Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/695

 was another room which would contain one hundred and fifty scholars, with other apartments for the teachers and the meetings of the trustees.

The other school was built in Henry Street, on ground donated by Colonel Henry Rutgers in 1806; this building was not completed, however, until 1811, and was then known as School No. 2. In appearance it was the same as the one in Chatham Street, but was not quite so large, having accommodations in both floors for about four hundred and fifty pupils. About four hundred children were admitted into the two schools; the annual expense of each was, as near as could be estimated, three dollars per head.

It was the intention of the founders of these schools—among whom the names of De Witt Clinton, Ferdinand de Peyster, John Murray, and Leonard Bleecker stand prominent as officers—to avoid the teachings of any religious society; but there were among the people many who thought that sufficient care was not being bestowed upon religious instruction: to please these malcontents the literary studies of the pupils were suspended one afternoon in every week, and an association of fifty ladies of "distinguished consideration in society" met on this day and examined the children in their respective catechisms. The parents and guardians designated the denomination in the tenets of which they wished their children educated.

Every authority acquainted with these schools expressed satisfaction at the literary improvement of the children. The system employed was that of Mr. Joseph Lancaster, of London, and consisted of class-teaching in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The employment of the scholars, as made up from the printed reports, may be curious reading to many in this era of multitudinous studies.

Children were first taught to form letters in sand; then advanced to monosyllabic reading on boards; from reading on boards to Murray's first book; from Murray's first book to writing on slates; from writing on slates to writing on paper—to reading in the Bible—to addition and subtraction—to multiplication and division—to the compounds of the first rules—to reduction—to the rule of three.

To read, write, and know arithmetic in its first branches correctly, was the extent of the educational advantages which the founders of the free-school system deemed necessary for the accomplishment of their purposes. When proficient in these studies the scholars were apprenticed to some useful trade or given a profession, if the inclination and genius of the graduate seemed sufficient to warrant the inincreasedincreased [sic] outlay.

This system was better than any that had preceded it. Under its influence the blind obedience that had marked the lower orders of Egypt, the Asiatic and Roman proletariats, and the villeins of the feudal period, passed away. Education, which in the past had been solely aristocratic and theological in its character, became democratic