Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/101

 CH. IV.] errors with do sparing hand. They had not the slightest scruple of punishing heresies with fines and banishment, and even, in obstinate cases, with death. Ministers were maintained, and public worship provided for by taxes assessed upon the inhabitants of each parochial district; and an attendance upon public worship was required of all persons under penalties, as a solemn duty. So effectual were the colonial laws in respect to conformity, and so powerful the influence of the magistrates and the clergy, that Hutchinson informs us, that there was not "any Episcopal church in any part of the colony until the charter was vacated."

§ 75. But the most striking as well as the most important part of their legislation is in respect to education. As early as 1647, the General Court, "to the end," as the preamble of the act declares, "that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers in church and commonwealth," provided, under a penalty, that every township of fifty householders "shall appoint a public school for the instruction of children in writing and reading, and that every town of one hundred householders "shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as may be fitted for the university." This law has, in substance, continued down to the present times; and it has contributed more than any other circumstance to give that peculiar character to the inhabitants and institutions of Massachusetts, for which she, in common with the