Page:The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin.djvu/49



Harriet Martineau, the English traveler who in 1837 published a book entitled Society in America, was deeply impressed with New England's concern for education. "All young people in these villages," she says, "are more or less instructed. Schooling is considered a necessary of life. I happened to be looking over an old almanac one day, when I found, among the directions relating to the preparations for winter on a farm, the following: 'Secure your cellars from frost. Fasten loose clapboards and shingles. Secure a good schoolmaster.'"

We do not know what almanac Miss Martineau consulted. But a glance at a file of the Farmer's Almanack, begun in 1793 by Robert B. Thomas and circulated by him for more than half a century all over New England, shows her quotation to be fully justified in spirit if not in letter. As early at least as the year 1804, Mr. Thomas included in his directions for the month of November, the indispensable item of education in connection with other activities: "Now let the noise of your flail awake your drowsy neighbors. Bank up your cellars. Now hire a good schoolmaster and send your children to school as much as possible."

The nation was young in 1804. Parts of it were new and for that reason had made but meager educational progress; other parts were backward for different reasons. But in the older states of New England popular education had flourished for one hundred and fifty years. This point,