IV

THE DATE OF THE FIRST SCHOOL IN NEW

NETHERLAND

1

"In the year 1633 the first school was established by the Dutch at New Amsterdam." Statements to this effect have found their way into print many times in the past sixty years; and the fact thus asserted has been accepted as a fact established by practically all writers on the history of education. But some information recently made accessible seems to point to a later date as being the more probable.

The Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York' give, for the first time in accessible English form, certain records of the Reformed Dutch Church in Holland that throw considerable light on the educational history of New Netherland and colonial New York.

In a way, which will be sufficiently shown in the extracts given, the conduct of the public schools in New Netherland was partially under the control of The Classis of Amsterdam, which was that division of the Reformed Dutch Church of the Netherlands exercising ecclesiastical control over New Netherland thruout the Dutch period (and over the Reformed Dutch Churches in New York till 1772).

In the records of this Classis we find the following among the "Regulations relating to the East India and West India affairs, etc., devised by the Deputies of the Classis appointed therefor April 7, 1636:"

VI. Of the Schoolmasters:

In case any Schoolmasters shall be sent to any of these foreign fields, the same course shall be pursued with them . . as with the Siecke-Troosters .

'Dexter: History of education in the U. S. (1904), p. 12.

6v Albany, 1901-6.

New York Ecclesiastical records, p. 89.

• Ibid., p. 91.

VII. Of the Siecke-Troosters

(Comforters of the Sick):

1. The Siecke-Troosters must present themselves, as far as practicable, before the Classis. The Classis must endeavor to have a good supply of these on hand, and shall decide which out of all of them shall first be recommended by the Deputies to the Companies. 2. The examination of the Siecke-Troosters shall be conducted by the Brethren Deputies, who shall bring in a report thereof at the next Classis. "

From the "Instructions and letter of credentials for schoolmasters going to the East or West Indies or elsewhere," adopted June 7, 1636, I quote the following extract to show more fully the method of examination and appointment:

Inasmuch as . . . has offered his services, in this capacity, to the Committee on Ecclesiastical Affairs of the said company, and which committee is especially charged therewith by the Classis of Amsterdam: and the said Classis having previously inquired as to this individual, and by examination have ascertained his fitness and experience for such a position; that on the report rendered by the said Classis, and with the approbation and consent of the said Honorable Directors, he has been appointed Schoolmaster and sent in such capacity to N...... N................ with these specific instructions.

In accordance with the foregoing regulations, we find the following:

Acts of the Deputies,

Adam Rolands

1639, July 18.

Adam Rolands, having requested to go to New Netherland as schoolmaster, reader (Voorleser), and presentor (Voorsanger), was accepted, as recommended, upon his good testimonials and the trial of his gifts, on August 4, 1637; and was sent thither."!

The date 1639 need not concern us here, but the other date, August 4, 1637, is crucial to our discussion. The Adam Rolands thus examined and licensed on August 4, 1637, bears the same name as the "first schoolmaster" whose teaching

• Ibid., p. 89.

Ibid., p. 98.

8

'Ibid., p. 122, where one finds August 4, 1673. Mr. Van Dyke of Sage Library writes me, however, that "The original transcript says 1637." The name appears variously as Roelants, Roelantsen, Rolands, Roelandson; he himself used the first two of these forms.

8

career in New Amsterdam is generally supposed to have begun in 1633. But in the document just quoted, he is licensed for that position in 1637. If this certificate were the only evidence bearing upon the date of his entrance into the position in question, no one would hesitate to say that a date earlier than August 4, 1637, should not be assigned. But inasmuch as educational historians, as Mr. Dexter, say that it is "certain that in 1633" Roelantsen was sent from Holland to be master of the school, we must therefore examine closely before we accept the date indicated by this newly found reference.

9

So far as appears, it was Mr. Dunshee 10 who first gave explicit statement to the since current opinion, and in these words:

1633-In the Spring of 1633, Wouter Van Twiller arrived at Manhattan as the second Director General of the New Netherlands. In the enumeration of the company's officials of the same year, Everardus Bogardus is mentioned as officiating as minister at Fort Amsterdam, and ADAM ROELANSTEN as the first schoolmaster. 11 (This has as sub

stantiating footnote, Albany records," i, 52).

In an extended list of the officers and servants of the Dutch West India Company, in 1638, Rev. Everardus Bogardus is again mentioned as minister at Fort Amsterdam where Adam Roelantsen was still the schoolmaster." (This has as substantiating footnote, Albany records, ii, 13-15). ii, 13-15).

We would naturally understand these quotations to mean (1) that in some original document, presumably Albany Records, i, 52, is to be found an enumeration, perhaps formally drawn, of the company's officials for the year 1633, with "Adam Roelantsen, Schoolmaster," thereon; and (2)

• Op. cit., p. 15.

10

History of the school of the Reformed Dutch Church in the City of New York, 1853 (2d ed., 1883).

11 Ibid., p. 28-9.

12 Van der Kamp's MSS. translation of New York Col. MSS. (Dutch) in the State Library.

18

Dunshee, pp. 29-30. The edition of 1883 gives the same words for these two quotations except that in the first one in place of "In the spring of 1633," we have "In April (prior to the 12th), 1633"; and a reference footnote for "12th" is given to O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, i, 141-3.

a similar list for 1638 in Albany Records, ii, 13-15, likewise containing "Adam Roelantsen, Schoolmaster."

Now the fact is that in no extant document is there to be found any such list, or anything like it, either for 1633 or for 1638. Such lists have been compiled; the first ones by O'Callaghan 1 from widely separated sources. As an illustration of one such source, and also that the reader may see for himself the contents of Albany Records, i, 52, I quote that reference, omitting only the epithets applied to Grietje and her unprintable response thereto :

This day, date underwritten, before me, Cornelis van Tienhoven, Secretary of New Netherland, appeared Adam Roelantsen, schoolmaster, aged about 32 years, at the request of Domine Bogarde, and hath by true Christian words, in place and with promise of a solemn oath if needs be, declared, testified and attested it to be true and truthful that in the year 1633, Grietje Reyniers, being with the deponent at the Strand, near the late warehouse for cargoes, he heard the sailors of the ship The Soutberg, then lying in the roadstead, cry out to Grietje aforesaid, saying ......

.! ..... .! whereupon she

All which deponent declares to be true, and that this is done by him without simulation and without any regard of persons. Done on the Island of Manhate this 13th 8ber 1638.

Adam Roelants. 15

It is clear from this paper that Adam Roelants was "schoolmaster on the "Island of Manhate," October 13, 1638, and also that he was in Manhattan in 1633.18 The further bearing of this declaration we postpone for the moment, while we consider more fully the lists to which Mr. Dunshee refers. It will be observed that Albany Records, i, 52, which Mr. Dunshee gives as his reference to substantiate his 1633 statements, bears no resemblance to a list of officials. The other references, Albany Records, ii, 13-15, are equally far from resembling a list and go no further toward establishing Adam Roelantsen's connection with the school than to show by the records of a certain case in court that he was in Fort Amsterdam, June 10, 1638.

1 Op. cit., pp. 143, 181.

"The translation here given is O'Callaghan's (i, 55), which is better than Van der Kamp's.

16

1 It seems that the "Strand" is here in Manhattan, and not in Holland.

17

Before we ask how Mr. Dunshee came to make such statements, it may be well to say a word about Mr. O'Callaghan and Mr. Brodhead. These men were incomparably the best students, in Mr. Dunshee's day, of the period in question. Shortly before Mr. Dunshee wrote, each published a history covering this period; "7 each issued a second edition shortly after Mr. Dunshee wrote; while both are quoted in Mr. Dunshee's work. Neither of these historians, in either edition, refers to such an original list as one would infer from Mr. Dunshee to be still extant. On the contrary, Mr. O'Callaghan took the pains to compile such lists. The one for Kieft's administration (1638-1647) includes twentyeight names with twenty-one distinct references in substantiation.18 It may further be said that the only references that these historians give as to Adam Roelantsen at the time in question are to the declaration regarding Grietje Reyniers and to the case in court above referred to.

Considering that Mr. Dunshee was not primarily an historian, what is more natural than that he should avail himself of these two excellent works which had but recently been issued when he wrote? This, we find, is just what he did. In a footnote Mr. Dunshee says 19 that the contents of Chapter I were I culled from . Brodhead's New York, and here as elsewhere thruout the work his language has at times been appropriated;" while in Chapter II (in which our question is discust) occur nineteen footnote references to O'Callaghan.

66

In order to exhibit the probable indebtedness of Mr. Dunshee to these two historians in the construction of his paragraphs quoted above, and so to show that O'Callaghan is Mr. Dunshee's actual authority for his assertion about the lists of the Company's officials, I show herewith, in one column, Mr. Dunshee's statements and, in a parallel column, what I

17 O'Callaghan: Op. cit., 1st edition 1846, 2d edition 1855; Brodhead: History of the State of New York, 1st edition (v. i) 1853, 2d edition (do.) 1859.