Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/542

LEFT EDUCATION 470 EDUCATION imagination, or the faculties which derive pleasure from music, painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and works of fiction. United States. — Education in the United States naturally divides itself historically into two parts: Colonial and National. Education in the 13 colonies deserves attention for its originality and its marked influence in preparing the colonies for national independence. Im- mediately on landing, in 1620, one of the first acts of the Plymouth colonists was to provide a meeting-house for re- ligious services and a schoolhouse for the children. The citizens of Boston as early as 1635, by vote, appointed a schoolmaster. By law of the Massa- chusetts colony in 1642, the selectmen of every township were required to see that provision was made for the educa- tion of all the children, so as to be able to read and have "knowledge of the capi- tal laws." In 1647 every township of 50 householders was required to appoint a schoolmaster, and every township of 100 families to maintain a grammar shool in which boys could be prepared for Har- vard College. The Colonial laws of Con- necticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, with reference to public educa- tion, were explicit, and were enforced so as to secure practically universal ele- mentary education. New York was not behind New England in similar legal educational provisions, but they do not seem to have been so well enforced. The West India Company, under whose charge the first Dutch colonists came to New York, enacted a law in 1629 which required the establishment of schools. The first school was opened in 1633, speedily followed by others. Church and state united to pay the expenses of the schools, and no charge was made directly for tuition; Dutch schools existed in the towns and villages when the English obtained possession of the colony. After this great diflficulties arose from the con- flict of the two languages, and though many English schools were established education greatly suffered for a few years. In 1704 a society for the propa- gation of the Gospel began its work of establishing schools in the English lan- guage in several of the counties. In 1732 an act was passed to establish a public school in the city of New York; King's College, afterward Columbia Col- lege, was founded in 1754. New Jersey, as early as 1693, by law enabled the in- habitants of any town to establish a free Sv hool and to tax all the property hold- ers for its support, under which law schools became numerous. Pennsylvania had many private schools, but no educa- tional system previous to the Revolution. In Virginia little attention was paid to the education of the poorer classes, but the College of William and Mary was established in 1692. Maryland passed an act as early as 1723 for erecting schools in several counties. The Southern col- onies generally had not succeeded in establishing public schools previous to the Revolution, though numerous private schools existed. Subsequent to the Revolution educa- tion received a great impulse in the new nation. The New England States, in- cluding Vermont and Maine, added, after the Revolution, all adopted systems of public schools. New York at first en- couraged private schools, and in 1785 created a Board of Regents of the Uni- versity of New York, whose chief func- tion for many years was to encourage academies and colleges; but in 1795 com- mon schools of the New England type were greatly encouraged. Pennsylvania and New Jersey both adopted similar sys- tems. The new States of the Northwest were anxious to attract emigrants and to provide for the future good by similar systems, and flourishing common schools became the rule throughout these States. Most of the States have educational funds for the aid of the public schools which are distributed to the schools on compliance with certain conditions, which usually require the existence of a State supervisor under the direction of State Boards of Education, with some execu- tive officer, or State Superintendent of Education. The various school funds, so called, have had different origins, though most of them have come from the g:i'ant of lands by the States for this purpose, or by the Federal grant of one thirty- sixth of all the lands in the States ad- mitted to the Union since 1785. In 1848 the United States granted another thirty-sixth of the land for schools, so that since then all the States admitted have had one-eighteenth of the land thus appropriated. In some instances each county has been permitted to collect and expend the result of the sale of these school sections of land. Usually the State has borne the expense of selling and collecting the money for these lands, and has charged itself with the proceeds, the result of which is called a State edu- cational fund, the annual interest of which is expended by the State for public schools. These funds for public schools in the several States will soon exceed $100,000,000. In addition to the income of these funds, so collected. State school taxes are raised, and in some instances local county, city, village, and township taxes. The practice is rapidly growing of maintaining a large public union school in every considerable village, in which