mon schools, at an expense of $15,931.794. In the year 1826, 7,943 poor children were instructed at an expense of $30,192.47. In the year 1827, 9,014 poor children were instructed at an expense of $25,637.36%; and in the year 1828, up to the date of the reports, 4,477 poor children were instructed at an expense of $15,067.99. The number educated in the Lancasterian

schools were in the year 1826, 3,950; 1827, 4,342; and 1828, 4,267.

And further on he adds:

The whole number of children within the Commonwealth, between the ages of five and sixteen, is probably not less than three hundred and fifty thousand. The necessity of extending to these the benefits of elementary education is obvious to all. * * If all the children within the Commonwealth

*

* *

are not instructed, the interest of the community requires that the means of education should be, as far as possible, placed within the reach of all. It is more than probable that the money expended by the public and by individuals throughout the Commonwealth for education in the common schools, is sufficient, if applied under the control of agents familiar with the most approved systems of elementary instruction, to extend the benefits of an education to all the children within the State.

During the session of 1830-31, N. P. Fetterman, of Bedford county, was chairman of the Committee on Education in the House of Representatives. On the 27th of January, he read a very able report advocating a broad system of general education. The paragraphs in this report criticising the Act of 1809 are as follows:

This act only provides for the education of those children between the ages of five and twelve years; as if in that period they would learn enough to enable them to act their part in the several stations in which they may be placed through life, with advantage to themselves, and with credit to the State of which they are citizens. None are contemplated within its provisions, but those whose parents are unable to pay for their education; as if by drawing an invidious distinction between the wealthy and the poor, the latter would more eagerly adopt the provisions of an act, thus rendered obnoxious to them. None are prepared to enjoy its provisions until they have first been notified of their poverty and degradation, by the commissioners of their county. And not until thus certified and approved to be within its letter, does the assessor give them leave to attend any school convenient, within their neighborhood. This Act in some measure militates with the spirit of our free institutions. They have an equalizing tendency; it, the contrary. They would confound all ranks, classes and distinctions; it marks, delineates and approves of them. Hence that feeling so peculiarly manifest amongst us, that will acknowledge no inferiority, has too often encouraged a disposition on the part of the poor to suffer their children to grow up ignorant and unlearned, rather than humble them in their opinion, by accepting alms of the public. Hence this act has not had the full effect that its framers expected of it, and falls far short of that system which the education of the youth of our rising Commonwealth demands. And hence, it is only surprising that it has remained so long, unrepealed, on our statute book.

But objectionable as was the policy of educating the poor as a separate class, it was scarcely more objectionable than the rate-bill policy that prevailed in most if not in all of the New England States, New York and Ohio, down to a period long subsequent to the adoption of the absolutely free school principle in Pennsylvania. The rate-bill policy required that children able to pay for their tuition should do so in whole or in part, and only those too poor to pay were admitted into the schools gratuitously. Thus a mark was set upon the poor in the earliest of the so-called free school States, as odious as that so justly condemned in Pennsylvania. A State with rate-bills may have a system of public schools, but it cannot have a system of free schools; and, in adopting a system of the latter kind, Pennsylvania, though slow was one of the foremost States in the Union.

N addition to what has been said of it in the general narrative, the history of education in Philadelphia deserves special treatment, both on account of the intrinsic interest of the subject and its close relation to what was done in the State at large, and especially to the struggle for free schools.

In 1696, Thomas Holme, one of the Judges of the Philadelphia County Court composed, in rhyme, a "True Relation of the Flourishing State of Pennsylvania." He thus speaks of schools and teachers:

Here are schools of divers sorts,
To which our youth daily resorts.
Good women, who do very well,
Bring little ones to read and spell,
Which fits them for writing; and then
Here's men to bring them to their pen,
And to instruct and make them quick
In all sorts of Arithmetick.

The following is the title of a book published in London, in 1698: "An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pennsylvania and West New Jersey in America, by Gabriel Thomas, who resided there fifteen years." Speaking of Philadelphia, Thomas says, "In said city are several good schools of Learning for Youth in order to the Attainment of Arts and Sciences, as also Reading, Writing, etc."

From what can be gathered from these statements, it would seem probable that there were in Philadelphia, from the first, schools of different kinds and grades, taught both by men and women, in addition to that of Enoch Flower, and others elsewhere mentioned. They were doubtless for the most part private schools, conducted by individuals on their own account. A little later, and the Friends' Public School and the Charity Schools connected with it, and the schools established by the different churches, provided instruction

for a large number of pupils, but they never displaced the private schools. Indeed, this class of schools seems to have increased with the increasing population, for in White's Directory of 1785 there may be found the names of at least one hundred teachers of private schools, most of them women. By 1800, the number of the teachers of such schools had swelled to the neighborhood of two hundred. The grade of the schools kept by these old schoolmasters and schoolmistresses was from that of an infant school up to that of a classical Academy. The teaching of music and needle-work was quite common in schools for girls, and the French language seems to have been as generally taught as at present. Any one able to pay for it, could obtain instruction in Latin, Greek, and MathematThese schools preserved no records, and few particulars can be given concerning them.

ics.

William Milne taught a night school, in 1751, in a room in Aldridge's Alley. His course of instruction included Spelling, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geometry, Navigation and Mensuration.

In 1754, a Mr. Elphinstone advertises his ability to make good writers in a five weeks' course of instruction.

In 1756, Jacob Ehrenzeller opened a school on Arch Street. He had probably been a schoolmaster in Germany, as most likely had John Hefferman, whose school, in 1779, was located in Letitia Court.

Mary McAllester proposed, on May 15, 1767, to open a Boarding School for young ladies, the first in Philadelphia. In her advertisement, she expressed her surprise that in "a city where every public institution for the benefit of mankind has met with encouragement, a proper Seminary or Boarding School for the education of young ladies should be wanting."

A Mr. Griscom, in 1770, taught an Academy at the corner of Water and Vine streets, "free from the noise of the city." He appears to have been the first to call a private school by the ambitious name, "Academy."

In 1771, Mr. Oliphant gives notice that he has an elegant room in which to accommodate his pupils.

Schoolmaster Horton was the first to broach the idea of separate schools for girls, but made some amends for this mistake by favoring their instruction in Grammar and the higher branches of learning.

John Poor, a native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Harvard University, established "The Young Ladies' Academy of Philadelphia" in 1787, had it incorporated by State authority in 1792, and in the City Directory of 1802 it was declared to be the only incorporated institution for the education of young ladies in the United States.* Notwithstanding the Legislature refused to grant it the assistance given to so many county Academies of the day, Poor's school flourished for some years, was at times attended by as many as one hundred and fifty students, including representatives from nearly all the States of the Union, as well as from Canada, Nova Scotia, and the West Indies; had a regular course of study, considered liberal for the time, consisting of "Reading, History, Arithmetic, Grammar, Composition, Geography with the use of globes and maps, Rhetoric, and Vocal Music," and granted diplomas to those who completed it. Its public examinations and commencements were a novelty at that day, and attracted large audiences. The young lady graduates delivered orations, as in Colleges for the opposite sex. Rev. William Woodbridge, himself at the time the master of a young ladies' school in New Haven, in an article in the American Journal of Education for September, 1830, must have referred to an older school than that of Poor, if no mistake be made in the date of his visit, when he says: "In 1780, in Philadelphia, for the first time in my life, I heard a class of young ladies parse English. After the success of the Moravians in female education, the attention of gentlemen of reputation and influence was turned to the subject. Dr. Morgan, Dr. Rush, the great advocate of education, with others whom I cannot name, instituted an Academy for females in Philadelphia. Their attention, influence, and fostering care were successful, and from them sprang all the following and celebrated schools in that city."

Joseph Sharpless conducted an Academy on Second street in

1791.

Madam Sigoigne, and afterwards her daughter, Miss Adele, had a school for young ladies at Germantown about 1814. It was one of the most noted institutions of the kind at that day.

Rev. Samuel Magaw and Rev. James Abercrombie, Episcopalians, opened an Academy, in 1800, in Spruce Street. Rev. Burgess Alli

*Without doubt the oldest Female Seminary in America was that of Madam La Peltrie, of the Ursuline Convent, established at Quebec in 1639. It was attended by both French and Indian girls.