Latin school continued, and the burgomasters, in making a request of the Company to establish one, stated that Boston was the nearest place where classical instruction could be had. They asked that a Latin master might be sent over, "not doubting but were such a person here, many of the neighboring places would send their children hither," and thus an Academy might be built up. The request was complied with, and, in 1659, Dr. Alexander Carolus Curtius was engaged as Latin master at a salary of five hundred guilders. The school did not succeed under his management, and, in 1662, his place was supplied by Dominie Aegidius Luyck. Under Luyck the school became very prosperous, attracting pupils from Fort Orange, Albany, South River, as the Delaware was then called, and Virginia. As showing the relation between the early Dutch schools and the public authorities, it may be stated that one Jacob Corlaer was prohibited from teaching in New Amsterdam because he attempted to teach without the consent of the Provincial Government. And O'Callaghan, in his history of New Netherlands, asserts that at the time the Dutch surrendered New York to the English, 1664, "The claims of the poor to an equal support, and of the youth to an education, were not neglected. An assessment of the twentieth penny on all houses, and of the tenth penny on land under cultivation, formed a fund for the former; the representations of the clergy in 1656 in favor of the latter, had a decidedly beneficial influence, for the records afford evidence that schools existed in almost every town and village at the close of this administration."

The following agreement, copied from Thompson's History of Long Island, between Johannes van Eckkelen, accepted schoolmaster and chorister, and the town of Flatbush, Long Island, throws a flood of light on the manner of conducting schools among not only the Dutch, but among all the early settlers in this country, two centuries ago.

ART. I. The school shall begin at 8 o'clock, and go out at 11; shall begin again at 1 o'clock and end at 4. The bell shall be rung before the school

commences.

ART. 2. When school begins, one of the children shall read the morning prayer as it stands in the catechism, and close with the prayer before dinner; and, in the afternoon, the same. The evening school shall begin with the Lord's Prayer, and close by singing a psalm.

ART. 3. He shall instruct the children in the common prayers; and in the questions and answers of the catechism, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, to enable them to say them better on Sunday in the church.

ART. 4. He shall be required to keep his school nine months in succession, from September to June, one year with another; and shall always be present himself.

ART. 5. He shall be chorister of the church, keep the church clean, ring the bell three times before the people assemble, and read a chapter of the Bible in the church between the second and third ringing of the bell; after the third ringing, he shall read the ten commandments, and the twelve articles of our faith, and then set the psalms. In the afternoon, after the third ringing of the bell, he shall read a short chapter, or one of the psalms of David, as the congregation are assembling; afterwards, he shall again sing a psalm or hymn.

ART. 6. When the minister shall preach at Brooklyn or Utrecht, he shall be bound to read twice before the congregation, from the book used for the purpose. He shall hear the children recite the questions and answers out of the catechism on Sunday, and instruct them therein.

ART. 7. He shall provide a basin of water for the administration of Holy Baptism, and furnish the minister with the name of the child to be baptized, for which he shall receive twelve stivers in wampum for every baptism, from the parents or sponsors. He shall furnish bread and wine for the communion, at the charge of the church. He shall also serve as messenger for the consistory.

ART. 8. He shall give the funeral invitations, dig the graves and toll the bell; and for which he shall receive, for persons of fifteen years of age and upwards, twelve guilders; and for persons under fifteen, eight guilders; and if he shall cross the river to New York, he shall have four guilders

more.

THE SCHOOL MONEY. Ist. He shall receive, for a speller or reader, three guilders a quarter; and for a writer, four guilders, for the day school. In the evening, four guilders for a speller or reader, and five guilders for a writer, per quarter.

2d. The residue of his salary shall be four hundred guilders in wheat, (of wampum value,) delivered at Brooklyn Ferry, with the dwelling, pasturage, and meadow appertaining to the school.

Done and agreed upon in consistory, under the inspection of the honorable constable and overseers, this 8th day of October, 1682.

Thus advised as to the intent respecting education of those who projected and founded the early colonies on the Delaware, and in possession of such antecedent facts as may place the subject in a proper light, we are ready to inquire what had been accomplished practically by the settlers in the way of educating their children at the time of the arrival of Penn.

So far as can be ascertained, there is no record showing the existence of a schoolhouse in the colonies on the Delaware up to the year 1682. It is not likely there was a single one in the whole country. The city of Amsterdam had agreed to build one at New Castle, but we have no evidence that the work was done.

Nor have we found to a certainty the name of a single school

master proper except that of Evert Pietersen, who taught at New Castle, and his seems to have been the only regularly organized school. The following letter from Pietersen sent to Holland a few months after his arrival, and dated at Fort Amstel, August 10th, 1657, settles the somewhat mooted question as to who he was and where and when he taught. He says:

We arrived at the South River on the 25th of April, and found twenty families there, mostly Swedes, not more than five or six families belonging to our nation. I already begin to keep school, and have twenty-five children, etc.

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In an account of the expenses of the colony as reckoned by the Directors, in Amsterdam, Evert Pietersen is set down as having received some fourteen hundred florins for services rendered. He probably remained at New Castle about two years, and then went to New York, where he was engaged in teaching, in 1664, when the English took possession of the city. Erent Evertsen seems to have succeeded Pietersen at New Castle, for in the account of expenses already referred to he is shown to have received pay for similar services.

But notwithstanding the want of schoolhouses and teachers, it does not follow that no attention was paid to the education of children, or that the colonists were generally illiterate. It may be well to quote some of the widely different opinions on the subject. Bancroft says of the Swedes: "They cherished the calm earnestness of religious feeling; they reverenced the bonds of family and the purity of morals; their children, under every disadvantage of a want of teachers and of Swedish books, were well instructed." Ferris, in his history of the "Original Settlements on the Delaware," says of the same people: "They had suffered grievously for want of that kind of government which calls into action the intellectual and physical powers of man. All these had been left to languish. Education was neglected; the active energies of the mind had either run wild or been depressed, and for more than forty years there had been very little advancement." Penn calls the Swedes "a plain, strong, industrious people;" speaks of the great number of children in their families, and adds: "I see few young men more sober or industrious." Acrelius, who was pastor of the Swedish congregation at Christina for some seven years, writing in 1759, does not seem to entertain a very high opinion of the intellectual acquirements of his countrymen who first settled in America. He speaks

of them thus: "Forty years back, our people scarcely knew what a school was. The first Swedish and Holland settlers were a poor, weak and ignorant people, who brought up their children in the same ignorance, which is the reason why the natives of the country can neither write nor cypher, and that very few of them are qualified for any office under the government." Broadhead does not have a much higher opinion of the state of education among the early Dutch settlers. He writes: "As to popular education," speaking of the New Netherlands in 1656, "excepting at Manhattan, Beverwyck, and Fort Casimir"-Fort Casimir was at New Castle"there was no schoolmaster. Though the people at large were anxious that their children should be instructed, they found great difficulty, because many of them, coming 'naked and poor from Holland,' had not sufficient means, and because there were few qualified persons, except those already employed, who could or would teach."

These somewhat contradictory statements may perhaps be reconciled. The facilities for education may have varied at different periods. They undoubtedly depended upon the condition of the churches and the supply of ministers. With flourishing churches and zealous ministers, the cause of education prospered; with churches that languished and no good shepherds to care for the spiritual interests of the scattered flocks, the children grew up without instruction. In the social economy of the early settlers on the Delaware, the interests of religion and education were closely united. We must, therefore, inquire concerning the state of religion in order to form a correct judgment concerning the state of education.

Penn states that at the time of his arrival in the country there were churches at Christina, Tinicum, Wicaco, and New Castle. The church at Christina was built within the walls of the fort soon after the settlement of the place by Minuet. Rev. Reorus Torkillus was the first minister, and probably entered upon his ministerial work in 1640. Governor Printz built a handsome frame church on Tinicum island, which was dedicated to Divine service in September, 1646. Rev. John Campanius, who had come to America with Printz as "Government Chaplain," to watch over the Swedish congregation, was the first pastor, and discharged the duties of the post. for some six years. On the shore of the Delaware, in what is now Southwark, Philadelphia, there stood, in 1682, a small block-house.

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It was built of logs, and provided with loopholes instead of windows. It may have been older as a fort, but as a church it had been in use from 1677. Rev. Jacob Fabritius seems to have been the first pastor, delivering his opening sermon on Trinity Sunday, 1677. New Castle could not have had a church for any considerable length of time prior to 1682, for the people there had united with the people of Christina in building, in 1667, and sustaining for a number of years subsequently, a church at Cranehook, on the banks of the river, about half way between the two places. Of other clergymen it may be said that Revs. Lars Carlsson Loock, Israel Holgh, and at least two others, came from Sweden during Governor Printz's administration, or shortly after; but the first named was the only minister who remained in the country after the Dutch con

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quest to look after the "poor and scattered Swedes." Dominic Loock had charge of two congregations, that at Tinicum and that at Christina, and continued to' preach at both places for twenty-two years, until, feeble with age and disabled on account of lameness, he was obliged to cease from his labors. Rev. Petrus Laurentii Hjort and Rev. Mathias Nicolai Nertunius came with Rising in 1654, but left with him the next year. In 1657, a Dutch minister, Rev. Evardus Welius, came to New Castle, relieving the schoolmaster, Pietersen, of his pastoral duties, who then became simply "fore-singer, zieken-trooster, and deacon." For some years between 1658 and 1664, Andreas Hudde, a Dutchman, who had previously applied for the position of schoolmaster at New Amsterdam, officiated as clerk or reader, under Loock, in the church at Christina.