Leaving these religious books we come next to a book, not only not religious, but one actually written by "a crafty freethinker from Groningen," the arithmetic of Pieter Venema, a master of mathematics and writing, here in New York. So far as the writer has found, this is the only textbook in the Dutch language published in America. It seems to be the third arithmetic published in America. Such a book would find no place probably in the elementary Dutch schools, but would be taught in those private schools, principally commercial in character, which were common in New York from before the beginning of the eighteenth century.3

Putting together the school procedure known to have been followed in America and the probable Holland custom, we may in résumé make an ideal reproduction of the school life of the Holland-American village children.

The child, whether boy or girl, began school at about 7 years of age. The school was kept in the largest room of the schoolmaster's home, which was near the church. The session opened at 8 o'clock in the morning and closed at 4 in the afternoon, with an intermission from 11 to 2 for dinner. A bell or a horn or a drum might be used to summon the pupils. Six days in the week the year round did the children go to school. The holidays were Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and St. Nicholas Day (December 6), Christmas, New Year, Easter, and Pinkster (whitsuntide), with possibly others.

4

The schoolroom had as furniture only the master's desk, and chairs, and backless benches for the children, with tables for writing. The boys and girls sat in separate parts of the room, the girls furthest from the master. The little boys, especially if they were timid, might sit with the girls. Each child must be taught his lesson once and must recite twice in the forenoon and the same in the afternoon. The boys, as soon as they entered the room in the morning, must raise their caps to the master and must remove them when they recited; at other times the cap was kept on the head. The first thing on the opening of school was the morning prayer, led by the older pupils in turn. All joined in this if the master so directed. Similar prayers opened and closed each half day's session.

The first book studied was an alphabet book, on the title page of which was a large cock. In this the child found the alphabet repeated

1 Eccl. Rec., p. 2756.

2 Arithmetica | of | Cyffer-Konst, | Volgens de Munten Maten en | Gewigten, te Nieu-York, | gebruykelyk | Als Mede | Een kort ontwerp van de | Algebra, | Opgestelt door | Pieter Venema, | Mr. în de Mathesis en Schryf-konst. | Nieu- York | Gedruckt voor Jacob Geolet, by de | Oude-Slip, by J. Peter Zenger, [ MDCCXXX.

Arithmetic or the art of ciphering, according to the coins, measures, and weights used at New York, together with a short treatise on algebra drawn up by Pieter Venema, master in mathematics and the art of writing. New York, printed for Jacob Goelet, near the Old Slip, by J. Peter Zenger, 1730.

Chaplain Sharpe writes in 1713 of New York: "The City is so conveniently Situated for Trade and the Genius of the people is inclined to merchandise, that they generally seek no other Education for their children than writing and arithmetic." N. Y. Hist. Soc. Pub., 1880: 341.

4 The Holland schools still have these weekly half holidays.

in different sizes and types, the vowels, syllables such as ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, the Ten Commandments, the general Christian creed, the Lord's prayer, the church formularies for "holy baptism," "holy communion," and "Christian punishments," together with the morning and evening prayers and the prayers before and after dinner, the prayer of Solomon, and (later) the Dutch counting table. Next was a reading book consisting of the evangelists and possibly other selections from the New Testament; after this would come Old Testament history selections, perhaps the history of David. At the close of each half day session, just before the prayer, a psalm was sung, and for this some book of metrical psalms was necessary.

All of the boys and most of the girls entered the writing class; but as the girls by this time were needed at home, many would stop before they learned even to write their names. Probably all the pupils learned to count and to recognize and, possibly, to make the figures; and the ambitious boys learned privately to reckon. Each day there was a lesson with the catechism, but Wednesday and Saturday mornings were especially devoted to this. On Saturday morning the last hour was given up to learning the psalms for the next day's church service. On Monday, or perhaps Wednesday, all the children went to the church and there were catechized publicly before the ministers and elders and such of their parents as cared to come. This was the most important occasion of the whole week. If any child missed his lessons or had broken-whether in school or outany of the long list of rules posted in the schoolhouse he must be punished either on the hand with the plak, or if especially bad, with the dreaded roede. And somehow punishments were frequent. If the boy had not by 12 years of age learned as much as seemed necessary, he was sent to evening school. Each quarter the father paid the master the regular tuition or the child could not continue in school.

All in all, it was a simple life, hearty enough, and earnest enough. There were no rich people and no poor ones, and few servants. In school the children learned to read and possibly to write, but especially how to take part intelligently in the church service. When contrasted with the school life of twentieth-century America, the picture here given seems simple, indeed. But in the very simplicity is an earnestness which commends this school of the irrevocable past. Life is now more complex, and preparation for it more difficult. Perhaps the school of Holland-America, standing between the home and the church and close to both, fitted the children of that day for their life quite as adequately as does its more pretentious successor in these days of more difficult adjustment.

CHAPTER XV.

CONCLUSION.

The Dutch control of New Netherland lasted for only about 40 years; but the original stock held tenaciously to its language and customs long after the English took possession. The educational institution of the Dutch village during the whole period, even down to the American Revolution, was the parochial school, which had been fashioned in Holland to meet both secular and religious needs. During the Dutch régime, the West India Company supplied salaries for the New Amsterdam schools-both parochial and Latin-and assisted some of the villages in supporting their schoolmasters. In no true sense, however, was there a central colonial system in the management of school affairs. Control was in the hands of the local magistracy and consistory, except that in New Amsterdam a third factor was the director general. As in Holland, so in New Netherland, tuition charges were universal, save for "the poor and needy." The expression "free school" was nowhere found among the American Dutch.1 Girls attended the school on the same footing as boys, but sat apart and recited in different classes. Evening schools seem to have been the rule throughout Dutch America. Dame schools were very seldom found. The curriculum of the elementary school was exactly transferred from Holland. The parish school taught always two of the three R's but offered the third only where commerce made reckoning necessary. A little modern history was taught in Holland and possibly at places in America. The religious part of the curriculum was much stressed.

The elementary school of New Amsterdam was continued as the city school of New York until the second English occupation (1674), since which time it has been maintained as the school of the Reformed Dutch Church of New York City. Its practically continuous operation since 1638 gives it possibly the priority in America as an elementary foundation. The schools in the Dutch villages were continued as the public schools of those villages until the Revolution, and probably longer.

The showing of the American Dutch in the matter of illiteracy is better than that found in some other colonies. At Albany of 360 men's names examined, covering the years from 1654 to 1675, 21 per cent made their marks. Of 274 men's signatures at Flatbush, covering a longer period, 19 per cent made their marks. Corresponding

1 Except at Bergen in 1668 (see p. 205); where, however, the term is quite likely of English origin.

'figures for other American colonies are available in only a few instances. Of the German male immigrants above 16 years of age who came to Pennsylvania in the first half of the eighteenth century, 11,823 names have been counted, with the result of 26 per cent who made their marks.1 Bruce found, by a most painstaking count of the seventeenth-century Virginians, that of 2,165 male adults who signed jury lists, 46 per cent made their marks; and of 12,445 male adults who signed deeds and depositions, 40 per cent made their marks. In comparison with these last figures, both Dutch and German made much better showing. A further significant result appeared from our study of illiteracy, namely, that the male Dutch inhabitants of Flatbush made continuous improvement in this respect, the percentage of illiteracy decreasing gradually from 40 per cent in 1675 to about 6 per cent in 1738.

In the case of the Dutch women fewer names were collected, and the showing was not so good. At Flatbush the names of only 55 persons were secured, of whom 32, or 56 per cent, made marks. Thirty-three Albany women gave 55 per cent illiteracy. The nearly identical results in the two cases would be quite significant had we not a third list of 46 Dutch women made up from other portions of the colony, which shows an illiteracy of 66 per cent. Putting all the Dutch women together we get, for the figures available, 154, a percentage of illiteracy of 60 per cent. Bruce found in Virginia, out of 3,066 women signing deeds and depositions an illiteracy of 75 per cent. If we can accept conclusions from the small numbers, the Dutch on the whole make a better showing, the superiority being greater with the men than the women.

By way of comparison with these results a study was made of the signatures to deeds, etc., executed in Suffolk County (Boston), Mass., for two periods in the seventeenth century a generation apart. Two volumes of the published deeds were used; the first covering the period 1653-1656, the other, 1681-1697. The results are as follows:

Suffolk County (Mass.) illiteracy, 1653-1697.

1 The count was made by the writer in an unpublished study of I. D. Rupp's "A collection of * ** 30,000 names of German * * * and other immigrants in Pennsylvania, 1727 to 1776" (2d ed. Philadelphia, 1898). The year 1750 divides nearly equally the immigration. Of 11,201, who came in the years 1751 to 1774 (inclusive), 1,638 made marks, which gives the much better showing for the later period of 15 per cent illiteracy. The whole number of Germans counted was 23,024, of whom 4,735, or 21 per cent, made marks. * Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the 17th Century, i, 452 ff. (New York, 1910).

a Ibid., p. 457.

4 Suffolk Deeds, libers ii and xiv. Boston (1883 and 1906).

The showing here made for this Massachusetts county presents some interesting contrasts with the results of the Flatbush study. In the latter there was marked improvement from 1653 to 1697; in the former there was improvement only in the case of the women. At the early period the Massachusetts men made a much better showing than the Flatbush men, while the women are nearly the same. For the later period the men of the two regions are about the same, while the Massachusetts women have advanced. Of course these figures are too small to admit of final comparison with Bruce's figures for Virginia; and for two reasons, moreover, are not precisely to be compared with those from Flatbush. Signatures taken from deeds give a selection in favor of the property class, and consequently should show less illiteracy; and the presence of Boston within the county of Suffolk would give a somewhat different grouping of men from that which was found in the small farming village of Flatbush.

That the Dutch schools of America are properly called public seems unquestionable. They were open to all the children, were controlled by the duly constituted civil authorities, and were both housed and supported by the public moneys. It is true that direct tax levies for school support were not (as a rule) made, that tuition was regularly charged, and that the church had more or less voice in the management. There was, therefore, a failure in these results. to reach the present conception of the American public schools; but neither one nor all of the defects can destroy their essential character as public schools.

The question as to the influence of these schools on the development of the American public education would for a satisfactory answer carry us far beyond the scope of this work. Rather has this study been planned to supply information regarding the Dutch in America that can be used by others in the investigation of such questions. The attitude of the English in colonial New York was not of a nature to utilize the Dutch interest in education, nor did the Dutch seem disposed to seek a basis of helpful cooperation. Public education in New York City accordingly did not flourish during the century of English control. But with the Dutch villages the case was far otherwise. Apparently in each was maintained a genuine public school. It seems, therefore, unthinkable that this deep interest in public education, which for over a century was extended through so much of the colony, should have had no part in early committing New York to a strong policy of State public schools.