management which has done so much already for the Public School System of the State, and which in the end is to be its crown of glory. That there were men chosen in by-gone times to serve as school trustees who understood something concerning the right way of organizing and managing a school, and were moved somewhat by the spirit that vitalized the system of schools adopted at a later day, will appear from the following extracts from the Rules and Regulations agreed upon by the Trustees of the school at Chester, January 9, 1796. Doubtless, other papers of the kind could be found.

The first rule provides that the President of the Board of Trustees shall attend each and every quarterly examination of the school. The second is as follows:

2. That the remaining Trustees shall be divided into three classes, who shall by turns visit the school, one in each month: that is, the first class the first month, the second class the second month, etc.

3. That the President, Trustees and Treasurer shall visit and examine the school quarter-yearly, and for neglect of attendance, shall pay the sum of one-eighth of a dollar to the Treasurer, to be appropriated as the charity fund of the said school.

6. That the Trustees, at the beginning of each and every year, shall advertise for applications to be made to them for educating such children or persons gratis as shall be proper objects of the charity fund of the institution, and which shall embrace the greatest number of persons that the said fund will admit of, or an agreement with the tutor of the said school will enable them to give assistance to.

7. That as exciting in the minds of children and youth, laudable emulation and a desire to improve is of beneficial consequence in conducting their education, the Trustees shall, at the quarterly examinations, propose little premiums of books, paper, quills, etc., to those who excel in reading, writing, speaking, arithmetic, etc.; the expense to be defrayed out of the charity fund of the school.

8. It shall be the duty of the Trustees to see that no books containing the tenets or doctrines of any sect in religion be taught in the school, or any that may convey improper political principles to the children of Republicans; since no others ought to be admitted but such as teach the pure principles of religion as contained in the Holy Writings of the Prophets and Evangelistsof morality and love of virtue-such as teach us the love of liberty and our country, obedience to her laws, detestation of tyranny and oppression, and hatred of anarchy and licentiousness.

And in the 9th, it is added:

And it is also agreed, that one subject of a premium shall be the following: At each quarterly examination the master shall be requested to report to the Trustees, which of his pupils has been the most distinguished for his or her moral, orderly and decent behavior, upon which such pupils so reported shall be entitled to the premium to be named by the Trustees.

And to show that the trustees of some of these old schools aimed at something beyond mere elementary instruction, we quote as a specimen of similar documents the following extract from an agreement made by the trustees of a school at Ridley, now Leiperville, Delaware county, with Jacob Fenton, whom they had engaged as schoolmaster. Mr. Fenton was a graduate of Dartmouth College.

The Agreement required the master to "Teach a regular Day School, subject to the direction of the trustees, in the rudiments of the English language, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Geography, and either or every branch of Mathematics, at the rate of two dollars a quarter for every scholar subscribed, for the term of three months, to commence on the 20th of the 10th month, 1800. And the subscribers to said school to pay to said Fenton, on order, two dollars for every scholar subscribed, together with a reasonable charge for wood and ink."

CHAPTER X.

SCHOOLS OF OUR FOREFATHERS.

SCHOOLHOUSES AND SCHOOL FURNITURE. BRANCHES TAUGHT. TEXT-BOOKS AND APPARATUS. METHODS AND DISCIPLINE.

A

VOLUME might be filled with descriptions of old schoolhouses. Those first built were everywhere very much alike— rough log cabins. Everywhere, too, in the course of years, these primitive structures were replaced by something better, houses constructed of hewn logs, framed lumber, stone or brick. Progress in this direction, however, was so slow that the common school system, in 1834, even in the first settled parts of the State, found few good schoolhouses ready to its hand; and about the first duty that had to be performed by the newly-elected school directors was to provide them. The descriptions of the old schoolhouses and school furniture given below are by writers in the different counties cited. They apply fairly to the whole State. When the names of authors are not mentioned, the authority is the Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for 1877.

Early Schoolhouse in Franklin.-"The houses, or cabins, used for school purposes, were of the simplest structure, being built of logs, or poles, and the spaces between them filled with chips of wood, and plastered with mortar made of clay. The boards of the roof were generally secured by heavy poles extending from one end to the other. The chimney was built of sticks of wood plastered, and was almost large enough to occupy one side of the house. The windows were not so extensive as the chimney, there being from three to four panes of glass in each, and about four of such in a building. The furniture was also of the simplest kind. It consisted of benches, made of logs split in two and hewn down to a proper thickness, supported by four legs. The stools and tables were made of the same material and in a similar manner.”

Early Schoolhouses in Lehigh.-"Schoolhouses were built by communities, and were commonly constructed of logs, were small, had low ceilings, little windows and few of them. They were

defective in every thing but ventilation. The furniture corresponded with the buildings."

Early Schoolhouses in Chester.-"The early schoolhouses were either log or stone, sometimes built in an octagonal form, and called eight-square schoolhouses. The desks were placed around against

the walls, and the pupils occupying them sat facing the windows. Benches, without backs, for the smaller scholars, occupied the middle of the room. The windows were quite long, longitudinally, and from two to three panes wide, perpendicularly. A desk for the teacher, a huge stove in the middle of the room, a bucket, and what was called the Pass,' a small paddle, having the words 'in' and 'out' written on its opposite sides, constituted the furniture of the room."

Early Schoolhouses in Clearfield.-"The pioneer schoolhouse was built of logs, sixteen by twenty feet, seven feet in the ceiling, daubed with mud inside and out, a mud and stick chimney in the north end, and in the west, a log was left out, and the opening covered with oiled paper, to admit light; holes were bored in the logs and pins driven in, on which to nail a long board for a writing table, and slabs with legs answered for seats. The early schoolhouses were generally situated near the road-side or cross-roads, being without play-ground, shade trees or apparatus."

Early Schoolhouses in Clarion." The first school-buildings were

built of logs and roofed with clapboards. A huge fire-place graced one end of the room, the house being built with fire-corners to provide for a chimney, which consisted of wood and mortar-sometimes of stone. The benches were made of logs split, and a flat side hewed for seats. These were then supported on pins, inserted in holes bored in the slab, and the seats were made just high enough to prevent the children's feet from touching the floor. The floor was made of puncheons, and the writing-desk was a board, or a slab, supported upon pins, driven into holes bored in the wall. The large pupils were thus seated along the walls with their backs to the teacher. Windows were constructed by cutting a section of a single log from each of the two sides of the building, and when glass could not be obtained, paper, which had been rendered transparent by greasing with tallow or lard, was used as a substitute."

Early Schoolhouses in Mercer.-"These were round-log cabins. For ceilings, poles were thrown across overhead, and brush placed on the poles and covered with earth. Above this was a clapboard roof held down by weight poles. Some of the better class of houses had puncheon floors, the floors in many dwelling-houses were constructed the same way; others had nothing but the naked earth. For light, a log was left out of the building, and newspapers greased and pasted over the opening. Seats were rude benches made of split logs, and desks were constructed by boring into the logs and placing a split piece of timber on pins driven into these holes. The fire-place included the entire end of the building, made of stone, mortar, and sticks."

Early Schoolhouses in Erie.-" Puncheon floors, board fire-places, stick chimneys, and bark roofs, were their distinguishing features." Early Schoolhouses in Huntingdon.-Lytle, in his History, says: "They were built of round logs and covered with clapboards, which were kept in their places by heavy logs laid on them. The floors were made of logs, split in halves and laid together, with flat sides up. Snakes could crawl through, as they often did. In the end of each building there was a great fire-place, with a wooden chimney. The light was admitted through large cracks in the walls, from six to ten inches wide, covered with greased paper for glass."

Early Schoolhouses in Centre.-Says Maynard's Industries and Institutions of Centre County: "The architecture of the pioneer schoolhouse was extremely rude and simple. It was an oblong cabin, built of unhewn logs, with a log chimney at one end, well