Their Educational Institutions

Later, woolen-goods, paper and hemp were manufactured in New England, and almost every family made coarse cloth for domestic use. A heavy duty had been laid on pig-iron sent from the colonies to England, and the Americans made successful attempts to manufacture it into bars for native blacksmiths, and to make steel. Hats, also, were manufactured and sold in different colonies; and small brigantines (square-rigged, two-masted vessels) were built in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and exchanged with West India merchants for rum, sugar, wines, and silks. Again the jealousy of the British government was awakened, and greater restrictions upon colonial manufactures were imposed, they being foolishly considered as detrimental to the interests of the English at home. It was ordained by a law that all manufacturers of iron and steel in the colonies should be considered "a nuisance" to be abated within thirty days after notice being given, under a penalty of one thousand dollars. A law was enacted in 1750 which prohibited the "erection or continuance of any mill or other engine for slitting or rolling-iron, or any plating-forge to work with a tilt-hammer, or any furnace for making steel in the colonies." The exportations of hats from one colony to another was prohibited; and no hatter was allowed to have more than two apprentices at one time. The importation of sugar, molasses and rum was burdened with exorbitant duties; and the Carolinians were actually forbidden to cut down a tree in their vast pine forests for the purpose of converting its wood into staves, or its juices into turpentine. The raising of sheep in the colonies was restrained, because wool was then the great staple of England. The interests of the landed aristocracy were consulted more than justice. In the preamble to a restraining act, it was avowed that the motive for its enactment was a conviction that colonial industry would "inevitably sink the value of lands in England." And so, for about a hundred years, the British government had attempted, by restrictive laws, to confine the commerce of the colonies to the interchange of their agricultural products for English manufactures only. The trade of the colonies was certainly worth preserving, for the exports from Great Britain to them averaged, in value, at that period, about three-and-a-quarter million dollars annually. But the unrighteous measures adopted to secure that trade produced (as unrighteousness generally does in the end) a great loss. These acts of oppression constituted the chief item in the "bill of particulars" presented by the Americans in the account with Great Britain when, on the fourth of July, 1776, they gave to the world their reasons for declaring themselves "free and independent" of the British crown.

Education had received special attention in most of the colonies, and particularly in New England, from the beginning. So early as 1621, schools were established in Virginia for the education of white and Indian children. This was the first provision for education made in the colonies. For reasons not clearly defined, these schools did not flourish, and the funds appropriated for their support were finally given to the trustees of William and Mary College, which was founded at Williamsburg, in Virginia, in 1692. Fifty-four years before, the Rev. John Harvard had given half his estate and three hundred of his books for the founding of the college at Cambridge, Massachusetts, which bears his name. And eight years after the establishment of William and Mary College, ten clergymen met at Saybrook, near the mouth of the Connecticut River, and each contributing some books, took measures for founding a college there. It was accomplished in 1701. The most generous patron of the institution in its infancy was Elihu Yale, then president of the English East India Company. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His name was given to the college, and in 1717 it was removed to the place of his nativity, where it still flourishes. King's (now Columbia) College was established in the city of New York in 1750; and these four seminaries composed the chief seats of learning in the English-American colonies when the French and Indian war broke out.

While these higher institutions of learning were struggling even for existence, the common schools--the glory and pride of New England especially--were flourishing. At the beginning of the existence of the Connecticut colony, a law provided that every town--organized religious communities--containing one hundred householders, should maintain a grammar school. Similar provision was made for popular education throughout New England, and that region was soon conspicuous for the intelligence of its people. The school teacher in many places had a variety of duties, so that his time was wholly employed in and out of school. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, an ordinance of the selectmen defined the duties of the schoolmaster, as follows: "To act as a court messenger; to serve summonses; to lead the choir on Sundays; to ring the bell for public worship; to dig the graves; to take charge of the school, and to perform other occasional duties."

Reading took the place of frivolous amusements, which were discouraged by law in New England. History and theology were the chief topics of most of the books then read in that region, and many volumes were sold. A traveler mentioned the fact that before the year 1686, several booksellers in Boston had "made fortunes by their business."